Landscape Painting

The Iceberg, c. 1875
Object-Frederic Edwin Church, The Iceberg
Throughout his long career, Frederic Edwin Church traveled to—and painted scenes of—a range of exotic locales, from equatorial South America to the Arctic. This work shows a schooner gliding by a shadowy iceberg; the setting sun illuminates the upper reaches of the frozen structure. The ship’s translucent sails suggest its apparent fragility in contrast to the solid, towering mass rising from the dark sea. The iceberg’s jagged contours reflect the violence of its formation, while the steep incline of its terrace lines—the result of gradual tipping as it melts underwater—signals its inevitable demise. Church painted The Iceberg from memory, nearly two decades after his initial Arctic voyage, assisted by his oil sketches of the region. The resulting work thus consolidates firsthand observation and distant recall into an evocative meditation on human frailty and the relentless passage of time.
Learn more about this painting on the Terra Foundation website.
The Iceberg, c. 1875
Landscape Painting

Landscape with Figures: A Scene from "The Last of the Mohicans", 1826

The Promised Land - The Grayson Family, 1850

Almy Pond, Newport, c. 1857

Our Banner in the Sky, 1861

Rocks at Nahant, 1864

Autumn Afternoon, the Wissahickon, 1864

Brace's Rock, Brace's Cove, 1864

Hunter Mountain, Twilight, 1866

Morning in the Hudson, Haverstraw Bay, 1866

Paradise Valley, 1866–68

Newburyport Marshes: Approaching Storm, c. 1871

The Sidewheeler "The City of St. Paul" on the Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa, 1872

On the Hudson near Haverstraw, 1872

The Iceberg, c. 1875

Indian Encampment, c. 1870–76