History-Makers: Thomas Cole

You ever see a series of 5 landscape paintings that completely rewires your brain? WELL YOU WILL NOW.

SOURCES & Further Reading:
“Thomas Cole The Artist As Architect” by Annette Blaugrund, with Foreword by Barbara Novak and Essay by Franklin Kelly
“Essay on American Scenery” by Thomas Cole, published in American Monthly Magazine 1 (January 1836)
And lots and lots and lots of time spent staring at “The Course of Empire”

MUSIC:
"Sneaky Snitch" by Kevin MacLeod
"The Sacred Land of Artemis" from Assassin's Creed Odyssey OST by The Flight
"Awake" from Skyrim OST by Jeremy Soule
"Phoibe the Orphan" from Assassin's Creed Odyssey OST by The Flight
"Korinth" from Assassin's Creed Odyssey OST by The Flight
"Sign of the Colossus" from Shadow of the Colossus OST by Kow Otani
"I Know How It Feels To Be Lost" from Stray Gods OST by Austin Wintory
"Where the Nekkos Roam" from Jedi Survivor OST by Gordi Haab

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

[OverlySarcasticProductions]

✨Space Cat, SPACE CAT! 🦁The LEO zodiac pin is now available in our merch store!
-B

[nightrocker]

I just love that the intro is Blue justifying his choices of people to discuss with this series. It's great. It has the same energy as Red suddenly realizing that she could talk about Eclipses cause it's her Channel.

[billywarren]

History with Bob Ross confirmed? “Now beat the Barbarian right out of that brush!”

[BleydXVI]

Between Blue saying "My domain is endless and my authority is absolute", him emphasizing art as a means to understand the culture that created it, and literally being called blue, I think that he may be Grand Admiral Thrawn preparing to conquer Earth for the Chiss Ascendency. I for one welcome our new Chiss overlords

[KeelanPowell]

Other Historians: To be admitted to this club, you must specifically-
Blue: DOOR'S OPEN KIDS! GET IN HERE!

[LujeAldwald]

As someone that went to art school and is a professional illustrator, this is the best art history lesson I've heard, and this is awesome, but also a reflection on how terrible my art history classes were, and they were bad

[alexbrewer]

“…May my fears be foolish; a few years will tell.” Now isn’t that a sentiment that I hope for all of us. And I thought you said he wasn’t a writer!

[elizaripper]

This is the year of Blue finding an excuse to talk about whatever he wants. It’s a glorious year that the historians will write of forever. 💙😁

[evararipple]

"The kind of art that never lets go" Uh yeah new favorite historical painter unlocked. Ty Blue for unlocking a new part of the historical skill tree for me

[lesbaguette]

Desolation is my second-favorite painting of all time, and there's an element that I'm surprised Blue didn't mention. Dotted across the landscape, the remnants of former civilizations don't just use a singular architectural style — there's Mycenaean, Athenian, Classic and late Roman, and other such Mediterranean influences spread across the canvas.
This is not a single cycle — this is where it all ends. The birth and death and rise and fall and birth and death and rise and fall and birth and rise and fall — it always leads to this.
Desolation.

[malemrajoinam]

I really like how the Old landscape slowly moves from its original location focusing more on the river in the Second Painting ( Since yanno rivers are centers of civilization and when a substantial amount of people appear the painting moves)

[EqqusHearts]

Hi Blue! We actually talked about the Oxbow as a historical document in my Forest ecology course in Grad School!

Because of how detailed his paintings are we can use them to understand what forest structure in New England was like in early America.

[RmsOceanic]

Desolation of Empire might be both the most peaceful and melancholy piece of art I've seen.

[runningthemeta]

Blue after this video: “Now I know exactly how to defeat Thomas Cole in battle.”

[SparkleMechEng]

I used to look at paintings as "ooh pretty" but not much more. Blue finally gave me a deeper understanding of paintings. Thanks, blue!

[Patch-lzyi]

I was not anticipating the realization of the foreshadowing of the empire's demise and the pain that brings to the people caught up in the destruction to be followed by "Damn, poor one out for Mario, " but I absolutely love it

[NathanS__]

I always knew that the painting was allegorical and not depicting Rome or Greece or any real Empire but I never noticed the Red vs Green foreshadowing and that the Fall was a civil war.
Very cool.

[TheNewtC]

As someone who once wrote a college paper on the Course of Empire, this was uniquely fascinating to watch. First of all as a way to see all the things I missed during my (admittedly much less observant) college days, but also to truly appreciate how much work Thomas Cole put into these paintings. 13 years later they still haven't left my head, and it was a welcome surprise to learn more through this video.

[RememberingStars]

I’ve seen the painting ‘Destruction’ so many times, but I never knew it was supposed to be an imaginary event. I’d probably have said the sack of Rome if pressed to answer what I thought it was depicting.

[victoriab]

This series of paintings really seems to be one of the best case scenarios in terms of the effects of the Grand Tour. Here is a guy who, having travelled and seen historical places, realises that being able to see those physical places can create a different understanding to that given by reading history books. And it works so well.

Recently I had an incredibly moving experience in relation to historical depiction. I was visiting a ruined priory, which I'd never heard about but happened to see on a map with a convenient bus route, and really just expected it to be an interesting location for a walk. There were information board in different sections of the ruins, each having an artist's depiction of what this place might have looked like 800 years ago - not just architecturally, but in use as a place of education, worship, and a communal home. Seeing these pictures, whilst standing in the ruins, overtaken with grass and flowers, made me cry for what was lost. I had never felt that before, and it made me viscerally understand the significance of the dissolution of the monasteries in a way that studying it three different times at school never had.