Review: Olana and Grant Cottage — New York State’s Excellent Historic Sites Division

Last week, I wrote about Olana, Frederic Church’s High Victorian home near Hudson in Upstate New York. I focused on its unique interior, inspired by Church’s travel to the Near East and Greece in the 1860s and very much an eclectic, eccentric home. Church (1826-1900) was the renowned painter of New England and Upstate panoramas and sweeping South American views, but he was a visionary landscape architect, too, and designed Olana mostly on his own.

Specialized education has its purpose and strengths, but Church was self-taught and, as a landscape painter, felt confident in his skills and taste as he tackled his 250 acres. Church very possible coined the term “landscape architect” in 1887 as he described his work on the property he’d purchased 25 years earlier when it was a rambling, modest farm and largely deforested wood lots.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Last week, I wrote about Olana, Frederic Church’s High Victorian home near Hudson in Upstate New York. I focused on its unique interior, inspired by Church’s travel to the Near East and Greece in the 1860s and very much an eclectic, eccentric home. Church (1826-1900) was the renowned painter of New England and Upstate panoramas and sweeping South American views, but he was a visionary landscape architect, too, and designed Olana mostly on his own.

Specialized education has its purpose and strengths, but Church was self-taught and, as a landscape painter, felt confident in his skills and taste as he tackled his 250 acres. Church very possible coined the term “landscape architect” in 1887 as he described his work on the property he’d purchased 25 years earlier when it was a rambling, modest farm and largely deforested wood lots.