  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.
  
  
  Title
  Cotopaxi
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1862
  
  Artist
  Frederic Edwin Church
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1826-1900
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 48 × 85 inches (121.9 × 215.9 cm)
  Framed: 66 5/8 × 103 × 6 1/4 inches (169.2 × 261.6 × 15.9 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  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
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  76.89
  
  
  Copyright
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