Frederic Edwin Church - Niagara Horseshoe falls

• Title: Niagara Horseshoe falls
• Artist: Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900)
• Date: 1857
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 102 × 230 cm

Church's painting depicts Horseshoe Falls, the largest and most iconic of Niagara's three waterfalls. The canvas is quite wide, measuring more than 2 meters wide, and is twice as wide as it is high. Those unconventional proportions enabled Church to capture a panoramic view from the Canadian side of the falls, guiding the viewer's gaze laterally. This perspective offered a dramatic and unique vantage point, departing from the "canonical banality" often found in previous paintings of the falls. Unlike merely picturesque representations, Church's composition immerses the viewer directly in the scene, creating a sensation of being airborne or even in the water. The absence of a repoussoir enhances this effect, a revelation in an era before the widespread availability of such images through modern photography.