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Blue Hill, Maine

β€œthe charm of its situation, its sparkling bay..."

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  • Welcome to the town of Blue Hill!
  • Discover the Story of Blue Hill
  • The Musical Culture of Blue Hill
  • Jonathan Fisher: Unlocking the Person Beyond the Parson
  • John Edward Horton, Civil War Soldier
  • In Search of the Rustic Life
  • A Real Downeast County Fair
  • Educating Blue Hill
  • Long Island: The Forgotten Community
  • Looking for the Lost Cemetery
  • A New Look at an Old Painting
  • Shipbuilding: An Important Early Industry
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A New Look at an Old Painting

Morning View of Blue Hill Village
Morning View of Blue Hill Village
Jonathan Fisher Memorial, Inc.

by Tim Garrity

The Reverend Jonathan Fisher's "Morning in Blue Hill Village, Sept. 1824" is one of Maine's oldest landscape paintings. Fisher used the latest technology - the camera obscura - to create an image that is photographic in its accuracy. Today, we can examine the image using modern Global Information Systems (GIS) technology.

Blue Hill Landscape, circa 1910
Blue Hill Landscape, circa 1910
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By the turn of the century, there were many more houses in Blue Hill, but the landscape remained largely cleared of trees, providing magnificent sea views for the newly arrived rusticators.

Blue Hill Landscape, 2009
Blue Hill Landscape, 2009
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By 2009, a new generation of trees, along with many new houses, had completely altered our view of the landscape.

We can look at Rev. Fisher's painting in many different ways:

Literally – in its accurate rendering of buildings and landscape features, a view that encompasses busy harbor and prosperous village, surrounded by farms at harvest time.

Figuratively – in its depiction of an Edenic place made secure for the sunbonneted women on the left, as the male figure in the foreground drives a snake from the yard.

Historically – in its dynamic view of a coastal market town emerging from the frontier. Tree stumps are yet to be cleared from the field beyond the stone wall. A ship enters the harbor, while three other ships are under construction.

Click on the images to the right for a closer look.


Camera Obscura  
Camera Obscura

Jonathan Fisher used the latest technology to create an accurate view of the landscape. Click the image to see how he used a camera obscura as the basis for his painting.

Translating the Painting into a Map  
Translating the Painting into a Map

What if you could tilt the landscape painting back onto the ground, so we could see it as a map?

An Intimate Knowledge of His Subject  
An Intimate Knowledge of His Subject

Jonathan Fisher knew every step of ground and every person in the village with an intimacy we'd find extraordinary today.

A Painful Split in the Church  
A Painful Split in the Church

There is a story behind every building Fisher painted. In his painting of churches, a difficult divide in the community is revealed.





Blue Hill, Maine
In partnership with the Maine Memory Network    |    Project of Maine Historical Society