viewers relating its purity of nature with spirituality. Critics described it as a "scene unhistoric, with no other interest than that of a wilderness, without human association of any kind" and "Nature with folded hands, kneeling at her evening prayer". Others saw "merely" nature, such as the Cosmopolitan Art Journal, which called it "unworthy of the artist, being a mere piece of scene painting, which it was a vanity to exhibit". Huntington emphasized the connection between pristine wilderness and the cultural sense of American exceptionalism. He highlighted the painting tradition that Church incorporated, and reinvented, for a uniquely American art: For receptive viewers, the painting contains discrete religious symbols: the tree stump is a "wilderness altar" on which there is a small cross formed of wood splinters, and the outline of an angel is apparent; the three trees that frame the scene at right symbolize the three crosses at Calvary. Huntington suggests that a small cloud fragment (or alternately a small gap in the clouds), located by following the line of the tree stump, evokes the "Dove of the Holy Spirit". The American wilderness and turbulent sky pictured here, as night descends, have been interpreted apocalyptically, as a metaphor for a country falling into discord on the brink of the Civil War. In this context, the painting is considered patriotic. Sanford Robinson Gifford's A Twilight in the Catskills (1860) has been interpreted similarly. Provenance Twilight in the Wilderness was commissioned for William T. Walters. It was acquired by John Taylor Johnston in 1866, and then sold to John Work Garrett in 1876. It was inherited by his daughter Mary Garrett, and sold to family friend (and John Taylor Johnston's son-in-law) Robert de Forest. His brother Lockwood de Forest inherited it in 1931, and the painting descended through the family until sold by Lockwood's grandson in the 1960s. It was bought by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1965. References Notes Sources Paintings by Frederic Edwin Church 1860 paintings Paintings in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art Water in art