The Architect’s Dream
Artist: Thomas Cole (American (born England), 1801-1848)
Date: 1840
Dimensions:
Frame: 58 3/4 × 90 3/8 × 3 1/2 in. (149.2 × 229.6 × 8.9 cm)
Canvas: 53 × 84 1/16 in. (134.6 × 213.5 cm)
Medium: oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott
Object number: 1949.162
Label Text:Architectural monuments from the distant past dominate the Architect’s Dream, presenting a continuum of the styles from which 19th-century architects took inspiration. In the misty distance, an Egyptian pyramid towers over an Egyptian temple. Two Greek temples are joined by a wall of pilasters (rectangular columns, attached rather than free-standing). Above this wall, a Roman aqueduct and a round Roman temple rest on the foundation of Greek architecture. In the foreground a Gothic church rises out of the forest.
The dreaming architect in question reclines on huge books of building designs atop a monumental column inscribed with the artist’s name and the name of the patron, architect Ithiel Town (1784-1844). Town, along with his colleague Alexander Jackson Davis (see his Dining Table in this gallery), popularized the Greek and Gothic Revival architectural styles in America.
For more information about Cole and about how Town came to reject The Architect’s Dream, see the card below.
The dreaming architect in question reclines on huge books of building designs atop a monumental column inscribed with the artist’s name and the name of the patron, architect Ithiel Town (1784-1844). Town, along with his colleague Alexander Jackson Davis (see his Dining Table in this gallery), popularized the Greek and Gothic Revival architectural styles in America.
For more information about Cole and about how Town came to reject The Architect’s Dream, see the card below.
On view
In Collection(s)