Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College (Part I)
Thomas Cole, Corway Peak, New Hampshire, oil on canvas, 1844
I'm a little different from many contemporary artists in that I've always looked for insight and inspiration from the artists who've gone down the path before me. When you're starting out you need guidance. Allen Art Museum's giant color field painting by Larry Poons pushed me to explore what color could be made to do. I painted dozens of brilliantly colored abstractions my first years at the easel. Frank Stella and Rothko became my best friends.
Later on I steered my course towards realism and landscape painting. 19th century American landscape painting especially seemed to know my name. Maier Museum has a particularly strong oil by Thomas Cole, who along with others founded the American landscape painting movement.
Maier's Cole marvelously contrasts a sharp rocky escarpment against a mountain wrapped in the most delicate blanket of glowing atmosphere. I love art that plays opposites off against each other like this. In all our personal lives we're confronted with colliding opposing forces. This painting by Cole reminds us the damage doesn't have to be permanent, sometimes things can be returned to a place of resolution and balance.
Speaking of balance, perhaps my favorite of the 19th century landscape painters is John Frederick Kensett. Hanging next to Maier's Cole is one of the most serene shoreline paintings imaginable. As a kid growing up on the shore of Lake Ontario I'd see scenes of elegant stillness like what Kensett offers up to us here. He nails a feeling I know all of us carry inside. His painting reminds us to touch that feeling often.
And here's the Hopper painting I expressly made the trip to see.