Maine Sublime: Frederic Church’s "Twilight in the Wilderness"

Famed landscape painter Frederic Church (1826-1900) had a long-standing love affair with the natural beauty of Maine, which he described as “magnificent both land and seaward.” Over the course of three decades, he visited often, creating intimately scaled sketches in a variety of media that served to inspire his major works, including Twilight in the Wilderness (1860), one of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s most esteemed masterpieces. This exhibition showcases the painting alongside a group of nearly 25 sketches recording Maine’s rugged interior, rocky coast, and windswept islands. Some on public view for the first time, these sketches in pencil, gouache, and oil are lent from the collection at Olana, the artist’s home and 250-acre designed landscape.