MT MANAIA BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913) 

Mount Manaia (420m- 1,378ft)

New Zealand (North Island)

 In Mount Manaia- Whangarei Head, oil on canvas, 1890  

The mountain 
Mount Manaia   (420m- 1,378ft) is a dominant landmark approximately 30 kilometres southeast of Whangarei city on the Whangarei Heads peninsula.
The summit offers outstanding views of  Bream Bay and the Hauraki Gulf to the south, Whangarei Harbour to the west and the Poor Knights Islands and Northland coast to the north.
Mt Manaia - along with Mt Lion, Bream Head and the Hen and Chicken Islands, are the scattered remnants of a large, 50 kilometer diameter volcano that erupted with force 20 million years ago during the early miocene period. Its jagged outline is similar to that of its neighbours and other volcanic outcrops in Northland that erupted in a similar period.
Today blanketed by native bush, Manaia's jagged peaks and steep bluffs are protected within a Department of Conservation reserve which features a well-maintained 1½ hour track to the summit.

The Painter
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London, Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT MANAIA BY CHARLES BLOMFIELD

CHARLES BLOMFIELD (1848-1926) 

Mount Manaia  (420 m-1,378 ft)

New Zealand

In  Old Maniaia, Whangarei Heads, oil on canvas, 

The mountain 
Mount Manaia (420 m-1,378 ft) is a dominant landmark approximately 30 kilometres southeast of Whangarei city on the Whangarei Heads peninsula, New Zealand. The summit offers outstanding views of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery, Bream Bay and the Hauraki Gulf to the south, Whangarei Harbour to the west and the Poor Knights Islands and Northland coast to the north.
Mt Manaia - along with Mt Lion, Bream Head and the Hen and Chicken Islands, are the scattered remnants of a large, 50 kilometer diameter volcano that erupted with force 20 million years ago during the early miocene period. Its jagged outline is similar to that of its neighbours and other volcanic outcrops in Northland that erupted in a similar period.
Today blanketed by native bush, Manaia's jagged peaks and steep bluffs are protected within a Department of Conservation reserve which features a well-maintained 1 hour track to the summit.

The painter 

Charles Blomfield  was a New Zealand decorator, artist and music teacher born in London, England.

A widow, Blomfield's mother brought her family to New Zealand in the 1860's intending to settle in Northland as part of a settlement called Albertland. On arrival in Auckland they decided not to proceed on Northland to become farmers but to pursue urban trades in Auckland. The family remained in Auckland after that and many of the descendants of the various children still reside in the Auckland area.

Charles Blomfield lived in Freeman's Bay - 40 Wood Street, in a house built by his brother and allegedly made out of the timber from one large Kauri tree. As well as an exhibiting easel painter Blomfield worked as a sign-writer and interior decorator; for this trade he maintained studios in shops at various times. These were usually on Karangahape Road, one of these was shared with his daughter who made a living painting floral pieces which she also exhibited at the Auckland Society of Arts.

Blomfield travelled throughout the centre of the North Island on several occasions in the 1870s and 80s creating many landscape paintings of the New Zealand countryside, often for sale to visitors to New Zealand.  He painted several times Mount Manaia and under different angles (see the painting already posted).He was fortunate to viewas well the famed Pink and White Terraces several times and paint them before they were destroyed by the eruption of Tarawera in 1886. His meticulous sketches and finished paintings are some of the main records of them (see above).  For the remainder of his life he was probably able to rely on new versions of his classic views of them to supplement his income.

His paintings are widely regarded as the epitome of 19th century New Zealand landscape art, although his work, like many of his contemporaries, fell out of fashion during the 20th century, only to be re-evaluated in the 1970s. He was unable to come to terms with developments in art and remained staunchly conservative and hostile to 'modern art'. In his later years he found himself increasingly sidelined by the artistic circles in Auckland which he had previously shone in and was probably embittered by this.

Blomfield died at his residence in Wood Street in 1926. He was survived by several children. One of his brothers, William, was a noted newspaper cartoonist.

MOUNT MANAIA PAINTED BY CHARLES BLOMFIELD

CHARLES BLOMFIELD (1848-1926)

Mount Manaia (420m - 1, 378ft) 

New Zealand

In Mount Manaia, Whangarei, 1921, oil on board, Private collection, New Zealand

The mountain 

Mount Manaia  (420m) is a dominant landmark approximately 30 kilometres southeast of Whangarei city on the Whangarei Heads peninsula. The summit offers outstanding views of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery, Bream Bay and the Hauraki Gulf to the south, Whangarei Harbour to the west and the Poor Knights Islands and Northland coast to the north.

Mt Manaia - along with Mt Lion, Bream Head and the Hen and Chicken Islands, are the scattered remnants of a large, 50 kilometer diameter volcano that erupted with force 20 million years ago during the early miocene period. Its jagged outline is similar to that of its neighbours and other volcanic outcrops in Northland that erupted in a similar period.

Today blanketed by native bush, Manaia's jagged peaks and steep bluffs are protected within a Department of Conservation reserve which features a well-maintained 1Ѕ hour track to the summit.

The painter 

Charles Blomfield  was a New Zealand decorator, artist and music teacher born in London, England.

A widow, Blomfield's mother brought her family to New Zealand in the 1860's intending to settle in Northland as part of a settlement called Albertland. On arrival in Auckland they decided not to proceed on Northland to become farmers but to pursue urban trades in Auckland. The family remained in Auckland after that and many of the descendants of the various children still reside in the Auckland area.

Charles Blomfield lived in Freeman's Bay - 40 Wood Street, in a house built by his brother and allegedly made out of the timber from one large Kauri tree. As well as an exhibiting easel painter Blomfield worked as a sign-writer and interior decorator; for this trade he maintained studios in shops at various times. These were usually on Karangahape Road, one of these was shared with his daughter who made a living painting floral pieces which she also exhibited at the Auckland Society of Arts.

Blomfield travelled throughout the centre of the North Island on several occasions in the 1870s and 80s creating many landscape paintings of the New Zealand countryside, often for sale to visitors to New Zealand. He was fortunate to view the famed Pink and White Terraces several times and paint them before they were destroyed by the eruption of Tarawera in 1886. His meticulous sketches and finished paintings are some of the main records of them (see above).  For the remainder of his life he was probably able to rely on new versions of his classic views of them to supplement his income.

His paintings are widely regarded as the epitome of 19th century New Zealand landscape art, although his work, like many of his contemporaries, fell out of fashion during the 20th century, only to be re-evaluated in the 1970s. He was unable to come to terms with developments in art and remained staunchly conservative and hostile to 'modern art'. In his later years he found himself increasingly sidelined by the artistic circles in Auckland which he had previously shone in and was probably embittered by this.

Blomfield died at his residence in Wood Street in 1926. He was survived by several children. One of his brothers, William, was a noted newspaper cartoonist.