Art In Community

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Professor

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3 August 2009

Art in Community

Part B .1

When I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York , I immediately noticed a landscape painting made by Thomas Cole called View from Mount Holyoke , Northampton , Massachusetts , after a Thunderstorm or the Oxbow . This masterpiece is part of the museum 's American landscape exhibition located at the Robert Lehman Wing . This painting was finished in 1836 using oil in canvas . It measures 51 1 /2 x 76 in (130 .8 x 193 cm

The

element that appealed to me the most in this painting is the monochromatic use of the color green . Cole is famous for this technique because he was able to create a striking landscape with just mainly using one color but treated in different hues and tints . Predominantly the painting was painted with a green color but the other splash of colors such as blue , white and yellow were added in emphasizing the sublime beauty of an American landscape

Another element of the painting that caught my attention was the apparent depiction of two opposite and distinct landscapes . On the left side of the painting , a more rugged , untamed , virgin and raw nature while on other side , this was contrasted by a tamed , serene , polished and cultivated landscape . Cole was trying to juxtapose two different pictures in one scene . He was wanted to show how the forests or the wilderness is being transformed into a man-made place . More so , he emphasized that this change...