Rainbow in the Mountains

Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900 This work exemplifies the Hudson River School's engagement with dramatic natural phenomena. Church sketched the composition in pencil, capturing atmospheric effects and topographical features that would inform his finished paintings. The artist's notations and compositional studies reveal his process of translating observed landscape into monumental gallery works. Church's meticulous studies of light, weather, and geological formations established him as a leading landscape painter of the nineteenth century.