dertone of pensive shadow answering to that consciousness of past and possible sorrow which so deepens every present joy. In a previous great picture, “The Andes of Ecuador” painted after Mr. Church’s first visit, he has depicted the glory of sunset flooding a broad wild valley. There the sun is master, and its atmosphere almost dazzles us away from simple study of the mountain forms. In “The Heart of the Andes” the great snow-peak is master, and its solemn, peaceful light the illuminator of the scene. Any land can see the sun occasionally, but any land cannot see dome mountains of snow. Therefore let the sun retire from this picture, and stand, as we do, spectator; and let us have that moment of day when light is strong and quiet, and shadows deep but not despotic.
The blue sky is the first region of the picture for our study. Unless a landscape conveys a feeling of the infinite, it is not good for immortals. This sky is no brazen canopy, no lustrous burnished screen, no opaque turquoise surface. It is pure, penetrable, lucent in every tremulous atom of its substance, and as the eye pierces its depths, it feels the same vital quiver thrilling through a boundless calm. Without an atmosphere of joy, earthly triumphs and splendid successes are naught. As fully is pure sky a necessary condition of delight in the glories of Nature. Could that divine presence of the snow-peak dwell in regions less clear and radiant than those we are viewing? Blue sky melting into a warmer glow overhangs, surrounds,
