Thomas Cole, Alfred Bierstadt, and other painters who tried to recreate western American in the 1800s are exhibited in the Seattle Art Museum and reviewed by Laura Haertel for the California Literary Review. Ms. Haertel points to Cole for the exhibits theme:

“Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet. Shall we turn from it? We are still in Eden. The wall that shuts us out of the garden is our own ignorance and folly.” -from Thomas Cole’s Essay on American Scenery, 1836