Exhibit No. 428:

Cotopaxi

Frederic Edwin Church

Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

Interpretation: Nearly indistinguishable from the parts of the northern hemisphere of planet Zubenelgenubi III, or “Zubeg’nub,” this is actually a prime specimen of America’s 19th-century obsession with sending travel postcards the hard way. Who’s to challenge your stories of climbing a smoking, snowcapped volcano when you can point to it in the painting? If you look closely in the lower left, you can see Church’s guide going on without him. As a YOLO, Cotopaxi screams, “I was the most sophisticated Parrothead at the Jimmy Buffet concert.”