CRISTO MOUNTAINS BY GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887–1986)

Cristo mountains (4,374m-14, 351ft)

United States of America (Colorado and New Mexico) 

In Rust red hills, Cristo Mountains in Taos County New Mexico, 1930, oil on canvas

The mountains
Cristo mountains  (culminating at Bianca Peak 4,374m-14, 351ft ), origanally The Sangre de Cristo Mountains (Spanish for "Blood of Christ")  are the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. They are located in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico in the United States. The mountains run from Poncha Pass in South-Central Colorado, trending southeast and south, ending at Glorieta Pass, southeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The mountains contain a number of fourteen thousand foot peaks in the Colorado portion, as well as all the peaks in New Mexico which are over thirteen thousand feet.
The name of the mountains may refer to the occasional reddish hues observed during sunrise and sunset, and when alpenglow occurs, especially when the mountains are covered with snow. Although the particular origin of the name is unclear, it has been in use since the early 19th century. Before that time the terms "La Sierra Nevada", "La Sierra Madre", "La Sierra", and "The Snowies" (used by English speakers) were used. According to tradition, "sangre de Cristo" were the last words of a Catholic priest who was killed by Indians.

The painter 

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.
Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.
O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.
In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.
In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.
Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”
Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art.  In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.
Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

JEBEL CHELIA PAINTED BY CONSTANT LOUCHE

CONSTANT LOUCHE (1880-1965) 

Jebel Chelia (2,328 m - 7,638 ft) 

Algeria 

The mountain 

Jebel Chelia (2,328 m - 7,638 ft) , Arabic: جبل شيليا‎, is a mountain in Algeria. It is the highest point in the Aurès Range which straddle the border between Algeria and Tunisia, and it is the second highest peak in Algeria after Mount Tahat. Jebel Chelia  Chélia is situated in the west of Khenchela, in Bouhmama county.

The painter 

Constant Louche was born  in Algiers where he received a scholarship from his hometown, to go to the Beaux-Arts in Paris. Although he paints nudes and portraits, he is especially appreciated by collectors of the time for his landscapes of Algeria  of which he is one of the best representatives with his warm colors. These paintings were presented in the salons and galleries of Algiers, and in Morocco, Corsica and Nice, but also in his studio. He began to exhibit in Algiers from 1907.
___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

ELEPHANT ROCK BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

EUGENE VON GUERARD  (1811-1901)

Elephant rock (400 m - 1,312 ft)  

New Zealand

The rock formation 

 Many formation are called Elephant Rock around the world  among which two New Zealand. The one painted by Eugene Guerard  was located near the Three Sisters in Tongaporutu, which is about an hour's drive north from New Plymouth.  Recently, part of this iconic rock formation  in the shape of an elephant   has collapsed, with the elephant's 'trunk' completely wiped out. The rockfall may have been linked to a magnitude 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake which was also felt in the Taranaki region. So this painting is the only image leaving of what was that rock formation and unfortunately  Guerard didn't choose to show the " trunk"  side !

The painter 
Johann Joseph Eugene von Guerard was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia from 1852 to 1882. Known for his finely detailed landscapes in the tradition of the Düsseldorf school of painting, he is represented in Australia's major public galleries, and is referred to in the country as Eugene von Guerard. In 1852 von Guerard arrived in Victoria, Australia, determined to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. As a gold-digger he was not very successful, but he did produce a large number of intimate studies of goldfields life, quite different from the deliberately awe-inspiring landscapes for which he was later to become famous. Realizing that there were opportunities for an artist in Australia, he abandoned the diggings and was soon undertaking commissions recording the dwellings and properties of wealthy pastoralists.
By the early 1860s, von Guerard was recognized as the foremost landscape artist in the colonies, touring Southeast Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of the sublime and the picturesque.  He is most known for the wilderness paintings produced during this time, which are remarkable for their shadowy lighting and fastidious detail.  Indeed, his View of Tower Hill in south-western Victoria was used as a botanical template over a century later when the land, which had been laid waste and polluted by agriculture, was systematically reclaimed, forested with native flora and made a state park. The scientific accuracy of such work has led to a reassessment of von Guerard's approach to wilderness painting, and some historians believe it likely that the landscapist was strongly influenced by the environmental theories of the leading scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Others attribute his 'truthful representation' of nature to the criterion for figure and landscape painting set by the Düsseldorf Academy.
In 1866 his Valley of the Mitta Mitta was presented to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; in 1870 the trustees purchased his Mount Kosciusko shown in this article was titled "Northeast view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko", which is actually  "from Mount Townsend".
In 2006, the City of Greater Geelong purchased his 1856 painting View of Geelong for A$3.8M. His painting, Yalla-y-Poora, is in the Joseph Brown Collection on display at the National Gallery of Victoria.  The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney holds an extensive collection of working sketchbooks by Eugene von Guerard, as well as larger drawings and paintings and a diary. The sketchbooks cover regions as diverse as Italy and Germany, Tasmania, New South Wales, and of course, Victoria.
In 1870 von Guerard was appointed the first Master of the School of Painting at the National Gallery of Victoria, where he was to influence the training of artists for the next 11 years. His reputation, high at the beginning of this period, had faded somewhat towards the end because of his rigid adherence to picturesque subject matter and detailed treatment in the face of the rise of the more intimate Heidelberg School style. Amongst his pupils were Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Von Guerard retired from his position at the National Gallery School the end of 1881 and departed for Europe in January 1882. In 1891 his wife died. Two years later, he lost his investments in the Australian bank crash and he lived in poverty until his death in Chelsea, London, on 17 April 1901.
Several paintings of mountains of Australia and New Zealand by Eugène von Guerard are published in this blog, check the link in the name list of painters....

MOUNT USHBA BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA  (1859-1943)

Ushba (4,710m - 15,450 ft)

Georgia - Russia border  

  

In Mount Uzhba, photo, 1889,

The mountain 

Ushba (4,710m - 15,450 ft) - in Georgian: უშბა-  is one of the most notable peaks of the Caucasus Mountains. It is located in the Svanetia region of Georgia, just south of the border with the Kabardino-Balkaria region of Russia. Although it does not rank in the 10 highest peaks of the range, Ushba is known as the "Matterhorn of the Caucasus" for its picturesque, spire-shaped double summit. Ushba is said to be the most beautiful and difficult mountain of Caucasus, "the Queen, which is proudly reigning above the Main Caucasian Mountain Range". More than the one hundred years history of ascensions of this mountain keeps many heroic and dramatic episodes. All the history of Russian mountaineering is deeply connected with this strange word - Ushba, the mountain with strange and somehow disturbing name, which even local people - Svanetians, who live at the foot of it, can not explain clearly...  One version of translation of this name from Svanetian language is "The road to nowhere", the others are "The wretched place" or "The place of the witches Sabbath". SummitPost member PeterN added this variant: ush = terrible, ba = mountain.

The north summit was first climbed in 1888 by John Garford Cokklin and Ulrich Almer, while the south summit saw its first ascent in 1903 by a German-Swiss-Austrian expedition led by B. Rickmer-Rickmers.

Ushba's north summit is more accessible than the south summit: the standard route, the Northeast Ridge, ascends from the Russian side of the range to a high plateau and thence to the summit. (Hence a summit ascent on this route technically involves crossing the border.) The route is graded French AD+ or Russian 4a. Routes on the south summit, from the Georgian side, include two routes graded French ED.

In August 2012, thunderstorms made the ascent of Ushba treacherous. One climber died and another, Andranik Miribyan, was stuck near the summit for four days after becoming trapped on a ledge by heavy snowfall. Due to high winds, rescuers were unable to reach him by helicopter and Andranik made the decision to descend the mountain, despite having no ice axe after his broke while clearing snow.

The artist
Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club.  He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888) and Les Rouies (1900).
He took part in various expeditions outside Italy:
- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name;
- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897;
- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899;
- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Rwenzori;
- Recognition at  K2   in 1909;
- In Morocco in 1925.
During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram, he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.
Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II.  His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.
His photos mountain are still  considered today to be among the finest ever made.
Jim Curran believes that "Sella remains probably the greatest photographer of the mountain.  His name is synonymous with technical perfection and aesthetic refinement. "
The quality of the pictures of Vittorio Sella is partly explained by the use of a view camera 30 × 40 cm, despite the difficulty of the transportation of such a device, both heavy and fragile in places inaccessible; to be able to transport it safely, he had to make special pieces that can be stored in saddle bags.  His photographs have been widely distributed, either through the press or in the galleries, and were unanimously celebrated; Ansel Adams, who was able to admire thirty-one in an exhibition that was organized at Sella American Sierra Club, said they inspired him "a religious kind of sense of wonder."  Many of his pictures were taken in the mountains for the very first time in the History, which give them a much artistic, historical  but also scientific value ; for example, one could measure the decline in the Rwenzori glaciers in Central Africa.

NEVADO HUASCARAN IN VINTAGE PRINTS 1908 & 1960

VINTAGE PRINTS 1908  & 1960

Nevado Huascaràn  (6,778m - 22,205ft) 

Peru 

1.  In The american alpinist Annie Smith Peck at the summit of Husacaràn Norte with Huascaràn Sur behind her, Archive photo,  September 2, 1908    

2.  In  Nevado Huascaran (Norte and Sur) seen from the Village Yungay, destroyed by an avalanche in 1970, Archive photo, 1960

The mountain 
Nevado Huascaràn is a mountain in the Peruvian province of Yungay, situated in the Cordillera Blanca range of the western Andes.  Nevado Huascaràn  is the highest point in Peru, the northern part of Andes (north of Lake Titicaca) and in all of the Earth's Tropics. Huascaràn is the fourth highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere and South America after Aconcagua, Ojos del Salado, and Monte Pissis.
The mountain has two distinct summits, the higher being the south one, Huascaran Sur (6,768 m-  -22,205 ft). and the north summit, Huascaran Norte (6, 654m - 21, 831ft). The core of Huascarбn, like much of the Cordillera Blanca, consists of Cenozoic era granite.
Huascaran gives its name to Huascaran National Park which surrounds it, and is a popular location for trekking and mountaineering. The Huascaran summit is one of the points on the Earth's surface farthest from the Earth's center, closely behind the farthest point, Chimborazo in Ecuador.
The mountain was named after Huбscar, a 16th-century Inca emperor who was the Sapa Inca of the Inca empire.
The summit of Huascaran is the place on Earth with the smallest gravitational force.
Climbing
The north peak (Huascaran Norte) had been first climbed on 2 September 1908 by a U.S. expedition that included Annie Smith Peck, albeit this first ascent is somewhat disputed
The summit of Huascaran Sur was first reached on 20 July 1932 by a joint German–Austrian expedition. The team followed what would become later the normal route (named today Garganta route).
On 31 May 1970, the Ancash earthquake caused a substantial part of the north side of the mountain to collapse. The avalanche mass, an estimated 80 million cubic metres (2.8 billion cubic feet) of ice, mud and rock, was about half a mile wide and a mile long. It advanced about 11 miles (18 km) at an average speed of 280 to 335 km/h (175 to 210 mph), burying the towns of Yungay  (in the second photo above) and Ranrahirca under ice and rock, killing more than 20,000 people. At least 20,000 people were also killed in Huaraz, site of a 1941 avalanche which killed over 6000 (see Palcacocha Lake). Estimates suggest that the earthquake killed over 66,000 people.
In 1989, a group of eight amateur mountaineers, the "Social Climbers", held what was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records (1990 edition) to be "the world's highest dinner party" on top of the mountain, as documented by Chris Darwin and John Amy in their book The Social Climbers, and raised Ј10,000 for charity.
Climbing Huascaran's has become increasingly dangerous due to climate change. On July 20, 2016, nine climbers were caught in an avalanche on Huascaran's normal route at approximately 5,800 m (19,000 ft), four of whom died.

ABU & GURU SHIKKAR BY WILLIAM WESTALL

WILLIAM WESTALL (1781-1850)   

Mount Abu  (1,200 m - 4,000 ft) and  Guru Shikkar  (1,722 m- 5,650 ft) 

India (Rajasthan)

In The Mountains of Abu, Gujarat (India), 1826, oil on canvas,  V&A museum, London 

The mountain

Mount Abu  (1,200 m - 4,000 ft) and the peak  Guru Shikhar (1,722 m- 5,650 ft) are popular stations in the Aravalli Range in Sirohi district of Rajasthan state in western India, near the border with Gujarat. The mountain forms a distinct rocky plateau 22 km long by 9 km wide. It is referred to as 'an oasis in the desert' as its heights are home to rivers, lakes, waterfalls and evergreen forests. The nearest train station is Abu Road railway station, 28 km away. The ancient name of Mount Abu is Arbudaanchal. In the Puranas, the region has been referred to as Arbudaranya ("forest of Arbhuda") and 'Abu' is a diminutive of this ancient name. It is believed that sage Vashistha retired to the southern spur at Mount Abu following his differences with sage Vishvamitra. There is another mythology according to which a serpent named "Arbuda" saved the life of Nandi (Lord Shiva's bull). The incident happened on the mountain that is currently known as Mount Abu and so the mountain is named "Arbudaranya" after that incident which gradually became Abu.

The conquest of Mount Abu in 1311 (Christian era) by Rao Lumba of Deora-Chauhan dynasty brought to an end the reign of the Parmars and marked the decline of Mount Abu. He shifted the capital city to Chandravati in the plains. After the destruction of Chandravati in 1405, Rao Shasmal made Sirohi his headquarters. Later it was leased by the British government from the then Maharaja of Sirohi for use as the headquarters.

The painter 

William Westall (not to be confused with his brother the famous painter Richard Westall) was an English landscape artist best known as one of the first artists to work in Australia and India.  Westall was born in Hertford and grew up in London. There is evidence to suggest that Westall's parents did not support his career choice; however Richard became head of the family upon the death of Benjamin Westall in March 1794, and must have approved Westall's artistic ambitions, as from that time forward William Westall was given a thorough art education. At the age of sixteen he won a silver palette in a competition run by the Society of Artists of Great Britain, and at eighteen was enrolled at the prestigious Royal Academy.

In 1800, at just 19 years of age, Westall was appointed to a notable scientific expedition to Asia and Australia as a member of a team of scientists that included botanist Robert Brown and botanical artist Ferdinand Bauer, both now revered as amongst the very best in their respective fields.

Westall arrived in Canton at the end of 1803. Rather than returning immediately to England, he spend some time exploring Canton, then sailed on to India. As he was on the British government payroll at the time, he had no right to do so without permission, and must have known it, since, just before departing for India, he wrote a long letter  justifying his travel plans. In doing so he complained about the monotony of the Australian landscape, declared that he would not have agreed to the position if he had known that the voyage was confined to Australia alone, and hinted that he had the right to go to India as compensation for the failure of the Investigator to stop anywhere interesting. The admiralty took a dim view of the letter, terminating his employment immediately, and telling him to make his own way home.

MULHACEN (2) BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA

JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BATISTA  (1863-1923)

 Mulhacén  (3, 478 m - 11,411ft)

Spain

In Sierra Nevada  in winter, oil on canvas, 1890

The mountain 

Mulhacén (3, 478 m - 11,411ft) is the highest mountain in continental Spain and in the Iberian Peninsula. It is part of the Sierra Nevada range in the Cordillera Penibética. It is named after Abu l-Hasan Ali, or Muley Hacén as he is known in Spanish, the penultimate Muslim King of Granada in the 15th century who, according to legend, was buried on the summit of the mountain.

Mulhacén is the highest peak in Europe outside the Caucasus Mountains and the Alps. It is also the third most topographically prominent peak in Western Europe, after Mont Blanc and Mount Etna, and is ranked 64th in the world by prominence.  The peak is not exceptionally dramatic in terms of steepness or local relief. The south flank of the mountain is gentle and presents no technical challenge, as is the case for the long west ridge. The shorter, somewhat steeper north east ridge is slightly more technical. The north face of the mountain, however, is much steeper, and offers several routes involving moderately steep climbing on snow and ice (up to French grade AD) in the winter

Mulhacén can be climbed in a single day from the villages of either Capileira or Trevélez, but it is more common to spend a night at the mountain refuge at Poqueira, or in the bare shelter at Caldera to the west. Those making the ascent from Trevelez can also bivouac at the tarns to the northeast of the peak.

The painter 

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida  was a Spanish painter.  Sorolla excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes, and monumental works of social and historical themes. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the sunlight of his native land.

Sorolla's influence on some other Spanish painters, such as Alberto Pla y Rubio and Julio Romero de Torres, was so noted that they are described as "sorollista."

After his death, Sorolla's widow, Clotilde Garcia del Castillo, left many of his paintings to the Spanish public. The paintings eventually formed the collection that is now known as the Museo Sorolla, which was the artist's house in Madrid. The museum opened in 1932.

Early in 1911, Sorolla visited the United States for a second time, and exhibited 152 new paintings at the Saint Louis Art Museum and 161 at the Art Institute of Chicago a few weeks later. Later that year Sorolla met Archie Huntington in Paris and signed a contract to paint a series of oils on life in Spain. These 14 magnificent murals, installed to this day in the Hispanic Society of America building in Manhattan, range from 12 to 14 feet in height, and total 227 feet in length.The major commission of his career, it would dominate the later years of Sorolla's life.

Huntington had envisioned the work depicting a history of Spain, but the painter preferred the less specific 'Vision of Spain', eventually opting for a representation of the regions of the Iberian Peninsula, and calling it The Provinces of Spain. Despite the immensity of the canvases, Sorolla painted all but one en plein air, and travelled to the specific locales to paint them: Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Elche, Seville, Andalusia, Extremadura, Galicia, Guipuzcoa, Castile, Leon, and Ayamonte, at each site painting models posed in local costume. Each mural celebrated the landscape and culture of its region, panoramas composed of throngs of laborers and locals. By 1917 he was, by his own admission, exhausted. He completed the final panel by July 1919.

Sorolla suffered a stroke in 1920, while painting a portrait in his garden in Madrid. Paralyzed for over three years, he died on 10 August 1923. He is buried in the Cementeri de Valencia, Spain.

The Sorolla Room, housing the Provinces of Spain at the Hispanic Society of America, opened to the public in 1926. The room closed for remodeling in 2008, and the murals toured museums in Spain for the first time. The Sorolla Room reopened in 2010, with the murals on permanent display.

Sorolla's work is represented in museums throughout Spain, Europe, America, and in many private collections in Europe and America. In 1933, J. Paul Getty purchased ten Impressionist beach scenes made by Sorolla, several of which are now housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum.

In 2007 many of his works were exhibited at the Petit Palais in Paris, alongside those of John Singer Sargent, a contemporary who painted in a similarly impressionist-influenced manner. In 2009, there was a special exhibition of his works at the Prado in Madrid, and in 2010, the exhibition visited the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba, Brazil.

From 5 December 2011 to 10 March 2012, several of Sorolla's works were exhibited in Queen Sofia Spanish Institute, in New York. This exhibition included pieces used during Sorolla's eight-year research for The Vision of Spain.

MOUNT WILLIAM (ANTARCTICA) IN VINTAGE PRINTS 1898

VINTAGE PRINTS  1898
Mount William (1,600m - 6,200 ft) 

Antarctica 

In  Le Belgica ancré devant le Mont William 1898,
From Travaux hydrographiques et Instructions Nautiques  by Georges Lecointe

The mountain

Mount William (1,600m - 6,200 ft)  is a prominent snowy mountain in Antarctica,  located 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) north-northeast of Cape Lancaster which is the south extremity of Anvers Island, in the Palmer Archipelago. This is the tallest mountain visible from Biscoe Bay, near the south end of the island's Osterrieth Range which also includes Mount Français (the tallest mountain on the island).

This mountain was discovered on February 21, 1832, by John Biscoe who incorrectly believed it to be part of the mainland of Antarctic Peninsula, instead of on an island. He named it for William IV, then King of the United Kingdom. Mountain climbers from the U.K. were the first to ascend this peak, in 1956. In 2003, after climbing this mountain, two Americans skied down.

About the Belgica expedition 
The Belgian Antarctic Expedition led by Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery from 1897 to 1899 aboard the Belgica, is the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic region and, most of all, the very expedition to Antartica.  Among its members are Frederick Cook and Roald Amundsen, explorers who will claim, respectively, the conquest of the North Pole and the conquest of the South Pole and the Northwest Passage.
First expedition to Antarctica with purely scientific objectives, she left Antwerp on August 16, 1897 and headed for the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.  Even before the arrival to the South, several members of the crew abandon the ship or are caught in various quarrels and incidents in Ostend, Montevideo and Punta Arenas, leaving doubts about the choice and quality of the crew members compared to the scientific staff who are irreproachable.  The different nationalities and languages ​​associated with discipline problems undermine the morale of the crew.
After a long journey, the crew docked in Tierra del Fuego or they will have the last contacts with men before their departure to the great south.
Their arrival on the Antarctic continent is the occasion of the first scientific discoveries on these lands. A team of international scientists including a biologist, a glaciologist, a geographer, a naturalist and a doctor will work for several weeks to collect as much information as possible about these virgin lands.
Despite the season, it is decided to continue the exploration further south ..., the ship will be trapped by ice a few weeks later near the island Peter I, and will drift into the sea Bellingshausen during the following thirteen months. The expedition thus became the first to officially winter in the Antarctic region. Seal hunters had forcibly wintered on King George Island in the South Shetland Islands in 1821.
The members of the expedition lived in very harsh weather conditions, but this will not prevent them from collecting a significant amount of scientific data and commenting on the annual Antarctic cycle1. The crew is severely affected by scurvy, but Dr. Cook, in advising the seal and penguin meat, will restore the members of the expedition. On July 5, 1898, Émile Danco died of a heart attack.
After months of drifting, the ship managed to free itself from the ice and make its way to Belgium where explorers were welcomed as heroes. 
This first scientific expedition will launch the great nations to discover the continent. The Belgica Expedition will go down in history as the pioneering expedition to scientific research in Antarctica. Indeed, for the first time, an expedition had explored the Antarctic with a goal primarily scientific, bringing back to his return seasoned men including two of them, Roald Amundsen and Frederick Cook, had discovered their polar vocation, the one that was going to lead them to become great of the conquest of the poles, that of the South for Amundsen, that of the north for Cook.

MAUNA LOA PAINTED BY JULES TAVERNIER

JULES TAVERNIER (1844-1889) 

Mauna Loa volcano  (4,170m - 13, 680 ft)

 United States of America  (Hawai'i)

 In Wailuku Falls, Hilo, Snow on the Mauna Loa, c. 1886,  oil on canvas 
Honolulu Museum of Arts  

The volcano 

Mauna Loa  (4,170m - 13, 680ft)  which means Long Mountain in Hawaiian, is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi in the Pacific Ocean. The largest subaerial volcano in both mass and volume, Mauna Loa has historically been considered the largest volcano on Earth. It is an active shield volcano with relatively gentle slopes, with a volume estimated at approximately 18,000 cubic miles (75,000 km3), although its peak is about 120 feet (37 m) lower than that of its neighbor, Mauna Kea. Lava eruptions from Mauna Loa are silica-poor and very fluid, and they tend to be non-explosive.

Mauna Loa has probably been erupting for at least 700,000 years, and may have emerged above sea level about 400,000 years ago. The oldest-known dated rocks are not older than 200,000 years. The volcano's magma comes from the Hawaii hotspot, which has been responsible for the creation of the Hawaiian island chain over tens of millions of years. The slow drift of the Pacific Plate will eventually carry Mauna Loa away from the hotspot within 500,000 to one million years from now, at which point it will become extinct.

Mauna Loa's most recent eruption occurred from March 24 to April 15, 1984. No recent eruptions of the volcano have caused fatalities, but eruptions in 1926 and 1950 destroyed villages, and the city of Hilo is partly built on lava flows from the late 19th century. Because of the potential hazards it poses to population centers, Mauna Loa is part of the Decade Volcanoes program, which encourages studies of the world's most dangerous volcanoes. Mauna Loa has been monitored intensively by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory since 1912. Observations of the atmosphere are undertaken at the Mauna Loa Observatory, and of the Sun at the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, both located near the mountain's summit. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park covers the summit and the southeastern flank of the volcano, and also incorporates Kilauea, a separate volcano.

The painter 
Jules Tavernier was a French painter, illustrator, and an important member of Hawaii’s Volcano School.  He studied with the French painter, Félix Joseph Barrias (1822–1907). he left France in the 1870s and never  return. Tavernier was employed as an illustrator by Harper's Magazine, which sent him, along with Paul Frenzeny, on a year-long coast-to-coast sketching tour in 1873.
 Eventually, he continued westward to Hawaii, where he became quite famous as a landscape painter. He was fascinated by Hawaii’s erupting volcanoes—a subject that pre-occupied him for the rest of his life, which was spent in Hawaii, Canada and the western United States. Tavernier died on 18 May 1889 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He painted several version of the Kilauea erupting between 1880 and the end of his life.
Among the public collections holding paintings by Jules Tavernier are the Brigham Young University Museum of Art (Provo, UT), the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (Colorado Springs, CO), the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento), the Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa, OK), Hearst Art Gallery (Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Museum of Nebraska Art (Kearney, NE), the Oakland Museum of California, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Stark Museum of Art (Orange, TX), the Society of California Pioneers (San Francisco, CA), the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (Hagerstown, MD) and the Yosemite Museum (Yosemite National Park).
After his death his art lived on in the hearts and homes of Hawaiians, and many more artists picked up on the volcano landscape theme he started. His Western art was mostly forgotten.
Fifty years after his death the Honolulu Advertiser remembered Jules Tavernier in December 1940 with the comment: “...to the generation which knew King Kalakaua, Tavernier recalls to mind some of the greatest paintings ever made of Hawaii volcanoes.”
At the beginning of the twenty-first century interest has reawakened in Tavernier's Western landscape art; museums are purchasing his pictures and prices for his oil paintings are increasing.
His students included D. Howard Hitchcock (1861–1943), Amédée Joullin (1862–1917), Charles Rollo Peters (1862–1917) and Manuel Valencia (1856–1935).

SNAEFELL PAINTED BY MUGGUR

MUGGUR (1891-1924) 

Snæfell or Snæfellsjökull  (1,446 m - 4,744 ft)

Iceland

In Snæfellsjökull, 1922, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Iceland

The mountain 
Snæfell or Snæfellsjökull  (1,446 m - 4,744 ft)  (meaning snow-fell glacier) is a 700,000-year-old glacier-capped stratovolcano in western Iceland. The name of the mountain is actually Snæfell, but it is normally called "Snæfellsjökull" to distinguish it from two other mountains with this name. It is situated on the most western part of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in Iceland. Sometimes it may be seen from the city of Reykjavík over Faxa Bay, at a distance of 120 km.
The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, primarily due to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) by Jules Verne, in which the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the earth on Snæfellsjökull. The mountain is included in the Snæfellsjökull National Park (Icelandic: Þjóðgarðurinn Snæfellsjökull).
In August 2012 the summit was ice-free for the first time in recorded history.

The painter 
 Muggur  whose the real name is Guрmundur Petursson Thorsteinsson,  was an Icelandic painter, graphic artist, author and film actor. His younger brothers were all professional football players.
His father, Pétur (1845-1929) was one of the richest men in Iceland. When he was twelve, the family moved to Copenhagen, but they travelled continuously between there and Iceland.
He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1911 to 1915, but also took study trips to Germany and Italy.  In 1915, he made a visit to the United States, where his works had recently been exhibited;
In addition to his paintings, he wrote and illustrated a children's book, The Story of Dimmalimm, about a young girl and an enchanted swan.  He created numerous drawings inspired by the Eddas as well and created Iceland's first unique deck of playing cards.
He was also a talented amateur actor and had a major role in one of Iceland's first films, Sons of the Soil (Saga Borgarжttarinnar), based on a novel by Gunnar Gunnarsson.
A brief marriage that ended in divorce led him to drink heavily. In 1923, already in deteriorating health, he was kicked in the back by a horse. After a lengthy stay at a spa in France, he returned to the family estate in Denmark and died of a chest ailment (possibly tuberculosis), aged only thirty-two. Most of his works are in the National Gallery of Iceland.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

EUROBEA MONS BY NASA VOYAGER 1 MISSION

NASA VOYAGER I MISSION (1977-2012)

Eurobea Montes (10, 500 m /34, 448 ft -  10, 5 km -  6,5 mi) 

Io (Jupiter's moon)

1.  In Voyager 1 view of Euboea Montes; the main massif is to upper right of center;  the dark oval to its lower left is Creidne Patera. North is at top,   from NASA's image PIA00328, 1 march 1979

 2  In Voyager 1 view of two of Io's ten highest peaks, Euboea Montes, just below upper left, and Haemus Montes, at lower right  © NASA's image PIA00328, 1 march 1979

The mountain 

Eurobea Montes (10, 500 m /34, 448 ft -  10, 5 km -  6,5 mi)  is a mountain on Io, on of the moons of Jupiter. Its coordinates are at 48.89°S 338.77°W.  Euboea Montes is rugby ball shaped (175 km by 240 km), located about 40 kilometers east of Creidne Patera caldera.  There is a curved ridge crest which divides Euboea Montes into two sections: the steep, southern flank with an uneven surface of rounded mounds and the smoother, northern flank sloping about 6° to the northwest. At the base of the northern flank is a thick, ridged deposit with rounded margins.

Schenk and Bulmer used their observations of NASA Voyager 1 images, measurements of heights on the digital elevation map generated from the images, and analogies to Earth structures to characterize Euboea Montes. According to them, the mountain is one block of crustal material, due to its polygonal, relatively intact shape. The block was raised and tilted (by about 6°) by thrust faulting. This uplift led to a massive landslide along the mountain's northern flank.
This scenario is directly tied to the recycling of Io's crust. Older crustal pieces are forced to sink as newer material is thrust above them. This old volcanic crustal material is compressed laterally as it sinks. Schenk and Bulmer argue that this global compression on Io is at least partially relieved by thrust faulting and uplift of large crustal blocks. On Earth, a similar mechanism exists, for example in the Black Hills of Dakota.

Schenk and M. H. Bulmer identify the deposit of a possible landslide off Euboea Montes. The thick deposit at the northern flank is interpreted to be from a landslide, and they further point to the shape of the northern flank as evidence for slope failure. The estimated volume of the debris apron is about 25,000 km3. If this is true, then Euboea Montes has arguably one of the largest debris aprons in the Solar System, of a size similar to those formed by landslides in Valles Marineris, around Olympus Mons on Mars, or submarine landslides on Earth.

The imager 
The Voyager program is a continuing American scientific program that employs two robotic probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, to study the outer Solar System. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and are now exploring the outer boundary of the heliosphere in interstellar space. Although their original mission was to study only the planetary systems of Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 continued on to Uranus and Neptune, and both Voyagers are now tasked with exploring interstellar space. Their mission has been extended three times, and both probes continue to collect and relay useful scientific data. Neither Uranus nor Neptune has been visited by any probe other than Voyager 2.
On August 25, 2012, data from Voyager 1 indicated that it had become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, traveling "further than anyone, or anything, in history".
As of 2013, Voyager 1 was moving with a velocity of 17 kilometers per second (11 mi/s) relative to the Sun. Voyager 2 is expected to enter interstellar space by 2016, and its plasma spectrometer should provide the first direct measurements of the density and temperature of the interstellar plasma.
Data and photographs collected by the Voyagers' cameras, magnetometers, and other instruments revealed previously unknown details about each of the giant planets and their moons. Close-up images from the spacecraft charted Jupiter’s complex cloud forms, winds, and storm systems and discovered volcanic activity on its moon Io. Saturn’s rings were found to have enigmatic braids, kinks, and spokes and to be accompanied by a myriad of "ringlets." At Uranus Voyager 2 discovered a substantial magnetic field around the planet and 10 additional moons. Its flyby of Neptune uncovered three complete rings and six hitherto unknown moons as well as a planetary magnetic field and complex, widely distributed auroras. Voyager 2 is still the only spacecraft to have visited the ice giants.
The Voyager spacecrafts were built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and they were funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which also funded their launchings from Cape Canaveral, Florida, their tracking, and everything else concerning the space probes due the radioactive materials on board the spacecraft.

ALEXANDRA PEAK BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943)

 Alexandra Peak / Mount Stanley  (5,091m - 16,703 ft)

Congo - Uganda border 

 1. In Alexandra  peak from the South, photo, 1906 

The mountain 

 Alexandra Peak (5,091m - 16,703ft) is part of Mount Stanley located in the Rwenzori range, the highest mountain of both Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and the third highest in Africa, after Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 m -19,340ft) and Mount Kenya (5,199 m - 17,057ft). 

Mount Stanley consists of two twin summits and several lower peaks which are : 

Margherita Peak (5,109m - 16,763ft), Alexandra Peak (5,091m - 16,703ft), Albert Peak (5,087m - 16,690ft), Savoia Peak (4,977m - 16,330ft), Ellena Peak (4,968m -16,300ft), Elizabeth Peak (4,929m - 16,170 ft), Phillip Peak (4,920m - 16,140ft), Moebius Peak (4,916m - 16,130 ft) and Great Tooth (4,603m - 15,100ft).
The peak and several other surrounding peaks are high enough to support glaciers. Mount Stanley is named for the journalist and explorer, Sir Henry Morton Stanley. It is part of the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, a UNESCO world Heritage Site. 

Mt. Stanley was first climbed in 1906 by the Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia , Duke of the Abruzzi, (1873-1933),  J. Petigax, C. Ollier, and J. Brocherel. He is known as well for his Arctic explorations and for his mountaineering expeditions, particularly to Mount Saint Elias (Alaska–Yukon) and K2 (Pakistan–China). Margherita Peak is named after Queen Margherita of Italy the prince's cousin.

The Rwenzori Mountains National Park is considered a model for integration of cultural values into the Protected Area Management framework as an innovative approach to resource management, the first of its kind in Africa.  As a result the local communities have embraced collaborative resource management initiatives. Given its significance as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Albertine Rift, various local and international NGOs have supported the management and conservation of the property. A General Management Plan guides management operations on-site. Key challenges to address include illegal felling of trees, snow recession due to global warming, human population pressure adjacent to the property and management of waste generated through tourism operations. UWA is addressing the above threats through resource protection, community conservation education, research and ranger-based monitoring, ecotourism and transboundary initiatives with the DRC. The long-term maintenance of the integrity of the property will be achieved through sustainable financing, ecological monitoring, continued collaboration with key stakeholders and regional cooperation.

The artist
Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club.  He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888) and Les Rouies (1900).
He took part in various expeditions outside Italy:
- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name;
- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897;
- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899;
- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Rwenzori;
- Recognition at  K2   in 1909;
- In Morocco in 1925.
During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram, he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.
Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II.  His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.
His photos mountain are still  considered today to be among the finest ever made.
Jim Curran believes that "Sella remains probably the greatest photographer of the mountain.  His name is synonymous with technical perfection and aesthetic refinement. "
The quality of the pictures of Vittorio Sella is partly explained by the use of a view camera 30 × 40 cm, despite the difficulty of the transportation of such a device, both heavy and fragile in places inaccessible; to be able to transport it safely, he had to make special pieces that can be stored in saddle bags.  His photographs have been widely distributed, either through the press or in the galleries, and were unanimously celebrated; Ansel Adams, who was able to admire thirty-one in an exhibition that was organized at Sella American Sierra Club, said they inspired him "a religious kind of sense of wonder."  Many of his pictures were taken in the mountains for the very first time in the History, which give them a much artistic, historical  but also scientific value ; for example, one could measure the decline in the Rwenzori glaciers in Central Africa.

THE GROSSGLOCKNER BY NIKOLAI ASTUDIN

NIKOLAI ASTUDIN (1847-1925)   

Grossglockner or Glokner (3,798 m - 12,460ft)

Austria 

In Alpine landscape with the the Grossglockner,  1879, oil on canvas 

The mountain  

The Grossglockner (or just Glockner) (3,798 m - 12,460 ft) is above the Adriatic, the highest mountain of Austria and the highest mountain in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. It is part of the larger Glockner Group of the Hohe Tauern range, situated along the main ridge of the Central Eastern Alps and the Alpine divide. The Pasterze, Austria's most extended glacier, lies on the Grossglockner's eastern slope. The characteristically pyramid-shaped peak actually consists of two pinnacles, the Grossglockner and the Kleinglockner (3,770 m -12,370 ft), from German: klein, "small"), separated by a saddle-like formation known as the Glocknerscharte.

The history of the climbs started with French-born natural scientist Belsazar Hacquet, from 1773 professor of anatomy at the Academy of Ljubljana. He travelled the Eastern Alps from 1779 to 1781 and published an itinerary in 1783, describing the Glokner mountain and stating that it had not been climbed yet. He estimated the mountain's height with converted (3,793 m -12,444 ft) and left an engraving illustrating Grossglockner and Pasterze, the first known depiction of the mountain.

Inspired by Hacquet's book and the first ascent of the Mont Blanc in 1786, the Gurk prince-bishop Count Franz Xaver of Salm (1749–1822) together with his vicar general Sigismund Ernst Hohenwart  (1745–1825) and Baron Franz Xaver von Wulfen (1728–1805) started efforts for a Grossglockner expedition. They engaged two peasants from Heiligenblut as mountain guides to do the first explorations for an ascent through the Leitertal valley, which is the side of Grossglockner with the least ice (people feared glaciers in these times). These valiant men, called "Glockners" in the records, did more than they were ordered to do - and probably reached the Kleinglockner summit on 23 July 1799.

One month later the bishop's expedition started: a mountain hut (the first Salm Hut) had been built and the path in the Leitertal valley was prepared so that the bishop could use a horse to reach it. 30 people, among them Salm, Hohenwart and Wulfen, were part of the expedition. They suffered with bad weather and a first effort failed, but on 25 August 1799 Hohenwart and at least four other people, including the two "Glockners", reached - again - the Kleinglockner, where they installed one of the first summit crosses (one of the main goals of the church expedition). Hohenwart's reports did not tell clearly that they had not touched the highest point but Bishop Salm (who had reached the Adlersruhe rock at 3,454 m (11,332 ft)) was informed. Dissatisfied, he invited another, even bigger expedition the next year.

On 28 July 1800, 62 people, among them the pedagogue Franz Michael Vierthaler and the botanist David Heinrich Hoppe, started again into the Leitertal valley. Four peasants and carpenters (the "Glockners" and two others who are not known) did a track in the snow, had installed fixed ropes at some steeper sections up to the end of the Glocknerleitl, and even built a second refuge, called Hohenwarte Hut. The vanguard reached the Kleinglockner peak, however, according to the expedition records by the Dellach priest Franz Joseph Horasch (Orasch), only the four guides and Mathias Hautzendorfer, the local priest of the Rangersdorf parish, were able to cross the Obere Glocknerscharte and climb the Grossglockner summit. Hautzendorfer had to be persuaded to venture the step and administered the last rites in advance.

The two "Glockners" are usually identified as the brothers Joseph (Sepp) and Martin Klotz, however, this surname is not listed in the Heiligenblut parish register. A local peasant named Sepp Hoysen is documented as a member of the second Grossglockner expedition in 1802, and the surveyor Ulrich Schiegg mentioned one Martin Reicher as "Glockner" guide. The peasants and several other members of the expedition (among them Schiegg and his young apprentice Valentin Stanič, who climbed Mt. Watzmann for the first time some weeks later) did the ascent again the next day and finally installed the summit cross and a barometer on the Grossglockner summit.

Bishop Salm undertook two more ascents in 1802 (with Hohenwart reaching the summit) and in 1806, however, he himself never climbed beyond the Adlersruhe rock. The climbing of the Grossglockner was also described by the botanist Josef August Schultes, who explored the massif together with Count Apponyi in 1802. No further ascents were made during the Napoleonic Wars, the huts decayed and were plundered by locals. In the following Vormärz era, however, the mountain became a popular venue for Alpinists like Hermann and Adolf Schlagintweit, who all followed the route of the first ascent.

By the mid 19th century, the developing Alpine tourism began to alter the traditional agriculture economy in the Heiligenblut area. Therefore, the people of Kals tried to lay out a straight ascent from the western side, which however was not reached until Julius von Payer explored the ridge between Glöcknerleitl and Ködnitzkees in 1863. Johann Stüdl had a via ferrata erected along the southwestern ridge the next year and the Stüdlhütte erected at its foot in 1868. Already in 1869, most expeditions to the summit started in Kals. The first winter ascent of the Grossglockner was made on January 2, 1875 by William Adolf Baillie Grohman, a member of the Alpine Club. In 1876 Count Pallavicini and his guide Hans Tribusser undertook the first expedition up the steep glaciated Northeast Face, chopping 2,500 steps into the Pallavicinirinne in an ice climbing master stroke not repeated for 23 years.

In 1879, Count Pallavicini dedicated a new iron summit cross on the occasion of the silver wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and Empress Elisabeth; both had visited Heiligenblut and walked to the present-day Franz-Josefs-Höhe viewpoint in 1865. The cross was installed on 2 October 1880. Pallavicini also had the Archduke John Hut erected at the former Adlersruhe resting place of Bishop Salm, today the highest situated mountain hut in Austria. The Austrian Alpine Club built the new Salmhütte and the Glocknerhaus along the alpine route from Heiligenblut.

A first ascent by skiing was made in 1909 and the circumnavigation of the massif soon became a popular ski mountaineering tour. The Grossglockner became Austria's highest mountain, when the South Tyrolean Ortler region had to be ceded to the Kingdom of Italy according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, which promoted its reputation as a tourist attraction.

The painter 

Nikolai Lvovoch Astudin ( Николай Львович Астудин)  was a Russian landscape painter.

Astudin was the son of an officer and completed his school education in Saint Petersburg. He then became a student of the landscape painter Armand-Théophile Cassagne (1823-1907) in Paris. Study trips lead him to Finland, to the Alpine countries and to Italy. As early as 1876 and 1877 Astudin had exhibitions in Berlin,  and in 1885 in Zurich.  Among his Bonner motifs are the Rhine Bridge (1898) and the Godesburg. In 1912, he moved to Oberlahnstein, where he lived until his death. In this late phase, he mainly painted the Rhine motifs and repeatedly painted Lahneck Castle and The Lorelei (above).  Astudin was widely known for his Rhine paintings and the numerous reproductions of his Rhine views. His work is an expression of the Rhine and Eifelromantik of the early 20th century.
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 (n°8) BY HOKUSAI

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760–1849) 

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

 Pine at Aoyama (Aoyama enza no matsu Chsion), n°8 from the series 
36 Views of Mount Fuji (1830- 32),  woodblock print, ink and color on paper,1930 edition, 

About the 36 Views of Mt Fuji 
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūrokkei) is a series of landscape prints　created by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai (1760? - 1849).
The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. The original thirty-six prints were so popular that Hokusai expanded the series by ten.
The earliest impressions appear faded when compared to the versions usually seen, but are closer to Hokusai's original conception. The original prints have a deliberately uneven blue sky, which increases the sky's brightness and gives movement to the clouds. The peak is brought forward with a halo of Prussian blue. Subsequent prints have a strong, even blue tone and the printer added a new block, overprinting the white clouds on the horizon with light blue. Later prints also typically employ a strong benigara (Bengal red) pigment, which lent the painting its common name of Red Fuji. The green block colour was recut, lowering the meeting point between forest and mountain slope.

The artist
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎)  was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji " both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. In this series, Mt Fuji is painted on different meteorological conditions, in different hours of the days, in different seasons and from different places.

The mountain 
This is the legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山).
It is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). Several names are attributed to it:  "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san".  The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji,  have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳／富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

PIZ BERNINA & MORTERATSCH BY EMIL NOLDE

Emil Nolde  (1867-1956) 

Piz Bernina (4, 049m- 13, 283ft) 

Switzerland - Italy border 

In  La belle Bernina et le vieux Morteratsch, postcard 

About this work 

The postcards series date from  pre-expressionist phase of Nolde’s career (though he was around 30 when he created them). After hiking in the Swiss Alps, Nolde did a painting, Mountain Giants, presenting the mountains in human form. Nolde wrote : “The picture went to the annual exhibition in Munich in 1896. [Ferdinand] Hodler’s picture “Night”  which established his fame, was also there. But my “Mountain Giants" was soon returned, rejected… In those days there was a general and stormy derision and ridicule about each of Hodler’s pictures. ‘And his colors are as ugly as can be possible!’ What help was my contradiction and my firm conviction that his sinuous, pushing, wry bodies are part of the character of the mountain folk, just as the firs on the mountain slopes are gnarled and grown oddly.” From then, he painted practically every Swissw Alps Summit in human form: the Zugspitze, the Waxenstein, the Eiger, the Monch, the Jungfrau, the Grand Saint- Gothard, Piz Bernina, the Morteratch, the Ortler, the Finsteraarhorn... they will be posted one after one in this blog, the Cervin / Matterhorn being the first one.

The mountain 

Piz Bernina or Pizzo Bernina (4, 049m- 13, 283ft)  is the highest mountain in the Eastern Alps, the highest point of the Bernina Range, and the highest peak in the Rhaetian Alps. It is located south of Pontresina and near the major Alpine resort of St. Moritz, in the Engadin valley with the massif partially in Italy.  The mountain can be seen from different viewpoints with the use of ski-lifts from Diavolezza, Piz Corvatsch or Piz Nair. It is also the most easterly mountain higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft) in the Alps, the highest point of the Swiss canton of Graubünden, and the fifth-most prominent peak in the Alps. The minor summit (4,020 m -13,190 ft) known as La Spedla is the highest point in the Italian Lombardy region. The mountain was named after the Bernina Pass in 1850 by Johann Coaz, who also made the first ascent.  The prefix Piz comes from the Romansch language in Graubünden; any mountain with that name can be readily identified as being located in southeastern Switzerland.
The Morteratsch Glacier  is the largest glacier in the Bernina Mountains. It is located in the canton of Grisons in Upper Engadine. It has a maximum length of 7 km with a height difference of 2,000 m and ends at the highest point on Punta Perrucchetti at 4,020 m. It covers with the Pers glacier about 16 km2. Between 1878 and 1998, the glacier retreated 1.8 km with an annual average of about 17.2 meters. The decline has accelerated in recent years with an average of 30 meters per year from 1999-2005. At the confluence with the Pers Glacier, the Morteratsch Glacier behaves like a natural dam blocking the runoff and the origin of a small lake.

The painter 

Emil Nolde (born Emil Hansen) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke (The Bridge) of Dresden in 1906, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the early 20th century to explore color. He is known for his brushwork and expressive choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding storm-scapes and brilliant florals.

Nolde's intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers reflects his continuing interest in the art of Vincent van Gogh.

From the early 1920s,  Nolde was a supporter of the Nazi party, having become a member of its Danish section. He expressed anti-semitic, negative opinions about Jewish artists, and considered "Expressionism to be a distinctively Germanic style". This view was shared by some other members of the Nazi party, notably Joseph Goebbels and Fritz Hippler.

However Hitler rejected all forms of modernism as "degenerate art", and the Nazi regime officially condemned Nolde's work. Until that time he had been held in great prestige in Germany. A total of 1,052 of his works were removed from museums, more than those of any other artist.  Some were included in the Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937, despite his protests, including (later) a personal appeal to Nazi gauleiter Baldur von Schirach in Vienna. He was not allowed to paint—even in private—after 1941. Nevertheless, during this period he created hundreds of watercolors, which he hid. He called them the "Unpainted Pictures".

In 1942 Nolde wrote: "There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every color holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colors are colors, tones tones...and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit, which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed."

After World War II, Nolde was once again honored, receiving the German Order of Merit, He died in Seebüll (now part of Neukirchen). The Schiefler Catalogue raisonné of his prints describes 231 etchings, 197 woodcuts, 83 lithographs, and 4 hectographs.

PARNASSUS BY EDWARD DODWELL

 Edward_Dodwell (1767-1832) - 

Parnassus (2, 457m - 8,061ft)

Greece

In Mont Parnassus, colored plate, 1821, from the series 30 Views in Greece, BNF Gallica

The mountain 

Parnassus or Mount Parnassus (2, 457m - 8,061ft), in greek Parnassos (Παρνασσός) which means "the mountain of the house of the god", is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth.  According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Dionysus and the Dionysian mysteries; it was also sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs, and it was the home of the Muses. The mountain was also favored by the Dorians.  Parnassus is one of the largest mountainous regions of Mainland Greece and one of the highest Greek mountains. It spreads over three municipalities, namely of Boeotia, Phthiotis and Phocis, where its largest part lies. Its highest peak is Liakouras. 

This relation of the mountain to the Muses offered an instigation to its more recent "mystification", with the poetic-artistic trend of the 19th century called "Parnassism". The Parnassic movement was established in France in the decade 1866–1876 as a reaction to Romanticism with a return to some classicistic elements and belief in the doctrine "Art for the Art", first expressed by the poet Theophile Gautier. The periodical Modern Parnassus issued for the first time by Catul Mendes and Xavier Ricard contained direct references to Mount.Parnassus and its mythological feature as habitation of the Muses. The Parnassists, who did not exceed a group of twenty poets, exercised a relatively strong influence on the cultural life of Paris, particularly due to their tenacity on perfection of rhyme and vocabulary. Parnassism influenced several French poets, such as Baudelaire, but it also exercised an influence on Modern Greek poets, particularly Kostis Palamas and Gryparis.
The name of the mountain, (Mont Parnasse in french ), was also given to a quarter of Paris on the left banc of the Seine, where artists and poets used to gather. Montparnasse is nowadays one of the most renowned quarters of the city and in its cemetery many personalities of the arts and culture are buried.

The painter 
Edward Dodwell  was an Irish painter, traveller and a writer on archaeology.  Dodwell travelled from 1801 to 1806 in Greece, which was then a part of the Ottoman Empire, and spent the rest of his life for the most part in Italy, at Naples, and Rome. He died in Rome from the effects of an illness contracted in 1830 during a visit of exploration to the Sabine Mountains. Dodwell's widow, a daughter of Count Giraud, thirty years his junior, subsequently became famous as the "beautiful countess of Spaur", and played a considerable role in the political life of the papal city.
Dodwell published A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece (1819), of which a German translation appeared in 1821; Views in Greece, with thirty colored plates (1821); and Views and Descriptions of Cyclopian or Pelasgic Remains in Italy and Greece (London and Paris, with French text, 1834).