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We look through a tropical forest lining a hazy, wide, placid river in this horizontal landscape painting. Densely packed trees, bushes, and plants create shadowed, thickly forested banks along both sides of the river. The trees are covered with climbing vines, and they have gnarled, sprawling branches. Light catches the flat leaves of a palm-like plant close to us to our left, and once we take a closer look, we find two miniscule black birds with cherry-red chests perched on a long curving stem. The vegetation is reflected in the water’s surface into the distance, where it becomes pale mauve-pink and blends imperceptibly with the sky and clouds. A flock of white birds create a long line low over the water to our right. The sun is a small disk of white low in the humid sky amid pale lavender-purple clouds. The sun reflects in the calm surface of the water below, and it brings our attention to a person rowing a canoe, barely visible on the river in the deep, misty distance.

El Rio de Luz (The River of Light), 1877

Frederic Edwin Church

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 67

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.

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Like his teacher, Thomas Cole, Church conveyed a sense of awesome sublimity in his landscapes by celebrating the seemingly infinite wonders of the natural world. The artist devoted a great deal of time to scientific study, believing that a knowledge of optics, meteorology, botany, and ecology would greatly enhance his work. After reading the journalistic accounts of the German naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt, Church explored wilderness regions from the arctic to the equator.

El Rio de Luz (The River of Light) is a fanciful pastiche based on numerous sketches and notations that Church had made during an 1857 trip to South America. Despite the time–lapse of 20 years, the tightly focused realism, the overall tonal harmony and restrained coloration, and the compositionial unity all lend a remarkable cohesiveness to the work. Church rendered the verdant foliage with exquisite attention to detail, and his virtuoso treatment of tropical sunlight diffused by morning mist makes the atmosphere seem tangible. Red–breasted hummingbirds, a flock of waterfowl, and a distant canoeist occupy the scene, but they do not disturb the overall mood of tranquility. Confronted with the glowing light and heavy vapors of this raw landscape, the viewer is invited to liken daybreak in the tropical rainforest to the dawn of creation itself.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I, pages 63-68, which is available as a free PDF.

Object Data

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 138.1 x 213.7 cm (54 3/8 x 84 1/8 in.)

framed: 160.7 x 237.5 x 7.6 cm (63 1/4 x 93 1/2 x 3 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of the Avalon Foundation

Accession Number

1965.14.1

Artists / Makers

Frederic Edwin Church (painter) American, 1826 - 1900

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Detail Information

Inscription

lower right: F. E. CHURCH / 1877

Provenance

William Earl Dodge, Jr. [d. 1903], New York;[1] his wife, Mrs. William Earl Dodge, Jr. [d. 1909], New York; her grandson, William Earl Dodge IV [d. 1927], New York;[2] his wife, Ella Lynch Dodge [d. 1964], New York; her stepdaughter, Diana Dodge Ryan, Newport;[3] given in 1965 to the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island; purchased 9 December 1965 by NGA.

[1] William Earl Dodge, Jr., was the son of a prominent New York merchant. His brother, David Stuart Dodge, was a missionary and a founder of Syrian Protestant College in Beirut (present-day American University of Beirut), where he was the first professor of modern languages. D. S. Dodge accompanied Church on his travels in Syria and the Holy Land in 1868; see David C. Huntington, The Landscapes of Frederic Edwin Church: Vision of an American Era, New York, 1966: 93, and John Davis, "Frederic Church's 'Sacred Geography.'" Smithsonian Studies in American Art 1 (Spring 1987): 81. Although it is reasonable to assume that D. S. Dodge was instrumental in arranging the commission of Morning in the Tropics, there is no evidence documenting his role.

[2] William Earl Dodge IV was the son of William Earl Dodge III, who died in 1884.

[3] William Earl Dodge IV bequeathed the painting to his daughter, Diana Dodge (later Ryan), but gave his second wife, Ella Lynch Dodge, a life interest. Ryan (letter of 3 March 1966 in NGA curatorial files) saw the painting twice: in 1921, when it was hanging in the dining room of her father's yacht; and then next "in early 1965," a few months after her stepmother's death in October 1964.

Associated Names

Dodge IV, William Earl
Dodge, Ella Lynch
Dodge, Jr., William Earl
Dodge, Jr., William Earl, Mrs.
Preservation Society of Newport County
Ryan, Diana Dodge

Exhibition History

1877: Century Association, New York, 1877, no. 5, as A Tropical Morning.

1878: Exposition Universelle Internationale, Palais du Champ de Mars, Paris, 1878, no. 20, as Le matin sous les tropiques.

1878: Possibly The Union League Club, New York, 1878, no cat.

1880: Loan Collection of Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1880, no. 111, as The River of Light.

1900: Paintings by Frederic E. Church, N.A., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1900, no. 13, repro.

1966: Frederic Edwin Church, National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.; Albany Institute of History and Art; M. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1966, no. 97 (shown only in Washington).

1968: The Hudson River School, Fine Arts Center, State University College, Geneseo, New York, 1968, repro. 61.

1969: In Memoriam, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969, unnumbered checklist.

1971: The Beckoning Land, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1971, no. 51, repro.

1989: Frederic Edwin Church, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1989-1990, no. 49, color repro.

2000: In Search of the Promised Land: Paintings by Frederic Edwin Church, Berry-Hill Galleries, New York; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Portland Museum of Art, Maine, 2000-2001, pl. 66 (not shown in New York).

Technical Summary

The support is a relatively thin and fine plain-weave fabric mounted on the original stretcher. The panel-back stretcher has eleven members with mortise-and-tenon joins. A white ground layer was applied, over which a thin brown layer may have been laid. The paint was applied very thinly in most areas, with the darks particularly built up with many glazes. The highlights were more thickly painted, with some areas of impasto. The paint layer is generally in very good condition, with only scattered small losses and minor areas of \rabrasion. In 1988 discolored varnish was removed and the painting was restored. This conservation effort removed significant passages of inpaint from the trees in the middle distance at the center of the painting. The inpainting hid pentimenti formed by brushed underpaint that the artist used in laying out the major characteristics of the composition; the pentimenti were then subsequently inpainted to minimize visual disruption.

Bibliography

1878: "American Art in Paris." Art Journal 4 (May 1878): 160.

1878: "Art at the Union League Club." New York Post (28 February 1878): 2.

1879: French, H.W. Art and Critics in Connecticut. Boston, 1879: 134.

1880: Brownwell, William C. "The Younger Painters of America." Scribner's Monthly 20 (May 1880): 323-324.

1889: Montgomery, Walter, ed. American Art and American Art Collections. 2 vols. Boston, 1889. Reprint, New York and London, 1978: 2:774.

1966: Frederic Edwin Church. Exh. cat. National Collection of Fine Arts (now National Museum of American Art), Washington, D.C., 1966: 18, 68, no. 97.

1966: Huntington, David C. The Landscapes of Frederic Edwin Church: Vision of an American Era. New York, 1966: 49, 93, 103, 194, 105-106, 108-109, 126, 129, figs. 90, 91.

1966: Stevens, Elisabeth. "An Observant Melodramatist." Art in America 40 (April 1966): 46.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 40, repro.

1971: Campbell, William P. "The American Heritage at the National Gallery of Art." The Connoisseur 178 (December 1971): 270.

1973: Lindquist-Cock, Elisabeth. "Frederic Church's Stereographic Vision." Art in America 61 (September-October 1973): 72, repro. 70.

1973: Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr. "Church, Frederic Edwin." In The Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art. Chicago, 1973: 116.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 550, no. 831, color repro.

1976: Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr. The Hudson River School: 19th Century American Landscapes in the Wadsworth Atheneum. Hartford, 1976: 51.

1977: Brown, Milton W. American Art to 1900. New York, 1977: 339, repro. 340.

1977: Lindquist-Cock, Elizabeth. The Influence of Photography on American Landscape Painting. New York, 1977: 119, pl. 35 (detail), 227.

1978: Stebbins, Theordore E., Jr. Close Observation: Selected Sketches by Frederic E. Church. Exh. cat. Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., 1978: 48.

1979: Wilmerding, John. "Luminism: The Poetry of Light." Portfolio 1 (June-July 1979): repro. 29.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 130, repro.

1980: Wilmerding, John. American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875, Paintings, Drawings, Photographs. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 17, 36, 121, 174, 184, repro. 120.

1980: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 11, 15, 19, no. 31, color repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: color repro. 102-3, 119 detail, 121-122.

1982: Mrozek, Donald J. "The American Idea of Recreation and the Changing Role of the National Parks." Conspectus of History 1 (1982): 20.

1983: Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr., Carol Troyen, and Trevor J. Fairbrother. A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760-1910. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Grand Palais, Paris. Boston, 1983: 249.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 547, no. 822, color repro.

1987: Kelly, Franklin. "Frederic Church in the Tropics." Arts in Virginia 27 (1987): 32, 33, fig. 16.

1988: Kelly, Franklin. Frederic Edwin Church and the National Landscape. Washington, D.C., 1988: 126.

1988: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 114, no. 34, color repro.

1989: Kelly, Franklin, Stephen J. Gould, and James Anthony Ryan. Frederic Edwin Church. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1989: 12, 14, 67-68, 163-164, 170, 203, no. 49, color repro. 125.

1989: Manthorne, Katherine Emma. Tropical Renaissance: North American Artists Exploring Latin America, 1839-1879. Washington and London, 1989: I, 60, repro. 61.

1989: Miller, David C. Dark Eden: The Swamp in Nineteenth Century American Culture. Cambridge, 1989: 113-116, fig. 4.2; pl. 5, misdated 1876.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 142, repro.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 236, repro.

1996: Davis, John. The Landscape of Belief: Encountering the Holy Land in Nineteenth Century American Art and Culture. Princeton, 1996: 197.

1996: Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 63-68, color repro.

1996: Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin. American Paintings Before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum. London, 1996: no. 213, repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 306-307, no. 246, color repro.