frederic edwin church

Leafing through my 50 American Artists You Should Know by
Debra N. Mancoff - my eyes fell upon one of his paintings that
told me to write about him on my next Art Blog post.

It is called The Icebergs - 1861 - and it hangs in the Dallas
Museum of Art.

According to google  - this painting is 64 x 112 inches - so it is big.

And it is spectacular.

Because I have always had an special interest in Antarctica it is for
this reason that I find Frederic Church's painting so special.

It is centered on a huge iceberg, with only a glimpse of - but
unmistakenly - a shipwreck in the foreground.  And because I have
a very vivid imagination - to me the shipwreck could easily be that
of Shackleton's Endurance- which was pulled under the ice leaving
the great explorer and his crew to survive on their own - and they
did - without one man lost.

There is enough color in the painting to grab the viewer's attention -
but not enough to drown out the reality of the starkness of the iceberg
itself.

Sure - Frederic Edwin Church did other paintings - but if he had never
painted anything else - well - The Icebergs would put him on the map.