: When Thomas Cole wrote in his poem The Wild, "Let me
transport you to those wild Blue Mountains that rear their
summits near the Hudson's wave," he clearly kept his promise. To
stand before a Thomas Cole painting is to submerge oneself in
nature's splendor. Not just any nature, mind you, but Catskills
nature.
"He had this fateful trip," says Elizabeth Jacks, the director of
Cedar Grove, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. "He came up
the Hudson River in 1825 on a boat and landed here - we believe
at Catskill Point. We have paintings from that trip, so we know
exactly where he was."
Long considered America's leading landscape painter, Cole made
forays into this majestic countryside, and they eventually
brought him to live at Cedar Grove, a farm owned by local
merchant John A. Thomson. Today, Cedar Grove, which was built in
1815, is rapidly capturing the attention of landscape artists, as
well as the general public, who are fascinated with Cole's
artistry.
