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Lot Essay
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1831, Louis Mignot stands as one of the most notable and skilled Southern-born artists of his generation. Like other members of the Hudson River School, namely Martin Johnson Heade and Frederic Edwin Church, Mignot adopted an artist-explorer mentality, traveling the globe in order to invigorate his work. The defining moment of his artistic career occurred in May of 1857, when he journeyed with Church on an excursion to Central and South America. While this trip marked Church’s second exploration of the region, it was Mignot’s first experience in this new environment which would inspire his most important body of work.
Traveling south through Panama for an exploration of the Ecuadorian landscape, the artists soon discovered that transport in these remote areas depended heavily on river travel. "It is little wonder then that a survey of Mignot's tropical oeuvre is the pictorial equivalent of an extended cruise along the inland waterways of the country, recapitulating their journey between the lowlands and highlands as scenery shifts from flat to mountainous. They stretch like a river panorama across the course of his career…To consider these works…side-by-side with a stereograph of the same river from 1907 is to realize how deftly Mignot configures the interspersion of land with water, the quality of sunlight on the equator, and the distinctive silhouettes that characterize the region." (K.E. Manthorne, J. Coffey, The Landscapes of Louis Rémy Mignot: A Southern Painter Abroad, exhibition catalogue, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1996, p. 81) Much like Church, Mignot recorded the local flora, topography and atmosphere with astonishing detail. Both during his journey, and at home in his New York studio in the Tenth Street Building, he incorporated them into sublime renderings that capture the true feeling of a place, if not one exact location.
With its searing red, orange and pink sky, and lush, verdant landscape, Tropical Landscape of 1858 is precisely the type of South American work that cemented Mignot's reputation and brought him critical praise. One critic wrote, “The really distinctive quality of his genius appears to us to have been developed by his visit to South America…which gave rise to some of his finest and most original productions, and seems to have had a permanent influence in defining and developing his style.” (as quoted in The Landscapes of Louis Rémy Mignot: A Southern Painter Abroad, p. 69)
Traveling south through Panama for an exploration of the Ecuadorian landscape, the artists soon discovered that transport in these remote areas depended heavily on river travel. "It is little wonder then that a survey of Mignot's tropical oeuvre is the pictorial equivalent of an extended cruise along the inland waterways of the country, recapitulating their journey between the lowlands and highlands as scenery shifts from flat to mountainous. They stretch like a river panorama across the course of his career…To consider these works…side-by-side with a stereograph of the same river from 1907 is to realize how deftly Mignot configures the interspersion of land with water, the quality of sunlight on the equator, and the distinctive silhouettes that characterize the region." (K.E. Manthorne, J. Coffey, The Landscapes of Louis Rémy Mignot: A Southern Painter Abroad, exhibition catalogue, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1996, p. 81) Much like Church, Mignot recorded the local flora, topography and atmosphere with astonishing detail. Both during his journey, and at home in his New York studio in the Tenth Street Building, he incorporated them into sublime renderings that capture the true feeling of a place, if not one exact location.
With its searing red, orange and pink sky, and lush, verdant landscape, Tropical Landscape of 1858 is precisely the type of South American work that cemented Mignot's reputation and brought him critical praise. One critic wrote, “The really distinctive quality of his genius appears to us to have been developed by his visit to South America…which gave rise to some of his finest and most original productions, and seems to have had a permanent influence in defining and developing his style.” (as quoted in The Landscapes of Louis Rémy Mignot: A Southern Painter Abroad, p. 69)