CONSTANCE GORDON-CUMMING (1837–1924)
Kailash Range / Gangdisê Mountains (6,638 m - 21,778ft)
China (Tibet autonomous region)
In The Khylas peaks and village of Pangi three miles above China on the sutledge, 1869- pencil, watercolor and bodycolor on paper 48.2 x 72.5 cm.
The mountain
The Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains), which forms part of the Transhimalaya in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It is the western subrange of the Transhimalaya System. The Nyenchen Tanglha is the eastern subrange.
The highest peak of the Gangdise Shan's peaks, Mount Kailash or Gang Rimpoché (6,638 m - 21,778ft) is a sacred place in four religions : Bön, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.
For Böns, a religion native to Tibet, it makes no doubt that the entire mystical region and Kailash, which they call the "nine-story Swastika Mountain", is the axis mundi (Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring).
For Hindus, it is the home of the wild mountain god Shiva and a symbol of his penis.
For Jains it is where their first leader was enlightened.
For Buddhists, the navel of the universe; and for adherents of Bon, the abode of the sky goddess Sipaimen.
The painter
Constance Frederica “Eka” Gordon-Cumming was a noted Scottish travel writer and painter. Born in a wealthy family, she travelled around the world and painted described scenes and life as she saw them.
Constance Gordon-Cumming was a prolific landscape painter, mostly in Asia and the Pacific. She painted over a thousand watercolors and worked with a motto to ‘never a day without at least one careful-coloured sketch’ starting her day at 5 am while in India. Places she visited include Australia, New Zealand, America, China, and Japan.
She arrived in Hilo, Hawaii in October 1879, and was among the first artists to paint the active volcanoes. Her Hawaii travelogue, Fire Fountains: The Kingdom of Hawaii, was published in Edinburgh in 1883. She had several dangerous moments but her travel ended in 1880 when the Montana that she was on ran into rocks at Holyhead. While most of the passengers took the lifeboat, she stayed on last along with the captain to save her paintings and was rescued many hours later. She returned to live at Crieff with her widowed sister Eleanor and continued to write books.
Her best known books are At Home in Fiji and A Lady's Cruise on a French Man-of-War. The latter book resulted from an invitation to join a French ship put into service for the Bishop of Samoa so that he could visit remote parts of his far-flung diocese.
Miss Gordon-Cumming received much criticism from male writers of the era, perhaps because she did not fit in the traditional Victorian role of women, as she often traveled alone and unaided.
In any case, her landscape drawings and watercolors seem to be universally admired.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
