Scene from 'The Last of the Mohicans', by James Fenimore Cooper 1827

Thomas Cole painted this scene inspired by James Fenimore Cooper's novel "The Last of the Mohicans", likely in the 1820s in the United States. Here, Cole presents a dramatic landscape featuring Native American figures atop a precipice, dwarfed by the sublime scale of the American wilderness. The painting creates meaning through the visual language of the picturesque, an aesthetic popular at the time, framing the scene for a primarily white, Euro-American audience. Cole was part of the Hudson River School, a group of landscape painters who depicted the American landscape with romanticism and a sense of national pride. But consider the historical context. During this period, the United States was undergoing rapid expansion, leading to displacement and conflict with indigenous populations. Cole's painting, while seemingly celebrating the American landscape, also subtly comments on these social structures of its own time. To understand the painting more fully, we might turn to historical documents, literature of the period, and studies of art institutions. Art is always contingent on its social and institutional context.