America / 1860
Twilight in the Wilderness
The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Twilight in the Wilderness as painting (America · 1860).
An image of this painting has a cameo in the Harrison Ford film Clear and Present Danger .
A CLOSER LOOK
The museum identifies this painting as oil on canvas and credits Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900).
The museum's collection notes: In his New York studio, Church painted this spectacular view of a blazing sunset over wilderness near Mount Katahdin in Maine, which he had sketched during a visit nearly two years earlier. Although Church often extolled the grandeur of American landscape in his work, this painting appears to have additional overtones. Created on the eve of the Civil War, the painting's subject can be interpreted as symbolically evoking the coming conflagration. Church's considerable technical skills and clever showmanship contributed to his fame as the premier artist of his generation. Rather than debut this painting in an annual exhibition with works by oth
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The Cleveland Museum of ArtTwilight in the WildernessOriginal explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.