Floating Icebergs with Coastal View, Canada

Frederic Edwin Church's sketches document icebergs observed during his 1859 expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. The composition studies—rendered in ink and graphite on paper—capture multiple perspectives of glacial forms: distant views showing icebergs in relation to rocky coastlines, and a closer examination of a weathered berg's mass and structure. Church's methodical approach to landscape composition reflects the nineteenth-century artist's practice of gathering field studies to inform larger exhibition paintings. These working drawings reveal his interest in geological detail and atmospheric conditions, translating natural phenomena into the dramatic visual vocabulary of American Romanticism.