Reflections of Nature in 19th Century American Painting
Two remarkably different works of art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing present us with astounding reflections of the changing role of nature in the art of the 19th century. In this essay, I will examine two paintings, Heart of the Andes by Frederick Edwin Church and Fur Traders Descending the Missouri in order to examine the evolution of the role of nature in painting at a pivotal point in art history - the mid-19th century. When first encountering Frederick Edwin Church's oil on canvas painting Heart of the Andes in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one is immensely struck by the enormity of the painting, which must have enraptured viewers when the painting was first unveiled by its creator in 1859. Heart of the Andes measures ten feet by five feet. It is an awe-inspiring rendering of a landscape in the Andes Mountains of South America. One of the masterworks of the 19th century's Hudson River School of landscape paintings, Heart of the Andes is rendered so masterfully that it is almost as though we were looking at a photograph. In the center foreground, a small waterfall crashes into a stream beneath a rugged mountain rage. To the left of the waterfall, two figures are paying their
A stern expression on his face provides a sharp contrast to the relaxed, smiling face of the boy, who seems generally happy and intrigued to see us, while the old man appears to be suspicious of our presence. In the distance, beyond the waterfall, a small settlement can be made out - little more than a church and a couple of houses. While the two paintings were composed in the same era, they could not be more different. The subject matter and style of the painting, however, could not be more different. This perhaps reveals a telling shift in the interest of American artists halfway through the 19th century. Whereas Church gave us a large, overwhelming image of nature in all its sublime, unattainable glory, here in Bingham's painting, in the figure of this animal, we see nature tamed by human society. In the middle of the canoe, laying on top of a bundle, is an adolescent boy, perhaps a Native American, wearing an outlandish blue shirt and baggy red pants. As far removed as we are from ever seeing "the real thing," Church's painting gives us the spine-tingling sensation that this wild, untamed South American landscape were in our own backyard. Both evoke external depictions of nature - the Andes Mountains, in Church's painting, and the Missouri River, in the case of Bingham. But where Church takes nature itself as his departure point and attempts to depict it in its exactitude as a means of showing its perfection through highly perfected composition, Bingham is less concerned with the Missouri River itself than the human beings who use it for the purpose of transportation. While the landscape painters were in many ways aiming to reflect the perfection of God's creation - the wonders of our planet - through their art work, painters such as Bingham were becoming more interested in the ways humans interact with nature. The muted colors of the composition are interrupted by flecks of red in the sky and trees behind the canoe. At the center of Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, three figures on a canal stare out at us through the canvas. This is a wild creature that they have captured and tamed, and it has become their companion on these long journeys to the next town, where they will attempt to peddle their wares. On the far left, paddling the canoe, we see an elderly man.
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Acceptance Essays
