Subsiding+of+the+Waters+of+the+Deluge,+The

Date: 1829
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1983/1983.40_1a.jpg?itok=rLOpV2_v width="401" height="301" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/subsiding-waters-deluge-5080"]] || Title: **The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge**

Artist: **Thomas Cole** Born: Bolton-le-Moor, England 1801 Died: Catskill, New York 1848

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 35 3/4 x 47 3/4 in. (90.8 x 121.4 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Mrs. Katie Dean in memory of Minnibel S. and James Wallace Dean and museum purchase through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program

Accession: 1983.40 || Thomas Cole painted the American wilderness as a new Eden, a paradise untainted by the mistakes and sins of the Old World. The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge invokes a peaceful future for the young republic, free of the despotism of monarchs. The rocky cliffs framing the image echo the swirling waves that have just ravaged the earth. A lone skull tumbled against the rocks suggests that the world has been wiped clean of human folly. The ark waits in the calm, luminous water, poised to carry a reborn people into a new and more enlightened age symbolized by the mountainous sanctuary in the distance.
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