RAFAEL TROYA (1845-1920)
El Altar / Capak Urcu (5,319 m (17,451 ft)
Ecuador
In El volcano Altar, Riobamba, Oil on canvas, Private collection
The mountain
El Altar or Capac Urcu (5,319 m - 17,451 ft) is an extinct volcano on the western side of Sangay National Park in Ecuador, 170 km (110 mi) south of Quito. Spaniards named it so because it resembled two nuns and four friars listening to a bishop around a church altar. In older English sources it is also called The Altar.
The mountain consists of a large stratovolcano of Pliocene-Pleistocene age with a caldera breached to the west. Inca legends report that the top of Altar collapsed after seven years of activity in about 1460, but the caldera is considered to be much older than this by geologists. Nine major peaks over 5,000 metres (16,400 ft) form a horseshoe-shaped ridge about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) across, surrounding a central basin that contains a crater lake at about 4,200 m (13,800 ft), known as Laguna Collanes or Laguna Amarilla.
El Altar is perhaps the most technically demanding climb in Ecuador.
The painter
Rafael Troya (1845-1920) was an Ecuadorian painter born, the son of the painter Vicente Troya. Being a teenager, he is taken to the Colegio de la Compañia de Jesus in Quito, but he soon abandons the clerical career to dedicate himself to what was his true vocation: painting. With the painter Luis Cadena, he learns the technique of colors. In 1872, he definitely choose the landscape and accompanied Reis and Stübel on their study trips in Ecuador on Nature and Archeology. Troya becomes the portraitist of nature, painting compositions full of color and life. In 1890 he came back in the capital of Imbabureña, and decided to be completely dedicated to his art. There he made several masterpieces, such as the paintings on the Apostles, which today are admired in the Ibarra Cathedral, the Ibarra Foundation, preserved in the Hall of the city of Ibarra; Allegory of love, panoramic view of Ibarra; The earthquake of Imbabura, and several religious canvases that are conserved in some churches of Quito, in the church of Caranqui and in the Museum of the Central Bank of Quito. In his paintings, green and bluish tones predominate, characteristic of his native land. He painted a lot of mountains of the Andes and the most famous volcanoes of the Cordillera.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
