![]() ![]() To see inland Maine as he wanted to see it, to bring it into line with his established vision of the national landscape, he had to see it as he believed it would be in the not too distant future. Franklin Kelly writes of Mount Ktaadn, "is faith in the nation's destiny determined that he show a peaceful and harmless assimilation of man into the natural world. The result of this trip was richly symbolic paintings such as the masterwork Mount Ktaadn (1853, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut), which transformed the pure landscape into a pastoral ideal that depicts man living in harmony with nature. Here he simultaneously presents a powerful and grand scene of God's nature and a picture of quiet solitude, creating a profound work that is a stunning representation of the artistic, political and social influences of his day.Ĭhurch first traveled to Mount Katahdin in search of the picturesque late in the summer of 1852. Painted at the height of his career, Twilight, Mount Ktaadn splendidly captures the majesty and promise inherent in the national landscape, the subject for which Church is most renowned. ![]() Anchoring the center is a tree blasted by lightning, a familiar motif in the art of Church suggesting the awe-inducing power of nature.Possibly no other American so faithfully captured the higher, more elusive meanings of landscape as Frederic Edwin Church, whose unmatched ability to record natural details captivated the public, and earned him a reputation for technical brilliance even as a young man. A fine example of the latter is Wood Interior on Mount Turner (about 1877), an informal yet deft depiction of a cluster of tree trunks, some living and others dead. Depicting impressive peaks, windswept coasts, dramatic sunsets, as well as solitary trees and rock formations, his resultant sketches capture expansive vistas and intimate corners. An avid outdoorsman, Church camped, hiked, rode horses, canoed, and fished during these visits, but most imperative was his professional objective to record scenery. Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, NY, Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation OL.1980.1869Ĭhurch enjoyed a long-standing love affair with Maine, which he described as “magnificent both land and seaward.” Over the 30-year period from 1850 to 1880, he made more than a dozen trips to the state’s Katahdin region and Mount Desert Island. Oil and graphite on paper mounted on canvas 31.3 x 51.6 cm. Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900). Created on the eve of the Civil War, when its outbreak appeared inevitable, the painting’s subject can be perceived as symbolically evoking the coming conflagration indeed, one scholar has memorably described the painting as a “natural apocalypse.” Other interpretations include the possibility that Twilight in the Wilderness references the increasingly threatened state of our country’s unspoiled natural environment, already an issue during the artist’s day. Two sketches from Olana that closely relate to Twilight in the Wilderness are highlighted in the exhibition.Īlthough Church often extolled the breathtaking beauty and sublimity of America’s pristine wilderness in his work, our painting appears to have additional overtones, particularly because twilight is a transitional time so visibly evolving toward an end. ![]() Even if the exact scene it depicts is open to debate-in fact, some historians surmise it may be a composite view of multiple locations-it is known that the artist painted the canvas in his New York studio, partly basing it on sketches he produced during travels near Mount Katahdin in Maine. Cloaked amid quickening nightfall, its foreground features a dark crimson lake flanked by masses of dramatically twisted and attenuated trees. Rendered with a scientific realism that reflects Church’s abiding interest in natural history, Twilight in the Wilderness is a spectacular view of a blazing sunset over a distant purple mountain. Several are on public view for the first time. This fall we showcase the majestic work in a special focus exhibition, Maine Sublime: Frederic Church’s Twilight in the Wilderness, displaying it alongside nearly two dozen drawn and painted sketches from the artist’s own private collection at Olana, his historic home, studio, and landscaped property on the Hudson River. ![]() Marlatt Fund 1965.233įrederic Edwin Church was one of our country’s consummate artistic talents, and his masterpiece, Twilight in the Wilderness (1860), ranks among the Cleveland Museum of Art’s most admired paintings. ![]()
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