Durand painted this as a memorial to his close friend and fellow painter Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of painters. Cole died a sudden and untimely death in 1848 at the age of forty seven. Durand's painting was inspired by a poem by William Cullen Bryant, a mutual friend of Durand and Cole, titled "Thanatopsis."
3 comments:
So that a burial, in the detail? [I swear, I only saw a landscape at first]
That is indeed a funeral.
William Cullen Bryant wrote most of "Thanatopsis" when he was 17. He never wrote another poem half as good.
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