The Voyage of Divine Faith: ‘The Voyage of Life’ Series

The Voyage of Divine Faith: ‘The Voyage of Life’ Series
“The Voyage of Life: Childhood,” 1842, by Thomas Cole. Oil on canvas; 52.8 inches by 76.8 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Public Domain
Updated:
Our lives can be fascinating. We are born into a world preset with culture, tradition, language, and so on; and through sensual experience, we learn how to survive and, for some of us, thrive. However, many of us sense that there is something beyond mere sensuous experience—something we must believe without evidence, something we believe by way of faith.
Thomas Cole’s four-painting series “The Voyage of Life” caused me to reflect on how we might treat faith throughout our lives.   

Thomas Cole’s ‘The Voyage of Life’

Thomas Cole was an American painter considered to be the father of the “Hudson River School,” which sought to romanticize landscape painting. The Hudson River School believed that nature was a manifestation of the Creator, and the school looked to nature to gain an understanding of the divine.
Eric Bess
Eric Bess
Author
Eric Bess, Ph.D., is a fine artist, a writer on art-related topics, and an assistant professor at Fei Tian College in Middletown, New York.
Related Topics