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  • The Voyage of Life—Youth

  • 1849
  • After Thomas Cole (American 1801-1848) by James Smillie (Scottish American 1807-1885)
  • Hand-colored engraving
  • 50.8 x 67.4 cm., 20 x 26-1/2" image
  • Catherine Carter Goebel, Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts Purchase through Gift of the Reynold Emanuel and Johnnie Gause Leak Holmén Endowment Fund for the Visual Arts, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 1998.12

Essay by Alexis Long, Class of 2014 and Julius Gylys, Class of 2008

Immediately following the American Revolution, the art scene in America was focused primarily on portraits and history paintings of such notable heroes as George Washington and Paul Revere. However, a new and independent America needed a revised national art identity, something distinctly American. Such an identity was found in the vast wilderness and rugged landscape that stretched within the boundaries of this young country. International Romanticism fostered appreciation for nature that America, with its untouched and unspoiled wilderness, seemed to fulfill. America's most important landscape painter was truly Thomas Cole, who combined the modern interest in nature with tradition.

In 1839, Samuel Ward commissioned Cole to paint a four-part, allegorical series called The Voyage of Life: Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age. He wanted these paintings to convey a basic Christian moral dealing with the journey of life and the passage of time. Cole developed the paintings specifically to be exhibited side-by-side in order to emphasize the chronological stages in life of the main character, complimented by the corresponding changes in the seasons as time passed. The second painting, Youth, represents confidence and expectation. It is the most optimistic scene of the series, and was therefore the most popular.

The hand-colored engraved version, pictured here, was part of a print series, commissioned by a minister in 1849, the year after Cole's death. This patron recognized the greater didactic potential that multiple affordable images offered a larger audience, toward further spreading their "pure moral tone and Christian sentiment" (Kasson 42-56). In Youth, the infant has become a young man. Although still inexperienced, he now holds the rudder and steers the small craft into the waters ahead, as his guardian angel watches from the bank. The stream is very clear, and the towering trees on the riverbanks and rich, green foliage of summer represent a youthful life full of promise. Cole painted a late morning summer scene in order to convey a feeling for the climax and full fruition of life.

Youth depicts a young man in a golden boat floating calmly down the river. The most critical part of the print hangs in the misty clouds above the mountains in the sky. An elegant castle erupts out of the clouds, clearly the pride of the Heavens. In partnership with this castle in the sky is a woman, a guardian angel, near the bank of the river acting as the young man's mentor, urging him to continue along the path of life. This represents the point in our lives that college students have reached. Students at Augustana are attending college because they have some inkling of a dream they want to achieve. All of us can place ourselves in such a boat aimed toward reaching our goals. Students today can thus directly relate to this work of art created, as was Augustana College, over 150 years ago.