Thomas Cole, one of my other favorites, was a member of the Hudson River School of painters. His tryptich work: "The Voyage of Life" is divided into the parts, "Childhood," "Youth," and "Old Age." In a Fryian understanding, Youth is full of symbolism of the Romantic phase, Old Age is experential, but highly concerned with the high mimetic (the meta world of the gods), and I am not sure where childhood falls--the coming into being, the product of spring, and a verdant regeneration. Some of the symbols associated with spring are: the city, the tree of life, the Godess. Spring and youth are both shrouded in romance--I think appropriate to "Midsummer Nights Dream," "Finding Neverland" (although this shows a stange mixture of youthfulness and death), and the poetry of the Pastoral type. The above painting is "Voyage of Life: Youth." The crystal palace of "what might be" is the driving ambition of the young hero, just beginning his or her journey.
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