'Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire' at the National Gallery

Last week I popped in to the new Thomas Cole exhibition at the National Gallery. I've never heard of Thomas Cole (although the exhibition tells us he is or was a big influence in America) so I had no preconceptions other than the poster for the exhibition. He worked in the early-mid 1800s, a period I don't know much about really, and was influenced by Turner and Constable in his landscape paintings. The painter I'd most associate him with is John Martin who was a bit older than Cole and there is one Martin painting included in the exhibition.

I quite liked what I saw, especially the series of 'The Course of Empire' paintings that showed the same landscape over a millennia or so as it turned from a sylvan paradise into an empire and ending with the destruction of that empire. It's quite a grand idea to present empire as here today but gone tomorrow as America was growing up and moving to begin to take its place on the world stage, a sort of warning of what was inevitable. Empires rise and fall and that's the nature of the beast.

The large paintings are presented chronologically from left to right ('The Savage State', 'The Arcadian or Pastoral State', The Consummation of Empire', 'Destruction', 'Desolation') with 'Destruction immediately above where the population is annihilated by barbarians. It's very odd but seems quite modern in their own way, a sort of early political theory of the rise and fall of nations.

A painting I was quite struck by was his 'View of Florence from San Miniato' form 1837, five years after he left Florence and so painted from sketches and memory. I was in Florence quite recently and have been to San Miniato in the past so this painting made me smile. It's a lovely view of Florence, not altogether accurate and these days there are more bridges across the green Arno, but I liked it.

None of the other works on show made me go 'wow', however. Cole was self-taught until he went to Florence and took some anatomy lessons and his paintings are good but they don't have that extra something that makes them belong to a master. It was relatively easy to recognise the other paintings in the exhibition by Turner, Constable. Lorrain and Martin as belonging to different and more experienced hands. It seems like Cole has a fan somewhere in the hierarchy of the National Gallery to get this exhibition. He reminded me so much of John Martin whose paintings are so much bigger in size and scale and who's works Cole probably saw at some point since they went on tour in America as well as around Great Britain. On the other hand, you've got to say well done to a Bolton lad who went to America when he was 17 and made it big time there. It's an interesting rather than an essential exhibition.