AÏDOUR / SANTA CRUZ PAINTED BY AUGUSTIN FERRANDO

AUGUSTIN FERRANDO  (1880-1957)

Aïdour / Santa Cruz (589m - 1932 ft) 

Algeria

In La baie d 'Oran et l'Aïdour, 1922, oil on cardboard, Private collection   

The Mountain 

The Aïdour (589m - 1932 ft)  also known under the name of Santa Cruz is a mountain  which dominates the city of Oran in Algeria. Several buildings are built at the top of the mountain, including a fortress and the well known christian chapel of Santa Cruz. 

This mountain is known by a number of toponyms, and especially its eastern end which dominates the city of Oran by a plateau and a steep hill separated by a small pass. This small coastal chain located to the west of the city of Oran, develops for a distance of about 25 km in a direction west-south-west, east-northeast. It ends at the sea in its eastern end by the Djebel Santon and the hill of Santa Cruz which enclose the bay of Mers el-Kebir. It dominates in the north the small coastal plain going from the Andalusians to the jebel Santon, and to the south the plain bordering the great Sebkha of Oran (salt lake) from Boutlelis to Oran.

From the 12th century this mountain is known as Aïdour, a name reported by Arab chroniclers. An even more ancient name is reported by other chroniclers: Mount Guedera or Guedara. Later the Turks called him Mourdjadjo. The Spaniards name the hill "La Silla" (the saddle). The name of concurrent use of the Aïdour is then Santa Cruz for the hill, and Murdjadjo for the plateau.

The Phoenicians had chosen Madagh Creek in the west to set up their trading posts, but the Romans preferred to develop the site of Portus Magnus 40 kilometers to the east on the present town of Bethioua. In the 15th century, during the Islamic period, a mausoleum (gubba) was erected on the eastern end of the plateau which dominates Oran, and dedicated to Abdelkader al-Jilani, prefessor and  eminent imam buried in Baghdad. The story goes that in 1425, one of the disciples of Abou Madyane, Tlemcen's famous saint, died suddenly before reaching the wadi and his disciples then installed small mausoleums in memory of his teacher Abdelkader al-Jilani. It is therefore not a tomb but a cenotaph.

In 1805, when Spain occupied Oran, the Marquis de Santa Cruz, governor of the city, decided in 1563 to build the fort of Santa Cruz on the rocky spur of Aïdour. His position was strategic for the defense of Oran and Mers El Kebir.
The chapel of Santa Cruz was built in 1850, after the terrible cholera epidemic of 1849, which had caused several hundred victims a day. It is dedicated to Our Lady of Salvation. In 1950, during the french colonisation, the construction project of the architect Lesaint was opened, with a cloister and a small Romane basilica with a slightly crushed dome, in the presence of Bishop Roncalli, apostolic nuncio, and future Pope John XXIII. The old chapel at the foot of the bell tower was demolished in 1951 at the beginning of the construction of the cloister, which ended in 1956.

 Source : 

 ©wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com

The Painter 

Augustin Jean Ferrando is a French orientalist painter born in Algeria in 1880 then French department. A student of the school of fine arts of Algiers in 1898, then of the Academy Druet and Rochegrosse, formerly of the school of the fine arts of Paris, with Fernand Cormon (1845-1924), he meets in Paris Derain, Matisse, Leger, Vlaminck, Utrillo. Ferrando, considered the only fawn painter from Algeria, and the representative of the Algiers School, obtained several vermilion medals (at the exhibitions of the Orientalist artists' society). It was mobilized in 1914 among the Zouaves of Algiers until 1918. He was appointed director of the Oran School of Fine Arts, founder of the Association of African Artists, and became curator of the Demaeght Museum in 1935. He worked in Oued Taria, where his second wife was born.
He has made numerous exhibitions in Algiers (Galerie Charlet), Oran (Galerie Pozzalo and Galerie Pasteur), Paris (Palais de New York),  The Biennale de Menton, Musée Rolin d'Autun in 1977, Boulogne-Billancourt in 1990, Versailles and Paris in 1992, and in the exhibition  Albert Marquet and his friends, July 2008,  at the Cultural center of Saint-Raphaël (France).
Source : 
 ©wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com