The story of the early career of Frederic Church, one of the nineteenth century’s most gifted painters of landscape, necessarily begins not in his hometown of Hartford, Connecticut, but rather in the Hudson River town of Catskill, New York, at the home and studio of Thomas Cole (1801–1848), Church’s teacher. In 1844, when the young artist entered the master’s studio as his first apprentice, Cole was at the height of his fame as the country’s premier painter of American scenery. He was popularly known as the father of landscape painting in America, his notoriety coming from his sudden and unprecedented success in that genre and from his achievement in establishing landscape painting as an American artist’s highest calling. In a period when his countrymen had largely aspired to follow the noble tradition of painting grand allegorical and historical subjects—in the manner of Europe’s Old Masters—Cole appeared in New York in 1825 as a painter of American scenic views, and thereafter his reputation soared. 

The scroll just came back from Japan after extensive restorative work. Although the handscroll itself does not bear any title, it is generally known as the Deer Scroll because the entire scroll is filled with images of deer, which are shown either singly, in couples, or in large herds. The animals are painted only in gold and/or silver ink, as is the very simple setting of sky, mist, and ground. As you may have noticed, these beautiful pictures of deer are really a background for the equally exquisite writings of waka poems in black ink. Here we have a symphony of three arts - poetry, painting, and calligraphy - as a testimonial to the ancient credo of Asia that these three arts occupy an equally important place in life and culture.