The essay
Content and meaning
Consider the viewer’s position above the brook and the way the flowing water carries the eye into the scene.
Although 'the thickets and fallen trees are only minor obstacles to passage' in Durand's In the Woods 1855 there are none in Rocky Forest Pool 1857.
No figure is present, leaving the viewer hovering above the brook to give Witness to a New World Vision of a New Promised Land - the Light on the Water showing the Way.
Church has you - flying a few feet above the water like a celestial being - a magical effect he was to recreate in Heart of the Andes 1859 and Cotopaxi 1862.
He leads you into the scene with the very sound of running water over rocks splashing and babbling. In Rocky Forest Pool 1857 'you see the visible, hear the musical and are stirred by the beautiful.' From, Life in the Open Air by Theodore Winthrop.
'Certain passages are virtual descriptions of paintings, as in this case'.
Winthrop carefully observed Church at work sketching, and painting during the trip and subsequently watched him paint finished Studio pictures in New York.[1]
Additional context from the original page
A New World Vision of a new Promised Land. In Rocky Forest Pool, 'You see the visible, hear the musical and are stirred by the beautiful' Life in the Open Air, Theodore Winthrop.
Notes and sources
Note 1
'And while we flashed along the gleam of the river, Iglesias (Church) fancied that he might see the visible, and hear the musical, and be stirred by the beautiful.' See,Footnote1:Introduction or last paragraph in: Condition.
'There perhaps in the strong wilderness, we might be recreated to a more sensitive vitality.' Theodore Winthrop, p.50: Life in the Open Air.
Read also Dr. F. Kelly p.p.88.89: Frederic Edwin Church and the National Landscape.
From the original Rocky Forest Pool study, © Oliver Thiebaud, 1985, 1995, 2002. Wording retained for review; interpretations and citations have not been independently verified.