Frederic Edwin Church’s Painting: The Heart of the Andes Essay

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Updated: Mar 17th, 2024

Introduction

Among all the paintings of the prominent American artist Frederic Edwin Church, The Heart of the Andes impressed me the most. It represents the nature of South America, where Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador can be seen. The sparkling water of a waterfall and amazingly beautiful nature where a mix of bright and soft colors occurs made me feel like I was really there, in South America, enjoying the landscape view and breathing the fresh air near the Andes, the most beautiful mountings in the world.

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Discussion

The Heart of the Andes is an oil painting with pigments used with a medium of drying oil. This work looks very attractive to spectators because of many reasons: its large size, soft lines, used techniques and the mixture of colors. Although this is a landscape, in my opinion, the author wanted to emphasize the religious theme by putting a small cross with the praying people in the middle of the painting. Many famous people were fascinated with the way Church used the effect of light and vast spaces, which became his signature:

An American writer Henry Tuckerman extolled “the grand effect of light” of The Heart of the Andes. “It literally floods the canvas with celestial fire and beams with glory like a sublime psalm of light.” In fact, meteorology, a new science, would be Church’s lifelong study. As Church’s attorney friend Theodore Winthrop wrote, “A great work of art is a delight and a lesson” (Reidell).

Despite that the content of the painting is very important, I think that the key to success can also be enclosed in details that make the painting very special. It is not enough just to create a painting, but to present it to the public in a way that will amuse everyone. Since people saw The Heart of the Andes exhibited in New York in 1859, this painting became one of the finest pieces of art in the World (Reidell). The artist’s work was presented as a window with curtains, surrounded by palm- trees, which in my opinion, had a great impact on everyone who saw the painting.

Frederick Edwin Church belonged to the Hudson River School and considered German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt to be his intellectual and inspirational mentor. In 1859 Frederick Church wrote to his friend Bayard Taylor, an American poet:

The “Andes” will probably be on its way to Europe before your return to the City …principal motive in taking the picture to Berlin is to have the satisfaction of placing before Humboldt a transcript of the scenery which delighted his eyes sixty years ago—and which he had pronounced to be the finest in the world (Nichols, 12).

Unfortunately, Frederick Church was not lucky enough to present his painting to Humboldt, but his dream of making this painting well-known around the world came true. The masterpiece was successfully exhibited around Europe and became very popular due to the realistic view and important details (LeGrand 133).

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Of course, not only The Heart of the Andes became successful. Frederick Church used similar techniques in many of his landscape paintings including the effect of light, vast spaces and showing all the beauty of nature in South America and other parts of the world. Such masterpieces as Home by the Lake, The Andes of Ecuador, Niagara, The River Of Light are just some of the works that became the standard of landscape painting for other artists all over the world.

Works Cited

LeGrand, Catherine, and Gilbert Michael Joseph, Close Encounters of Empire: writing the cultural history of U.S.-Latin American relations, Duke University Press, 1998.

Nichols, Sandra. Why Was Humboldt Forgotten in the United States? The Geographical Review 96.3 (2006): 399.

Reidell, Heidi. Brush Stroke Explorations: American-Born Frederic Edwin Church, Whose Grand Canvases Were Created with Precise Accuracy and Sublime Form, Exemplified Landscape Paintings during an Age of Discovery, Americas (English Edition). 2008.

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IvyPanda. 2024. "Frederic Edwin Church's Painting: The Heart of the Andes." March 17, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/frederic-edwin-churchs-painting-the-heart-of-the-andes/.

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IvyPanda. "Frederic Edwin Church's Painting: The Heart of the Andes." March 17, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/frederic-edwin-churchs-painting-the-heart-of-the-andes/.

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