The Voyage of Life: Youth

Cole's series carries a person through four ages toward death and Christian salvation. Youth is the stage of hope and movement toward an imagined goal. The museum also offers a tentative reading in relation to a young America. The human religious journey remains the series' explicit foundation.

A red-and-gold boat carries a youthful figure. One person continues a journey spanning several ages in the series.

A river bends through the valley. Its course organizes the life journey as passage through a changing landscape.

A luminous castle appears in the clouds. It presents an imagined goal of hope beyond ordinary earthly architecture.

A large tree fills the right bank. Its flourishing vegetation belongs to youth's abundant surroundings.

Large leaves frame the foreground. The abundant near vegetation accompanies this still-bright stage of the journey.

Cole connected landscape with moral and religious questions. His concern about industrial growth helps explain an additional national reading of the series. Equating youth with a young America remains a proposed interpretation.