Close observation

Frederic E. Church is increasingly recognized today as the leading painter of the Hudson River School -- the group of optimistic, realistic landscape painters who flourished during the mid-nineteenth century (1840-1875). He is a pivotal figure, and one who influenced his contemporaries greatly. Yet even Church is known almost solely from his finished oil paintings, which are large, detailed, and panoramic, with no hint of the artist's hand visible. This book brings, for the first time, scholarly attention and the eye of the connoisseur to Church's best oil sketches (112 are discussed and…