The Titan's Goblet

The Titan's Goblet
The Titan's Goblet
Artist	Thomas Cole
Year	1833
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	49.2 cm × 41 cm (19+3⁄8 in × 16+1⁄8 in)
Location	Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Accession	04.29.2

"Yggdrasil, the Mundane Tree," from a plate included in the English translation of the "Prose Edda" by Oluf Olufsen Bagge (1847)^[1]

The Titan's Goblet is an oil painting by the English-born American landscape artist Thomas Cole. Painted in 1833, it is perhaps the most enigmatic of Cole's allegorical or imaginary landscape scenes. It is a work that "defies full explanation", according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^[2]

The Titan's Goblet has been called a "picture within a picture" and a "landscape within a landscape": the goblet stands on conventional terrain, but its inhabitants live along its rim in a world all their own.

Vegetation covers the entire brim, broken only by two tiny buildings, a Greek temple and an Italian palace. The vast waters are dotted with sailing vessels. Where the water spills upon the ground below, grass and a more rudimentary civilization spring up.

^ "Yggdrasil: The Sacred Ash Tree of Norse Mythology". The Public Domain Review.
^ The Titan's Goblet. Collections Database, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed August 14, 2010.

[1] "Yggdrasil: The Sacred Ash Tree of Norse Mythology". The Public Domain Review.

[2] The Titan's Goblet. Collections Database, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed August 14, 2010.

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