The artist adorned the walls with works by the Old Masters, especially landscapes by Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa.
The house, which is preserved as a museum today, reflected Church’s eclectic interests and his travels, including exotic furnishings and decorative objects. In 1890, he settled at Olana, his grand villa near Hudson, New York, which had been designed for him in the Persian and Moorish styles by the architect Calvert Vaux in 1870.
Frederic edwin church paintings series#
The results of this trip were numerous oil sketches and drawings that he used for a series of paintings including The Parthenon (1871 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives (1870 The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri).īy 1880, Church’s painting activity was curtailed due to ill health, and in 1883, rheumatism crippled his right arm and hand. On his return, he stopped in London, in order to study the works of Turner. Due to his fascination with ancient civilizations, he also visited Naples, Paestum, and Greece. He first spent six months in London and Paris, and then continued on to Alexandria, Beirut, Constantinople, Baalbeck, Petra, and Jerusalem. He continued to produce visions of the tropics such as Twilight in the Wilderness (1860 Cleveland Museum of Art) and Cotopaxi (1862 The Detroit Institute of Arts) until 1867, when he took a year and a half trip to Europe and the Middle East. Another significant product of this period in the artist’s career was Niagara (1857 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), which established Church as the leading interpreter of theAmerican spirit.ĭuring the 1860s, Church continued to travel, seeking subject matter for his paintings. Among the great triumphs of the artist’s career was Heart of the Andes (1859 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), in which Church captured the essence of the tropics.
Characterized by vast vistas and atmospheric detail, the works that resulted from this sojourn demonstrate Church’s unique approach. It was on this trip that he was able to concentrate on the scenery of the Andes, and he filled diaries and sketchbooks with records of the vegetation and the countryside. On this sojourn, he traveled to Ecuador with the landscape painter Louis Rémy Mignot. When his works received high praise, Church set off on a second expedition in 1857. Along the way, Church drew from nature, producing the drawings that became the basis for important canvases depicting exotic subjects such as The Cordilleras: Sunrise (1855 Private Collection). Accompanying Cyrus Field, who later gained renown for his participation in the transatlantic cable project, Church followed Humboldt’s 1802 route from Colombia to Ecuador. In 1853, he became the first American artist to visit South America. He was also inspired by the writings of Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist-explorer.Ĭhurch gradually began to take a more scientific approach to nature, using sketches he had created in the outdoors in the preparation of his canvases. Influenced by the writings of English theorist John Ruskin, he began to paint in a more precise manner, focusing on specific effects of weather and atmosphere. In the subsequent period, Church emulated Cole’s art, painting large-scale landscapes of the Hudson River Valley and of New England. In 1848, he became one of the youngest artists to be elected to the status of academician at the National Academy of Design, and he was soon training pupils of his own, including Jervis McEntee and William James Stillman. Upon completing two years of training, Church moved to New York, where he established a studio in the Art-Union building.Ĭhurch was successful in New York. While studying at Cole’s studio in Catskill, New York, Church absorbed his teacher’s methods of sketching and became a proponent of his epic style of painting. In 1844, with the helpof the art patron Daniel Wadsworth, he became the first pupil of the famous Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole. He received his early art training from local painters Benjamin Hutchins Coe and Alexander Hamilton Emmons. His canvases celebrated the drama of the American frontier and expressed the expansionist and optimistic outlook of the United States in the mid-nineteenth century.īorn in Hartford, Connecticut, Church was the son of a wealthy businessman. For his spectacular and panoramic paintings of the wilderness of North and South America, Frederic Edwin Church was a dominant figure in the second generation of the Hudson River School.