GENERAL DESCRIPTION
By 1857 Frederic Edwin Church began working with commercial agents and galleries to display each of his large-scale paintings, which he called “Great Pictures,” as a solo event. Viewers paid an admission fee and received a printed broadside to enhance their sense of awe and appreciation of the artist's technical prowess.
By definition, every Great Picture was, to a greater or lesser extent, surrounded by orchestrated publicity and newspaper and periodical coverage. The Icebergs was conceived in the spotlight of media and public expectation. For nearly two years between the summer of 1859 and the spring of 1861, the American public knew a major Arctic painting was forthcoming from Church's easel and awaited its completion with eager anticipation. In every essential sense except one—the canvas was painted behind the closed doors of Church's New York studio—The Icebergs was a public work of art.
About Church’s theatrical presentation, one critic noted: “Entering the room we found the whole end of the apartment filled with a huge frame of dark wood— carved like a cabinet and draped with crimson. Through this carved wood-work, as through an open window, we looked at once, nearly two thousand miles away—to Labrador!” [1]
Another journalist described the gallery space as, "Its floor is covered with a carpet of deep emerald which has the soothing effect of turf under your feet. It is furnished with sofas and divans of a rich purple maroon, and the walls are hung with soft cloth of the same hue. At the end of the gallery, beneath sweeping drapery, within a massive frame of dark, gorgeously carved wood, glitter the scintillant ice-bergs [sic], and gleams, freezing as it flows far out to arctic solitudes, the emerald and azure ocean of the North. Such a picture was never painted before in this or any other country. It is not a picture, it is a sublime fact. You forget the gallery, the ostentatious frame, to sail out unawares into one of God’s primeval solitudes." [2]
[1] The Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, "Among the Icebergs," Independent (New York), May 2, 1861, 1.
[2] M.C.A., "From New York: From Our Own Correspondent. New York, May 2," Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, May 4, 1861, page 1.
Adapted from
- Gerald Carr, Frederic Edwin Church: The Icebergs (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1980), 25.
- Eleanor Jones Harvey, The Voyage of the Icebergs: Frederic Edwin Church's Arctic Masterpiece (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 2002), 45, 61.
NOTES
Changed the status of this note from routed to completed- June 15, 2016.
Adding "draft" tag back to note, Dec 19, 2016, as part of the revised harvest/route procedure. This note will be pulled into GDrive and manually moved to Queta's folders for final review. Update- January 18, 2017- Adding #routed tag so that I can easily keep track of this note in Evernote to confirm that it is eventually pushed into GDrive. As of January 18, 2017 the content is in Brain but not in GDrive so I am unable to finish revisions and mark it complete in Evernote or move the GDoc to Queta's folder.
Confirmed note updated in GDrive. Tagged completed and moved GDoc to Queta folder. (1/24/2017)
Removed TMS tag for 1979.28 and need to decide how to use Piction assets to supplement the CCs for this painting.
For the sake of time, removed the following text from the "image assets" on this note:
The following images appear as illustrations in Eleanor Jones Harvey, The Voyage of the 'Icebergs': Frederic Edwin Church's Arctic Masterpiece (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 2002)
- Figure 4 (page 14)- Advertisement for the London debut of The Icebergs, London Court Journal, July 4, 1863, page 665. Photograph courtesy of Gerald L. Carr. (also reproduced in Carr (1980), fig. 49)
- Figure 9 (page 19)- Advertisement for the 1861 New York City debut of The Heart of the Andes and The Icebergs, New York Morning Express, April 29, 1861. Photograph courtesy of Gerald L. Carr. (also reproduced in Carr (1980), fig. 44)
ASSOCIATED CONTENT CHUNKS
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
Image with drapery used as illustration- 8781941. I am adding this as a UMO image asset but not as the primary illustration for this CC.
This same image is also in Piction as 248524215. I am using the second UMO to designate the CC illustration because I can find and edit the metadata in Piction.
WEB RESOURCES
- The Voyage of the Icebergs: Frederic Church's Arctic Masterpiece~Enjoy this 2002 DMA exhibition catalogue written by Eleanor Jones Harvey and available online through Issu.
- The Heart of the Andes (1859) exhibited in 1864~Check out this photo of another of Church's paintings and its theatrical display in April 1864. (From the collection of The New York Historical Society.)
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
Gerald Carr, Frederic Edwin Church: The Icebergs (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1980). http://files.dma.org/multimedia/document/161611253907523_original.pdf
12712641: UMO
FUN FACTS
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Apply to objects where number equals 1979.28
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General Description
By 1857 Frederic Edwin Church began working with commercial agents and galleries to display each of his large-scale paintings, which he called “Great Pictures,” as a solo event. Viewers paid an admission fee and received a printed broadside to enhance their sense of awe and appreciation of the artist's technical prowess.
By definition, every Great Picture was, to a greater or lesser extent, surrounded by orchestrated publicity and newspaper and periodical coverage. The Icebergs was conceived in the spotlight of media and public expectation. For nearly two years between the summer of 1859 and the spring of 1861, the American public knew a major Arctic painting was forthcoming from Church's easel and awaited its completion with eager anticipation. In every essential sense except one—the canvas was painted behind the closed doors of Church's New York studio—The Icebergs was a public work of art.
About Church’s theatrical presentation, one critic noted: “Entering the room we found the whole end of the apartment filled with a huge frame of dark wood— carved like a cabinet and draped with crimson. Through this carved wood-work, as through an open window, we looked at once, nearly two thousand miles away—to Labrador!” [1]
Another journalist described the gallery space as, "Its floor is covered with a carpet of deep emerald which has the soothing effect of turf under your feet. It is furnished with sofas and divans of a rich purple maroon, and the walls are hung with soft cloth of the same hue. At the end of the gallery, beneath sweeping drapery, within a massive frame of dark, gorgeously carved wood, glitter the scintillant ice-bergs [sic], and gleams, freezing as it flows far out to arctic solitudes, the emerald and azure ocean of the North. Such a picture was never painted before in this or any other country. It is not a picture, it is a sublime fact. You forget the gallery, the ostentatious frame, to sail out unawares into one of God’s primeval solitudes." [2]
[1] The Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, "Among the Icebergs," Independent (New York), May 2, 1861, 1.
[2] M.C.A., "From New York: From Our Own Correspondent. New York, May 2," Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, May 4, 1861, page 1.
Adapted from
- Gerald Carr, Frederic Edwin Church: The Icebergs (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1980), 25.
- Eleanor Jones Harvey, The Voyage of the Icebergs: Frederic Edwin Church's Arctic Masterpiece (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 2002), 45, 61.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Gerald Carr, Frederic Edwin Church: The Icebergs (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1980). http://files.dma.org/multimedia/document/161611253907523_original.pdf
12712641: UMO
Web Resources
- The Voyage of the Icebergs: Frederic Church's Arctic Masterpiece~Enjoy this 2002 DMA exhibition catalogue written by Eleanor Jones Harvey and available online through Issu.
- The Heart of the Andes (1859) exhibited in 1864~Check out this photo of another of Church's paintings and its theatrical display in April 1864. (From the collection of The New York Historical Society.)
Notes
Changed the status of this note from routed to completed- June 15, 2016.
Adding "draft" tag back to note, Dec 19, 2016, as part of the revised harvest/route procedure. This note will be pulled into GDrive and manually moved to Queta's folders for final review. Update- January 18, 2017- Adding #routed tag so that I can easily keep track of this note in Evernote to confirm that it is eventually pushed into GDrive. As of January 18, 2017 the content is in Brain but not in GDrive so I am unable to finish revisions and mark it complete in Evernote or move the GDoc to Queta's folder.
Confirmed note updated in GDrive. Tagged completed and moved GDoc to Queta folder. (1/24/2017)
Removed TMS tag for 1979.28 and need to decide how to use Piction assets to supplement the CCs for this painting.
For the sake of time, removed the following text from the "image assets" on this note:
The following images appear as illustrations in Eleanor Jones Harvey, The Voyage of the 'Icebergs': Frederic Edwin Church's Arctic Masterpiece (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 2002)
- Figure 4 (page 14)- Advertisement for the London debut of The Icebergs, London Court Journal, July 4, 1863, page 665. Photograph courtesy of Gerald L. Carr. (also reproduced in Carr (1980), fig. 49)
- Figure 9 (page 19)- Advertisement for the 1861 New York City debut of The Heart of the Andes and The Icebergs, New York Morning Express, April 29, 1861. Photograph courtesy of Gerald L. Carr. (also reproduced in Carr (1980), fig. 44)
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