Cotopaxi

Frederic Edwin Church visited Cotopaxi, the great snow-capped volcano of Ecuador, on his second expedition to South America. In this dramatic rendering the volcano erupts at sunrise, its plume of smoke rising against a blazing red sky while cool dawn light touches the valley and the chain of the Andes beyond. Church’s combination of scientific accuracy and sublime theatricality made this one of the most celebrated landscapes of the Hudson River School.