A Stroll in the Gallery: The Voyage of Life

Thomas Cole. The Voyage of Life: Manhood. 1842. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Looking at Thomas Hart Benton’s murals last week made me think about Thomas Cole’s panoramic series of allegorical paintings, The Voyage of Life. The series consists of four large paintings, not quite wall-sized but each deserving a wall of its own. Trying to imagine a room surrounded by Benton’s murals led me to remember the various galleries in which I’ve experienced Cole’s masterpiece.

The National Gallery of Art moves its collection around every few years, sometimes with disappointing results. You may expect to find old favorites in a cul-de-sac with a comfortable couch where you can contemplate quietly, only to find the paintings relocated to a busy thoroughfare. That happened to me in 2004, the last time I viewed The Voyage of Life. The paintings were hung in the museum’s southeast quadrant in a “vestibule” gallery leading to four other galleries. Four paintings, four walls, four doors, no couch – and a constant stream of chattering people moving in every direction. The location certainly had high foot traffic, and that would be good if the goal were selling Voyage of Life appointment calendars, umbrellas and tote-bags. High traffic, however, is reversely proportional to quality viewing. I missed the lonely cul-de-sac in the southwest quadrant where I’d spent hours looking, thinking, and writing about these paintings.

The Voyage of Life: Childhood; Youth; Manhood; Old Age.

When I first looked at Cole’s paintings I was but a callow youth, like the boy in the second painting, restless and ready to chase castles in the air. I didn’t care much for Cole’s allegorical content. Then and now, I thought the angel’s depiction as symbolic radiant light was contrived. But Cole’s sweeping landscapes caught my imagination. The contrast between dramatic foreground and limitless horizon never failed to move me. It is a painterly effect that may not be perceptible with the eye alone while standing in a real landscape. The effect also is perceptible to the heart, to some vestigial memory of place. It is the depiction of feelings provoked or inspired by the landscape. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries this quality was called ‘The Sublime.” If the angel seemed a little hokey, Cole’s treatment of distant shadow and light on the horizon was numinous. And yes, even as a callow youth, I knew and used that word. In time I came to know other painters from the Hudson River School whose style is called Luminist.

Cole’s allegory began to resonate for me only after my own bateaux had been battered in life’s cataract, as suggested by the third painting. Ms. Modigliani and I spent a rainy April afternoon with The Voyage of Life in 1999 shortly after my mother’s memorial service in Yellow Springs. We went to Washington to complete Mary Lou’s rites at the National Gallery of Art. I looked at the bearded man still standing in his boat, improbably, after a long, treacherous run through the rapids. I thought, that’s me, this is my life. Then I remembered a line from a poem by Yehudi Amichai: Gods come and go. Prayer is constant.