Frederic Church’s The Natural Bridge, Virginia: American History and Anxiety by Christopher Oliver

April 28, 2021

In 1851 Frederic Church travelled through Virginia in the company of his patron Cyrus Field with the goal of reaching and painting that state’s most famous landscape, the Natural Bridge. Formerly the property of Thomas Jefferson, the Natural Bridge was frequently rendered by the pencil and brush of nineteenth century artists, very few of whom could escape the outsized legacy of the former President in crafting a popular conception of the Natural Bridge. Christopher Oliver will consider Church’s painting of the following year, The Natural Bridge, Virginia, and its preparatory sketches, which are in the collection of Olana, in relation to the Natural Bridge’s contemporary associations with American history, western expansion, and slavery.