Seeing Milcron's avatar, the painting

mnl · Feb 1, 2018

Seeing Milacron's avatar, the painting

The painting "Coalbrookdale by Night" is part of the exhibition "Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibit runs through the 13th of May. I plan to be up there in March and will stop by and see it.

mnl · Feb 1, 2018

And I can't edit the subject to fix the typo. Profuse apologies.

TDegenhart · Feb 1, 2018

You have to do the editing using the advanced option.

Tom

mnl · Feb 1, 2018

I did that almost immediately and you can see it fixed the title in my post, but not for the thread.

—Michael

stephen thomas · Feb 1, 2018

Wife & I are headed down mid Feb.
The MET & some other shows, plus family.

Delivering a job next week to "Maryland near DC"

smt

Milacron · Feb 2, 2018

mnl said:
The painting "Coalbrookdale by Night" is part of the exhibition "Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibit runs through the 13th of May. I plan to be up there in March and will stop by and see it.

For those that don't know, Coalbrookdale (UK) was the location of the first production cast iron foundry in the world...it's where the industrial revolution began..where our trade was born.

9100 · Feb 2, 2018

Milacron said:
For those that don't know, Coalbrookdale (UK) was the location of the first production cast iron foundry in the world...it's where the industrial revolution began..where our trade was born.

About what year?

Bill

Milacron · Feb 2, 2018

9100 said:
About what year?

1708....first smelted iron ore in 1709. First iron bridge finished near the foundry in 1781.

Coalbrookdale foundry closes: Workers tie boots to the gates as they are sent home from Aga Rangemaster | Shropshire Star

Marty Feldman · Feb 2, 2018

9100 said:
About what year?

Bill

First decade of the 1700's. Painting was done, by a French artist, about 100 years later. I saw this painting hanging in the Science Museum, London. It is rather smaller than one might think, but it stops you in your tracks when you come upon it - or at least it did me.

John Ruskin, Henry James and the Shropshire Lads - Cynthia Gamble - Google Books

-Marty-

Marty Feldman · Feb 2, 2018

Sorry, Milacron, didn't mean to step on your post. You must have put it up as I was typing mine.

-Marty-

Milacron · Feb 2, 2018

stephen thomas · Feb 2, 2018

We were there about 10 years ago. Could not get a tour that day we arrived (except the grounds around the outside), but still a fascinating tour of the area, and iron bridge is rather amazing.

smt

9100 · Feb 2, 2018

Milacron said:
1708....first smelted iron ore in 1709. First iron bridge finished near the foundry in 1781.

Coalbrookdale foundry closes: Workers tie boots to the gates as they are sent home from Aga Rangemaster | Shropshire Star

1708- nothing accidental about that date. In 1600 people were still burning witches. During the last half of the 1600s, people like Galileo and Toricelli, who followed on, Newton's publication of "Principia" in 1687 and a host of others like Leibniz, et al had put science and mechanics on a solid footing. The Industrial Revolution was loaded, locked and cocked, just needed someone to light it off, and 300 years later it isn't beginning to top off. My first hard drive was 20 MB, a few days ago Micro Center gave me a 32 GB SD card free for being on their customer list.

I have long pondered the reason that the revolution didn't start in ancient Greece or Rome, or for that matter, in Baghdad during the Abbasid Empire. They didn't have anything hot enough for cast iron but they, along with the Chinese were very good at casting bronze and you could make a lot of machinery from it.

Bill

Forrest Addy · Feb 2, 2018

Doesn't seem right to let a great painting "Coalbrookdale by Night" go by unattributed. it was painted by Philip James de Loutherbourg.

Here's the Wiki entry for the curious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalbrookdale_by_Night

I can't help wonder if this work inspired Matthew Turner and some others I can't recall the names. I always though they were Impressionists but an art student girl friend sniffed at my ignorance when I expressed this notion 40 years ago..

D Bronson · Feb 2, 2018

Forrest:

If you mean JMW Turner, the great painter, you are correct - they knew each other. De Loutherbourg was a fellow member of the Royal Academy. They were both active in London at the same time.

Regards,

DB

mnl · Feb 2, 2018

He and the area in general were an inspiration for Thomas Cole who was founder of the Hudson River School in the U.S. That is why it was included in the exhibition.

bob ward · Feb 3, 2018

Milacron said:
For those that don't know, Coalbrookdale (UK) was the location of the first production cast iron foundry in the world...it's where the industrial revolution began..where our trade was born.

And it was Coalbrookdale because by a fluke of nature and geology and the last ice age, the 4 main ingredients needed to make iron, i.e. coal, iron ore, limestone and clay were all there in exposed seams one above the other in the banks of the River Severn.

MrStretch · Feb 3, 2018

That's a beautiful painting, but to my 21st century eyes it looks like a ginormous super fund Site.

stephen thomas · Mar 11, 2018

My camera to computer connection has been messed up for a while, finally sort of working.
These are from a few weeks ago.

As has been mentioned by others, the primary show was about Thomas Cole, so this room was a small part, but included other influences on him (such as de Loutherbourg) and on the "Hudson River School". US as the new empire, evolving from the natural world; & including costs to nature, glorious rise, and potential decline.

smt

MattiJ · Mar 11, 2018

9100 said:
I have long pondered the reason that the revolution didn't start in ancient Greece or Rome, or for that matter, in Baghdad during the Abbasid Empire. They didn't have anything hot enough for cast iron but they, along with the Chinese were very good at casting bronze and you could make a lot of machinery from it.

Bill

New cheap energy source (= Coal) had so important part in the industrial revolution that it might explain part of it. Baghdad area is not big on coal deposits and neither is Greece.
I guess roman empire included several parts that would have had plenty of easily accessible coal but I think there was no real need to "invent" new energy source yet.
Britain had easily accessible coal deposits, and population was already so big that firewood was getting scarce at least on some parts of the country. Thus the need for new energy source.

Cheap or near-free fusion energy would be similar if not bigger revolution today.

Recommended reading:
Energy and the English Industrial Revolution: E. A. Wrigley: 978521131858: Amazon.com: Books

Seeing Milcron's avatar, the painting

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