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Frederic Edwin Church
Studies of Trees and Plants seen from the Río Magdalena, Colombia
1853
pencil on paper
Studies from Guacamaya, Bogotá, Colombia
June–July 1853
pencil and watercolor on paper
Church made an impressive suite of pencil drawings of specific plants, birds, and animals during his two trips to South America. Like Humboldt, he believed that by amassing large quantities of information he could better understand the landscapes he painted. The artist used these to compose many of the details in his South American paintings. For The Falls of Tequendama, Church consulted his sketches from 1853, several of which are seen here. The parrot featured in the sketch to the left appears in the lower left of the painting.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Gift of Louis P. Church, 1917-4-135, -877 |