Incredible Landscapes by an American Luminary

Here I am at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art next to The Parthenon painted in 1871 by Frederic Church. Oil on canvas, 44 1/2 x 72 5/8 inches.

Incredible Landscapes by an American Luminary
by Annette Bartlett-Golden

Like thousands of Americans in the 1850s and on, I’ve admired the awe inspiring panoramic paintings of nature scenes rich in details and glowing with light by the renowned American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826 - 1900). I had the pleasure of viewing the exhibit Frederic Church: A Painter’s Pilgrimage at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina which highlights Church’s latter paintings from his trip to Palestine.
 
Perhaps best known for his large dramatic painting of Niagara Falls in New York State where he settled, Church traveled extensively in North America and around the world seeking out stunning views of nature for his paintings – volcanoes, mountains, icebergs, rainbows and more. Inspired by the writings of the naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt, a contemporary, Church visited Columbia and Ecuador in South America, sought solace in Jamaica, embarked on an Arctic exploration, toured the Holy Land including Petra, Jerusalem, and Baalbek, and sojourned in Greece and Rome.

His enormous canvases of famous locales all over the world gave viewers amazing glimpses of places most had only heard about. In an age before the widespread publication of color photography, this was a truly special experience for which thousands of visitors would wait in line and pay. As a result, Church’s enjoyed enormous financial success throughout his lifetime.

My photograph of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives by Frederic Church painted in 1870 after the artist's tour of the Holy Land. Oil on canvas, 54 1/4 x 84 3/8 inches.

On their property above the Hudson River, after his travels to the Near East, Church and his wife built a grand villa inspired by architectural elements they had admired in Palestine. They named it Olana and it was the Church’s family home where they lived with their four children. It is now Olana State Historic Site in Greenport, New York.

Seeing so many of Frederic Church’s panoramic paintings together at the exhibit, along with many of the preliminary sketches, created a context for the paintings and offered insight into Church’s method  of working.  After creating numerous studies of a particular place, often consisting of both drawings and oil sketches, Church typically merged many views of the place into one spectacular scene for the composition of his paintings.

For the artist, this is a more time consuming and thought provoking way of working than painting a scene just as it appears in life. However, this type of artistic interpretation allows artists to present a scene strong in composition and imbued with meaning. Having used this technique in many of my paintings, I was particularly interested to see Church’s magnificent examples. I left the exhibit marveling at how he accomplished such paintings and my sense of amazement has only increased in the time since.

You can find more information about Frederic Church at:https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chur/hd_chur.htm