Frederic Church Week: Wednesday

Frederic Church was quite the jetsetter. Over the course of his life, he travelled across the North American states, he toured Europe and the Middle East, he visited numerous South American countries, and even took part in an Arctic expedition. In 1865, he travelled with his wife Isabel to Jamaica following the death of their two young children within a week of each other to diphtheria.

They were on the island for several months as they tried to process their grief. Isabel collected Jamaican ferns. Frederic sketched the land and skies. These two oil sketches show storm clouds. In one, The Red Hills Near Kingston, Jamaica, Church depicted the dark underbelly of a Cumulonimbus storm cloud releasing showers off to the left and streaks of falling moisture known as virga in the middle. The other, Thunder Clouds, Jamaica, shows a distant Cumulonimbus calvus looming over the dense jungle. The broad strip across the foreground is the accessory cloud known as velum. It is caused by the turbulent, upwelling air currents within a Cumulonimbus like this and is often found clinging to the flanks of storms.