Introduction

'Church chose the titles of his major paintings carefully' writes Dr Franklin Kelly p. 120, chapter 6: Frederic Edwin Church and the National Landscape and he quotes The New York Daily Tribune of 9th June 1860 p.5 (appendix no.7): "Mr. Church evinces almost as much invention in bestowing names upon his pictures as he does in painting them."

The title Rocky Forest Pool '57 has come - pre 1973 - from its previous owner. From the inscriptions and prints glued to the old stretcher and with other written evidence its other titles could perhaps be:
1) Paradise Regained.
2) Eden, rais'd in the waste wilderness, from the first page of Book I of Milton's Paradise Regained, which is glued to the stretcher.
3) The Gift of God, which is the meaning of the translation from the (misspelt) Greek, which should be - - Theodore in English. This is inscribed in graphite on the old stretcher and might also be a playful reference to Theodore Winthrop who in turn called Church, "Iglesias"- meaning church in Spanish, as there is also a graphite doodle of a church underneath the Greek, Theodoros.
4) Must I thus Leave Thee Paradise? from Milton's Paradise Lost, XI line 269, which is also glued to the stretcher. The inscription is a misquotation because of the omitted, 'thus.' Church used Milton's Paradise Lost (the beginning of Book IX) as the title for Twilight, "short arbiter 'twixt day and night 1850" once known as Twilight.

The titles of his paintings have often changed in the light of more scholarly research, e.g., Scene in the Catskills, was then known and sold as Home by the Lake 1852 and now should be called Home of the Pioneer, thanks to research by Dr. F. Kelly & Dr. Gerald Carr. More research is needed into the title.

Born in Hartford, Connecticut on the 4th May 1826. Died in New York on the 7th April 1900.
In the History of Art, Church is recognised again as one of the World's greatest Landscape Painters, alongside J.M.W. Turner.*

By the mid 1850's when he was fully mature as an artist he truly deserved his accolade as 'the Michaelangelo of Landscape Painting' and 'the Heir apparent to the great J.M.W. Turner.'

Photography, (Darwin?) and Impressionism have all contributed to the change in Art appreciation or fashion. North Americans' restless curiosity about the future along with, their ambition, energy and mobility have all conspired against looking backwards.

As America goes into the 21st Century, with the confidence of a Great, Free, Liberal and Democratic Nation, it is natural - in maturity - to reflect on the past and in this case, on the homebred Genius of their First Great Painter and on the Christian 'Lessons' that he imparted through his Art.
Frederic Edwin Church was, is, and will remain, the Eternal Genius.

* This is largely due to the fabulous Exhibitions of his work in the last 20 years which have come about largely thanks to the scholarship and enterprise of, David Huntingdon, Franklin Kelly and Gerald Carr. In 2002, Andrew Wilton and Tim Barringer gave us American Sublime at The Tate Gallery (Tate Britain).