TitleSilence
Artist
Frederick Stuart Church
(American, 1842 - 1924)
Date1884
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 11 1/2 × 18 in.
Framed: 16 7/8 × 23 1/4 × 2 in.
SignedSigned upper right: "SILENCE / F. S. Church. / N.Y. / F. S. Church"
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, December 21, 1885
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number234-P
Label TextThis oil version of Church's celebrated etching of the same title was painted several years after the execution of the print. (He also produced a related watercolor, which he exhibited in 1880.) Although the painting was little known during the artist's lifetime, the etching was perhaps his most famous, receiving appreciation on both sides of the Atlantic. In France the image was called "extremely strange but very personal" (Leroi). In the United States, Barnet Phillips wrote at length of its "witchery" (959). Everywhere critics wondered about the underlying meaning of this and similar works. More recently, there has been speculation as to the connection of Silence to Church's interest in reincarnation (Banks, 34) and the works and theories of Edgar Allan Poe and Odilon Redon (O'Brian and Mandel, 21-22).The spare directness of "Silence" can be credited to William Merritt Chase, who convinced Church to stop work and leave the original image in its austere state (Roof, 68). The carefully modeled shrunken mummy head, translucent despite its ebony darkness, belonged to Church and was displayed in his studio (Phillips, 959). The
close-up juxtaposition of this object and the succulent petals of the yellow rose forces the viewer to confront the dichotomy of withered, timeless death and fresh, evanescent life. The head, appearing to sniff or kiss the flower, might be seen to draw life from the rose, allowing it a brief period of reanimation.
Apparently after he had considered the painting finished, Church applied a semiopague white glazing over it, excepting the areas of the head and the rose. In adding this effect of veiling he obscured his original signature at upper right (which is now visible) and re-signed the work. What appears to be another inscription, perhaps a date, is discernable but illegible at the lower left.
