Bedell, Rebecca. 2001.
The anatomy of nature: geology & American landscape painting
, 1825-1875. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 186pp. Introductory chapter on "the alliance between geology and landscape painting" and the popularity of geology in nineteenth century American society. Chapter Three: Frederic Church and the Educational Enterprise. Scholarly interdisciplinary work in art history, history of science, and American cultural history.
Carr, Gerald L. 2000.
In search of the Promised Land: paintings by Frederic Edwin Church
. New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., 204pp. Published in conjunction with the exhibition, which traveled from New York to Chicago, Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine (25 April 2000 - 18 March 2001). I regrettably missed it both in New York and Portland, Maine. Significant sections on Church's love of nature and his extensive travels, the influence of Alexander von Humboldt, Church's landscapes from the eastern United States, the Caribbean and South American tropics, and the Arctic, and his Olana estate.
Cooper, James F. 1999.
Knights of the brush: the Hudson River School and the moral landscape
. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 109pp. "Iconic works by Frederic Edwin Church . . . and others are examined in relation to the religious, moral, and aesthetic sensibility that underlies their work." Cooper writes, "let us begin this great task [of choosing life] by enlisting gifted artists to help us see once again." A powerful message, when taken in conjunction with Niles Eldredge's view that "religious traditions, especially as embodied in concepts of God, are deeply if not wholly ecological concepts as well." (Eldredge, Niles. 2000. The triumph of evolution and the failure of Creationism. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 223pp.)
Davidson, Marshall B., and Elizabeth Stillinger. 1985.
The American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Alfred A. Knopf, 352pp. The chapter called "The Mid-Nineteenth Century: 1840-65" discusses Met holdings by Cole, Durand, Inness, Heade, Lane, Kensett, Church (Heart of the Andes), and Bierstadt.
Davis, William M. 1898.
The Triassic formation of Connecticut
. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the Interior, 1896-97. Part II. Papers chiefly of a theoretical nature. Pp. 1-192. Refers to early studies of Connecticut Valley Lowland and West Rock by James Dwight Dana and Benjamin Silliman of Yale. Comprehensive discussion of (our early understanding of) Central Valley trap rock ridges. Interesting late nineteenth century photo of West Rock cliff face.
Doezema, Marianne, and Elizabeth Milroy, eds. 1998.
Reading American art
. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 470pp. The text for the YNHTI seminar. Excellent chapter contributions, including Alan Wallach's "Thomas Cole and the Aristocracy," Roger Stein's on Charles Willson Peale, and Prown's on "Winslow Homer in his Art."
Flint, Richard Foster. 1965.
The surficial geology of the New Haven and Woodmont quadrangles
. Hartford, Connecticut: State Geological and Natural History Survey, Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Quadrangle Report No. 18. Sections on bedrock geology, topography, glacial geology, glacial/postglacial history, and economic geology. Enclosed map clearly shows trap rock ridges of West Rock, Pine Rock, Mill Rock, and East Rock-Indian Head-Snake Rock.
Harvey, Eleanor Jones. 1998.
The painted sketch: American impressions from nature, 1830-1880
. Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art, 299pp. Discusses the outdoor or plein air oil sketches landscape painters produced as studies for their "finished" studio compositions. Considers Church's use of outdoor sketches and his display and marketing of them. Catalogue devotes 38 pages to Church's sketches of Katahdin, Niagara Falls, Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, icebergs, tropical plants.
Howat, John K. 1972.
The Hudson River and its painters
. New York: The Viking Press, 208pp. Introductory overview of the Hudson River School and its most important artists. Reprint of 1894 Wallace Bruce map of Hudson River. Depicts and describes 100 paintings of Hudson River and environs, including Church oil sketches of Hudson River from Olana.
Johns, Elizabeth, Andrew Sayers, Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, and Amy Ellis. 1998.
New worlds from old: 19th Century Australian & American landscapes
. Canberra, Australia & Hartford, Connecticut: National Gallery of Australia & Wadsworth Atheneum, 271pp. Background reading on American landscape painting. Catalogue for the exhibition, at Wadsworth Atheneum, 12 September 1998 - 4 January 1999, which included Church's
West Rock, New Haven
.
Kelly, Franklin. 1989.
Frederic Edwin Church
. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 211pp. Catalogue for the National Gallery of Art exhibition of 8 October 1989 - 28 January 1990,
Frederic Edwin Church
, which I viewed in Washington during its run. Essays by Kelly on Church's "passion for landscape," James Anthony Ryan on Olana, and especially Stephen Jay Gould's essay, "Church, Humboldt, and Darwin: The Tension and Harmony of Art and Science" have been essential for my developing understanding and appreciation of Church's landscapes. Contains a chronology of Church's life and work and the unfinished biography by Charles Dudley Warner.
Kelly, Franklin. 1988.
Frederic Edwin Church and the national landscape
. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 179pp. "The subject of this book is the sequence of North American landscapes that Frederic Church created between 1845 and 1860, which I propose should be seen as a series of national images that addressed matters of pressing importance and interest to the American nation." One of this unit's most important sources of information.
West Rock, New Haven
is on the book cover.
Koja, Stephan, ed. 1999.
America: the New World in 19th-Century painting
. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 296pp. Catalogue for the ambitious exhibition held in Vienna, 17 March - 20 June 1999. The chapter, "The Wilderness as a Source of American Identity," discusses Cole, Church, and Thomas Moran, and the influence of von Humboldt. The exhibition included Church's
Cayambe
(1858),
Twilight in the Wilderness
(1860),
Niagara Falls from the American Side
(1867), and
The Iceberg
(1891).
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987.
American paradise: the world of the Hudson River School
. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 347pp. Catalogue for the 4 October 1987 - 3 January 1988 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I viewed. Highly useful essays on historiography of the Hudson River School, the maturation of American landscape painting as an artistic genre of the highest order, the New York art scene of the middle portion of the nineteenth century, and the relation of the Hudson River School to competing European and American painting styles. A major source of information.
Nash, Roderick. 1982.
Wilderness and the American mind (Third Edition)
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 425pp. Classic scholarly study of "America's changing attitudes toward wilderness." Chapters and sections on the evolving concept of wilderness, influential American writers, artists, conservationists, ecologists, and political figures. Comprehensive historical overview of American wilderness excellent background. Several pages discuss Cole, Durand, Church, and Thomas Moran. (Key concepts for incorporation into lecture/discussion.)
Nutting, Wallace. 1923, 1935.
Connecticut Beautiful
. New York: Garden City Publishing Company, 256pp. Nutting writes, Connecticut "has no such extremes on contour as the more mountainous states of New England but her peculiar geologic formations, her extensive bound on Long Island Sound, her reach of highlands on the Connecticut, are of sufficient distinction to win attention and regard." The photograph opposite page 112, "Unloading the stack Nyack," showing oxen-drawn hay cart with workers and pitchforks makes very interesting comparison with Church's
West Rock, New Haven
picture.
Nutting, Wallace. 1930, 1935.
Virginia Beautiful
. New York: Garden City Publishing Company, 262pp. "Over three hundred pictures of landscapes and dwellings. Brief section on the geography of Virginia. From a series of Nutting books on eastern states.
Nygren, Edward J. 1986.
Views and visions: American landscape before 1830
. Washington, D.C.: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 311pp. Background reading on pre-Hudson River School American landscape painting. Interesting Isaac Weld aquatint,
View of the Rock Bridge
(1798), presumably of Natural Bridge, Virginia.
Prown, Jules David. 1987.
American painting from its beginnings to the Armory show
. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 134pp. Fifth chapter, The Search for Identity, considers the discovery of Thomas Cole's artistic genius, Church's "combined interest in art and the earth sciences," Heade's "intimate studies of the flora and fauna of the rain forests of Brazil," and the "new respectability" of American landscape painting.
Prown, Jules David. 1982.
Mind in matter: an introduction to material culture theory and method
. Wilmington, Delaware: Winterthur Portfolio, The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Pp. 1-19.
Von Humboldt, Alexander. 1834, 1995.
Personal narrative of a journey to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent
. Translated by Jason Wilson. London: Penguin Books. Continues to inform my understanding of Church's attraction to South America.
Von Humboldt, Alexander. 1845 & 1850, 1997.
Cosmos: a sketch of a physical description of the Universe (Foundations of Natural History)
. In two volumes. Specific reference to the Andean Cordillera, Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, climate and ecology, and vegetational zonation. Famous seventeen page section on "landscape painting in its influence on the study of nature."
Wadsworth Atheneum. 1992.
"The spirit of genius": Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum
. New York: Hudson Hills Press, Inc., 260pp. Depicts Thomas Cole's
Mount Etna from Taormina
(1843), made timely by the Summer, 2001 eruptions of Mount Etna. Also, Church's
Vale of St. Thomas, Jamaica
(1867).
