Thursday, May 9, 2019

MOUNT PAGAN BY RUDOLF HELLGREWE



RUDOLF HELLGREWE (1860–1935) 
Mount Pagan (571m - 1,873ft)
United States of America (Northern Mariana Islands) 

In Insel Pagan Diorama,  Mariana Islands, 1900

The mountain 
Mount Pagan (571m - 1,873ft) is  the most active of the two stratovolcanoes on Pagan Island, a volcanic island in the Mariana Islands archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, belonging to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands under administration of the USA.
Formerly inhabited, the inhabitants were evacuated due to volcanic eruptions in 1981.
Jerome Aldan ( the mayor for CNMI’s Northern Islands, which includes Pagan, told a New Zealand radio program that the U.S. military’s description of the island as “uninhabited” was false. According to an article by James Cave for the Huffington Post, an article which used Hadfield as its source:
"More than 50 families in Saipan consider Pagan their home island and have plans and desires to return to homesteads," The island is occupied by two people, who live in shacks and have one flushing toilet and plumbing, electricity and small ranch.
According to an April 17, 2015, article by Wyatt Olson for Stars and Stripes military news network, "the legislature of the Northern Mariana Islands is considering a joint resolution calling on the governor to oppose the military expansion on the 10-mile-long island. ... In wording that hints at the hornet’s nest the U.S. may have stirred with the proposal, the joint resolution asserts that “throughout the CNMI’s history, foreign powers and outside influences have made major decisions and have dictated the course of development” for the region and that the U.S. “once again stands poised to make some very important decisions with respect to the military utilization of the Northern Islands.” 



The artist 
The  landscape painter and illustrator Rudolf Hellgrewe is the most famous painter of Germany's colonies. He taught for a long time at the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts) in Berlin. He attended the Königstädtische Realschule and later the Andreas Realschule in Berlin before studying under Eugen Bracht and Christian Wilberg at the Berliner Kunstakademie (Berlin Art Academy). He was drawn to landscape painting, and became known as the "painter of Brandenburg's lakes and sunsets".
In 1885–86, Hellgrewe travelled to East Africa, where he made numerous paintings. He later illustrated the books of the African explorers Carl Peters and Hermann von Wissmann, and produced dioramas of life in Germany's tropical colonies for use in schools. In 1888 at Berlin he published many of his works as a book, Aus Deutsch-Ostafrika. He took part in the colonial exhibitions of 1896 and 1907, and was one of the founding members of the Deutsches Kolonialmuseum (German Colonial Museum) in 1899. He also joined the Berlin Writers' Club. In 1903 the great German Colonial House was constructed based on the native architecture of the colonies. Hellgrewe provided the ceiling paintings.
Hellgrewe received Medal for Art and Science from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Honorary Medal of the Geographical Society of Jena. He died at Berlin in 1935.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau