Saint-Pierre and Petty Harbour, Canada

Frederic Edwin Church's field sketch captures the rugged coastline of Newfoundland with economical pen strokes. The composition studies atmospheric effects and rocky terrain—concerns central to Church's mature landscape practice. Working from nature, Church rendered quick notational studies that informed his monumental studio paintings. This sheet demonstrates the artist's method of direct observation, recording geological formations and weather conditions that would translate into the luminous, detailed canvases that established Church as a leading figure in mid-nineteenth-century American landscape painting.