Why Are We Here and Where Are We Going?
Art – in all its vibrant, varied forms – wields a singular power to concurrently reflect and reveal: reflecting what we all know to be true from our own life journeys and revealing destinations of paths bypassed or yet untaken. The insight and creativity of an artist through this universal medium invites access to and assessment of what appeals to and affects each individual mind and heart. Art can powerfully portray the universality of our time on earth: the natural life cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death. This process, once begun, marches forward at its own pace, indifferent to the qualms and delights of man. We are all on this process together, and we understand it. Yet the passage of time, just like the movement of clouds, is just slow enough that it’s, not less than more often than not, almost imperceptible.
Without fail, the older we get, the more compressed our earthbound sojourn tends to feel, forcing us to confront the brevity of our time on this planet. (This compression of time can occur sooner in our lives if we face an early lack of a loved one, major health problems, or other crises.) Whenever life’s fleetingness hits us, aspirations (wealth, success, approval) that when held a lot appeal begin to lose their luster, and the chipping veneer alights in us a craving for a more everlasting, incorruptible source of hope.
Thomas Cole: The Moralist and Autodidact
Thomas Cole was a British-American painter born in Bolton le Moors, Lancashire, England, in 1801 and raised in Steubenville, Ohio. Largely self-tutored, Cole represents the archetypal American figure of the autodidact. In his twenties, he moved to Philadelphia after which to Catskill, New York. The latter remained his home apart from a number of years spent abroad until his early death at age forty-seven. Although he’s best known for his landscape art, he began his profession within the early 1820s as a portrait painter.
Cole is widely thought to be the founding father of the Hudson River School art movement, a casual group comprising landscape painters influenced by European Romanticism and American expansionism of their idyllic depictions of the American landscape.
In his art, there’s a right away interplay between the pristine fantastic thing about the breathtaking landscapes and the foreboding destruction brought on by civilization. Marked by distinctive melancholy and spiritual undertones, Cole’s paintings are imbued with moralistic motifs that expose his own complex, evolving feelings about what he saw because the cyclical nature of life. As an artist, Cole saw his creative capability as a directive to effect positive change. He wrote, “I even have been dwelling on many subjects and searching forward to the time once I can embody them on the canvas. They are subjects of an ethical and spiritual nature. As such, I believe it the duty of the artist to employ his abilities, for his mission, if I’ll so term it, is an amazing and serious one. His work ought to not be a dead imitation of things without the facility to impress a sentiment or implement a truth.”
The Solution to the Dilemma of Mortality
Through allegorical landscapes bursting with spiritual symbolism, Thomas Cole leveraged the sweetness and glory of the natural world to explore the aim of our limited time on earth. The Voyage of Life and The Course of Empire advise us to not mistake creation for the Creator and as a substitute to place our faith within the everlasting God, investing in those things which He tells us are essential and which last eternally. Jesus spoke of those everlasting investments in Matthew 22:37–39:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind.” This is the good and foremost commandment. The second is prefer it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
God desires to welcome you into His everlasting presence with open arms. The Bible teaches that we want only trust Jesus for the everlasting life He offers us, a free gift secured on our behalf through Christ’s death for our sins and subsequent resurrection.
“For the wages of sin is death, however the free gift of God is everlasting life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23
“But as many as received Him, He gave them the appropriate to turn out to be children of God, even to those that imagine in His name.” – John 1:12
The pervading imagery of the cross present in his artwork suggests that, to Cole, faith is about greater than religiosity. For Example, in Expulsion, Moon, and Firelight, a beam of sunshine forms a cross with the bridge between the fallen world and the Paradise of God. It is suggestive of that which bridges death and life: the Cross of Christ.
Cole’s own premature death left one among his final landscapes unfinished. Its name is fitting: Cross at Sunset.
During our temporary earthbound sojourn, we’re being prepared for our true home as residents of heaven. This is the answer to the dilemma of mortality. If the perfect moments of beauty, intimacy, and adventure in life create longings in us—just imagine what their achievement might be.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who based on His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to acquire an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and won’t fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who’re protected by the facility of God through faith for a salvation able to be revealed within the last time.” – 1 Peter 1:3–5
Photo Credit: Unsplash/Eddy Klaus
Kenneth Boa equips people to like well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a author, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.
Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life within the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.
Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.
