El Rio de Luz (The River of Light)

Latin America, with its rich histories and cultures — as well as dense jungles, towering volcanoes, and mountain ranges — fascinated American artists in the mid-19th century. Frederic Edwin Church traveled in the tropics and used the sketches he made in different locations to create popular landscape paintings.

As the title suggests, this work is about both water coursing through a landscape and light moving through space. The trees crowding the scene draw our eye along the still, reflective surface of the river. The sun’s rays lead us from the water to the glowing air above, where they seem to join earth and heaven. In the distance, a tiny figure in a canoe is on the verge of vanishing into the mists.