fig. 26 Frederic Edwin Church, Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860. Oil on canvas, 40 × 64 in. © The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2002, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund, 1965.233.
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Icebergs. Prior to his travels, Church had begun studying the nature of ice and glaciation, and may well have made sketches to clarify his understanding of the northern archipelago. As he had done already with The Heart of the Andes, Church created the composition of The Icebergs as much from his imagination as his on-site sketches. His goal was to capture both the essence of his experiences among icebergs and the other-worldly sense of the Arctic environment, drawn from explorers’ reports and his friendship with Dr. Isaac Hayes. Church began by experimenting with several preliminary ideas before settling on the structural features depicted in The Icebergs. In one early sketch (fig. 27), Church focused on the ice cave that will eventually appear in the left foreground and the somewhat lurid tones of the summer sky. Icebergs and Wreck in Sunset (fig. 28) indicates that Church had considered including evidence of a shipwreck long before he added the broken mast, two years later. At some point, then, he made the deliberate decision to exclude any direct reference to the legion of Arctic explorers who had 57
fig. 27 Frederic Edwin Church, Study for “The Icebergs,” ca. 1859. Oil on canvas, 7¿ × 12 in. Courtesy, Olana State Historic Site, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, OL.1980.1939. Photograph by David C. Huntington. Photograph courtesy of Gerald L. Carr.