1850 -1870 · Maine, Aegean and Northern Ice

Icebergs, Bay of Fundy, Aegean Sea and wrecks confront Church with four water states: frozen mass, tide, bright horizon and maritime danger.

Frederic Edwin Church explores the coasts of Maine, the Bay of Fundy, the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean with the same attention he pays to the mountains. Mount Desert Island offers fog, rocks, beacons and tidal variations. Grand Manan, in the Bay of Fundy, combines cliff, sea and changing light. In 1859, Church traveled to the North Atlantic to directly observe icebergs. In 1859, Church traveled to the North Atlantic to directly observe icebergs. His large canvas The Icebergs transformed these floating masses into luminous architecture: interior blues, fractured surfaces and dark water gave a physical measure of cold. Its large canvas The Icebergs transformed these floating masses into luminous architecture: interior blues, fractured surfaces and dark water gave a physical measure of cold. A wreck or abandoned boat introduces human vulnerability without necessarily showing the survivors. There Aegean Sea, resulting from Mediterranean travel, replaces northern tension with a more open horizon. Church composes his paintings based on precise studies, but he often moves and assembles the motifs in order to make each climate intelligible. The sea thus becomes a laboratory of visibility, from the fog which removes the horizon to the ice which seems to erect it. The selection "Seas and coasts of Frederic Edwin Church" thus becomes a laboratory of visibility, from the fog which removes the horizon to the ice which seems to erect it. The selection "Seas and coasts of Frederic Edwin Church" notably compares The Iceberg and The Aegean Sea. His reading favors space.

At Church, the ocean changes architecture with climate: cliff in Maine, ice wall in the north, and luminous mirror in the Aegean.