Which American Romantic painter is known for 'The Heart of the Andes'?

The American Romantic painter known for The Heart of the Andes was Frederic Edwin Church.

Church was a leading figure of the Hudson River School, the American landscape movement that celebrated the grandeur and spiritual force of nature. He made journeys to South America in 1853 and 1857, especially in present-day Ecuador and Colombia, inspired partly by the explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.

The 1859 painting is a highly detailed composite landscape rather than a literal view from one location. Church combined different topographical elements, including the snow-capped Chimborazo, tropical vegetation, a waterfall, a distant settlement, and a small church. Its large scale and meticulous detail made it a sensation when exhibited in New York.

More than 12,000 people paid twenty-five cents to see the first exhibition. Church later sold the work for $10,000, then a record price for a living American artist. It has been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1909.