"Olana from the South,"
attributed to Granville Hills, Hudson, N.Y., 1900-1903. Cabinet
card, albumen print.
Fire &
Ice:
NEW YORK CITY - Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), the first
American painter to gain international renown, was an
enthusiastic world traveler, a student of scientific and travel
literature, and a prodigious collector of photographs. Church's
interlocking interests -- landscape painting, travel, science and
photography -- were emblematic of the Nineteenth Century, an age
of exploration and empire; they shaped his biography and artistic
production, influencing his choice of subject matter and style.
Inspired by the first English translation of Alexander von
Humbolt's naturalist treatise, Cosmos (1849), which called
on landscape painters to visit and envision the ideal natural
world of "tropical America," Church set off for Colombia and
Ecuador in 1853. For the next 15 years, he explored South and
Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, the Polar North, Europe
and the Middle East, while producing his most significant and
successful work. From these voyages and the personal research
that supported them came a new kind of art that made Church
enormously famous and successful. More than simply exotic scenes,
these "Great Pictures" summed up popular theories of geography,
climate and the place of man in nature, weaving religion with
science, geology and botany, mingling the wide-angle view and the
close-up.
A student of Thomas Cole, the father of the Hudson River School
of painting, Church is perhaps best known for such panoramic
canvases as "The Heart of the Andes" (1859) at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, "Niagara" (1857), at The Corcoran
Gallery of Art, and "The Icebergs" (1861), at the Dallas Museum
of Art, as well as his Orientalist home Olana, now a historic
site near Hudson, N.Y.
"Fire & Ice: ," on view at the Dahesh Museum of Art through
August 24, represents the first exploration of Church's interest
in photography and its relationship to his paintings and to
Olana.
"Study for 'The Heart of the Andes,'" Frederic Edwin Church,
1858. Oil on canvas.
"Fire & Ice" marks the public debut of the collection,
showcasing 55 of the most important photos from a treasure trove
of more than 5,700. Displayed alongside some of Church's most
exquisite oil sketches and his designs for Olana and its
decorative motifs, they illuminate the taste, preoccupations and
working methods of a great American landscape painter. The Dahesh
Museum of Art has organized "Fire & Ice," using objects from
the collection of Olana State Historic Site, with the support of
The Olana Partnership's Strabo Council. (The Historic Site is
administered and operated by the New York State Office of Parks,
Recreation and Historic Preservation.)
The guest curator is Thomas Weston Fels, an independent historian
of photography and curator of the Elizabeth de C. Wilson Museum,
Manchester, Vt. Fels authored the central essay in Fire &
Ice: , the fully illustrated hardcover book based on the
exhibition, the first book ever published on Church's
photographic collection.
Kevin J. Avery, associate curator, department of American
paintings and sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and
noted Frederic Church scholar, wrote the introduction.
The Collection
While the 5,700 works that comprise Frederic Church's
photographic collection also include figural subjects -- family
photos, portraits of contemporaries, friends, public figures and
celebrities of the late Nineteenth Century -- more than 2,000
prints are devoted to travel. The 55 images selected for "Fire
& Ice" depict many of the places Church visited and painted:
North and South America, Central America and Mexico, the
Caribbean, the Polar North and the Middle East.
While the natural phenomena -- volcanoes, mountains, foliage,
forests, waterfalls, rivers and icebergs -- that were central to
his work as a painter predominate, there are also early
photographs of ancient civilizations, including Mesoamerica,
Greece and Rome, India and the Holy Land, favorite subjects for
explorers and photographers of the Nineteenth Century. Church's
last great work, Olana, his Persian-style house above the Hudson,
with its magnificently designed vistas and grounds, is another
favorite subject.
Church belonged to the first generation of artists to grow up
with photography as a useful adjunct to an artist's life, and
while he did not himself work in the medium, he became a
prodigious collector. Although his most productive years
coincided with what is considered the first golden age of
international photography, it is not known if Church considered
photography an art form comparable to painting, a tool to be used
by painters for documentation, or both. New photographic printing
techniques emerged during his years as a collector, and the
collection reflects the evolution of that technology in
daguerreotypes, salt prints and albumen prints by more than 100
photographers, many of enduring renown.
"Fire & Ice" features works by William Bradford, Bourne &
Shepherd, Désiré Charnay, John Moran, Eadweard Muybridge, William
James Stillman and Carleton Watkins. Lesser-known masters such as
George Platt Babbitt and Alfred Briquet are also well represented
in the collection, along with many excellent but still
unidentified photographers. Although few records confirm his
purchasing practices, Church seems to have bought widely during
and after his travels; he selected series and individual works of
high quality and eschewed "names" for their own sake.
The Church collection is therefore highly personal, full of
curious gaps and happy surprises, a balance of art and
documentation. The meticulous organization and fine condition of
the collection, which has survived intact at its original site,
suggest that the artist valued it highly and maintained it with
considerable care.
Niagara Falls and the Polar North
Niagara Falls, the first truly American tourist destination,
attracted both painters and photographers eager to capture an
unparalleled natural wonder. George Platt Babbitt, an early
landscape photographer and contemporary of Church's, held the
photo concession at Niagara Falls and Babbitt's three stunning
daguerreotypes of the falls in winter were no doubt purchased by
Church when he visited the area.
Attempts to find novel viewpoints culminated in Church's first
international masterpiece, "Niagara" (1857). Seen by thousands in
its successful tour of the United States and Europe, this work
literally took viewers' breath away as it placed them in a
position hovering over the precipice of Horseshoe Fall. In search
of an even more terrifying vantage point, Church ventured into
Horseshoe Fall itself on a little steamer called Maid of the
Mist, completing an oil sketch in 40 minutes while the boat
rocked on the surging foam. The extraordinary "Study for 'Under
Niagara'" (1858), on view here, became the basis for a finished
work (now lost), four by six feet in size, that the artist
completed on a single day in 1862.
Church was also fascinated by the published accounts of Arctic
travelers, and in 1859, he and his friend the Reverend Louis
LeGrand Noble sailed to Labrador and Newfoundland to sketch
icebergs. As the anonymous "Painter" of the title, Church
produced the dramatic cover and inside illustrations for Noble's
book, After Icebergs with a Painter; and two years later,
at the height of his powers, he completed and exhibited his
haunting masterpiece, "The Icebergs" (1861). Church also
collected 70 albumen photographs of icebergs by the American
artist William Bradford.
"Fire & Ice" features three large, exquisite albumin prints
-- "July in Melville Bay," "'The Panther,' Melville Bay" and
"Part of a Glacier" -- that were produced by photographers
John Dunmore and George Critcherson for Bradford's book The
Arctic Regions (1873), the earliest sustained
photographic documentation of the Polar North. Icebergs and the
Polar landscape remained an evocative image for Church till the
end of his life. Fully 30 years after his Arctic voyage, he
created the sketch "Iceberg and Steamship"(1893), which he called
"...the best I ever painted and the truest."
Zones of Fire
Church made two voyages to what is now Colombia and Ecuador in
1853 and 1857, following the trail of the naturalist von Humbolt,
and his exhortation that artists envision this microcosm of the
universe whose Edenic landscapes ran from torrid to temperate to
frigid. The artist returned to New York after the first trip with
numerous pencil drawings and oil sketches, and the paintings
based on these studies caused a sensation.
The 1857 excursion, undertaken to gather material for another
series of tropical landscapes, resulted in the picture that was
to make his career, "The Heart of the Andes" (1859). An early oil
study from 1858 for that work, on view in the exhibition, shows
how fully conceptualized the larger painting was before its final
execution.
Tropical Mexico and the Caribbean also interested Church; he
often wintered in Mexico and worked in Jamaica. His photographic
collection includes 53 prints from Désiré Charnay's famous series
of Mexico's archeological monuments; many outstanding scenes of
Mexico by the French photographer Alfred Briquet; and a smaller
number from Muybridge's series on Central American scenery, along
with a series of albumen prints of Jamaica by a still unknown
photographer.
Showcased in "Fire & Ice" are such works by Désiré Charnay as
"Palais des Nonnes a Chichen-Itza" (1860), and works of Eadweard
Muybridge including "Plantation, Central America" and
"Watchtower, Panama," both from 1875. Briquet's urban scenes of
Mexico, including "Plaza Sta. Dominga e Nescica" and "Zona Carril
de Jalapa" (circa 1870s) stand alongside two salt prints of Cuba
by unidentified photographers.
In the spring of 1865, Church took his wife to the mountains of
Jamaica in an attempt to give her a "change of air and life,"
following the death of their two infant children from diphtheria.
For several months, the lush tropical environment served to
distract and engage the couple. While Church explored the island,
seeking and sketching new vistas, Isabel collected examples of
tropical flora, especially ferns.
Two of Church's oil sketches dating from that visit, "Fern Walk,
Jamaica" and "Ridges in Blue Mountains, Jamaica," are displayed
with four photographs of the island -- waterfalls, foliage, a
jungle clearing and a river shore with isthmus -- by unidentified
photographers. They may have served Church as souvenirs of the
trip or documentation for future works like the "Vale of St
Thomas Jamaica" (1867).
Church's next important voyage took place in 1867, when he made a
19-month sojourn to the Middle East, punctuated by stays in
Europe, especially Greece and Italy. While Church is rarely
identified as a painter of Mediterranean subjects (and there are
only a few in his oeuvre) he did paint works with classical
subjects and collected a number of superb photographs from this
region. An appreciation for nature's elemental power and grandeur
is captured in "Volcano, Santorini (Thera, Greece)" (circa 1866)
by an unidentified photographer, as well as in another photograph
of the same subject by Paul des Granges.
But it was the remains of Greece's classical culture that
attracted most photographers to the region. Church's former
student William James Stillman, a seasoned traveler, journalist
and diplomat as well as talented photographer, is represented
here three works: "Propylaea, Athens" (1861), "View from
Parthenon" (1869), and "East Colonnade, Parthenon" (1869), which
rank among the best of many views produced there. In 1869, Church
writes from Athens: "The Parthenon is certainly the culmination
of the genius of man in architecture. Daily I study its stones
and feel its inexpressible charm of beauty growing upon my
senses...I think a great picture could be made of the ruins."
His painting of "The Parthenon" (1871) hangs in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and an oil sketch of another view of this famous
structure is in the sitting room of Olana, surrounded by other
works inspired by his travels.
The Middle East and Olana
Like many artists of his time and religious conviction, Church
traveled to the Middle East for a factual encounter with
Christianity at its source. Between 1867 and 1869, he visited
Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem and Petra. "El Khasné Petra," photo
attributed to Peter Bergheim of the imposing, ancient treasury
house carved from pink stone (now believed to be a tomb), was
later interpreted on canvas by Church, and remains one of the few
instances where a direct relationship between photos that he
collected and his painting can be assumed.
While in the Middle East, Church collected and shipped home
thousands of objects, and also bought numerous photos of
architecture, local culture and biblical geography from the
British-based Palestine Exploration Fund. (In 2001, the Dahesh
Museum of Art offered "Revealing the Holy Land," an exhibition of
early photographs sponsored by the fund.) Sites like
"Arak-el-Emir: The Ruins from the Southwest" and "Sarcophagus,
Kedes" and ethnographic "types" like "Fellah Woman: Jerusalem"
were characteristic fund photos, and Church's selected 70 that
interested him.
It was, however, Middle Eastern domestic architecture -- houses
elaborately decorated inside and out, with large central
courtyards -- that made a huge impression on Church. Before
leaving the United States he had been planning an expansion of
his home near Hudson, N.Y., in a French Renaissance style. His
trip to the Middle East radically altered his ideas.
Photographs of a highly decorated interior courtyard and the
central room of a house in Damascus, as well as Moorish design
elements from the Alhambra, Spain, photographed by Juan Laurent,
served as inspiration for his dream home, Olana, which he began
to design upon his return home.
"Fire & Ice" devotes a whole gallery to Olana, Church's most
consuming artistic project, which he worked on for the last 30
years of his life. At Olana, Church assumed the role of master
builder, interior decorator and landscape designer, employing his
friend Calvert Vaux as consulting architect. His interest in
Islamic decorative arts, manifested in the brick, tile and
embellishments of the Olana's interior and exterior, reflects the
inspiration of the sites he visited, the photos he collected and
the books he studied.
A few years after he started to build, in 1871, he writes to an
artist friend, John Ferguson Weir; "...having undertaken to get
my architecture from Persia, where I have never been, nor any of
my friends either, I am obliged to imagine Persian architecture,
then embody it on paper and explain it to a lot of mechanics
whose ideal of architecture is wrapped up in felicitous
recollections of a successful brick school house or meeting house
or jail. Still, I enjoy this being afloat on a vast ocean
paddling along in the dreamy belief that I shall reach the
desired port in due time."
"Fire & Ice" is enriched by a number of Church's pencil
sketches, drawings and ornamental stencil designs for Olana, as
well as ornaments made by his friend and former pupil, Lockwood
de Forest (1850-1932). De Forest, an interior decorator and
member of the American Aesthetic movement, had a woodworking
business in India that made elaborate carved pieces for Olana
based on traditional designs. (Although India had not been one of
Church's destinations, he found it intriguing and collected
Bourne and Shepherd's popular photos of India -- cultural types,
religious shrines and landscapes. "Forest Scene, Darjeeling" and
"Ferns, Vine and Creepers, Darjeeling," both dated 1865-75,
reflect Church's botanical interests.)
Church's attachment to the site where he built Olana actually
goes back to 1844, when at the age of 18 he was accepted as the
first student (of two) by the landscape artist Thomas Cole.
Church left his home in Hartford to live with his teacher in
Catskill, N.Y., where they sketched and painted from nature,
often on the hill where he eventually bought land to build his
home.
"Niagra Falls, Winter View," attributed to Platt D. Babbitt,
circa 1850s. Daguerreotype with brass mat.
Two oil sketches from his student days, "Trunk of an Oak, New
York" (1845) and "Burdock" (1846), reveal Church's early talent
in rendering details of the natural world. Two later sketches,
"The Hudson Valley in Winter from Olana" (1871-72) and "Evening
Clouds above the Catskills" (1870-75) underscore the pleasure he
took in the spectacular panorama even late in life. A selection
of photos by John Atherton Eberle and unidentified friends and
colleagues show Olana from various vantage points, with vistas of
the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River Valley, carefully
designed by the artist to be enjoyed in every season.
North American Landscapes
Although Church did not paint or travel in the Far West, he
collected images of that landscape by Carleton Watkins,
represented here by "North Dome, Yosemite" (circa 1861) and
"Grizzly Giant" (circa 1865). Four gorgeous prints from John
Moran's series "Scenes in Allegheny Mountains" (circa 1870s)
mirror the artist's interest in meandering rivers, mists and
clouds over forested mountains. Starting in 1850, Church traveled
to the Maine coast and sketched and painted many scenes there.
His return to the area at the end of his life perhaps expresses a
special attachment to New England. "Pond Site" (circa 1860) by an
unknown photographer, which features a photographer's set-up
under a tree in the midst of a serene New England wood, perhaps
captures for an instant the way landscape and photography came
together for Church.
Exhibition Information
The exhibition catalog Fire & Ice, published by the
Dahesh Museum of Art and Cornell University Press, is available
in the DMA Gift Shop (giftshop @daheshmuseum.org).
The Dahesh Museum of Art is at 601 Fifth Avenue, between 48th
and 49th Street. Hours are 11 am to 6 pm, Tuesday to Saturday.
Admission is free and donations are welcomed. For information,
212-759-0606 or daheshmuseum.org.
