LE POPOCATEPETL PEINT PAR MARSDEN HARTLEY

 

MARSDEN HARLEY (1877-1943)
Popocatepetl (5,426 m)
Mexique

In "Popocatepetl, Spirited Morning, Mexico" (1932), Oil on board, 63.5 x 73.7 cm. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Le peintre
Marsden Hartley était un peintre, poète et essayiste moderniste américain.
Hartley a commencé sa formation artistique au Cleveland Institute of Art après que sa famille ait déménagé à Cleveland, Ohio, en 1892. En 1898, à 22 ans, il s'installe à New York pour étudier la peinture à la New York School of Art sous la direction de William Merritt Chase, puis fréquente la National Academy of Design. Hartley était un grand admirateur d'Albert Pinkham Ryder et visitait son studio de Greenwich Village aussi souvent que possible. Son amitié avec Ryder, ainsi que les écrits de Walt Whitman et des transcendantalistes américains Henry David Thoreau et Ralph Waldo Emerson, ont largement inscliné Hartley à considérer l'art comme une quête spirituelle. Hartley voyage pour la première fois en Europe en avril 1912 et fait la connaissance du cercle d'écrivains et d'artistes d'avant-garde de Gertrude Stein à Paris. Stein, avec Hart Crane et Sherwood Anderson,  encouragéèrent Hartley à écrire ainsi qu'à peindre. En 1913, Hartley s'installe à Berlin, où il continue à peindre et se lie d'amitié avec les peintres Vassily Kandinsky et Franz Marc. Il collectionnait également l'art populaire bavarois. Son travail durant cette période était une combinaison d’abstraction et d’expressionnisme allemand, alimenté par sa marque personnelle de mysticisme. À Berlin, Hartley développa une relation étroite avec un lieutenant prussien, Karl von Freyburg. Les références à Freyburg sont un motif récurrent dans l'œuvre de Hartley, notamment dans Portrait d'un officier allemand (1914). La mort de Freyburg pendant la guerre a durement frappé Hartley. Hartley retourna aux États-Unis au début de 1916 mais Il vécut de nouveau en Europe entre 1921 et 1930, avant de retourner définitivement aux États-Unis. Il  peignit alors dans tout le pays, au Massachusetts, au Nouveau-Mexique, en Californie et à New York. Il retourna dans le Maine en 1937, après avoir déclaré vouloir devenir « le peintre du Maine » et dépeindre la vie américaine locale. Il s'alignait ainsi sur le mouvement régionaliste, un groupe d'artistes actifs du début au milieu du 20e siècle qui tentaient de représenter un « art américain » distinct. Il  continua à peindre dans le Maine, principalement des scènes autour de Lovell, jusqu'à sa mort à Ellsworth en 1943. La plupart de ses peintures de montagnes du Maine font aujourd'hui partie des collections du MET.

Le volcan
Le Popocatépetl (5 426 m ) est un volcan actif, situé dans les États de Puebla, au Mexique et de Morelos, au centre du Mexique, et setrouve dans la moitié orientale de la ceinture volcanique trans-mexicaine. Le nom Popocatépetl vient des mots nahuatl popōca (ça fume) et tepetl (montagne), signifiant montagne fumante. C'est le deuxième plus haut sommet du Mexique, après le Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) à 5 636 m (18 491 pi). Il est relié au volcan Iztaccihuatl au nord par la haute selle connue sous le nom de Paso de Cortés.Popocatépetl se trouve à 70 km (43 mi) au sud-est de Mexico, d'où il peut être vu régulièrement, en fonction des conditions atmosphériques. Jusqu'à récemment, le volcan était l'un des trois hauts sommets du Mexique à contenir des glaciers, les autres étant Iztaccihuatl et Pico de Orizaba. Dans les années 1990, la taille des glaciers tels que Glaciar Norte (Glacier Nord) a considérablement diminué, en partie à cause des températures plus chaudes, mais en grande partie à cause de l'augmentation de l'activité volcanique. Début 2001, les glaciers du Popocatépetl avaient disparu ; la glace restait sur le volcan, mais ne présentait plus les traits caractéristiques des glaciers comme les crevasses. Le magma en éruption du Popocatépetl a toujours été principalement andésitique, mais il a également produit de grands volumes de dacite. Le magma produit au cours du cycle d’activité actuel a tendance à être un mélange des deux.

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2024 - 13e année de publication - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

PODCAST / LES TABLEAUX QUI PARLENT

PICO DE ORIZABA / CILALTÉPETL PAINTED BY DIEGO RIVERA

 

DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)
Pico de Orizaba / Citlaltépetl (5,636 m -18,491 ft) 
Mexico (Vera Cruz)

The mountain
Pico de Orizaba (5,636 m -18,491 ft) also known as Citlaltépetl is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America, after Denali of Alaska in the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. It rises in the eastern end of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, on the border between the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The volcano is currently dormant but not extinct, with the last eruption taking place during the 19th century. It is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro. Pico de Orizaba was important in pre-Hispanic cultures, such as those of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs and the Totonacs. The volcano is part of many native mythologies. Pico de Orizaba is located 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Mexico City and approximately 480 kilometres (300 mi) south of the Tropic of Cancer. A companion peak lying about six km to the southwest of Pico de Orizaba is the Sierra Negra, at 4,640 metres (15,223 ft). Pico de Orizaba is one of only three volcanoes in México that continue to support glaciers and is home to the largest glacier in Mexico, Gran Glaciar Norte. Orizaba has nine known glaciers: Gran Glaciar Norte, Lengua del Chichimeco, Jamapa, Toro, Glaciar de la Barba, Noroccidental, Occidental, Suroccidental, and Oriental. Pico de Orizaba, like the Sierra Madre Oriental, forms a barrier between the coastal plains of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican Plateau. The volcano blocks the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from saturating central Mexico and influences the climates of both areas. Both the state of Veracruz and Puebla depend on Pico de Orizaba for supplying fresh water. The largest river originating on the volcano is the Jamapa River.

The painter
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican mural movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Rivera had a volatile marriage with fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. In 1926, Rivera became a member of AMORC, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, an occult organization founded by American occultist Harvey Spencer Lewis. In 1926, Rivera was among the founders of AMORC's Mexico City lodge, called Quetzalcoatl, and painted an image of Quetzalcoatl for the local temple. In 1954, when he tried to be readmitted into the Mexican Communist Party from which he had previously been excluded because of his support of Trotsky, Rivera had to justify his AMORC activities. The Mexican Communist Party at that time excluded from its ranks members of Freemasonry, and regarded AMORC as suspiciously similar to Freemasonry. Rivera answered that, by joining AMORC, he wanted to infiltrate a typical “Yankee” organization on behalf of Communism. However, he also claimed that AMORC was “essentially materialist, insofar as it only admits different states of energy and matter, and is based on ancient Egyptian occult knowledge from Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti.”
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LOS FRAILES OR THE ORGANS OF ACTOPAN BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
WILHELM FRIEDRICH ( 1760-1820), engraver
The Organs of Actopan or Los Frailes (1,140 m - 3,740 ft)
Mexico (Hidalgo)

In Vues des Cordillères, et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique from the book  Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent, 1813

About this engraving and the mountain
On May 23 and 24, Humboldt would tour the Actopan Valley, and then leave on May 25 for Mexico City. During the visit, Humboldt drew and studied the Organs of Actopan, also known as Los Frailes,located 17 km southeast of Actopan in the municipality of El Arenal. Humboldt determines their height trigonometrically.In Actopan. The slender part of the rock is a hundred meters high; but the absolute elevation of the summit of the mountain, where the Organos begin to stand out, is 585 toises (1,140 m - 3,740 ft) .  It is on the way from Mexico to the mines of Guanaxuatotjuon distinguishes from very far away, and standing out on Thoiizon, the rock of Mamanchota: it rises in the middle of a forest of oaks, and oflers a very picturesque aspect. 

The artist and explorer
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

COFRE DE PEROTE / NAUPA-TECVUTÉPTL SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859),
Cofre de Perote/ Naupa-Tecutépetl (4,282 m (14,049 ft)
Mexico

 The mountain
Cofre de Perote, also known by its Nahuatl names Naupa-Tecutépetl ,  meaning something like "Place of Four Mountain" or "Mountain of the Lord of Four Places", is an inactive volcano located in the Mexican state of Veracruz, at the point where the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, home to all of Mexico's highest peaks, joins the Sierra Madre Oriental. Cofre de Perote is Mexico's eighth highest mountain summit.
Cofre de Perote is a shield volcano, shaped very differently from the stratovolcanic Pico de Orizaba, which lies about 50 km (31 mi) to the southeast. A cofre is a coffer, and the name alludes to a volcanic outcropping on the shield which constitutes the peak of the mountain. To the north is the town of Perote, Veracruz, after which the mountain is named. The area surrounding the volcano was protected by the Mexican government as a national park, known as Cofre de Perote National Park (Parque Nacional Cofre de Perote), in 1937.

The artist
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

EL JORULLO SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
El Jorullo (1,329m- 4,360ft)
Mexico

 In Volcan de Jorullo,  Vue des Coridllères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique, 1816, Paris chez F. Schoell.

About this drawing
Alexander von Humboldt climbed El Jorullo during the Mexican portion of his scientific expedition to Spanish America. When he visited on 19 September 1803, its multiple cones were still smoldering and the air was extremely hot and filled with volcanic gases. He wrote a detailed description of the climb, noting that his face and those of his travel companions were burned. The volcano enriched the local soil and there was considerable vegetation. Humboldt sketched the volcano in the distance (see above), showing multiple smoking cones. Humboldt undertook the climb with his scientific travel partner Aimé Bonpland, as well as a local Basque settler Ramón Epelde, and two local indigenous servants, whose names have not been recorded. Humboldt noted their assistance on site. Humboldt also notes that he consulted a 1782 publication Rusticatio Mexicana, by Rafael Landívar, who calculated the height of the volcano and the temperature of the thermal waters.


The volcano
El Jorullo  (1,329m- 4,360ft) is a cinder cone volcano in Michoacán, central Mexico, on the southwest slope of the central plateau, 33 miles (53 kilometers) southeast of Uruapan in an area known as the Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field.  It is about 6 miles (10 km) east-northeast of La Huacana.  El Jorullo has four smaller cinder cones which have grown from its flanks.  El Jorullo's crater is about 1,300 by 1,640 feet (400 by 500 m) wide and 490 feet (150 m) deep.   El Jorullo is one of two known volcanoes to have developed in Mexico in recent history. The second, born about 183 years later, was named Parícutin after a nearby village that it eventually destroyed. Parícutin is about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of El Jorullo. El Jorullo was first erupted on 29 September 1759. Earthquakes occurred prior to this first day of eruption. Once the volcano started erupting, it continued for 15 years, eventually ending in 1774.
El Jorullo did not develop on a corn field like Parícutin did, but it did destroy what had been a rich agricultural area. It grew approximately 820 feet (250 meters) from the ground in the first six weeks. The eruptions from El Jorullo were primarily phreatic and phreatomagmatic. This 15 year eruption was the longest one El Jorullo has had, and was the longest cinder cone eruption known. Lava flows can still be seen to the north and west of the volcano.  Parícutin and El Jorullo both rose in an area known for its volcanoes. Called the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the region stretches about 700 miles (1,120 km) from east to west across southern Mexico. The eruptive activity deposited a layer of volcanic rock some 6,000 feet thick, creating a high and fertile plateau. During summer months, the heights snag moisture-laden breezes from the Pacific Ocean; rich farmland, in turn, has made this belt the most populous region in Mexico. Though the region already boasted three of the country's four largest cities: Mexico City, Puebla, and Guadalajara (the area around Parícutin, some 200 miles west of the capital), it was still a peaceful backwater inhabited by Purépecha in the early 1940s. The crater and lake can now be reached by car.


The artist
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes and Mountain paintings 
by Francis Rousseau

POPOCATEPETL AND IZTACCHIHUATL (6) PAINTED BY JOSÉ MARIRA VELASCO

JOSE MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)
Popocatépetl (5, 426 m -17, 802 ft) on left)
Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) (on right)
Mexico

In Popocatepetl and Iztacchihuatl , 1895, watercolor, The José María Velasco Museum, Mexico

The volcanoes
Popocatépetl (5,426 m - 17,802 ft), on right in this painting, is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words Popōca (It smokes) and Tepētl (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba.
Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) is dormant volcanic mountain in Mexico located on the border between the State of Mexico and Puebla. It is the nation's third highest, after Pico de Orizaba 5,636 m (18,491 ft) and Popocatépetl 5,426 m (17,802 ft). The name "Iztaccíhuatl" is Nahuatl for "White woman", reflecting the four individual snow-capped peaks which depict the head, chest, knees and feet of a sleeping female when seen from east or west.The peak is sometimes nicknamed La Mujer Dormida (The Sleeping Woman.) Iztaccíhuatl is to the north of Popocatépetl, to which it is connected by the high altitude Paso de Cortés. Depending on atmospheric conditions Iztaccíhuatl is also visible much of the year from Mexico City some 70 km (43 mi) to the northwest.
The first recorded ascent was made in 1889, though archaeological evidence suggests the Aztecs and previous cultures climbed it previously. It is the lowest peak containing permanent snow and glaciers in Mexico.
In Aztec mythology : Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with one of her father's warriors, Popocatépetl. The emperor sent Popocatépetl to war in Oaxaca, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he returned (which Iztaccíhuatl's father presumed he would not). Iztaccíhuatl was falsely told that Popocatépetl had died in battle, and believing the news, she died of grief. When Popocatépetl returned to find his love dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains.
Popocatépetl became an active volcano, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.

The painter
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Maria Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings. He was both one of the most popular artists of the time and internationally renowned. He received many distinctions such as the gold medal of the Mexican National Expositions of Bellas Artes in 1874 and 1876; the gold medal of the Philadelphia International Exposition in 1876, on the centenary of U.S. independence; and the medal of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889, on the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. His painting El valle de Mexico is considered Velasco's masterpiece, of which he created seven different renditions. Of all the nineteenth-century painters, Velasco was the "first to be elevated in the post-Revolutionary period as an exemplar of nationalism."
Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.
Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.
The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

POPOCATEPETL PAINTED BY JOSÉ MARIRA VELASCO

 

JOSÉ MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)
The Popocatépetl (5,426 m -17,802 ft)
Mexico

In Popocatepetl , oil on canvas, Private owner

The mountain
Popocatépetl (5,426 m - 17,802 ft) is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca (it smokes) and tepētl (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity. By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.
Magma erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.

The Painter
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings.
Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.
Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.
The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

POPOCATÉPETL AND IZTACCÍHUATL (5) PAINTED BY JOSÉ MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912),

 

JOSE MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)
Popocatépetl (5, 426 m -17, 802 ft) on left)
Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) (on right)
Mexico

In Popocatepetl and Iztacchihuatl from the back, 1895, oil on canvas, The   José María Velasco Museum, Mexico

The volcanoes
Popocatépetl (5,426 m - 17,802 ft), on right in this painting, is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words Popōca (It smokes) and Tepētl (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba.
Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) is dormant volcanic mountain in Mexico located on the border between the State of Mexico and Puebla. It is the nation's third highest, after Pico de Orizaba 5,636 m (18,491 ft) and Popocatépetl 5,426 m (17,802 ft). The name "Iztaccíhuatl" is Nahuatl for "White woman", reflecting the four individual snow-capped peaks which depict the head, chest, knees and feet of a sleeping female when seen from east or west.The peak is sometimes nicknamed La Mujer Dormida (The Sleeping Woman.) Iztaccíhuatl is to the north of Popocatépetl, to which it is connected by the high altitude Paso de Cortés. Depending on atmospheric conditions Iztaccíhuatl is also visible much of the year from Mexico City some 70 km (43 mi) to the northwest.
The first recorded ascent was made in 1889, though archaeological evidence suggests the Aztecs and previous cultures climbed it previously. It is the lowest peak containing permanent snow and glaciers in Mexico.
In Aztec mythology : Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with one of her father's warriors, Popocatépetl. The emperor sent Popocatépetl to war in Oaxaca, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he returned (which Iztaccíhuatl's father presumed he would not). Iztaccíhuatl was falsely told that Popocatépetl had died in battle, and believing the news, she died of grief. When Popocatépetl returned to find his love dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains.
Popocatépetl became an active volcano, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.

The painter
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings. He was both one of the most popular artists of the time and internationally renowned. He received many distinctions such as the gold medal of the Mexican National Expositions of Bellas Artes in 1874 and 1876; the gold medal of the Philadelphia International Exposition in 1876, on the centenary of U.S. independence; and the medal of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889, on the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. His painting El valle de Mexico is considered Velasco's masterpiece, of which he created seven different renditions. Of all the nineteenth-century painters, Velasco was the "first to be elevated in the post-Revolutionary period as an exemplar of nationalism."
Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.
Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.
The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings.

_______________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau  

PICO DE ORIZABA / CITLALTÉPETL PAINTED BY EUGENIO LANDESIO

EUGENIO LANDESIO  (1810-1879) 

Pico de Orizaba / Citlaltépetl (5,636 m -18,491 ft) 

Mexico (Vera Cruz) 

In Monte-Blanco-Farm-Mexico, Vera Cruz, 1879, oil on canvas, 

Museo de Arte del Estado de Veracruz 

About the painting

In 1873 Eugenio Landesio began working on the project that was to become Hacienda de Monte Blanco (above) and upon his return to Rome, Landesio commissioned José María Velasco to finish it. Hacienda de Monte Blanco is a view of Monte Blanco, a hacienda of the state of Veracruz and describes the biological, geological and regional characteristics that Landesio considered essential for landscaping. From the natural vegetation of the region to the rugged ascent to the mountain that can be seen in the distance, each aspect of the painting reflects its specific location, a hallmark of Landesio's style. At last, on the background of the composition one can see the Pico de Orizaba, a dormant volcano which is the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America.

The mountain 

Pico de Orizaba  (5,636 m -18,491 ft) also known as Citlaltépetl is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America, after Denali of Alaska in the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. It rises  in the eastern end of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, on the border between the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The volcano is currently dormant but not extinct, with the last eruption taking place during the 19th century. It is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro.
Pico de Orizaba was important in pre-Hispanic cultures, such as those of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs and the Totonacs. The volcano is part of many native mythologies.
Pico de Orizaba  is located 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Mexico City  and approximately 480 kilometres (300 mi) south of the Tropic of Cancer. A companion peak lying about six km to the southwest of Pico de Orizaba is the Sierra Negra, at 4,640 metres (15,223 ft). 

Pico de Orizaba is one of only three volcanoes in México that continue to support glaciers and is home to the largest glacier in Mexico, Gran Glaciar Norte. Orizaba has nine known glaciers: Gran Glaciar Norte, Lengua del Chichimeco, Jamapa, Toro, Glaciar de la Barba, Noroccidental, Occidental, Suroccidental, and Oriental.
Pico de Orizaba, like the Sierra Madre Oriental, forms a barrier between the coastal plains of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican Plateau. The volcano blocks the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from saturating central Mexico and influences the climates of both areas. Both the state of Veracruz and Puebla depend on Pico de Orizaba for supplying fresh water. The largest river originating on the volcano is the Jamapa River.

The painter
Eugenio Landesio was an Italian painter and a pupil of the Hungarian landscape painter Károly Markó the Elder. Landesio’s career in Mexico was marked by his years at the Academy of San Carlos, where he exercised an influence on later exponents of Mexican landscape painting such as José María Velasco.  In January 1855, at the invitation of the Catalan painter Pelegrín Clavé, who was director of the figure painting section of the Academy, he went to Mexico to give classes in landscape, perspective, and the principles of ornamentation.
Like his teacher, Landesio was a Romantic landscape painter, with a tendency to emphasize the sweetness and mellowness of his scenes. His work became known in Mexico when several of his paintings were acquired by the Academy of San Carlos. Landesio wrote three books on landscape painting that served as textbooks for the students of the Academy of San Carlos.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE POPOCATEPETL PAINTED BY DIEGO RIVERA

DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957) 

The Popocatépetl (5,426 m -17,802 ft) 

Mexico

In   The Threshing Floor (La era), oil on canvas, 100 x 114.6 cm, 1904,  

Museo Casa Diego Rivera, Guanajuato.

The mountain
Popocatépetl (5,426 m - 17,802 ft) is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca (it smokes) and tepētl (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity. By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.
Magma erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.

The painter
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican mural movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Rivera had a volatile marriage with fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
In 1926, Rivera became a member of AMORC, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, an occult organization founded by American occultist Harvey Spencer Lewis. In 1926, Rivera was among the founders of AMORC's Mexico City lodge, called Quetzalcoatl, and painted an image of Quetzalcoatl for the local temple.  In 1954, when he tried to be readmitted into the Mexican Communist Party from which he had previously been excluded because of his support of Trotsky, Rivera had to justify his AMORC activities. The Mexican Communist Party at that time excluded from its ranks members of Freemasonry, and regarded AMORC as suspiciously similar to Freemasonry.  Rivera answered that, by joining AMORC, he wanted to infiltrate a typical “Yankee” organization on behalf of Communism. However, he also claimed that AMORC was “essentially materialist, insofar as it only admits different states of energy and matter, and is based on ancient Egyptian occult knowledge from Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti.”

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

POPOCATEPETL & IZTACCIHUATL (4) BYJOSE MARIA VELASCO

JOSE MARIA VELASCO GOMEZ (1840-1912)

Popocatépetl (5, 426 m -17, 802 ft) on left)

Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) (on right)

Mexico

In The volcanic peaks Popocatepetl and behind Iztacchihuatl, oil on canvas,1890 

 National Museum of Art of Mexico 

Other paintings by Velasco of the series representing those volcanoes in this blog

The volcanoes
Popocatépetl (5,426 m - 17,802 ft), on right in this painting, is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words Popōca (It smokes) and Tepētl (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba.
Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) is dormant volcanic mountain in Mexico located on the border between the State of Mexico and Puebla. It is the nation's third highest, after Pico de Orizaba 5,636 m (18,491 ft) and Popocatépetl 5,426 m (17,802 ft). The name "Iztaccíhuatl" is Nahuatl for "White woman", reflecting the four individual snow-capped peaks which depict the head, chest, knees and feet of a sleeping female when seen from east or west.The peak is sometimes nicknamed La Mujer Dormida (The Sleeping Woman.) Iztaccíhuatl is to the north of Popocatépetl, to which it is connected by the high altitude Paso de Cortés. Depending on atmospheric conditions Iztaccíhuatl is also visible much of the year from Mexico City some 70 km (43 mi) to the northwest.

The first recorded ascent was made in 1889, though archaeological evidence suggests the Aztecs and previous cultures climbed it previously. It is the lowest peak containing permanent snow and glaciers in Mexico.
In Aztec mythology : Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with one of her father's warriors, Popocatépetl. The emperor sent Popocatépetl to war in Oaxaca, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he returned (which Iztaccíhuatl's father presumed he would not). Iztaccíhuatl was falsely told that Popocatépetl had died in battle, and believing the news, she died of grief. When Popocatépetl returned to find his love dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains.
Popocatépetl became an active volcano, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.

The painter
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings. He was both one of the most popular artists of the time and internationally renowned. He received many distinctions such as the gold medal of the Mexican National Expositions of Bellas Artes in 1874 and 1876; the gold medal of the Philadelphia International Exposition in 1876, on the centenary of U.S. independence; and the medal of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889, on the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. His painting El valle de Mexico is considered Velasco's masterpiece, of which he created seven different renditions. Of all the nineteenth-century painters, Velasco was the "first to be elevated in the post-Revolutionary period as an exemplar of nationalism."
Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.
Nowadays the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz. The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings.

_______________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

POPOCATEPETL & IZTACCIHUATL (3) PAINTED BYJOSE MARIA VELASCO

JOSE MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)

 Popocatépetl (5, 426 m -17, 802 ft) on right
Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) (on left)

Mexico

In  The volcanic peaks Popocatepetl and Iztacchihuatl in The Valley of Mexico, oil on canvas, 1890

 Other paintings by Velasco representing those volcanoes in this blog

The volcanoes 

Popocatépetl  (5,426 m (17,802 ft),  on right in this painting,  is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt.  The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words Popōca   (It smokes) and Tepētl  (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).

It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.

Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. 

Iztaccíhuatl  (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) is  dormant volcanic mountain in Mexico located on the border between the State of Mexico and Puebla. It is the nation's third highest, after Pico de Orizaba 5,636 m (18,491 ft) and Popocatépetl 5,426 m (17,802 ft). The name "Iztaccíhuatl" is Nahuatl for "White woman", reflecting the four individual snow-capped peaks which depict the head, chest, knees and feet of a sleeping female when seen from east or west.The peak is sometimes nicknamed La Mujer Dormida ("The Sleeping Woman".)  Iztaccíhuatl is to the north of Popocatépetl, to which it is connected by the high altitude Paso de Cortés. Depending on atmospheric conditions Iztaccíhuatl is also visible much of the year from Mexico City some 70 km (43 mi) to the northwest.

The first recorded ascent was made in 1889, though archaeological evidence suggests the Aztecs and previous cultures climbed it previously. It is the lowest peak containing permanent snow and glaciers in Mexico.

In Aztec mythology : Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with one of her father's warriors, Popocatépetl. The emperor sent Popocatépetl to war in Oaxaca, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he returned (which Iztaccíhuatl's father presumed he would not). Iztaccíhuatl was falsely told that Popocatépetl had died in battle, and believing the news, she died of grief. When Popocatépetl returned to find his love dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains. 

Popocatépetl became an active volcano, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.

The Painter 
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings. He was both one of the most popular artists of the time and internationally renowned. He received many distinctions such as the gold medal of the Mexican National Expositions of Bellas Artes in 1874 and 1876; the gold medal of the Philadelphia International Exposition in 1876, on the centenary of U.S. independence; and the medal of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889, on the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. His painting El valle de Mexico is considered Velasco's masterpiece, of which he created seven different renditions. Of all the nineteenth-century painters, Velasco was the "first to be elevated in the post-Revolutionary period as an exemplar of nationalism."

Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.

Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz. The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings.

_______________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau   

POPOCATEPETL & IZTACCIHUATL (2) PAINTED BYJOSE MARIA VELASCO

JOSE MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)

 Popocatépetl (5, 426 m -17, 802 ft) on right
Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) (on left)

Mexico

 In  The volcanic peaks Popocatepetl and Iztacchihuatl  With a View of Mexico City, oil on canvas, 1880,
 Other paintings by Velasco representing those volcanoes in this blog

The volcanoes 

Popocatépetl  (5,426 m (17,802 ft),  on right in this painting,  is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt.  The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words Popōca   (It smokes) and Tepētl  (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).

It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.

Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. 

Iztaccíhuatl  (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) is  dormant volcanic mountain in Mexico located on the border between the State of Mexico and Puebla. It is the nation's third highest, after Pico de Orizaba 5,636 m (18,491 ft) and Popocatépetl 5,426 m (17,802 ft). The name "Iztaccíhuatl" is Nahuatl for "White woman", reflecting the four individual snow-capped peaks which depict the head, chest, knees and feet of a sleeping female when seen from east or west.The peak is sometimes nicknamed La Mujer Dormida ("The Sleeping Woman".)  Iztaccíhuatl is to the north of Popocatépetl, to which it is connected by the high altitude Paso de Cortés. Depending on atmospheric conditions Iztaccíhuatl is also visible much of the year from Mexico City some 70 km (43 mi) to the northwest.

The first recorded ascent was made in 1889, though archaeological evidence suggests the Aztecs and previous cultures climbed it previously. It is the lowest peak containing permanent snow and glaciers in Mexico.

In Aztec mythology : Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with one of her father's warriors, Popocatépetl. The emperor sent Popocatépetl to war in Oaxaca, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he returned (which Iztaccíhuatl's father presumed he would not). Iztaccíhuatl was falsely told that Popocatépetl had died in battle, and believing the news, she died of grief. When Popocatépetl returned to find his love dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains. 

Popocatépetl became an active volcano, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.

The Painter 
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings. He was both one of the most popular artists of the time and internationally renowned. He received many distinctions such as the gold medal of the Mexican National Expositions of Bellas Artes in 1874 and 1876; the gold medal of the Philadelphia International Exposition in 1876, on the centenary of U.S. independence; and the medal of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889, on the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. His painting El valle de Mexico is considered Velasco's masterpiece, of which he created seven different renditions. Of all the nineteenth-century painters, Velasco was the "first to be elevated in the post-Revolutionary period as an exemplar of nationalism."

Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.

Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.

The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings.

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE POPOCATEPTL (2) BY JOSE MARIA VELASCO

JOSE MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)

The Popocatépetl (5,426 m -17,802 ft)  

Mexico

 In Popocatepetl and greenery, oil on canvas, private owner 

The mountain 
Popocatépetl  (5,426 m - 17,802 ft) is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt.  The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca  (it smokes) and tepētl  (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity. By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.
Magma erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.

The Painter 
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings.
Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.
Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.
The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

POPOCATEPETL & IZTACCIHUATL PAINTED BYJOSE MARIA VELASCO

JOSE MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)
Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) (on left)

 Popocatépetl (5, 426 m -17, 802 ft) on right 

Mexico

In  Volcanes Popocatepetl y Iztacchihuatl en Valle de México desde el Cerro de Santa Isabel,
oil on  canvas,1875

The mountains 

Popocatépetl  (5,426 m (17,802 ft),  on right in this painting,  is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt.  The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words Popōca   (It smokes) and Tepētl  (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).

It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.

Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. 

Iztaccíhuatl  (5,230 m - 17,160 ft) is  dormant volcanic mountain in Mexico located on the border between the State of Mexico and Puebla. It is the nation's third highest, after Pico de Orizaba 5,636 m (18,491 ft) and Popocatépetl 5,426 m (17,802 ft). The name "Iztaccíhuatl" is Nahuatl for "White woman", reflecting the four individual snow-capped peaks which depict the head, chest, knees and feet of a sleeping female when seen from east or west.The peak is sometimes nicknamed La Mujer Dormida ("The Sleeping Woman".)  Iztaccíhuatl is to the north of Popocatépetl, to which it is connected by the high altitude Paso de Cortés. Depending on atmospheric conditions Iztaccíhuatl is also visible much of the year from Mexico City some 70 km (43 mi) to the northwest.

The first recorded ascent was made in 1889, though archaeological evidence suggests the Aztecs and previous cultures climbed it previously. It is the lowest peak containing permanent snow and glaciers in Mexico.

In Aztec mythology : Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with one of her father's warriors, Popocatépetl. The emperor sent Popocatépetl to war in Oaxaca, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he returned (which Iztaccíhuatl's father presumed he would not). Iztaccíhuatl was falsely told that Popocatépetl had died in battle, and believing the news, she died of grief. When Popocatépetl returned to find his love dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains. 

Popocatépetl became an active volcano, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.




The painter 

José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican most famous painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings. A wonderful landscaper, he was both one of the most popular artists of the time and internationally renowned. He received many distinctions such as the gold medal of the Mexican National Expositions of Bellas Artes in 1874 and 1876; the gold medal of the Philadelphia International Exposition in 1876, on the centenary of U.S. independence; and the medal of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889, on the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. His painting El valle de Mexico is considered Velasco's masterpiece, of which he created seven different renditions. Of all the nineteenth-century painters, Velasco was the "first to be elevated in the post-Revolutionary period as an exemplar of nationalism."

Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.

Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.

The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings.

THE POPOCATEPETL BY JOSE MARIA VELASCO

JOSE MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)

The Popocatépetl (5, 426 m -17, 802 ft)  

Mexico

In The Metlac Ravine, oil on canvas, 1893, Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico   

The mountain 
Popocatépetl  (5,426 m (17,802 ft) is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt.  The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca  (it smokes) and tepētl  (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity. By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.
Magma erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.

The Painter 
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings. He was both one of the most popular artists of the time and internationally renowned. He received many distinctions such as the gold medal of the Mexican National Expositions of Bellas Artes in 1874 and 1876; the gold medal of the Philadelphia International Exposition in 1876, on the centenary of U.S. independence; and the medal of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889, on the centenary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. His painting El valle de Mexico is considered Velasco's masterpiece, of which he created seven different renditions. Of all the nineteenth-century painters, Velasco was the "first to be elevated in the post-Revolutionary period as an exemplar of nationalism."

Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.

Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.

The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings.

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE POPOCATEPTL BY ALFRED G. BUCKHAM

ALFRED G. BUCKHAM (1879-1956)  

The Popocatépetl (5,426 m -17,802 ft)  

Mexico

In Volcano - Crater of Popocatepetl, 1930, photo, 1930  National Galleries Scotland

The mountain 
Popocatépetl  (5,426 m (17,802 ft) is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt.  The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca  (it smokes) and tepētl  (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers,[6] the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity] By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.
Magma erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.
Climbing route 
The first ascent was made by ameridian Tecuanipas in 1289. Nowadays the easiest way to reach the top is via the north face. It begins at Tlamacas Lodge located at 3947 meters above sea level and accessible from the neck separating the Popocatepetl of Ixtaccihuatl via a paved road. The trail, which passes through Las Cruces and crosses snowfields and glaciers, measuring nearly five kilometers long with a climb of 1453 mètres. The best time to climb is winter and early spring, especially from  December to  April. The first mountain ski descent was conducted by Francisco Gonzalez Rul and Eduardo de Maria y Campos 1947.

The photographer 
 Alfred George Buckham  was a British photographer who specialised in aerial photography. He began his career in photography in 1905 and joined the Royal Naval Air Service as a reconnaissance photographer in 1917. He became the first head of aerial reconnaissance for the Royal Navy in the First World War and later a captain in the Royal Naval Air Service. Buckham was involved in 9 crashes, 8 of which saw him relatively unscathed. After the ninth, however, he had to have a tracheotomy and breathed through a small pipe in his neck for the rest of his life. Despite this, he carried on his aerial photography career, often in very perilous conditions. He felt the best shots were made standing up, writing If one's right leg is tied to the seat with a scarf or a piece of rope, it is possible to work in perfect security.