1826 -1847 · Storm, forest and proven landscape

After the squall, after the storm or in the heart of a tornado, Cole paints the moment when nature reveals its power and the familiar landscape becomes precarious.

Thomas Cole gives bad weather a narrative and moral function. In the view of Frenchman Bay after a squall, the sky begins to open above Mount Desert Island: the storm is already a thing of the past, but the water, clouds and light keep track of it. Schroon Mountain after a storm similarly organizes a gradual return of visibility in the relief of New York State. Tornado in an American forest, on the contrary, chooses the moment of destruction. Tornado in an American forest chooses in the same way a gradual return of visibility in the relief of New York State. Tornado in an American forest, on the contrary, chooses the moment of destruction. Trees break, dark masses rotate and the violence of the wind becomes almost legible in the diagonal of the trunks. Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, refuses nature only decorative. He observes American sites with precision, then uses weather, light and human scale to question fragility, providence and transformation. The contrast between the two "after" views and the active tornado makes it possible to follow three temporalities: threat accomplished, landscape recovering and catastrophe underway. The "Thomas Cole Storms and Tornadoes" selection notably compares View of Frenchman Bay from the island of Mount Desert, after a squall and View of Schroon Mountain, Essex County, New York, after a storm.

Cole paints the storm even in its absence: the thinning, the broken tree and the choppy water keep the memory of what has just passed through the landscape.