From the Top of Kaaterskill Falls 1826

Thomas Cole made this painting, "From the Top of Kaaterskill Falls", using oil on canvas, which was quite typical for landscape painting at the time. However, it's important to recognize how this material ties into broader issues of labor and consumption. The canvas itself was likely mass-produced, part of the burgeoning industrial revolution. Likewise, the pigments Cole used were increasingly standardized and commercially available, a far cry from the hand-ground, locally sourced materials of earlier artists. The smooth, almost invisible brushwork speaks to the labor involved, the artist's skilled hand carefully blending and layering the paint to create a sense of depth and atmosphere. The painting invites us to consider how the very act of making a landscape painting like this one was entangled with the changing social and economic landscape of the 19th century. It challenges us to think about the relationship between the natural world and the industrial processes that were beginning to transform it.