- The Voyage of Life: Youth
Sheet: 20 × 26 3/4 in. (50.8 × 67.9 cm)
Frame: 23 3/4 × 30 1/2 × 1 1/2 in. (60.3 × 77.5 × 3.8 cm)
Explore Further
Thomas Cole is recognized as the father of American landscape painting. Born in Lancashire, England, at the age of eighteen he immigrated with his parents and settled in Ohio. There he received the rudiments of painting from itinerant artists and subsequently moved to Philadelphia to study at the Pennsylvania Academy. By 1825, he was in New York executing landscapes. His powerful depictions of the Hudson River soon attracted the attention of patrons, as well as other artists.
In 1839, Cole secured a commission for a monumental series titled The Voyage of Life, which he completed and exhibited the following year. The series presents an allegory of the four ages of man, unfolding as a journey along the river of life. By 1842, Cole completed a copy of the work in Rome. He exhibited it there and, upon his return to America, in Boston and Philadelphia. Accompanying it was a written guide interpreting each of the scenes. Its popularity prompted the production of the series as a set of steel engravings.
The second image, Youth, shows the same rich, green landscape, but here the view widens, as does the voyager’s experience. Now the youth grabs the tiller firmly as the angel watches and waves from the shore, allowing him to take control. The boy’s enthusiasm and energy is evident in his forward-thrusting pose and billowing clothes. In the distance, a ghostly castle hovers in the sky, a shimmering beacon representing ambitions and dreams. To the youth, the calm river seems to lead straight to the castle, but at the far right one can just glimpse rough and rocky waters. Cole comments on the landscape and the youth’s ambitions: “The scenery of the picture—its clear stream, its lofty trees, its towering mountains, its unbounded distance, and transparent atmosphere—figure forth the romantic beauty of youthful imaginings, when the mind elevates the Mean and Common into the Magnificent, before experience teaches what is the Real.”
Provenance[The Philadelphia Print Shop, Philadelphia]; purchased by MFAH, 2006.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Recto: Inscribed in printed ink, below plate, center: BOSTON—Published by B.B. Russell, 55 Cornhill.
Recto: Inscribed in printed ink, below plate, right: ENGRAVED BY JAMES SMILLIE
Recto: Inscribed in printed ink, below plate, left bottom edge: "Beware what earth calls happiness; Beware / All joys but joys than never can expire. / Who builds on less than an immortal base / Condemns his joys to death. / PROOF"
Recto: Inscribed in printed ink, below plate, center bottom edge: THE VOYAGE OF LIFE _ YOUTH. / From the original Painting by Thomas Cole, in the possession of Rev.d Gorham D. Abbott, Spingler Institute, New York. / "Entered according to Act of Congress, U.S.A. by James Smillie in the Clerks Office of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Recto: Inscribed in printed ink, below plate, right bottom edge: “The golden palace of my God / Towering above the clouds I see; / Beyond the cherubs bright abode / Higher than angels thoughts can be." / Printed by J.H. Daniels, Boston.
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