“The Heart of the Andes”/Part 6

A sweep of this fair meadow-land, eddying along under steep banks behind the village, bears us unawares up steep acclivities, and we become mountaineers again, climbing the Cordillera.

The Dome was an emblem of permanent and infinite peace: — this central mass of struggling mountain, with a war of light and shade over all its tumultuous surface, represents vigor and toil and perplexity. The great shadow of the picture is opposed in sentiment, as well as in color and form, to the great light.

Begin with the craggy hillock at the centre of the background, behind the village tower. It seems a mere episode of the life of the great mountain above it; but observe how thoroughly, as in all Mr. Church’s work, its story is told. Detail is suggested, and yet suppressed. The hill is in shadow, but not consigned to utter blackness, and maltreated with coarse neglect. You may perceive or divine every line of sinking surface, and every time-worn channel converging to the gulf in its front. You may feel that it bears up a multitudinous forest on its isolated crest, where fires that sweep the mountain moors, or “paramos,” have not reached. Level with this compact pyramid extends to the left a bench of rocky plateau, where we can gird ourselves for our sturdy task. Then, as we toil resolutely up, we find that earth was not at play when this Titanic mass was reared. Here are mountain upon mountain; crag climbing on the shoulders of crag; plain and slope, and “huddling slant” and precipice; furrow, chasm, plunging hollow, quebrada and abyss; solitary knolls, groups of allied hills, long sierras marked on their sheer flanks with cleavage and rock-slides; conical mounds, walls of stem frontage; myriad tokens of primeval convulsions; proofs everywhere of change, building, razing, upheaval, sinking, and deliberate crumbling away, and how new ruin restores the strong lines that old ruin weakened. Yet, with all this complex action and episode, there is still one steady movement upward of this bold earth-born Hyperion higher toward the masterful heights, with stronger step and larger leap as he learns the power of sustained impulse, and mounts nearer and nearer the region of final mysterious battle in clouds and darkness, on the verge of final triumph beyond the veil. Peace and light dwell upon the Dome. Here is a contrast of mystery and dim chaos; — yet no grim obscure; no shock of hurtling storms. The sun penetrates the veil, and the heights glow pallid-rosy. Over the edge, keen as a wave, of the topmost cliff, float showery mists of tender iridescence; then violet heights and rainbow-mists and wreaths of pale cloud fade together out of sight.

Over all this central mountain play of color rivals infinity of form. Evanescent blues, golden browns, pearly violets, tender purples, and purple greens mantle delicately over its giant shoulders. If the Dome was a miracle of light, this mountain is equally a miracle of light and shade. Gray forests clothe a narrow zone at its base. Then come the “paramos,” the rocky moors covered with long yellow grass, where fires have frequent course and drive the trees down into gorges far beneath their proper level, — then the rocks, all stained and scarred with time, and enriched with lichens and mosses. Over all these many-colored surfaces, air, pale or roseate, floats and deepens in every hollow. Aerial liquidness, tremulous quivers of light, rest on seamed front and smooth cheek. Sunbeams rain gently down from the cloudy continent above. We know not where it is not sun, nor where the melting shadow fades. And all, whether sunlit slope, or profound retreating abyss, or sharp sierra, is seen through leagues of ether, a pellucid but visible medium. Forms become undefined, but never vague in this gray luminousness. The enchantment of beautiful reality in all this central mountain is heightened by the faint pencils of light striking across the void. And observe, as an instance of the delicate perception of truth that signalizes every portion of this picture, that these evanescent beams converge. Diverging rays are familiar to every one who has seen sunsets. Old Sol in the almanacs is a personage of jolly phiz, with spokes of light diverging from cheek and crown. But converging rays can only fall when the sun is, as in this case, behind the point of view; and this disposition of light is a phenomenon comparatively rare. A regard for such fine truths as this arms the artist with a panoply, and makes his work impregnable.

No substitution of trickery for tactics could possibly have drawn up this masterly array of mountain elements. It is thorough knowledge and faithful elaboration of detail that makes this central mass real, and not mythic; a vast, varied pyramid of rock, and not a serrated pancake of blue mud set on edge. Mr. Church proves that he knows and feels grand forms, and the colors which pertain to them as inseparably as the hues of a diamond belong to the facets of a diamond, and that he is able enough, and diligent enough, to express his knowledge and love. This harmonious contrast of sun and shadow, crag and glen, educates the eye forever to disdain those conventional blotches of lazy generalization — vain pretenders to the royal honors of mountains — which cumber so many landscape backgrounds, and demand as much of the student as if he should be required to construct Hamlet from a ghost, the Tuileries from a tile, or Paradise from a pippin.