The Beautiful Lie of the Andes
Frederic Edward Church did not hike the brutal trails of South America just to paint a pretty picture. He traced the exhausted steps of Alexander von Humboldt to bring back a vision of the wild that wealthy patrons desperately craved. It was 1854 and the world was feeling smaller every day. The rich wanted unspoiled foreign wilderness and Church delivered.
The Andes of Ecuador is massive. It stretches across forty eight by seventy five inches of canvas. But the landscape you see does not actually exist. Church took an assortment of different mountain peaks and smashed them together into one completely impossible panoramic view. He built a fantasy.
He grounded this grand illusion in cold hard science. The foreground plants are rendered with absolute botanical precision. Every leaf and fern is scientifically accurate. This trick makes the viewer believe the rest of the lie. You look at the dirt and trust the mountains.
Then there is the light. A hidden sun acts as a glowing optical illusion. It radiates a warm and divine light across the valley. It looks like the hand of God touching the earth. Church exhibited this masterpiece privately to men who sat in velvet chairs and dreamed of conquering untamed lands. They paid for the privilege to look at a pristine world without ever getting mud on their boots.
References
Church, Frederic Edward. The Andes of Ecuador. 1854. Oil on canvas.
Avery, Kevin J. Church’s Great Picture, The Heart of the Andes. New York. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993.
Kelly, Franklin. Frederic Edwin Church. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1989.