Explore Thomas Cole | Interactive Tour | A View of the Two Lakes and...

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Falls of the Kaaterskill
The Clove, Catskills
The Course of Empire: The Savage State
The Course of Empire: The Arcadian or Pastoral State
The Course of Empire: The Consummation of Empire
The Course of Empire: Destruction
The Course of Empire: Desolation
View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, After A Thunderstorm (The Oxbow)
View on the Catskill, Early Autumn
The Voyage of Life: Childhood (First Set)
The Voyage of Life: Youth (First Set)
The Voyage of Life: Manhood (First Set)
The Voyage of Life: Old Age (First Set)
The Architect's Dream
Mount Etna From Taormina, Sicily
A View of the Two Lakes and Mountain House, Catskill Mountains, Morning
Kindred Spirits

A View of the Two Lakes and Mountain House, Catskill Mountains, Morning

Thomas Cole. Oil on canvas, 1844, 35 13/16 x 53 7/8 in. Brooklyn Museum. Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 52.16.

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1. Gifford, Catskill Mountain House
2. Catskill Mountain-House

Sanford R. Gifford, Catskill Mountain House, oil on canvas, 1862, 9 5/16 x 18 ½ in. Private Collection. View in Scrapbook

Gifford's painting, like Cole's, offers a view from North Mountain with brilliant fall foliage and a human figure on a ledge in the foreground. However, whereas Cole's painting centers the Mountain House in the composition so that it becomes the focus of the image, Gifford pushes it to the right, so that the viewer gets a broad view of the Hudson River Valley below the escarpment. In this way, viewers have access to the majestic prospect that normally only hotel guests could enjoy.¹