View of Mount Etna

Cole wrote a poetic description of this painting after he returned from Italy in 1842: Etna "lifts its snowy head in the warm sunlight, while the base of the mountain is partly veiled in the vapoury atmosphere and the mists of the morning."

Ruins overgrown with vegetation litter the foreground of the image. They are dwarfed by the snow-capped volcanic peak in the distance, a comment on the impermanence of human endeavor and the immutability of nature. A shepherd plays a flute for his flock, referencing the Arcadian life celebrated in ancient Greek and Roman poetry. Asher Brown Durand depicted Cole holding a similar woodwind instrument in his painting Kindred Spirits. The allusion to music and poetry in both works demonstrates thematic continuities between painting and related art forms.