Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets. Church's paintings put an emphasis on realistic detail, dramatic light, and panoramic views. He debuted some of his major works in single-painting exhibitions to a paying and often enthralled audience in New York City. In his prime, he was one of the most famous painters in the United States.
Beginnings
Frederic Edwin Church was a direct descendant of Richard Church, a Puritan pioneer from England who accompanied Thomas Hooker on the original journey through the wilderness from Massachusetts to what would become Hartford, Connecticut. Church was the son of Eliza and Joseph Church . Frederic had two sisters and no surviving brothers. His father was successful in business as a silversmith and jeweler and was a director at several financial firms. His mother's brother was Adrian Janes, who owned an iron foundry that constructed the U.S. Capitol Dome. The family's wealth allowed Frederic to pursue his interest in art from a very early age. In 1844, aged 18, Church became the pupil of landscape artist Thomas Cole in Catskill, New York after Daniel Wadsworth, a family neighbor and founder of the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut, introduced the two. Church studied with him for two years; by this time his talent was evident. Cole wrote that Church had "the finest eye for drawing in the world". During his time with Cole he travelled around New England and New York to make sketches, visiting East Hampton, Connecticut, Long Island, Catskill Mountain House, The Berkshires, New Haven, Connecticut, and Vermont. His first recorded sale was in 1846 to the Wadsworth Athenaeum for $130; it was a pastoral painting depicting Hooker's journey in 1636.In 1848, he was elected the youngest Associate of the National Academy of Design. He was promoted to full member the following year and began to take in his own students including Walter Launt Palmer, William James Stillman and Jervis McEntee.
Style and influences
Romanticism was prominent in Britain and France in the early 1800s as a counter-movement to the rationalism of the Age of Enlightenment. Artists of the Romantic period often depicted nature in idealized scenes that depicted the richness and beauty of nature, sometimes with emphasis on its grand scale. This tradition carried on in the works of Church, who idealizes an uninterrupted nature in intricate detail. The emphasis on nature is encouraged by low horizontal lines and a preponderance of sky. Church usually "hid" his brushstrokes so that the painting surface was smooth and the painter's hand evident by accuracy and control, rather than by the conspicuous mark making prevalent in later eras.Church was the product of the second generation of the Hudson River School, a movement in American landscape art founded by his teacher Thomas Cole. Both Cole and Church were devout Protestants, and the latter's beliefs played a role in his paintings, especially his early canvases. Hudson River School paintings were characterized by their focus on traditional pastoral settings, especially the Catskill Mountains, and their Romantic qualities. They attempted to capture the wild realism of an unsettled America that was quickly disappearing, and the appreciation of natural beauty. His American frontier landscapes show the "expansionist and optimistic outlook of the United States in the mid-nineteenth century." Church differed from Cole in the topics of his paintings: he preferred natural and often majestic scenes over Cole's propensity towards allegory—though Church's work has increasingly been re-examined in terms of themes and meanings.
The Prussian explorer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt was a major influence on Church. In his Kosmos, Humboldt put forth a vision of the interconnectedness of science, the natural world, and spiritual concerns. Kosmos, which Church owned, dedicated a chapter to landscape painting; Humboldt gave an important role to the visual artist in "scientifically" portraying the diversity of nature, especially in the New World. As Charles Darwin's theory of evolution began to overturn Humboldt's ideas of unity in the 1860s, art historians have examined how Church's painting responded to this disruption in Church's world view.
The English art critic John Ruskin was another important and big influence on Church. In Ruskin's Modern Painters, he emphasizes the close observation of nature: "the imperative duty of the landscape painter to descend to the lowest details with undiminished attention. Every class of rock, every kind of earth, every form of cloud, must be studied with equal industry, and rendered with equal precision." This attention to detail must be combined with the artist's interpretation, impressions, and imagination to achieve great art. While Church's paintings were widely praised in the 1850s and 1860s, some critics found his detailed panoramas lacking in the imaginative or poetic. In his 1879 American Painters, George W. Sheldon wrote of Church's canvases, "It is scarcely necessary to... explain what their principal defect is, because, by this time, that defect must have been recognized by almost every intelligent American lover of art. It consists in the elaboration of details at the expense of the unity and force of sentiment.... They are faithful and beautiful, but they are not so rich as they might be in the poetry, the aroma, of art. The higher and spiritual verities of Nature are the true home of landscape art."
Some of Church's paintings relate to, and influenced, the luminist landscape style as well. Luminist art tends to emphasize horizontals, use non-diffuse light, and hide brushstrokes such that the painter's presence, or "personality", is less apparent to the viewer. An exhibition book considers Church's Morning in the Tropics and Twilight in the Wilderness to highlight the style's "meticulous draftsmanship and intense colors", while Cotopaxi and The Parthenon "exemplify the style... in their panoramic structure". Nevertheless, Church is not considered a primarily luminist artist.
Career
Church began his career by painting classic Hudson River School scenes of New York and New England, but by 1850, he had settled in New York. He exhibited his art at the American Art Union, the Boston Art Club, and the National Academy of Design. His method consisted of creating paintings in his studio based on sketches in nature. In the earlier years of his career, Church's style was reminiscent of that of his teacher, Thomas Cole, and epitomized the Hudson River School's founding styles. As his style progressed he departed from Cole's approach: he painted in more elaborate detail and his compositions became more adventurous in format, sometimes with dramatic light effects.Church quickly earned a reputation as a traveler-artist, with early domestic painting and sketching trips to the White Mountains, western Massachusetts, the Catskills, Hartford, Conn, Niagara, Virginia, Kentucky, and Maine. He made two trips to South America in 1853 and 1857 and stayed predominantly in Quito, visiting the volcanoes and cities of modern day Colombia and Ecuador, and crossing the isthmus of Panama. The first trip was with businessman Cyrus West Field, who financed the voyage, hoping to use Church's paintings to lure investors to his South American ventures. Church was inspired by Alexander von Humboldt's exploration of the continent in the early 1800s; Humboldt had challenged artists to portray the "physiognomy" of the Andes. After Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America was published in 1852, Church jumped at the chance to travel and study in Humboldt's footsteps. When Church returned to South America in 1857 with painter Louis Rémy Mignot, he added to his sketches of the area. After both trips, Church had produced a number of landscapes of Ecuador and the Andes, such as The Andes of Ecuador, Cayambe, The Heart of the Andes, and Cotopaxi. The Heart of the Andes, Church's most famous painting, pictures several elements of topography combined into an idealistic, broad portrait of nature. The painting was very large, yet highly detailed; every species of plant and animal is identifiable and numerous climate zones appear at once.
As he had with Niagara before, Church debuted The Heart of the Andes in a single-painting exhibition in New York City in 1859. Thousands of people paid to see the painting, with the painting's huge floor-based frame playing the part of a window looking out on the Andes. The audience sat on benches to view the piece, sometimes using opera glasses to get close, and Church strategically arranged the room to illuminate the painting with the light from overhead skylights. The work was an instant success. Church eventually sold it for $10,000, at that time the highest price ever paid for a work by a living American artist.
Church's friendship with Isaac Israel Hayes, a prominent arctic explorer, stimulated the artist's interest in the arctic regions. In 1859, Church and his good friend Rev. Louis Legrand Noble traveled to Newfoundland and Labrador. The journey was chronicled in Noble's book After Icebergs with a Painter, published shortly before Church's painting "The Icebergs" went on display.
By 1860, Church was the most renowned American artist. In his prime, Church was a commercial as well as an artistic success. Church's art was very lucrative; he was reported to be worth half a million dollars at his death in 1900.
In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, Church was inspired to paint Our Banner in the Sky by a sunset featuring red, white, and blue that he believed was a symbol that "the heavens indicated their support for the United States by reflecting the nation's colors in the setting sun". A lithograph was made from it and sold to benefit the families of Union soldiers.
In 1863, he was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.