Aurora Borealis

Aurora Borealis

1865 Frederic Edwin Church Born: Hartford, Connecticut 1826 Died: New York, New York 1900 oil on canvas 56 x 83 1/2 in. (142.3 x 212.2 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Eleanor Blodgett 1911.4.1 Smithsonian American Art Museum
2nd Floor, East Wing

The ship and sled team in this image belonged to Frederic Church's friend, polar explorer Dr. Isaac Hayes. Hayes had led an Arctic expedition in 1860, and gave his sketches from the trip to the artist as inspiration for this painting. Hayes returned from his voyage to find the country in the thick of the Civil War, and in a rousing speech vowed that "God willing, I trust yet to carry the flag of the great Republic, with not a single star erased from its glorious Union, to the extreme northern limits of the earth." Viewers understood Church's painting of the Aurora Borealis (also known as the northern lights) as a portent of disaster, a divine omen relating to the conflict.