Thomas Cole’s the Course of Empire Series represents the newly developed country of America’s idea of being a “New Rome” as the Federalists called it. Cole wanted to depict the stages of which an idealized society is formed, from its natural beginnings, to the introduction of man and finally the destruction and turmoil that man causes. The main focus of the collection artworks is the landscape. In each piece the landscape remains the same, enduring the advances as well as the damages inflicted upon it by man.
In the painting The Savage State, the first in the series, depicts nature at its best, inhabited by only a few natives, living from the earth, not building upon it. The second painting The Arcad
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