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American · a wall in this concept
Cotopaxi
Cotopaxi
Frederic Edwin Church, 1826–1900
Church painted the Ecuadorian volcano many times, but 1862's is the one where the sky takes sides: ash against sunrise, the year of Antietam. Americans read it instantly as a picture about their own country on fire. It is five feet of orchestrated catastrophe, and the sun still comes up through the smoke.