Cotopaxi Erupting

Title

Cotopaxi Erupting

Artist

Eric Glaser

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

"Cotopaxi"

With 87 known eruptions, Cotopaxi is one of Ecuador's most active volcanoes.

From Wikipedia: Cotopaxi is an 1862 oil painting by the Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church. The work was commissioned by well-known philanthropist James Lenox. The painting was met with great acclaim, and seen as a parable of the Civil War, then raging in the South, with its casting of light against darkness. The painting depicts Cotopaxi, a volcano that is also the second highest peak in modern-day Ecuador, spewing smoke and ash across a sunrise. Church also painted another landscape by the same name that also features the volcano in the distance.

Artist: Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900)

Title: Cotopaxi

Object Type: Painting

Genre: Landscape Art

Date: 1862

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Detroit Institute of Arts Museum

Department: American Art Before 1950

Signed and dated, lower right: F.E. CHURCH | 1862

Cotopaxi, the quintessential nineteenth-century vision of nature’s sublime and terrifying power, was painted on commission for the well-known book collector and philanthropist James Lenox when Church was at the height of his fame. The painting made a tremendous impact on the American art public, who perceived it as a geological parable of the Civil War then in progress. The viewer’s attention is focused on two principal motifs—the burning disc of the rising sun in its contest with the smoldering volcano. The colors radiate with fiery intensity against a low, pearlescent skyline. In this cosmic drama of light dispelling darkness, Church mirrors the contemporary tragedy of the Civil War and offers hope for its resolution through the cross formed by the sun’s reflection on the lake. No other representation so summarized American ideals at this critical point in the nation’s history.

Text Credit: Detroit Institute of Arts Museum

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Additional image editing by Eric Glaser

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April 27th, 2020

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