Morning, Looking East Over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountains

Frederic Edwin Church

(1826-1900)
Oil on canvas, 1848
AIHA Collection: Gift of Catherine Gansevoort Lansing

This painting shows a view from an elevated rocky spot somewhere in the Catskills, probably near the Catskill Mountain House, where Church had sketched with his teacher Thomas Cole as early as 1844. Confidently painted, with carefully described details of rocks and vegetation and freely handled clouds, Morning was a remarkable achievement for so young a painter.

In 1844, Church was the first formal pupil accepted by Thomas Cole, America's leading landscape painter. From Cole, Church learned both a reverence for nature as a subject and a commitment to making his art express noble and lofty ideas. Church made his professional debut at the National Academy of Design in 1845. By 1848, when Morning and three other of his works were exhibited at the American Art-Union, he had already gained a significant reputation.