Thomas Moran
(American, 1837-1926)
Mid-Atlantic Seascape, 1914
oil on canvas
signed TMoran and dated (lower left)
23 x 40 1/4 inches.
This lot is located in Chicago.
Collection of Charles and Margôt Nesbitt

This painting will be included in Stephen L. Good, Phyllis Braff, and Melissa Webster Speidel's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work. It is also listed in an undated, handwritten ledger page from the artist, held in the archives of the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Provenance:
Myron Buttram
Charles R. Nesbitt, gift from the above, c. 1970s
Thence by descent to the present owners

Lot note:
In 1757, British philosopher Edmund Burke put forth an influential theory of the sublime, famously defined as “a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquility tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions.” Distinct from the straightforward pleasure typically derived from the merely beautiful, the theory posited that the experience of the sublime should trigger a feeling of danger. This, in turn, would stir emotions akin to awe and reverence, precisely because the perceived threat never materializes and the person witnessing a sublime phenomenon, far removed, is preserved from harm or death.

The notion of the sublime greatly informed the Romantic aesthetic of the 19th century. Chief among the Romantics, J. M. W. Turner established a powerful visual conduit for the feeling of quiet dread induced by sublime events through his vivid depictions of the force of nature. He excelled at representing awe-inspiring, blustery atmospheric conditions that convey not only the inclement winds and rains lashing the landscape, but also imbue the scene with expressive light and color that pierces through the stormy skies and invokes a
transcendental power aimed to humble the viewer.

In the lineage of Turner, whose work he examined firsthand and copied assiduously during a visit to London in 1862, Thomas Moran also widely contributed to the pictorial language of the sublime. Mid-Atlantic Seascape offers an immersive experience, casting the vastness of the tempestuous ocean as both within reach – its turbulence is nearly palpable – and beyond comprehension all at once. The towering waves, roaring and crashing throughout the expanse of the canvas beneath a menacingly leaden sky, envelop the beholder, save for the distant, peering light on the horizon. The whole composition poetically emphasizes human finitude against nature’s immensity. The painting offers a sublime experience as it compels imagination, presenting a nebulous reality which the sole faculty of reason cannot fully contend with. A late work in Moran’s oeuvre, Mid-Atlantic Seascape encapsulates the natural grandeur that the artist strove to convey throughout his career.