Frederic Edwin Church

Frederic Edwin Church ( born May 4, 1826 in Hartford, Connecticut, † April 7, 1900 in New York ) was an important representative of the Hudson River School, a group of American artists, who became known for precisely painted, often dramatic and allegorical landscapes. Thomas Cole, founder of the group, was his teacher. Similar to this, continued to Church on value to give his works a meaning that went beyond the mere depiction of nature.

Life

Youth and Education

Church came from a wealthy family. His grandfather, Samuel Church, had founded the first paper mill in the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts, his father Joseph Church was a silversmith and watchmaker in Hartford (Connecticut) and in later years director of an insurance company. Frederic could thus be involved early with no physical constraints, his interest in art. The age of eighteen he was for two years a pupil of Thomas Cole in Catskill (New York) and painted, like his teacher, views of the nearby mountains. Daniel Wadsworth, a friend of the family and founder of the Wadsworth Atheneum, the oldest public art museum in the United States, had made him acquainted with Cole. 1849 Church member of the National Academy of Design, shortly after he sold his first major work to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.

Travels

Church settled in New York down, went during the summer months on the road, to make sketches for his paintings, and returned in the winter to paint and to provide for the sale of his paintings. Since the late 1840s, he was influenced by the writings of the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt ( 1769-1859 ), particularly through its descriptions of his five -year-old Latin American expedition ( 1799-1804 ). In his main work "Cosmos - Sketch of a Physical Description", first published in 1849 in English, Humboldt had the artists of his time are strongly advised to take travel and map the world; in particular, they should see South America and the " physiognomy " of the Andes portray one of the regions of the world with the largest geological and botanical diversity. On the route from 1802 Humboldt Church in 1853 made ​​his first trip to the tropics, accompanied and financed by the young entrepreneur Cyrus West Field, who hoped to win by Churchs images donors for its South American projects. The company resulted from Barranquilla in Colombia through the northern Andes to Guayaquil in Ecuador.

In the spring of 1857 nine weeks followed by another trip, exclusively in Ecuador, Guayaquil eastward to the volcano Chimborazo, Cotopaxi and Sangay. Churchs companion was Charles Remy Mignot, a fellow landscape painter. The artistic results of the two trips strengthened the prestige enjoyed Church. In addition to Albert Bierstadt, he became the most successful American painter of his generation. In 1850, the exploration of the North Sea was a matter of great public interest, especially by the spectacularly failed Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage. Impressed by such reports rented Church in 1859 with Louis Legrand Noble, the biographer Thomas Coles, a ship to sketch icebergs in the North Atlantic between Labrador and Greenland.

1860 Church bought a farm in Hudson ( New York) a small town in the valley of the Hudson River, and married Isabel Carnes ( 1836-1899 ), whom he had met the year before at the New York presentation of his pictures. Their first two children died of diphtheria in 1865. Church and his wife went for a few months to Jamaica, where he studied botany and the light of the tropics intensive. Four children were born in the following years, remained alive. With the first of them and with Isabel's mother, the couple undertook in 1867 a family trip of 18 months duration through Europe and the Middle East ( with today's territories Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Egypt), Church made ​​trip to Athens and rock city of Petra in Jordan to work there.

Olana

Shortly before the departure to the Old World Church had acquired a piece of land on a hill above his farm, which he had wished because of the impressive views of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains a long time. Here began in 1870 the construction of a spacious living house, in the summer of 1872 drew a family. Originally a manor house was designed in the French style. After the Middle East trip all the plans were changed. In collaboration with a new architect, Calvert Vaux to the Englishman, was a colorful ornamented, spacious building with Victorian, Persian and Moorish styles. The designs for the construction and decoration were mainly from Church itself, who made hundreds of drawings for architectural details. The poet John Ashbery describes the result: "The whole thing is stunning, and despite the plethora of architectural elements and the polychrome decoration, it does not seem too, but solemn and imaginative, like Church's painting". The property was named Olana, according to the historical description of a similar scenic situated fortified treasure house in ancient Persia (now Armenia).

Since the mid- 1870s, Church was increasingly hampered by a rheumatic disease of the right arm, reason for annual winter trips to the warm climate of Mexico. Finally, he could only very slowly painting with his left hand. He used much of his energy to the beautification of his country during the last 20 years of his life. More than half of the original farmland was turned into a park. Church had thousands of trees newly planted or implement convert a marsh to the lake and create 8 km routes. In addition, a summer house and a detached studio building were built. 1884 wrote the painter in a letter to the sculptor Erasmus Dow Palmer: "I can do this way more and better landscapes than if I torture myself around with paint and canvas in the studio ."

Frederic Edwin Church was buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Hartford (Connecticut).

Work

Churchs main works act as direct reproductions of real landscapes, but are usually free machining oil and pencil sketches which he had brought back from his travels, he himself called them " compositions". From the sketches he had made on the journey from 1853 of rivers, waterfalls and volcanoes, was in addition to other large formats The Andes of Ecuador (1855 ), with about 1.20 × 1.80 m Churchs until then the largest paintings. In January 1858, after the second trip, he began working on The Heart of the Andes, depicting a tropical landscape that can be seen in the various elements of his vast received travel sketches. In the thoroughly detailed composition painted a broad section of the landscape is rendered, overlooking a river in lush vegetation, on plateaus and snow-capped mountain peaks - more than would normally be recorded in a real scene. On April 27, 1859 Church presented the unusually large landscape format ( 170 × 300 cm) for the first time in a special presentation in New York. Curtains around the frame created the illusion of a look out the window, the room was darkened, only the painting was in the light. The audience sat on benches in front of the picture, it was provided with opera glasses to see the details better. Exotic plants increased the desired impression. In three weeks paid more than 12,000 visitors each 25 cents admission. After the presentation was two years can be seen in several other American cities and London. The work was finally sold for $ 10,000, the highest amount that had been paid up to that point for the work of a living American artist.

Churchs image Icebergs: The North, a result of his voyage of 1859, almost as big as The Heart of the Andes, was shown in 1861 in New York and London. More large-format images with tropical and arctic scenes were shown as special events in private galleries. An explicit moral and religious allegories in landscape painting Church was less interested than his teacher Cole, but he also expressed in his work religious and patriotic feelings - he painted pilgrim crosses in tropical landscapes or intense light phenomena as in Aurora Borealis (1865 ) or Rainy Season in the Tropics (1866 ). His symbolic landscape Our ​​Banner in the Sky established in 1861, shortly after the storming of Fort Sumter (South Carolina) by the Confederates, a key event at the start of the American Civil War (1861-1865 ). Church was a strong supporter of the Union of Northern States and put their flag here as a celestial phenomenon dar. In the northern states the motive was widely used in modified form as lithography. Well-known paintings that date back to the Europe and Middle East tour of 1867, are The Parthenon (1871 ), The Aegean Sea (1877 ), Landscape in Greece (1873 ), Sunrise in Syria (1874 ) and Al Khazneh, Petra (1874 ).

Aurora Borealis 1865

Morning in the Tropics, 1877

Al Ayn (also: The Fountain ), 1882

Church showed his paintings regularly to the annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design, the American Art Union and the Boston Art Club, together with the works of Thomas Cole, Asher Brown Durand, John Frederick Kensett, and Jasper Francis Cropsey. Critics and collectors appreciated the special form of landscape painting, its creators were collectively known as the Hudson River School.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the interest of collectors and the public to the artists of this group and their work significantly. In 1900, at the time of his death, Church was almost forgotten. Only after 1960, the recognition for his art gradually increased again. Churchs son Louis lived with his wife until 1964 Olana. Since 1965 the estate bears the predicate National Historic Landmark, managed by the New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and is open to the public.

Al Khazneh, Petra ( Jordan), 1874

Our Banner in the Sky, 1861

Pictures and collections (selection)

• New England Scenery ( 1851), George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum
• The Natural Bridge, Virginia ( 1852), University of Virginia Art Museum
• Home by the Lake ( 1852), Amon Carter Museum.
• The Falls of Tequendama (1854 ), Cincinnati Art Museum
• The Andes of Ecuador ( 1855 ), Reynolda House Museum of American Art
• · Niagara ( 1857), Corcoran Gallery of Art
• The Heart of the Andes (1859 ), Metropolitan Museum of Art
• · Twilight in the Wilderness ( 1860), Cleveland Museum of Art
• · The Icebergs (1861 ), Dallas Museum of Arts
• · Cotopaxi (1862 ), Detroit Institute of Arts
• · Aurora Borealis (1865 ), Smithsonian American Art Museum
• · The Parthenon in Athens ( 1871), Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Syria by the Sea (1873 ), Detroit Institute of Arts
• · Tropical Scenery (1873 ), Brooklyn Museum
• · Morning in the Tropics (1877 ), National Gallery of Art
• · Mediterranean Sea (1882 ), Olana State Historic Site
• Al Ayn (1882 ), Mead Art Museum
• Moonrise (1889 ), Santa Barbara Museum of Art
• The Iceberg (1891 ), Carnegie Museum of Art
• Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp ( 1895), Portland Museum of Art