I've always wanted to have full-sized prints of Thomas Cole' The Course of Empire paintings. I don't love the first two visually, they're sort of boring and they're based in this weird primitivism/pastoralism that I've never bought into. Not that pastoral scenes are bad, necessarily, but I think their glorification over urban civilization as decadent and evil is a bit simplistic and probably based on the same feelings of WASP inferiority and bizzaro race science that motivated racists in the 20th century. It has a real "when men were real men" flavor to it. But the last three show this Ancient-Rome-like city at the height of it's power, then one where it's in a chaotic sprawl of enormous violence, and the final one is just a few ruined buildings being reclaimed by nature.
I'd love to have a house full of intricate paintings that are all just scenes of elaborate societal violence. It'd be a weird aesthetic.
I've always wanted to have full-sized prints of Thomas Cole' The Course of Empire paintings. I don't love the first two visually, they're sort of boring and they're based in this weird primitivism/pastoralism that I've never bought into. Not that pastoral scenes are bad, necessarily, but I think their glorification over urban civilization as decadent and evil is a bit simplistic and probably based on the same feelings of WASP inferiority and bizzaro race science that motivated racists in the 20th century. It has a real "when men were real men" flavor to it. But the last three show this Ancient-Rome-like city at the height of it's power, then one where it's in a chaotic sprawl of enormous violence, and the final one is just a few ruined buildings being reclaimed by nature.
I'd love to have a house full of intricate paintings that are all just scenes of elaborate societal violence. It'd be a weird aesthetic.