Essay 2: Visual Analysis
Thomas Cole’s 5-painting sequence, The Course of Empire, portrays the rise and fall of a single empire, from The Savage State to Desolation. Each painting’s composition depicts a specific moment in an imperial society’s evolution. At the same time that each painting contains a separate meaning, each also relates to the others and gains meaning through this juxtaposition. The last painting in the series, Desolation, is a melancholic composition that depicts the society in ruins--overgrown and desolate, yet still portraying signs of a storied past. It forces the viewer to wonder what happened to the remarkable place, of which only remnants remain; and thus, it serves to instruct.
Cole’s paintings do not record a history of an actual empire. Indeed, they denote much more. They tell a story of rising and falling: of the emergence and decline of societies, of humankind’s relation to power, and even more specifically, of Cole’s approach to US imperialism and conquest. The ruins we see represented in Desolation can function symbolically to reflect upon a past, critique the present, or project an imagined future. They signify remains, residue, decline, and corruption, but also imply possibility, progress, overcoming and fulfillment.
Assignment
Pick an image that depicts either actual or imaginary ruins. Argue how the formal features of the image represent an imagined perspective of empire.
Your image can be in any medium and can come from any historical period. The questions you ask about your image will focus on how and why this visual representation behaves in a particular way at a particular time. To do so, you must account for the cultural context in which the image was produced, as well as its medium, its mode of circulation, and how it was displayed. At the same time, you will be required to represent the image in written form. One of the most important components of your paper will be your description of the image, which, instead of serving only as a general gloss, should highlight components of the image that relate specifically to your argument.
This paper will be 5-6 pages in length and will count as 40% of your writing grade.
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