The Heart of the Andes #5
by Eric Glaser
Title
The Heart of the Andes #5
Artist
Eric Glaser
Medium
Painting - Oil On Canvas
Description
"The Heart of the Andes"
Artist: Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900)
Title: The Heart of the Andes
Object Type: Painting
Genre: Landscape Art
Date: 1859
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Inscriptions: Signature bottom left: F.E. CHURCH, on tree
This picture was inspired by Church's second trip to South America in the spring of 1857. Church sketched prolifically throughout his nine weeks travel in Ecuador, and many extant watercolors and drawings contain elements found in this work. The picture was publicly unveiled in New York at Lyrique Hall, 756 Broadway, on April 27, 1859. Subsequently moved to the gallery of the Tenth Street Studio Building, it was lit by gas jets concealed behind silver reflectors in a darkened chamber. The work caused a sensation, and twelve to thirteen thousand people paid twenty-five cents apiece to file by it each month. The picture was also shown in London, where it was greatly admired as well.
Frederic Church was Thomas Cole's star pupil, and as Cole was the major figure in the first generation of the Hudson River School, so Church dominated the second. He did not confine himself to views of New York and New England; in the 1850s, influenced by the great explorer Alexander von Humboldt, he traveled to South America and made sketches that were the basis of a great Andean panorama. Church painted nature with uncanny fidelity and an abiding sense of awe. His landscapes embodied America's belief that the opening of frontiers and territorial expansion were the nation's destiny. When this monumental painting was first shown to the public in 1859, in a darkened room and illuminated by hidden lights, it caused a sensation. In many ways, the painting carried the ideas of the Hudson River School to their most dramatic culmination.
Text Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Web Gallery of Art
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Additional image editing by Eric Glaser
Uploaded
March 20th, 2020
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