How does this artwork elucidate its Background and description?
The painting is a composite image of different climate zones, from snowy mountains in the distance to grasslands in the mid-ground and tropical flora in the foreground. Church's approach to landscape painting was influenced by Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who wrote of his travels in South America and exhorted painters to capture the beauty of the New World. Around the Chota Valley, Humboldt marvelled at the Andes' "symmetrical disposition in two lines from north to south", and noted that a plateau rather than a valley separated them. Thus the mountains in The Andes of Ecuador—probably Tungurahua at left and Cotopaxi at right—are arranged along two lines that would converge near the painting's center. The plateau is a strong horizontal line just beneath that point. Humboldt encouraged painters to make sketches in the field, a practice not then common, and this painting shows the influence of Church's sketches in northern Ecuador and southern Colombia. 
In 1859, after his second trip south, Church painted his monumental The Heart of the Andes, another composite of South American landscapes and a re-interpretation of Humboldt's aesthetic ideas. The Andes of Ecuador depicted little tropical flora and its details were subdued by the strong light. (A contemporary critic in Harper's Weekly commented that "all detail, all shape [is] lost in the vastness of the gorges".) It excluded Chimborazo, the Ecuadorian mountain then thought to be the world's highest. In the 1859 painting, Church more clearly cataloged the diversity of plants and topography, culminating in Chimborazo, and used a more naturalistic lighting.The Andes of Ecuador retains some of the influence of Church's teacher, Thomas Cole. Cole believed that details should be limited in the search for a general, sublime effect. Although the painting is highly detailed throughout, the strong light of the Sun subordinates these details, providing the overall effect that Cole espoused. (This would not be the case in The Heart of the Andes, which is given over to detail.) The sunlight casts the whole image in its radiance, making the distant mountains faint and creating shadows on the small foreground details like the grazing llamas. The painting of the Sun is noticeably built up in oils of white and yellow, in contrast to the smoothness of the other areas. Any criticism of the painting likely opined that the lighting was too strong.
Chota Valley Thomas Cole The Heart of the Andes Harper's Weekly Chimborazo Tungurahua sublime Alexander von Humboldt Andes Cotopaxi