Louis Legrand Noble's _After Icebergs with a Painter_ (1861)

The Reverend Louis Legrand Noble accompanied Frederic Edwin Church on his 1859 trip to Labrador to sketch icebergs. Noble's function on the journey was basically two-fold: to add companionship of a "kindred spirit" nature-lover, and to record the events for book publication. Announced in late 1860, After Icebergs with a Painter: A Summer Voyage to Labrador and Around Newfoundland was printed in New York by D. Appleton & Co. in early 1861. The more than three-hundred-page volume was illustrated with six tinted pictures based on Church's sketches. The fact that an entire book was devoted to a Church excursion should be carefully noted: the volume was a contribution, albeit a modest one, to polar literature, publicity for the painting-to-come, and a valuable memoir of an undoubted art masterpiece. The book's appearance in 1861, just as the picture was nearing completion, was more than a coincidence.

“A large one [iceberg] and a smaller: the latter pitched upon the dark and misty desert of the sea like an Arab's tent; and the larger like a domed mosque in marble of a greenish white. The vaporous atmosphere veiled its sharp outlines, and gave it a softened, dreamy and mysterious character. Distant and dim, it was yet very grand and impressive. Enthroned on the deep in lonely majesty, the dread of mariners, and the wonder of the traveller [sic], it was one of those imperial creations of nature that awaken powerful emotions, and illumine the imagination. Wonderful structure! Fashioned by those fingers that wrought the glittering fabrics of the upper deep, and launched upon those adamantine ways into Arctic seas, how beautiful, how strong and terrible! A glacier slipped into the ocean, and henceforth a wandering cape, a restless headland, a revolving island, to compromise the security of the world's broad highway.” (After Icebergs, p. 28)

"I could bound like a deer, and shout like the wild Indian, for very joy... And how lovely the prospect as we go! That this is all God's own world, which he holdeth in the hollow of his hand, is manifest from the impartial bestowal of beauty. No apple, peach or rose is more within one network of sweet, living grace, than the round world. How wonderful and precious a thing must this beauty be, that it is thus all-pervading, and universal! Here on these bleak and barren shores, so rocky, rough and savage, is a rich and delicate splendor that amazes... in passing around a single one, we see as good as ten, so protean is its character... [The largest] resembled, at one moment, a cluster of Chinese buildings, then a Gothic cathedral, early style... [Another group] of block-like bergs which, when thrown together by our perpetual change in position resembled the ruins of a marble city." (After Icebergs, p. 83-85)

“In the seams and fissures the shadows are the softest blue of the skies, and as plain and palpable as smoke. It melts at every pore, and streams as if a perpetually overflowing fountain were upon the summit, and flashes and scintillates like one vast brilliant. Prongs and reefs of ice jutting from the body of the berg below, and over which we pass, give the water that emerald clearness so lovely to the eye, and open to view something like the fanciful sea-green caves … Its water-line, under which the waves disappear in a lengthy, piazza-like cavern, with explosive sounds, is certainly a remarkable feature." (After Icebergs, p. 108)

“If one is curious about the troubles of painting on a little coaster, lightly ballasted, dashing forward frequently under a press of sail, with a short sea, I would recommend him to a good stout swing. While in the enjoyment of his smooth and sickening vibrations, let him spread his pallet [sic], arrange his canvas, and paint a pair of colts at their gambols in some adjacent field.”  (After Icebergs, p. 127)

Carr (1980), Fig. 19- Frontispiece of Louis Legrand Noble, After Icebergs with a Painter, New York, 1861. Tinted Lithograph. (photo: author).

The North. Painted by F.E. Church, from studies of Icebergs made in the Northern Seas, in the Summer of 1859 [The broadside that accompanied the painting's early exhibitions.]

Used the cover of this pamphlet found in Piction as the illustration for this CC:

16633236: Image

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

Imagine that you are Frederic Edwin Church's friend Louis Legrand Noble and that you are standing on the prow of your ship looking at the scene in The Icebergs. Describe what you see for your journal. (In front of us there is a mountainous iceberg, or floating mass of ice. There is another close to our left and more to the right.) What colors do you see? (There are pinks, greens, blues, grays, and yellows.) What is the most unusual color area? (Perhaps the blue stripe on the closest iceberg, the emerald green of the water under the arch, or the pinks of the sky.) The blue stripe is a translucent section of ice that formed when water filled a crack in the iceberg.

Apply to objects where number equals 1979.28