Moonrise in Greece
Frederic Edwin CHURCH
(American, 1826-1900)
Moonrise in Greece
Date1889
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 14 1/8 x 20 1/4 in. (35.9 x 51.4 cm)
frame: 21 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 3 3/4 in. (54.3 x 69.9 x 9.5 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gift of Mrs. Lockwood de Forest
Object number1966.1
Subject(s)
- Moon
- architecture
Collection
- 19th century American
Sub-Collection(s)
- Hudson River School
- Luminism
On View
On viewCollections
Label TextChurch studied with Thomas Cole between 1844 and 1846 and adopted his teacher’s method of synthesizing natural elements in meticulously painted landscapes. Inspired by the writings of naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, Church traveled throughout South America and along the coast of northeastern Canada in the 1850s, making sketches for the monumental paintings that cemented his reputation as the greatest landscape painter of his generation. In 1867, Church embarked on a tour of the Holy Land, and sailed to Athens in 1869 to sketch the Parthenon. This 1889 scene of an undetermined locale derives from sketches or photographs Church made on site on this earlier trip. Painted in Mexico, where the artist convalesced in the late 1880s, the painting’s elegant composition and elegiac mood are characteristic of Church’s late works, which often reused earlier material.