SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)
Jebel Uwienat (1,934m - 6,345ft)
Egypt, Sudan, Lybia border
In Siout, Egypt, 1874, oil on canvas, 53.3 x 101.6 cm, On view Gallery 67 National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
About the painting
Siout, Egypt, is the most important and the finest of Gifford's dozen or so known Egyptian works and ably demonstrates his mastery of both atmospheric and linear perspective. The glowing light serves both to give tonal unity and balance to the overall composition and to reveal the myriad details of the scene with exceptional clarity. The result is a work that is less about the physical facts of the scene it depicts and more about the very act of perceiving. As one of the artist's contemporaries wrote:" Gifford's art was poetic and reminiscent. . . It was nature passed through the alembic [a device that refines or transmutes through distillation] of a finely organized sensibility. "
Although many nineteenth-century American landscape painters traveled abroad in search of subjects, Sanford Gifford was one of the very few who ventured beyond England and the Continent. Early in 1869 he traveled the Nile from Cairo to the first cataract (actually rapids) and back. On March 4 he reached the village of Siout, which lay in the midst of an extensive and fertile plain below the Libyan Hills at the start of a great caravan route running through the Libyan Desert to the Sudan. The town was known for its picturesqueness and its history, having been the capital of the thirteenth nome (province) of Upper Egypt during antiquity and the birthplace of Plotinus, the great Neoplatonic philosopher. Gifford described the view that inspired this painting in his journal : "Looking westward, the town with its domes and minarets lay between us and the sun, bathed in a rich and beautiful atmosphere. Behind, on the right, were the yellow cliffs of the Libyan Mts., running back into the tender grades of distance. Between us and the town were fields of grain, golden green with the transparent light. On the right was a tent with sheep and beautiful horses, the sunlight sparkling on a splendid white stallion. On the left the road ran in, with a fountain and figures of men and women and camels. The whole glowing and gleaming under the low sun. "
(Text by Franklin Kelly, published in the National Gallery of Art exhibition catalogue, Art for the Nation, 2000)
The mountain
Jebel Uwienat (1,934m - 6,345ft) ( جبل العوينات) literally is located where three countries are meeting : Egypt, Libya and Sudan. The Qattara Depression (Munkhafaḍ al-Qaṭṭārah) of Egypt descends to 436 feet (133 metres) below sea level. Jebel Uweinat literally "mountain of springs", also spelled Al Awaynat, Auenat, Ouenat, Ouinat, Owainat, Uweinat, Uwaynat, Uweinat, Uwenat, Uweynat is a mountain range ocated in the eastern Sahara, forty kilometers south-southeast of the similar mountain range, Jebel Arkanu, in Libya.
The main source of the massif, called Ain Dua, is on its western foothills. This slope is a cliff about six hundred feet high, the foot of which is covered with voluminous rocks falling under the effect of erosion. It is home to oases covered with shrubs and grasses. In total, three valleys are oriented towards the west: Karkur Hamid, Karkur Idriss and Karkur Ibrahim. To the east, the massif ends with the Karkur Talh valley. The highest point of the massif, in its eastern half, is at the top of the Italia plateau.
The western half of the massif is an intrusion of granite forming concentric rings, the largest of which is twenty-five kilometers in diameter. The eastern half consists of sandstones forming four separate trays. Egyptian graffiti from the third millennium BCE testifies to their exploration of the region from the time of the Old Kingdom, via the track of Abu Ballas.
The massif is officially discovered in 1923 by Ahmed Hassanein who, during his exploration, reports the existence of petroglyphs representing lions, giraffes, ostriches, gazelles or oxen, in a style reminiscent of the Bushmen. He tries to cross the mountains from west to east but turns around after traveling 40 kilometers without finding an exit.
In the 1930s, Ralph A. Bagnold and Captain Marchesi each built a cairn atop the highest point of the massif.
The painter
Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.
In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.
Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.
Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.
_________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
The western half of the massif is an intrusion of granite forming concentric rings, the largest of which is twenty-five kilometers in diameter. The eastern half consists of sandstones forming four separate trays. Egyptian graffiti from the third millennium BCE testifies to their exploration of the region from the time of the Old Kingdom, via the track of Abu Ballas.
The massif is officially discovered in 1923 by Ahmed Hassanein who, during his exploration, reports the existence of petroglyphs representing lions, giraffes, ostriches, gazelles or oxen, in a style reminiscent of the Bushmen. He tries to cross the mountains from west to east but turns around after traveling 40 kilometers without finding an exit.
In the 1930s, Ralph A. Bagnold and Captain Marchesi each built a cairn atop the highest point of the massif.
The painter
Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.
In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.
Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.
Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.
_________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau