Aurora Borealis

I don't remember as much as I would like to from my high school art history class, but I do remember enjoying the few paintings we looked at from the Hudson River School. Looking back on that class six years ago, there was one piece that stood out, and I just found it again: "Aurora Borealis" by Frederic Edwin Church.

Looking at some Hudson River School works today that were focused on the Adirondacks, I was not struck by the paintings as I remember from high school. Maybe that is a reflection of personal change, maybe it is a consequence of the pieces we looked at, or maybe it is because everything now seems a little nicer than it actually was.

I am struck in this painting of the Northern Lights of the small, insignificant ship that looks to be frozen in the ice. We talked a bit today about the aesthetic of humility, and how we are sometimes drawn to paintings where the person or people seem very small and unimportant in relation to the natural world around them. That is the same kind of feeling that we get when staring at the stars, or when watching a spectacular sunset like the one tonight over the High Peaks, and paintings like this one are simply reminding me of an emotion that comes along with a rare and special view.