Landscape Painting by Frederick Church

弗雷德里克·切尔契的风景画

 


 

Frederick Church is a US landscape painter, who spent quite a lot of time traveling to the South America and whose paintings are mostly landscapes in the Andes Mountains.

"Cotopaxi, 1862" is such a master piece that had stunned the world as well as it can be regarded as a major milestone in the history of landscape paintings. As we have seen, most landscape painters have been trying to depict pastoral scenes, grandeur of mountains and valley. Examples even include his other works such the one below entitled as "The Morning in Tropics". But seldom do we see paintings like this, which strikes hard in our mind and soul by depicting the barren, violence, untamed wildness, and melancholy through an actively erupting volcano. Cotopaxi is one of highest peaks in Andes Mountains in South America and has been a well-known active volcano. It violently erupted in 1862. In the picture, the erupted smoke from Cotopaxi darkened majority of sky and the setting sun painted through the smoke on the earth with bloody red color, reflecting on the surface of a quiet and lonely lake. A burning and violent tone and a heavy sigh of melancholy. It is probably the only landscape art work in human history that can be summarized as "heart-shaking".

切尔契是一位美国十九世纪的风景画家,不过他有相当多的时间却是在南美,而他的风景画的大部分主题也是与安第斯山脉的风光有关。

而他这一幅《科多帕希1862年》不但是一件相当令人震憾的作品,相信也是风景画历史上的一个空前绝后的里程碑。我们见过的大部分的风景画无不以美丽的田园、宏伟的山川为主题,包括他的其他作品(比如这里展出的另一幅《热带森林之晨》)无不也是以静态的秀美取胜,但很少的作品却能如此地洪荒、暴烈、野性、怆凉而惊心动魄。科多帕希是南美安第斯山脉中的高峰之一,为一座活火山,在1862年发生喷发。画面上的科多帕希火山的浓烟笼罩了天际,掩映下的余晖血红般地投射在荒芜的大地,映衬在远处孤寂的湖面。一种炽热而暴烈的色调,一种悲凉的叹息。一幅风景画只能用“触目惊心”来形容,恐怕也是世上绝无仅有的了。


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