View on the Catskill—Early Autumn

Thomas Cole

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cole was enraptured by the mountains, crags, and verdant valleys that rim the Hudson River in upstate New York and spent much of his time at his house near the town of Catskill, on the banks of Catskill Creek. By 1837, however, the landscape no longer resembled this canvas. The Canajoharie and Catskill Railroad was being constructed through its heart, dooming hundreds of trees. Cole, who was also a poet and an essayist, wrote in despair of the ruthless sacrifice. In the painting, the misty distant mountains, the calm light on the water, and the pastoral figures in the foreground constitute a scene that he mourned as lost forever.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art