Which American Romantic painter created the series 'The Course of Empire'?

The American Romantic painter who created “The Course of Empire” series was Thomas Cole.

Cole, an English-born artist who became a leading American landscape painter, produced the five-painting cycle between 1833 and 1836. The series follows an imaginary civilization from wilderness through pastoral settlement and imperial grandeur to destruction and desolation.

Its five scenes are “The Savage State,” “The Arcadian or Pastoral State,” “The Consummation of Empire,” “Destruction,” and “Desolation.” The repeated valley and distinctive rocky landmark connect the paintings, while the changing architecture and human activity show civilization’s rise and collapse.

Cole’s subject reflected a powerful nineteenth-century concern: that political ambition, wealth and empire might ultimately destroy the society that created them. The cycle is sometimes loosely compared with the history of Rome, although its city is imaginary. A common mix-up is Frederic Edwin Church, one of Cole’s pupils; Church became a major American landscape painter, but Cole—not Church, Asher Durand or Albert Bierstadt—created this series.