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Cotopaxi (76.89)
1862
(Frederic Edwin Church)
Director's Comments Cotapaxi was painted after Church’s second visit to Ecuador in 1857 and embodies all that is essential about his work. His readings of John Ruskin and Alexander von Humboldt caused him to travel widely and the Andes, in particular, where he followed Humboldt’s footsteps, proved particularly fruitful. Drawing on copious sketches and notes made while traveling, Church forged a large picture style that distilled epic narrative to its essence. He presented an astonishing array of natural effects, rendered with precision and flair on a scale hitherto confined to European History painting best known from the French salons of the 18th and 19th-centuries. In Cotapaxi, the viewer is suspended over an abyss, confronted by smoke and mists, a burning sun and dramatic effects of light. Church often selected and assembled spectacular effects that verged on the improbable, but his deeply held conviction that God was made manifest in Nature precluded the possibility of exaggeration or distortion.
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