The Cross in the Wilderness

Thomas Cole

Graphite with gray-green, green-brown, and white chalk on gray paper

National Gallery of Art

This intimate circular drawing by Thomas Cole depicts a wilderness scene in which a cross stands amid untamed American landscape, evoking themes of Christianity, nature, and Native American presence that were central to Cole's late career. Executed in graphite with gray-green, green-brown, and white chalk on gray paper, the work demonstrates Cole's masterful use of tonal layering and atmospheric suggestion in works on paper. Cole (1801–1848), born in England and active in America, was the founding figure of the Hudson River School, celebrated for elevating the American wilderness into a subject of spiritual and philosophical gravity. This drawing reflects the deepening religious and allegorical concerns that characterized his final years, and it relates closely to a painted version of the same subject held in the collection of the Louvre.