CREATIVE LEAPS:
Journal for the Arts in Leadership and Interdisciplinary Learning

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The Imagination of Thomas Cole at Peekskill Middle School

This summer, a dozen rising Middle School students from the Peekskill City School District were treated to a thoroughly unique and exciting multi-week learning opportunity: a chance to study the history, science and art of the Hudson River through hands-on classroom activities and outdoor workshops and field trips. 

The program was created and supervised by Middle School social studies teacher, Vincent Wallace, a partner to many interdisciplinary projects of THE LEARNING ARTS. Wallace commissioned Learning Arts director John Cimino to develop a one- week unit on the art of Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School. Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of painting, inaugurated the first authentically American approach to landscape painting, which celebrated Nature in all its beauty and power while also addressing the human experience in relationship to the nature around us. Students had the opportunity to view dozens of Cole's works both as slides and in museum visits.  They learned how to analyze a painting, to see the work from multiple perspectives and to express their observations. They also explored the essence of imagination and perception in both art and everyday life. 

In his paintings, Cole often turned to the image of the Hudson River as a provocative metaphor of life, time, and change.  Students explored this metaphor via Cole's series “The Voyage of Life,” which depicts four stages of a person's life: Infancy, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age. The richness of Cole's imagery tells a story which students interpreted in terms of their own lives and the lives of family members. The use of allegory in Cole’s other paintings became a vehicle for exploring special moments in history, literature and mythology. Students also read and performed poems and plays about the Hudson River School painters and explored the values and philosophies of these artists, comparing them to their own beliefs and outlooks.  

Finally, students worked with Cimino and colleague Tom McCoy in studying Cole's greatest masterpiece, “The Course of Empire.” In this five-part series of paintings, Cole examines the full panorama of human development from early (pre-human) life through the emergence of culture and civilization, to the domination of (and eventual future destruction of) human empire. Students worked with Cimino and McCoy in setting the many images of these paintings to music, and performed written narratives of the storylines illustrated by the imagery therein.

Through this project, the students were oriented to an approach to learning that was filled with interdisciplinary connections and insights prompted by their hands-on experiences with the arts. In the words of Mr. Wallace, "This is a very special introduction to learning at the middle school level and to the kind of learning that will serve you for a lifetime." 

For more information about this and other custom-developed programs by THE LEARNING ARTS, contact Education Administrator Karyn Bovino at (845) 225-7508.