The Titan’s Goblet 1833

Thomas Cole made "The Titan’s Goblet” using oil paint on canvas, a typical choice for a landscape painting. However, the scale and the subject matter aren’t so typical. Cole would have built up the image slowly, layering the paint to create believable textures. But here, that careful process is used to create a fantasy: a giant goblet filled with water, complete with tiny boats and buildings. The rim and base of the goblet have taken root, sprouting vegetation. The image is an exploration of nature and civilization, and their relationship to the passage of time. The goblet itself might be read as a symbol of human ambition, a vessel for containing and controlling the natural world. Yet, its ruinous state suggests nature will always win out in the end. This is a concept Cole returned to again and again, most famously in his series “The Course of Empire.” What makes the Titan’s Goblet so compelling is that it reduces the whole argument to a single, strange artifact. It’s a reminder that all things, even the grandest, are subject to the forces of decay.