Artist: Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900)
1853
American Paintings and Sculpture
Frederic Edwin Church traveled to northern Maine soon after the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s essay "Ktaadn and the Maine Woods." In this canvas, Church brings the landscape that Thoreau called "exceedingly wild and desolate" subtly under control by imagining its civilized future. Cattle, sawmill, bridge, buggy, and men harmoniously coexist, domesticating the landscape without appearing to disturb its natural beauty. The soaring mountain remains outside the bounds of such cultivation. Church optimistically evokes the divine destiny of a young country by bathing the land in the sunset’s spiritual glow.
- Medium
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Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
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36 1/4 × 55 1/4 in. (92.1 × 140.3 cm)
- Credit Line
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Stanley B. Resor, B.A. 1901, Fund
- Accession Number
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1969.71
- Culture
- Period
- Classification
- Disclaimer
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Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.
Provenance
Provenance
Marshall O. Roberts (1813–1880), New York, by 1856; N.Y. American Art Association, New York, 1897; Townsend Underhill (1863–1929), New York, from 1897; Edith Weekes Slade, Oyster Bay, N.Y., by 1967; Vose Galleries, Boston, 1967; R. Frederick Woolworth, Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, 1967–69; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.Bibliography
- American Art: Selections from the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2023), 132–33, no. 57, ill.
- David Little, John W. Neff, and Howard R. Whitcomb, Penobscot East Branch Lands: A Journey Through Time (Portland, Maine: Elliotsville Plantation, Inc., 2016), 28, ill.
- David Anfam et al., Seen and Imagined: The World of Clifford Ross, eds. Jay A. Clarke and Joseph C. Thompson, exh. cat. (North Adams, Mass.: Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, 2015), 51, fig. 3
- David Little, Art of Katahdin: The Mountain, the Range, the Region, ed. Carl Little (China: Down East Maine, 2013), 31, ill.
- John Wilmerding, Maine Sublime: Frederic Edwin Church's Landscapes of Mount Desert and Mount Katahdin (Seattle: The Olana Partnership, 2012), 45, fig. 34
- Christie's New York, New York, Christie's Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures, sale cat. (November 30, 2011), 72, ill.
- Helen A. Cooper et al., Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2008), 175, 240–41, no. 136, ill.
- Gail S. Davidson, Frederic Church Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran (New York: Bulfinch Press, 2006), 65, fig. 78
- "Seeing and Reading N.C. Wyeth and Robgert Louis Stevenson," Art Bulletin 88, No. 1 (September 2005)
- Jules David Prown, Discovered Lands, Invented Pasts: Transforming Visions of the American West, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), 73–74, fig. 44
Object copyright
Additional information
Object/Work type
Subject
Signed
Signed lower center "F.E. Church - 1853"Technical metadata and APIs
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