Heart of the Andes1859
A vast panorama of South America unfolds from a shadowed jungle foreground, with a waterfall and a small wayside cross, across a sunlit plain to the snow-capped peak of Chimborazo far in the distance. More about this work
About this work
A vast panorama of South America unfolds from a shadowed jungle foreground, with a waterfall and a small wayside cross, across a sunlit plain to the snow-capped peak of Chimborazo far in the distance. Frederic Church based the composition on sketches made during two journeys to Colombia and Ecuador, undertaken in the footsteps of the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, and assembled them into an idealised whole. When it was shown on its own in New York in 1859, set in a frame like a great window, thousands of visitors paid to see it, some using opera glasses to study the detail. Every leaf and flower is painted with scientific care.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Frederic Edwin Church
American, 1826–1900 · Born in Hartford, Connecticut; died in New York.
Church studied with Thomas Cole in the Catskills and became the most celebrated American landscape painter of the mid-nineteenth century. He travelled to South America, the Arctic, Europe and the Near East in search of grand subjects, and pictures such as Heart of the Andes drew paying crowds when exhibited on their own in New York. Twilight in the Wilderness of 1860 is among his most admired American views. He later designed his own house, Olana, overlooking the Hudson River.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Hudson River School
American landscape painters of the mid-1800s who made wilderness their grand subject.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 09.95
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- The American Wing
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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