Cotopaxi 1855

Curator: Frederic Edwin Church’s monumental canvas, "Cotopaxi," painted in 1855, captures a panoramic vista of the Ecuadorian landscape. The work is rendered in oil on canvas, a classic combination for painters during the height of the Hudson River School movement. Editor: It hits you like a sunset viewed through a really clean window, all pristine nature just waiting to be trampled by our imaginations. Makes you want to write a poem, or at least update your hiking boots. Curator: Indeed. The sheer scale would've been impressive to audiences during Church's time. These large canvases transported viewers, who largely would never encounter a space like this, into the landscape, encouraging reflection upon America's place within the wider world, and particularly as colonizers in Latin America. Editor: Those tiny figures on horseback near the bottom add a fantastic sense of depth but also really highlight this clash between humanity and untamed nature. The contrast between their small size and the imposing volcano looming behind, that snow capped Cotopaxi, gives you a serious feeling of insignificance! Curator: Precisely. It's worth noting the technical skill demonstrated here. Church's layering of paint, in the style of plein-air painting, allows us to read subtle textures throughout. It draws us back to the physicality of the materials employed to construct this experience. The canvas and paints came from specific manufacturers who capitalized on an aesthetic obsession with realism during this era. Editor: I’d love to dive into that waterfall, but knowing me, I’d probably slip and end up covered in oil paint residue from trying to get a closer look. The man-made versus nature thing really does permeate everything. It’s all consuming here in a very meditative way. Curator: That relationship, though complex, remains central. Viewing Church through a material lens reveals both his own skill, the industrial advancements which allowed the proliferation of art, and the ideological context of Manifest Destiny informing a desire for expansive vistas. Editor: Absolutely, looking at this, it’s difficult to separate the beauty from the bigger conversation about exploitation and cultural identity during that period. This is both awesome and incredibly thoughtful work.