The Wreck of American Optimism
Frederic Edwin Church built his career selling pretty sunsets to rich men who wanted to feel good about manifest destiny. He usually gave them calm rivers and endless horizons. But in 1855 he woke up and decided to paint a nightmare. He called it The Wreck and it was not what his wealthy American buyers ordered.
They wanted epic dramatic landscapes that whispered about a benevolent Creator. Church gave them violent ocean terror. He painted a jagged coast where nature is an indifferent killer rather than a loving God. The water is heavy and lethal. A broken mast points helplessly toward an uncaring bruised sky. It looks like a tombstone for human ambition.
Critics hated it. They hated the bleakness. They demanded he go back to his standard radiant light. They wanted the comfort of knowing that the wild new world was tame and blessed. But Church painted the truth instead. Sometimes the ocean just swallows you whole and the sky does not weep for your passing.
This oil on canvas measures thirty by forty six inches of pure dread. Church forced his audience to stare into the abyss of their own insignificance. He knew the money was in the pretty pictures but he needed to prove he could paint the dark. The Wreck stands as a brutal reminder that nature always wins in the end.
References
Avery Kevin J. Church and the Sublime. Metropolitan Museum of Art 2005.
Kelly Franklin. Frederic Edwin Church and the American Landscape. New York University Press 1988.