Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Course of the Empire - Thomas Cole

The Course of the Empire - Thomas Cole

An excellent series of art by Thomas Cole. I'm kinda speechless at the very first time I look at the series. As you view each of the paintings, notice how the sun rises and moves through the sky. The mountain in the background remains throughout, but in the foreground, considerable changes take place. This series of painting is drawn by Cole in 1836.

1. Savage State

2. Pastoral State

3.Consummation of the Empire
4. Destruction

5. Desolation
Cole chose something from Byron to help describe this work:
There is the moral of all human tales;
'This but the same reheasal of the past
First Freedom, and then Glory:
when that fails Wealth, vice, corruption

Remember Ancient Persian Empire ? Extending from from the Mediterranean to the River Indus, armored by three continents army

Remember Roman Empire ? stretched over 5,000 km from the Atlantic coast of northern Britain, through Europe to the Black Sea, and from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the Atlantic coast.

Remember 'the sun will never set at British empire ?'

Remember Portugal ? Great wealth empire with connection of ports from Lisbon to Nagasaki

Remember Abbasid ? The one which covered 2/3 population of the world at the golden era

Remember Soviet Union ? 15 nations packed together in one Union Republic with the same ideology

Remember Ancient Egypt ? Great Giza pyramid and all those gigantic piramids

So next ?

United State for sure! and so shall Israel collapse as no big power behind them

Nothing last forever my friend...

[This is] the established way of Allah which has occurred before. And never will you find in the way of Allah any change. (al-Fath:23)

They plot & plan, and Allah too plans; but the best of planners is Allah (Al-Anfal:30)


2 comments:

Abu Khalid said...

Hurm

Ini macam intro sejarah nusantara Dr. Hafidzi je.. hehe

Anyway, syukran, ana tak menyalin notanya, tapi mmg sangat best post ni dan ceramah Dr Hafidzi tu

wea said...

heh..ceramah Dr.Hafidzi mane ni Saini ? ana bace slide je sejarah nusantara tu..

anyway, bincang esok hahaha...rinduuuu antum