Discover Voorheesville and New ScotlandĬontemporary reports paint a picture that includes long lines of people waiting outside the Tenth Street Studio Building in Greenwich Village, all with the intent to attend the exhibition of a single painting from Frederic Church.Ĭhurch took a cue from the theatre.Discover Coeymans Selkirk and Feura Bush.The book includes large reproductions of nearly fifty of Church’s paintings and sketches, several of them tellingly juxtaposed with photographs reflecting similar ideas realized in the house and grounds-for example Church’s crepuscular landscape Autumn is immediately followed by Lederman’s impressionistic photo of the Olana lake and trees at sunset. I am obliged to imagine Persian architecture-then embody it on paper.” Therefore inside and out, Olana’s exoticism is as ebullient a blend of scholarship and pure fancy as a Victorian stage set for The Magic Flute. Writing in 1871 to his friend John Ferguson Weir, Church confessed that “having undertaken to get my architecture from Persia, where I have never been. His beautifully composed studies of the rooms and their preserved furnishings often focus on details that visitors rarely take the time to examine while touring the house-from arrangements of Church’s varied collections of intricately carved furniture, Oriental rugs, brasses and pottery, to the carved and mosaic fireplace surrounds, and the stenciled ornament on interior doors, archways, and spandrels of the celebrated Court Hall. Lederman captures Olana’s interiors with equal finesse. ![]() The Churches’ collection of objects from the Middle East and Mexico, as well as their old master paintings, are on display throughout the house, as seen here in the studio. A view looking southwest towards the Catskill Mountains provides an exhilarating sense of how this fantastical villa, and its rolling wooded grounds, sits like a gemstone in the Hudson valley landscape. Lederman’s beautiful exterior shots of the house emphasize the endless felicities of its details: the mansard-roofed bell tower (which Church made “Persian” with pointed arches and intricate arabesque designs in polychrome slate) the varied patterns, colors and textures of stone and brick masonry the jutting window bays and delicate balconies, the pinnacles, turrets, and rooftop pavilions. Lederman captures not only the singular natural beauty that was a constant source of inspiration to Church, but also the harmonious relationships Church achieved between the countryside and the architecture and landscape he designed to complement it, a process that continued long after he and his family moved into the house in 1872. Olana is seen in all seasons and weather and from every vantage point, including aerial and panoramic views. Photographer Larry Lederman spent twelve years capturing the matchless iconography of Church’s late Victorian pleasure dome, and thanks to the book’s large format, Lederman’s masterly achievement weaves together the house, its contents, the grounds, and Church’s art with captivating vivacity and detail. But surely this latest publication is the most beautiful. All photographs are by Larry Lederman, courtesy of Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, New York, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.īooks and guides about Olana have been published ever since an energetic campaign to save it from destruction concluded triumphantly in 1966. And it detracts nothing from his legacy as a painter to suggest that this bucolic estate constitutes one of his greatest works.įrederic Church’s designed view from across the man-made lake to the house. Olana-its architecture was influenced by Church’s journey to the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean in 1867 to 1869 (though, ironically, he didn’t actually visit Persia)-was certainly the primary beneficiary of his artistic vision during the second half of his life. Indeed, thanks to the sensitive restoration of the grounds conducted over the past decade and still ongoing, it now ranks as the most completely intact artist-designed environment in the nation. Located just south of Hudson, New York, Olana is renowned today as one of the region’s finest and most popular landmarks. ![]() ![]() He added: “I own it.” Church, preeminent among the Hudson River school painters, was referring to Olana, his magnificent “Persian” style mansion and the surrounding 250 mountaintop acres of landscape he subtly designed. “Almost an hour this side of Albany is the Center of the World,” wrote Frederic Edwin Church (1826– 1900) to his friend sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer. Rosenbaum and Karen Zukowski photography by Larry Lederman. Frederic Church’s Olana on the Hudson: Art, Landscape, Architecture, edited by Julia B.
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