Critic Henry Tuckerman praised this imaginary landscape, inspired by Frederic E. Church's extensive travels:

"Athwart a mountain-bounded valley and gorge . . . the sunshine, beaming across the vapory vail, forms thereon a rainbow, which seems to clasp the whole with a prismatic bridge; a scene more characteristic of the season and the region it is difficult to imagine, and one more difficult to represent on canvas could not be selected. To combine the right perspective with the aqueous effects is a problem hard to solve; but Mr. Church has succeeded; the aerial perspective is exquisitely true—the floating vapor, the blue sky, the radiant iris—the brooding mists on the distant mountains, the rich vegetation of the foreground, and green, rugged, declivity and mule-path—water, air, cloud, hill, and vale—all wear the tearful glory of The Rainy Season in the Tropics."

[Henry Tuckerman, “Church,” in Book of the Artists, American Artist Life (New York: G. P. Putnam & Son, 1867) Audio tour stops 325, 24.]