View on the Catskill—Early Autumn

1. 1

   What is written

   Painted in the studio at Catskill in the winter of 1836–37, from memory and earlier drawings, of a valley whose woods had been felled that spring.

   • In the winter I painted four pictures : A View on the Catskill, for Mr. SturgesCole, journal, 14 May 1837, in Noble (1853), p. 238
   • remember it is a viewCole to Jonathan Sturges, 24 February 1837, transcribed in the Metropolitan Museum Journal 43 (2008)
   • The foliage is now falling in mournful showers. What a harsh and cruel climate!Cole, journal, 6 October 1837, in Noble (1853), p. 243
2. 2

   Records of those days

   • Watervliet Arsenal registerThermometer at 7 a.m., 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. and daily rain, kept by the Army on the Hudson, 56 km up-river from Cole’s house. Compared only with its own years 1826–1840, read at the same hours.
   • Hudson Correctional Facility, 1991–2020Today’s median first frost, 6 km from Cole’s house across the river: 18 October.

   Not found or not yet searched

   • No weather observer worked at Catskill in 1836.
   • The New York academies’ registers for 1836 survive only as half-month means in print; their daily sheets were not read.
   • Cole wrote nothing about the weather of autumn 1836 that has been found.
3. 3

   Each claim tested

   • “Early Autumn”, the season in the title. The canvas was painted in winter from memory, of the valley before its woods were cut in spring 1836; it does not show a particular autumn, so no season’s record can be tested against it.
   • “the banks were in flames of splendour”, Cole’s biographer on the Hudson in late October 1836. No one recorded the leaves. By 29 October Watervliet had had 14 mornings at or below freezing, the coldest October of 1826–1840.
   • “What a harsh and cruel climate!”, Cole on 6 October 1837, a year after the painting season. At Watervliet the 7 a.m. reading fell from 58 °F on 4 October 1837 to 28 °F on 5 October, the autumn’s first freezing morning, the day before he wrote.
4. 4

   Verdict

   Cole painted a golden early autumn in the winter after the coldest of the 15 complete Octobers compared at Watervliet, 1826–1840, and of a valley that no longer looked like that.

   • Unknown“Early Autumn” A remembered view, not a dated one; no autumn can be matched to it.
   • Partially agrees“a harsh and cruel climate” A 30 °F drop to the first hard frost, the day before he wrote, 56 km up-river; “harsh and cruel” is his judgment.
   • Unknown“flames of splendour” A biographer’s account written in 1853; leaves were not recorded.

What this cannot tell you. Watervliet is 56 km from Catskill, beside the Hudson. The 1836 values are readings at fixed hours, not daily highs and lows, and are compared only with the same station’s own years. The painting is a view from memory; the records describe the autumn around its making, not the scene it shows.