Aurora Borealis
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Eleanor Blodgett
Accession Number
1911.4.1
Tags
About this artwork
Under a dark Arctic sky, polar explorer Isaac Israel Hayes's ship, the SS United States, lies frozen in the pack ice at the base of a looming cliff. The auroras above erupt in a cascade of eerie lights, while the dogsled implies the hope of rescue from this icy prison. Hayes and Frederic Church were friends, and upon Hayes's return from the Arctic in 1861, he gave Church his sketches as inspiration for this painting. When Hayes returned to New York, the country was in the thick of civil war and,...
About the Artist
Frederic Edwin Church · 1826–1900
Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), born in Hartford, Connecticut, to a prosperous silversmith and banker father, Joseph Church, pursued art from youth thanks to his family's wealth. At age 18, introduced by patron Daniel Wadsworth, he studied under Thomas Cole in Catskill, New York, from 1844 to 1846, sketching across New England and earning Cole's praise for possessing "the finest eye for drawing...