This week Benjamin Miller is joined on our Curious Objects podcast by filmmaker Rachel Gould, better known on YouTube as the Art Tourist, to discuss Thomas Cole’s Course of Empire cycle of c. 1834–1836. A watershed in the genre of landscape painting, Cole’s canvases use an allegory of empire—germination, prosperity, and decline—to preach a cautionary tale about environmental and spiritual overreach. It was a message delivered with earnest intent to the citizens of the young and ravenous American republic, and is hardly less relevant today.
Rachel Gould is a New York–based art writer and enthusiast. Together with her husband, Jason, she runs the YouTube channel and Instagram account the Art Tourist, a celebration of art history’s weirdest and most wonderful stories, characters, and creations. Guided by the spirit of curiosity, the Art Tourist spotlights extraordinary artists and must-visit art destinations, emphasizes art as a conduit for meaningful connections, and asks crucial questions such as Would Caravaggio listen to hip-hop? Rachel also works as copywriter at the Met Store, where she connects contemporary designs to the Museum masterpieces that inspired them.
