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 third in the series, Manhood, shows the now grown figure amid the tribulations of adult life. Storm clouds darken the sky, wind whips at his clothing, and rain falls in the background. The river is now rocky and rapid, running through a treacherous pass marked by a gnarled, leafless tree. Gentler country lies at the bottom of the pass, and the sky lightens in that direction, hinting of better times ahead. Amid the dangers, the man has not lost his faith: he has let go of his boat’s tiller (which may have broken) to lift both arms in prayer. Behind him, unseen, the guardian angel continues to watch over him through a break in the clouds.