2009.4.1.11
(27.94 cm HIGH x 20.32 cm WIDE)
This is an etching after Thomas Cole's painting, "Desolation" from the series, "The Course of Empire" (1836). The print shows a cropped portion of the painting's original composition that focuses on a lone column in the foreground at left and a full moon reflecting on a river in the distance at right.
"Cole's painting is the fifth of five paintings in his famous "Course of Empire allegory. I selected this piece for my translation because the entire allegory, more than any other body of work, inspired me to begin my professional career in art - for which I am ever mindful. I approached my subject in the free-hand way that I think it might have been interpreted in the 19th century by a contemporary painter-etcher as opposed to a reproductive etcher of the day. There is nothing quite like an intaglio nocturne as a medium of graphic art." / Stephen A. Fredericks
