Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School, transforms a traditional biblical narrative into a dramatic epic of the American landscape. Instead of focusing closely on the human figures, Cole swallows Adam and Eve within a vast, overwhelming theater of nature to emphasize humanity's smallness in the face of the divine. He carefully layered his paints to create sharp, contrasting textures—using soft, smooth brushstrokes for the peaceful light of paradise and rough, heavy applications of paint to define the jagged rocks and dark, churning clouds of the wilderness.
