BLUE MOUNTAINS BY JAMES A.C. WILLIS

JAMES A.C. WILLIS (1845- 1915?)

Blue Mountains  (1,189 m -3,901 ft) 

Australia  (New South Wales)

In Capertee Valley, New South Wales, 1892, watercolour, Art Gallery of New South Wales

The mountains
The Blue Mountains  (1,189 m (3,901 ft) - not to be confused with Greater Blue Mountains Area, Blue Mountains National Park, City of Blue Mountains, Electoral district of Blue Mountains - are a mountainous region and a mountain range located in New South Wales, Australia. 

The region borders on Sydney's metropolitan area, its foothills starting about 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of centre of the state capital, close to the major suburb of Penrith. The public's understanding of the extent of the Blue Mountains is varied, as it forms only part of an extensive mountainous area associated with the Great Dividing Range. Officially the Blue Mountains region is bounded by the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers in the east, the Coxs River and Lake Burragorang to the west and south, and the Wolgan and Colo rivers to the north.

Geologically, it is situated in the central parts of the Sydney Basin.
The Blue Mountains Range comprises a range of mountains, plateau escarpments extending off the Great Dividing Range about 4.8 kilometres (3.0 mi) northwest of Wolgan Gap in a generally southeasterly direction for about 96 kilometres (60 mi), terminating at Emu Plains. 

The Capertee Valley is a 2nd largest canyon (by width) in the world and largest valley in New South Wales, Australia, 135 km (84 mi) north-west of Sydney. The valley follows the Capertee River as it cuts through the Sydney Basin, a sedimentary basin consisting of Permian and Triassic sedimentary rock west of the Blue Mountains.

The Painter 

Willis was born in Devon, England and arrived in Sydney in c.1845. His principal occupation was surveying and during his career he produced many maps for the NSW Government. In c.1848 he took art lessons with Conrad Martens (1801-1878), then the most talented artist active in the colony. Over the following years he painted many landscapes, often of remote areas of the State as in this Capertee painting. As well as his surveying duties, Willis was involved in the establishment of the Art Gallery of NSW in the 1870s. In 1892 he donated this work to the galleries permanent collection. Although rarely on show, this work can be privately viewed with a prearranged appointment with gallery staff.

_______________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes..
by Francis Rousseau