Definitions

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Palette

(1) A thin wooden board that rests on an artist's arm, used to mix paints (several of Cole's palettes are in the Cedar Grove collection); (2) The distinctive set of hues that characterizes a painter's color choices.

 

Panorama

Large paintings wrapping around the inner walls of a rotunda, originating in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Guests would climb a tower to a viewing platform where they would then see the paintings as if from the top of a mountain, giving them a feeling of awe and power. Cole may have seen panoramas on his first trip to Europe in 1829, and their influence can be traced in works such as View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (The Oxbow) (1836).

 

Pastoral

A type of landscape defined by an idealized, peaceful view of nature harkening back to an age of rural farming, animal husbandry and simple rustic pleasures. See, for example, Cole's The Course of Empire: The Arcadian or Pastoral State (1834).

 

Picturesque

A landscape type defined by irregular, rugged, and uncultivated forms that are charming to the eye, such as ragged trees, unruly streams, and rocky cliffs. An example of this type of landscape is Cole's Lake with Dead Trees (1825).