In the late 1830s, Thomas Cole, an English-born American painter, was keen on advancing landscape painting to convey religion and moral values. In 1842, Cole fulfilled his aspiration by completing a four-part Romantic-style landscape painting, The Voyage of Life: Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age.
Cole believed the genre of landscape painting could show universal truths about religious faith, human existence, and the natural landscape.
The message of ‘The Voyage of Life’
The Voyage of Life was not Cole’s first ideological project. After returning to New York from Europe, he painted The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds (1833-1834) and the five-part series The Course of Empire.
These two paintings gained considerable acclaim, but Cole felt the core religious and moral messages were not evident to viewers.
The Voyage of Life series is a simple Christian allegory depicting the four stages of man along the “River of Life.”
In The Voyage of Life, Cole made several changes to clarify his religious and moral message. Unlike The Course of Empire, he didn’t focus on detailed scenes of nature and architecture with too much going on.
The piece is a visual sermon and an informative work accompanied by Cole’s commentaries on each piece.
All four pieces have five consistent elements: A male pilgrim, an angel (protector sent by God), a river, a boat, and a symbolic landscape. The landscape that follows the four seasons of the year also plays an important part in the overall storytelling.
Childhood
In Cole’s first painting, an infant emerges from a cave into a lush Eden-like landscape. An angel guides the child and the figurehead at the boat’s prow holds an hourglass showing the passage of time. The calm and lush environment was meant to depict childhood’s innocence, joy, and sheltered experience.
According to Cole, the emergence from a craggy cave showed “our earthly origin, and the mysterious Past.”
Youth
The youth in the second painting is an energetic young lad full of enthusiasm, as shown by his forward-thrusting pose. He’s left the sheltered comforts, and the angel is now watching him from the river’s shore.
The landscape is still lush, and a ghostly castle is in the distance. The river’s route to the court seems straight to the young boy, but can he reach it? Or are these youthful imaginings before “experience teaches what is Real.”
Manhood
In the last two pictures, Cole reversed the boat’s direction. In his third painting, Manhood, the young lad is now a man. The warm sunlight of the previous image has now been replaced by gloomy and dark skies and torrential rains. The lush landscape is gone; instead, the man is surrounded by leafless trunks and wind-beaten trees.
The boat’s tiller is gone, and he no longer displays youthful confidence or control. The angel is shown above the skies, still watching over the man, who can’t see the angel. He has to be guided by perseverance, faith, and prayer to overcome the trials of life.
“It is only when experience has taught us the realities of the world, that we lift from our eyes the golden veil of early life,” said Cole.
Old Age
The man has grown old in this last painting. He has overcome the trials of life and is nearing the end. The waters have become calmer again and an angel accompanies the man into the waters of eternity.
The older man is happy again, knowing faith has guided him through choppy waters. And “already the mind has glimpses of Immortal Life.”
Thomas Cole persevering through life
Thomas Cole, a self-taught painter, was no stranger to tribulations. Samuel Ward, a wealthy and religious New York banker, commissioned Cole to paint the four-part series for US$5,000. He intended to display them in his gallery to evoke moral lessons for his children and visitors. Unfortunately, he died before even half the series was complete.
Four years earlier, another patron, Luman Reed, had also died before Cole could finish The Course of Empire. The death of Ward was a blow to Cole, but he didn’t despair. Despite legal troubles with Ward’s estate, he completed the series and displayed it at the National Academy of Design in 1840.
The purpose of The Voyage of Life series was to bring forth the Christian doctrine of death and resurrection. It’s also an allegory of the human condition where we can triumph through prayer, perseverance, and faith.
By the 1850s, engravings of The Voyage of Life were widely distributed to the American public. As a result, Cole’s voyage of life message was available to many future generations.
