Frederick Edwin
Church (1826-1900) was a devout Trinitarian and Congregationalist. Ministers and
theologians were among his closest friends throughout his life. For years a
student of Thomas Cole, he left his tutelage in 1846 and established his own studio in
Hartford where he heard the sermons of Horace Bushnell at North Congregational
Church. In those years Church would have been exposed to the ideas of the young
Christian Romantic minister that had just published Discourses on Christian Nurture. I will comment briefly on only one
of his paintings.
Niagara (1857) is a monumental piece
both in physical size and meaning. Painted at a time when America was
transitioning from an agrarian to an industrialized economy, and when a new
sense of nationalism was in search of an identifiable cultural icon, the
significance of Church’s picture of Niagara Falls found a ready audience. While
Niagara Falls had been painted many times, even by his mentor Cole, Church
brought a fresh awareness to the mammoth waterfall. Not only is his picture
overwhelmingly larger than any other (his serial panorama was intended to
encourage the viewer to feel as a participant in the story), but also he
reversed his point of orientation from the conventional American side looking
toward Canada to a view from the Canadian rim looking towards the vast openness
of the American frontier. In this way Church highlighted Niagara Falls as the
new cultural icon of a growing, changing, and prosperous nation. Like Bushnell
and Coleridge, Church saw the role of the artist as prophet and seer. To him,
America is a chosen people of God. He used biblical metaphors to express his
message.
Above the falls we see a rainbow (something Cole never painted) – the
covenant sign of God’s blessing to Noah. Church wants us to see America in the
very same sense: having endured hardship, God has now set his sign and seal of
promise upon Americans and is calling them to thrive in the land of their
sojourning. The metaphorical Christian imagery extends to the very use of water
in its concealed affiliation with the Christian waters of baptism, a rite that
is also tied biblically to the
deluge. Also, Church follows the basic idea of Christian Romanticism that
nature is symbolic of God: the power of the falls is meant to point us to the
power of God and his protection of the American people, as long as they heed
his voice and obey his commands.
Though Niagara was received as a new cultural
icon of nationalism and industrialism, Church, like his teacher Cole, was wary
of the implications of economic expansion for nature. The American novelist
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) echoed this circumspection in The House of Seven Gables (1851):
What we call real estate –
the solid ground to build a house on – is the broad foundation on which nearly
all the guilt of this world rests.[1]
American novelist
Herman Melville (1819-1891)[2] shared
Hawthorne’s view, as seen in his masterpiece, Moby Dick (1851):
Hereby perhaps
Stubb indirectly hinted that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a
moneymaking animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.[3]
[1] Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables, Chapter XVII,
“The Flight of Two Owls.” ClassicAuthors.net
[2] His classic Moby Dick is about the search for truth and self-discovery in the
midst of battling with one’s own demons. Both Melville and Hawthorne, as
opposed to the Transcendentalists, focus on the more negative side of human nature. They combine realism, allegory, and
moral issues.
[3] Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 93, “The Castaway.” American Literary Classics.
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