The Painter Before the Ruin

With representing himself drawing before the antique monument, Cole invites the viewer to witness the on-site working process. He did not, however, give a snapshot of the situation. This is already indicated by the carefully composed still-life of the sketchbook in the foreground. Representing himself before and inside the scenery at the same time, the painter expresses his relationship to the landscape and the ruined monument in front of him. The small scale of the figures emphasizes the vastness of the imposing hilly landscape. The aspect of the human being in a seemingly endless landscape would be further enhanced in The Vale and Temple of Segesta, Sicily, 1844, (New York; fig. 17), a painting he executed one year later.

With such a self-portrait he refers to an established tradition, which can be traced back to the 16^th century. In 1553, some twenty years after his trip to Italy, Dutch painter Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) appears twice in a painting showing the Roman Colosseum (Fitzwilliam Museum) (fig. 21).²⁵² The painter depicts himself

252 Self-portrait with the Colosseum, oil on canvas, 42.2 × 54 cm, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

The artist’s name and date of completion are on a label: “Martyn Van hemsker / Ao AEtatis sua. LV / 1553.” Heemskerck had stayed in Rome between the summer of 1532 and winter of 1536/37; Margaret Aston, The King's Bedpost: Reformation and Iconography in a Tudor Group Portrait, Cambridge:

CUP Archive, 1995, p. 54.

at the left side of the picture plane in front of a veduta of the antique amphitheater, and more precisely in front of the most of the ruinous side, where the outer shell of the wall is lacking. In this representation the painter himself has again portrayed himself while drawing the illustrious antique ruin. A cartiglio with the caption including Heemskerck’s name and the date of completion is attached to the painting, thus revealing that the artist is not standing in front of the Colosseum, but in front of a painting showing the Roman monument.

Another painter, Richard Wilson (1714–1782), had painted himself working in front of a scenery with ruins. Cole became familiar with Wilson’s work through engravings.²⁵³ Wilson, the Welsh-born artist known as the “father of British landscape painting,”²⁵⁴ created a painting in 1752 showing himself in the moment of capturing the sight before him on canvas set upon an easel (National Gallery of Ireland) (fig.

22).²⁵⁵ Across the foreground seated artist, the above town of Tivoli and the lower foreground, the right-side hill and the figure standing next to the artist in the former painting as the only exception. The companion piece of the painting in Dublin, made

253 Tim Barringer, “Thomas Cole’s Atlantic Crossings,” in: Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser and Tim Barringer, Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018, pp. 19–61, here p. 29.

254 Robin Simon, “Richard Wilson, Rome, and the Transformation of European Art,” in: Martin Postle and Robin Simon (eds.), Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2014, pp. 1–33, here p. 1.

255 Tivoli, the Cascatelle Grande and the Villa of Maecenas, oil on canvas, 49.3 × 64 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. NGI.746.

256 Martin Postle and Robin Simon (eds.), Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2014, p. 247.

257 Ibid.

258 View of Tivoli: the Cascatelle and the ‘Villa of Maecenas’, oil on canvas, 73.3 × 97.2 cm, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, inv. DPG171.

in the same year, also presents the artist before a landscape with ruins (National Gallery of Ireland) (fig. 24).²⁵⁹ This time, the foreground artist is, not in the middle of producing a picture, but carrying away his easel, indicating the painter’s work is done for the day. The scene he was depicting includes the famous ruin, Temple of the Tiburtine Sibyl, with a neighboring church.²⁶⁰ The Roman Campagna is seen further away from the buildings.²⁶¹ It could be deduced that Cole, already with good knowledge of works by Wilson, learned from Wilson the arrangement of representing himself working on his artwork in the foreground right in front of a view with ruins, and applied this idea to his own work. The similarity of the reduced scale of figures, thus putting emphasis on the landscape setting, is evident, showing that Cole was likely artistically influenced by Wilson.

A third painter, who portrayed himself facing a ruined structure, is Frenchman Hubert Robert (1733–1808), nicknamed ‘Robert of the Ruins’ by the philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–84). Robert made a self-portrait in front of a structure modeled after Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Colonnades of Saint Peter’s in Rome (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) (fig. 25).²⁶² As the decaying colonnade stretches horizontally below the painter, who holds a drawing board against his bent knee, Robert turns his head to his right, away from both the ruin and his sketch work, placing attention on the maiden standing behind him. The female reaches out her right arm towards the distant colonnade, as if instructing the artist how to compose his painting.

All three artists share with Cole the self-representation before a monument in a

259 The Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna, oil on canvas, 50 × 66 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. NGI.747.

260 Postle, 2014, p. 247.

261 Ibid.

262 A Colonnade in Ruins, oil on canvas, 58.4 × 155.3 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 17.190.32. This painting, which was originally intended to decorate the wall over a door, has a counterpart, Arches in Ruins (inv. 17.190.31), in the same museum.

state of decay. Since the 16^th century, ruins were considered as being worthy of representation, as they were testimonies of a glorious past.