ILYA NIKOLAEVITCH ZANKOVSKY (1832-1919)
Mount Elbrus (5,642 m - 18,510 ft)
Russia
1. In Mount Elbrus, Caucasus, oil on canvas, Russian State Museum
2. In Mountain in Caucasus, Elbrus, spring, 1874, oil on canvas, Odessa Fine Arts Museum,
3. In Mountain scene on Mount Elbrus, oil on canvas, 1875, Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts
The paintings
Painting no. 1 is one of the rare ones depicting the Elbrus with a blue sky, as the atmospheric conditions around this majestic sacred mountain are usually tormented. The painter will no doubt have seized this moment by a sweet summer afternoon.
The light in paintings n°2 and n°3 is quite similar, a kind of misty, yellowish halo that coats the whole mass and seems to dissipate only around the glacier, which appears in a surreal whiteness. On the other hand, the staging of the mountain itself is totally different: in the n ° 2, the Mount Elbrus is seen at the plumb of a torrent which releases, in spring, of furious springtime cascades; in no. 3, Mount Elbrus is seen from a pass through which passes a caravan of wrapped merchants who seem to stop in front of the painter.
The mountain
Mount Elbrus (Эльбру́с) also called Karachay-Balkar (Минги таy) is the highest mountain in Europe, and the seven highest summit in the world. The seven summit (which are obviously 8, with 2 in Europe !) are : Mount Everest (8,848m),
Aconcagua (6,961m),
Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m),
Kilimandjaro (5,895m),
Mt Elbrus (5,642m),
Vinson Massif (4,892m),
Mt Blanc (4,807m) and
Mount Kosciuszko (2,228m) in Australia.
Mount Elbrus should not be confused with the Alborz (also called Elburz) mountains in Iran, which also derive their name from the legendary mountain Harā Bərəzaitī in Persian mythology.
A dormant volcano, Elbrus forms part of the Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia, near the border with Georgia. Elbrus has two summits, both of which are dormant volcanic domes. With its slightly taller west summit, the mountain stands at 5,642 metres (18,510 ft); the east summit is 5,621 metres (18,442 ft). The lower east summit was first ascended on 10 July 1829 by Khillar Khachirov, a Karachayguide for an Imperial Russian army scientific expedition led by General Emmanuel, and the higher in 1874 by an British expedition led by F. Crauford Grove and including Frederick Gardner, Horace Walker, and the Swiss guide Peter Knubel of St. Niklaus in the canton Valais.
While there are differing authorities on how the Caucasus are distributed between Europe and Asia, most relevant modern authorities define the continental boundary as the Caucasus watershed, placing Elbrus in Europe due to its position on the north side in Russia.
Mount Elbrus was formed more than 2.5 million years ago. The volcano is currently considered inactive. Elbrus was active in the Holocene, and according to the Global Volcanism Program, the last eruption took place about AD 50. Evidence of recent volcanism includes several lava flows on the mountain, which look fresh, and roughly 260 square kilometres (100 sq mi) of volcanic debris. The longest flow extends 24 kilometres (15 mi) down the northeast summit, indicative of a large eruption. There are other signs of activity on the volcano, including solfataric activity and hot springs. The western summit has a well-preserved volcanic crater about 250 metres (820 ft) in diameter.
The ancients knew the mountain as Strobilus, Latin for '
pine cone', a direct loan from the ancient Greek strobilos, meaning '
a twisted object' – a long established botanical term that describes the shape of the volcano's summit. Myth held that here Zeus had chained Prometheus, the Titan who had stolen fire from the gods and given it to ancient man – likely a reference to historic volcanic activity.
The Soviet Union encouraged ascents of Elbrus, and in 1956 it was climbed en masse by 400 mountaineers to mark the 400th anniversary of the incorporation of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic where Elbrus was located.
From 1959 through 1976, a cable car system was built in stages that can take visitors as high as 3,800 metres (12,500 ft). There are a wide variety of routes up the mountain, but the normal route, which is free of crevasses, continues more or less straight up the slope from the end of the cable car system. Winter ascents are rare, and are usually undertaken only by very experienced climbers. Elbrus is notorious for its brutal winter weather, and summit attempts are few and far between. The climb is not technically difficult, but it is physically arduous because of the elevations and the frequent strong winds. The average annual death toll on Elbrus is 15–30, primarily due to "many unorganized and poorly equipped" attempts to summit the mountain. Since 1986, Mt. Elbrus has been incorporated into Prielbrusye National Park, one of the Protected areas of Russia.
In 1997 a team led by the Russian mountaineer Alexander Abramov took a Land Rover Defender to the summit of the East Peak, breaking into the Guinness Book of Records. The project took 45 days in total. They were able to drive the vehicle as high as the mountain huts at The Barrels (3,800 metres (12,500 ft)), but above this they used a pulley system to raise it most of the way. On the way down, a driver lost control of the vehicle and had to dive out.
The second was Kevin Cooney, and the third Patrick Healy.
Regular competitions began to take place since 2005 is a choice of two routes: the classic and extreme. In 2006, on the route of extreme glade Azau (2400 m) - the western summit of Elbrus (5642 m asl) Denis Urubko set a record by winning the tour time 3 hours 55 minutes 59 seconds.
The Pole Aleksandra Dzik won the female competition on this route, becoming both the first woman graduated from extreme gear.
The painter
Ilya Zankovsky was a russian painter and graphic artist who studied as a noncredit student in the Imperial Academy of Arts (IAKh, 1862–1863) and who did not finish the course. Zankovsky lived in Tiflis, served in the Military topographic department of the Caucasus military region. He painted landscapes of the Caucasus (
Mount Elbrus (above)
, Georgian military road, The Darial Gorge, From the main mountain range, Mount Ushba. Hunters halt). He worked a lot in watercolor. His works were shown at the exhibitions of the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts, the Society for mutual aid of Caucasian artists, the Society of Russian Watercolorists, and at the Autumn exhibitions in the halls of the IAKh. Zankovsky taught in the Drawing School under the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts in 1880s–1910s.
In 2009 an exhibition of Zankovsky’s works was held in Moscow. Works by Ilya Zankovsky are in many museum collections, including the State Russian Museum, Odessa Fine Arts Museum, Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts named after M. A. Vrubel, and Dagestan Museum of Local History.
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2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
