Cotopaxi
in
American, Level 2, West Wing
About the Artwork
Cotopaxi is one of the highest volcanos in the Andes Mountains of South America. Like many of his contemporaries, Frederic Church was fascinated by volcanos both because of their power and because they were a prime subject of contemporary scientific research, which was in the process of proving that the Earth was much older than previously believed — so ancient that Charles Darwin could conceive and publish his revolutionary ideas On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859).
Church traveled to Cotopaxi twice, in 1853 and 1857, but in this painting he combined natural details from different places, some probably invented, to illustrate what he understood to be the primary geological forces shaping the Earth. The volcanic peak spews forth a dark plume of gas and ash. This ash, after it falls into the lake or flows into an even larger body of water, will settle to the bottom, where, given enough time and pressure, the slow process of cementation will turn it into sedimentary rock. When sedimentary rock is pushed back to the surface of the earth — like the steep cliffs filling the right foreground of painting — it will be eroded by the force of flowing water, such as the waterfall in the left center or the glaciers coating the sides of the volcano.
Cotopaxi
1862
Frederic Edwin Church
1826-1900
American
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 48 × 85 in. (121.9 × 215.9 cm) Framed: 66 5/8 in. × 103 in. × 6 1/4 in. (169.2 × 261.6 × 15.9 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, Gibbs-Williams Fund, Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Fund, Merrill Fund, Beatrice W. Rogers Fund, and Richard A. Manoogian Fund
76.89
Public Domain
Markings
Signed and dated, lower right: F.E. CHURCH | 1862
Provenance
1862-1880, commissioned by James Lenox (New York, New York, USA);1880-1945, Lenox Library (later New York Public Library) (New York, New York, USA);
1945, dealer, M. Knoedler and Co. (New York, New York, USA);
1945-1976, John Astor (Miami, Florida, USA);
1976, dealer, Hirschl & Adler Galleries (New York, New York, USA);
1976-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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New York Evening Post, March 14, 1863.
New York Herald, March 16, 1863, p. 4.
Journal of Commerce, March 17, 1863, p. 2.
New York Times, March 17, 1863.
New York World, March 18, 1863.
Commercial Advertiser, March 21, 1863.
The Albion, March 21, 1863.
New York Leader, March 21, 1863, p. 1.
New York Daily Tribune, March 24, 1863.
New York Express, March 31, 1863.
Harper's Weekly, April 4, 1863, p. 210.
London Observer, June 18, 1865, p. 6.
London Weekly Times, June 18, 1865, p. 5.
London Daily News, June 19, 1865, p. 7.
London Review, 1865, p. 662.
London Morning Star, June 26, 1865, p. 5.
London Evening Star, June 26, 1865, p. 4.
London Daily Telegraph, June 28, 1865, p. 3.
Taylor, Tom. London Times, June 28, 1865, p. 6.
Bell's Weekly Messenger, London, July 1, 1865, p. 3.
"Minor Topics of the Month." Art Journal, no. 4 (July 1, 1865): p. 227.
"Art. Church's New Pictures of Chimborazo and Cotopaxi." Reader 6 (July 2, 1865): pp. 18-19.
Illustrated London News, July 8, 1865, p. 18.
London Sunday Times, July 9, 1865, p. 2.
Court Journal, London, July 15, 1865, p. 712.
London Morning Post, July 21, 1865, p. 6.
London Standard, August 1, 1865, p. 3.
Palgrave, F.T. "English Pictures in 1865." Fortnightly Review 1 (August 1, 1865): p. 666.
"Minor Topics of the Month: By F.E. Church." Art Journal, no. 4 (August 1, 1865): pp. 257-258.
Bayley, W. P. "Mr. Church's Pictures. Cotopaxi, chimborazo, and the Aurora borealis. Consider also with Reference to English Art." Art Journal (September 1865): p. 265.
"Editorial Comment." Art Interchange 45 (July 1900): p. 12.
Walton, William. "The Field of Art: The Galleries of Paintings of the New York Public Library." Scribner's 50 (November 1911): p. 638.
Romantic Painting in America. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1943, p. 132 (ill.), no. 49.
Richardson, E.P. American Romantic Painting. New York, 1944, p. 29.
A Loan Exhibition of American Paintings. Exh. cat., Brooks Memorial Art Gallery. Memphis, 1945, no. 23.
American Artists Discover America. Exh. cat., Allen Memorial Art Gallery. Oberlin, Ohio, 1946, no. 10.
Huntington, David C. "Frederic Edwin Church, 1826-1900: Painter of the Adamic New World Myth." Ph.D. diss., Yale University, New Haven, 1960, pp. 111-114.
Huntington, David C. The Landscapes Of Frederic Edwin Church: Vision Of An American Era. New York, 1966, pp. 10-20, 47-49.
Huntington, David, and Richard Wunder. Frederic Edwin Church. Exh. cat., National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D.C., 1966, pp. 17-18, 33-34, 63-64, no. 82.
19th century America. Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1970, no. 107 (ill.).
Lunsford, John. The Romantic Vision in America. Exh. cat., Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Dallas, 1971, no. 24.
The Natural Paradise: Paintings in America 1800-1950. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1976, p. 51 (ill.), no. 29.
Wallach, Allan. "Trouble in Paradise." Artforum (1976): pp. 30, 35 (ill.).
"Detroit Acquisition." Jackson Citizen Patriot, May 20, 1977, (ill.).
"Masterwork Acquired Here." Macomb Daily, May 20, 1977.
“$450,000 Paid." The Evening Bulletin, May 20, 1977, (ill.).
"Detroit Art Institute Acquires Masterwork." Flint Journal, May 20, 1977, (ill.).
"Masterwork Acquired for $450,000." Herald-Palladium, May 21, 1977, (ill.).
"Detroit Institute gets Church Work." Ann Arbor News, May 21, 1977, (ill.).
"Institute gets Church Painting." Daily News, May 23, 1977.
"Detroit Museum Gets Art Work." Times, Bay City, May 23, 1977.
"Detroit Art Institute Gets Painting." Daily Globe, Ironwood, May 25, 1977.
Medical Center News, Detroit, May 25, 1977, (ill.).
"F.E. Church's Cotopaxi Acquired by DIA." Detroit Monitor, May 25, 1977, (ill.).
The Sunday Plain Dealer, May 29, 1977, sec. 5, p. 17, (ill.).
"About the Arts." Enquirer & News, May 29, 1977.
"Heroic Landscape." Flint Journal, June 12,1977, (ill.).
Toledo Blade, June 19, 1977, (ill.).
"Volcanic Landscape on Display in Detroit." Lansing State Journal, July 17, 1977, (ill.).
"Frederic Church Masterwork Acquired by Detroit Institute of Arts.” American Antiques Magazine, July 1977.
Bulletin of the DIA 56, no. 1 (1977): (cover ill.).
The Michigan Catholic, August 12, 1977, (ill.).
Painting and Oil Sketches of Frederic E. Church. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 1978, pp. 24-25.
“Family Art Game.” Detroit Free Press, June 4, 1978, p. 3 (ill.) [DIA Advertising Supplement].
Rivard, Nancy. "American Paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts." Antiques 114 (November 1978): pp. 1044-1055, (ill.).
Rivard, Nancy. "Notes on the Collection: Cotopaxi." Bulletin of the DIA 56, no. 3 (1978): pp. 193-196 (ill.).
Heslip, Michael. "Conservation Notes on Cotopaxi.” Bulletin of the DIA 56, no. 3 (1978): pp. 196-198.
Stebbins, T. E., Jr. Close Observation: Selected Oil Sketches by Church. Washington, D.C., 1978, p. 24 (ill.).
Carr, Gerald L. Frederic Edwin Church: The Iceberg. Dallas, 1980, pp. 62, 66.
Talbot, William S. "Indian Summer by Jasper F. Cropsey." Bulletin of the DIA 58, no. 3 (1980): p. 156 (ill.).
Wilmerding, John. American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875, Paintings, Drawings, Photographs. Washington, D.C., 1980, pp. 155, 189.
A New World: American Painting, 1760-1900. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 1983, pp. 248-249, no. 45.
May, Stephen. "Mountains: Spectacular Nineteenth-Century Visions." Southwest Art (January 1985): pp. 73, 70 (ill.).
Frederick Edwin Church: Images of Cotopaxi. Exh. cat., National Museum of American Art. Washington, D.C., 1985, pp. 7, 25-27, 73-74, no. 10.
“Family Art Game.” Detroit News, April 15, 1985, p. 20 (ill.) [DIA Advertising Supplement].
100 Masterworks from the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1985, pp. 198-199 (ill.).
Manthorne, Katherine. Creation and Renewal: Views of Cotopaxi by Frederic Edwin Church. Washington D.C., 1985, pp. 73-75, cat. 10, (pl. I), p. 11.
Shaw, Nancy Rivard. "Rebellion, Defiance, and Beauty: Two Centuries of American Painting." Apollo 124, no. 298 (December 1986): pp. 69, 72-73.
Friedman, H. Sun and Earth. New York, 1986, p. 219, (col. ill.).
Goetzmann, William H. New Lands, New Men. New York, 1986, p. 202.
American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1987, pp. 254-257.
Kelly, Franklin. "Frederic Church in the Tropics." Arts in Virginia 27, no. 1/3 (1987): pp. 16-33, 30-31 (ill.).
Kelly, Franklin. Frederic Edwin Church and The National Landscape. Washington D.C., 1988, p. 125.
Kelly, Franklin. Frederic Edwin Church. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1989, pp. 61-62, 112, no. 36.
"The DIA Lends a Helping Hand with 19th-Century Art." The Detroit News, October 4, 1989.
Minks, Louise. The Hudson River School. New York, 1989, pp. 100-101.
Mitchell, Timothy. "Frederick Church's the Iceberg’s Erratic Boulders and Time's Slow Changes." Smithsonian Studies in American Art 3, no. 4 (Fall 1989): pp. 3, 5 (ill.).
Sweeney, J. Gary. "The Nude of Landscape Painting: Emblematic Personification in the Art of the Hudson River School." Smithsonian Studies in American 3, no. 4 (Fall 1989): pp. 43-65, (ill.).
Sherman, Joe. "Frederic Church and his Great Pictures." Smithsonian 20, no. 7 (October 1989): pp. 88-103.
Avery, Kevin. Church's Great Picture: Heart Of The Andes. New York, 1993, p. 42, (fig. 26).
Carr, Gerald L. Frederic Edwin Church: Catalogue Raisonne Of Works Of Art At Olana State Historic Site, vol. 1. New York, 1994, pp. 239-241.
Davis, John Harlan. The Landscape Of Belief: Encountering The Holy Land In Nineteenth-century American Art And Culture. Princeton, 1996, pp. 174-175.
American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1997, pp. 47-52.
In Search of the Promised Land. Exh. cat., Berry-Hill Galleries. New York, 2000, p. 147, (fig. 26).
The Civil War and American Art. Exh. cat., Smithsonian Museum of American Art. New York, 2012, p. 42, (fig. 6).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Frederic Edwin Church, Cotopaxi, 1862, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, Gibbs-Williams Fund, et al., 76.89.
- English
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My name is Benjamin Coleman. I am a curator of American art here at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and I am standing in front of Frederick Church's painting Cotopaxi, painted in 1862. It is one of the most extraordinary American landscape paintings from the 19th century. Church painted three views of the Ecuadorian Andes in the 1850s and 1860s, and in many ways, Cotopaxi was the summation of his long study of the landscapes that he visited and found inspiration in after his travels in South America.
The encounter with this landscape painting is a bit unexpected. My eye is certainly drawn, first and foremost, to the violence of the volcanic eruption; but the remarkable detail that the artist renders elsewhere casts a different tone and different attitude to certain passages of the painting. The still expanse of water in the lake on the right of the painting reflects the glow of orange light with great stillness and great peacefulness.
The billowing rainbow cloud from the waterfall in the foreground center stands in contrast to the almost violent glow of the fiery sunlight that defines the horizon line. And that play of contrast serves to amplify many of these specific details and geological variations that the artist set out to define. In this painting, art historians sometimes describe Church as a landscape painter who made views that were panoramic and telescopic, and by that we mean when you approach the painting, there's a remarkable realism in the view that he captures. It's as if you're walking up to a window somewhere outside Quito and Ecuador, and you see the mountain in front of you. You see it at great distance, but there's also a remarkable attention to detail on minute figures, minute aspects of vegetation or topography in the immediate foreground that gives the impression that you could take a telescope to the painting and see true to life details as close in as you could get.
I find it very fitting that this painting, this singular statement, welcomes you into the journey through an American landscape. That magical quality of this landscape painting one of transporting a viewer from Detroit to the mountains of Ecuador, is precisely what made Church one of the leading artists of his generation in the United States and also in Europe where many of his works were exhibited. Cotopaxi is one of 12 Artworks to Inspire here at the DIA and I hope on your next visit, you will visit our Gallery of American Landscape Painting and find inspiration in these views of the natural world that American painters in the 19th century set out to capture.
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