Curatorial Narrative In the summer of 1865, Frederic Edwin Church’s “Tropical Landscape” assumes its place within the trajectory of American landscape painting, concurrently with the rise of realism and naturalism in European art. The artist’s technique, characterized by a fluid brushwork that verges on impasto, conjures an almost palpable sense of atmosphere, imbuing the canvas with an aura of luminosity. This is achieved through Church’s judicious deployment of color, where various shades of green, brown, and yellow harmonize to evoke the vibrant hues of a tropical environment.When scaled to 75×44, “Tropical Landscape” reveals itself as a masterful exercise in spatial rhythm, its chromatic structure expertly modulated to create an impression of depth. The juxtaposition of lush foliage with arid terrain instills a sense of contrast that serves to underscore the artist’s preoccupation with the interplay between light and atmosphere.