Sunday, February 28, 2021

MOUNT HUBER PAINTED BY ROBERT GENN


https://wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com/2021/02/mount-huber-painted-by-robert-genn.html


ROBERT GENN (1936-2014)
Mount Huber (3,348 m - 10,984 ft)
Canada (British Columbia)

 In  Chinook over O' Hara, oil on canvas, 1970, Private collection  


The mountain
Mount Huber (3,348 m - 10,984 ft) summit located two kilometers east of Lake O'Hara in the Bow Range of Yoho National Park, in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. Its nearest higher peak is Mount Victoria, 1.0 km (0.62 mi) to the north-northeast. Mount Huber is a secondary summit of Mount Victoria which is on the Continental Divide. Named in 1903 by Samuel Allen for Emil Huber, a Swiss climber, who, with Carl Sulzer, were first to climb Mount Sir Donald in the Selkirk Mountains. The first ascent of the Mount Huber was made in 1903 by George Collier, E. Tewes, Christian Bohren, and Christian Kaufmann. The mountain's name became official in 1924 when approved by the Geographical Names Board of Canada. Mount Huber is composed of sedimentary rock laid down during the Precambrian to Jurassic periods. Formed in shallow seas, this sedimentary rock was pushed east and over the top of younger rock during the Laramide orogeny. Based on the Köppen climate classification, Mount Huber is located in a subarctic climate with cold, snowy winters, and mild summers ] Temperatures can drop below −20 °C with wind chill factors below −30 °C. Precipitation runoff from Mount Huber drains into tributaries of the Kicking Horse River which is a tributary of the Columbia River.

The painter
Robert Douglas Genn was a Canadian artist, who has gained recognition for his style, which is in the tradition of Canadian landscape painting. His work is in corporate and public collections, including Air Canada, Bank Of Montreal, Canadian General Insurance, Canadian Airlines, Canadian Utilities, The Churchill Corporation, Expo '86, Esso Resources, First City - California II, Highfield Oil & Gas, Molson Brewery Ltd., Montreal Trust, Shell Resources, University of Alberta, Westgate Chevrolet, Glenbow Museum and Government of Belgium.
Born in Victoria, British Columbia, Genn has often been compared with members of the 1920s Canadian Group of Seven. In 1961, he met Lawren Harris who was a neighbour in Point Grey, Vancouver. Genn had problems with painting skies, and Harris's advice was to turn the picture upside-down: "Paint down from the trees to the clouds at the bottom of the picture to get the perspective right." Genn said this was "valuable advice", which enabled him "to control the gradation, and work up into the trees in a more abstract manner."
He ran the Painter's Keys web site, a worldwide artists' community, with his staff and volunteers. The web site sends out an erudite free twice-weekly newsletter, which is sent to 135,000 artists in over 100 countries, and claims the largest collection of art quotes online with over 5,382 authors quoted.
In 2005, Genn campaigned against the Chinese website, arch-world.com, which was selling thousands of high-resolution images of around 2,800 artists' work illegally, without permission. After failing to gain support from the Canadian government or the African embassy in Ottawa, Genn used his web site to enlist subscribers' support to email objections to the arch-world, resulting within days in over 1,000 online complaints from artists, dealers and politicians to the company and governments. This stimulated a diplomatic protest letter to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Trading and Law Department from the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. Genn credited the campaign with the subsequent removal of images by 800 Canadian artists from arch-world, although many works were reinstated on arch-world soon after.
Genn has been a member of the Board of Directors at Emily Carr College of Art & Design.
Genn announced in his Twice-Weekly Letter of 25 October 2013 that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died at his Surrey, British Columbia home on 27 May 2014.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

 

Thursday, February 25, 2021

THE GRAND TETON (3) PAINTED BY EVE DREWELOWE

 

https://wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-grand-teton-3-painted-by-eve.html

EVE DREWELOWE (1899-1988)
Grand Teton  (4,199 m - 13,775 ft)
United States of America (Wyoming)

In Sunlit sumit (Grand Teton) watercolor, 1949- Collection Kirkland, Museum of Fine & Decorative Art.

 
About this painting
This watercolor is a variation painted almost 10 years after a first watercolor dating from the 1930s, in exactly the same place but in a different season, in warmer colors and, as we can see, on a day when the sun appeared between the clouds.

The mountain
Grand Teton (4,199 m - 13,775 ft) is the highest mountain in Grand Teton National Park in Northwest Wyoming, and a classic destination in American mountaineering. It is the highest point of the Teton Range, and the second highest peak in the U.S. state of Wyoming after Gannett Peak. The mountain is entirely within the Snake River drainage basin, which it feeds by several local creeks and glaciers.The Teton Range is a subrange of the Rocky Mountains, which extend from southern Alaska to northern New Mexico.
Grand Teton's name was first recorded as Mount Hayden by the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870. However, the name "the Grand Teton" had early currency. The Edition of April, 1901 of the USGS 1:125,000 quadrangle map of the area shows "Grand Teton" as the name of the peak. A United States National Park named "Grand Teton National Park" was established by law in 1929. By 1931, the name Grand Teton Peak was in such common usage that it was recognized by the USGS Board on Geographic Names. Another shift in usage led the Board to shorten the name on maps to Grand Teton in 1970. The origin of the name is disputed. The most common explanation is that "Grand Teton" means "large teat" in French, named by either French-Canadian or Iroquois members of an expedition led by Donald McKenzie of the North West Company. However, other historians disagree, and claim that the mountain was named after the Teton Sioux tribe of Native Americans.

The painter
Eve Drewelowe was an American painter. Her career spanned six decades and produced more than 1,000 works of art in oil, watercolor, pen and ink and other media in styles that included impressionism, social realism and abstraction.
Despite dabbling with other artistic styles, Drewelowe always showed an inclination toward landscapes. She once said: “my waking thought from an embryo on was my need to be an artist.”
Though never known to have used the word to describe herself, Eve Drewelowe is often considered a feminist artist. Her personal life exhibited feminist themes: the artist retained her maiden name and publicly stated a disinterest in housework and parenting. Drewelowe chose not to take her husband’s last name because in her opinion it should not matter to others whether she is married or not. When Drewelowe and Van Ek returned from their travels and started building a house together. She did not want to be involved in the pleasantries of being the dean’s wife, especially hosting dinner parties, so she specified to have the house built lacking a dining room. She always maintained that she did not want to have children of her own, much to her mother’s dismay.
Although Drewelowe is mainly renowned in Colorado and Iowa, she had solo exhibitions all over the country. Her work was shown at National Association of Women Artists exhibitions, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Denver Art Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and numerous other esteemed institutions. Although women had been in the profession of art for 20–30 years at the beginning of Drewelowe’s career, she still faced opposition and sexism. Critics believe that she could have been much more acclaimed had she not been a woman and had she not fallen ill at the peak of her career. Others believe that her “reincarnation” and transition to abstract paintings increased Drewelowe’s popularity as an artist by keeping her relevant in an evolving artistic world.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

 

Sunday, February 21, 2021

CHENOUA PAINTED BY MARIUS DE BUZON

https://wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com/2021/02/chenoua-painted-by-marius-de-buzon.html

MARIUS DE BUZON (1879-1958)
Chenoua (905 m- 2969 ft)
Algeria

In La Côte d'Alger aux Environs de Tipiza, oil on canvas, 1951, Private collection


The mountain
The Chenoua (905 m- 2969ft) in Berber: Adrar n Cenwa) is a mountain located in the region of Tipaza, in the north of Algeria. The massif of Mount Chenoua is, in the west, the highest point of the hills of the Algiers Sahel. It is surrounded to the east by Wadi Nador, Tipaza river and to the west by Wadi El Hachem, Cherchell river. By joining the sea, the Chenoua forms an alternation of cliffs and beaches, visible from the panoramic road that runs along the Mediterranean. The Chenoua corniche, which stretches as far as Cherchell (Caesarea), is home to small picturesque beaches. Cape Chenoua or Ras el Amouch offers a view of the bay and a walk in the caves of the cliff. Marble is taken from the Chenoua quarries. The novels by Albert Camus : "La mort heureuse"  and "Noces " are partly set in  the Chenoua.

The painter
Marius de Buzon is a French painter of the school of Algiers of Spanish ancestry, descendant of Francisco de Goya. In 1939, the well known french journalist and writer Max-Pol Fouchet said about him in Algeria : "The praise of M. de Buzon seems to me useless to do. We know the serious and powerful art of this painter, but he also knows how to release on his canvases a Corotian tenderness before such a French landscape. He moves only more." While according to Victor Barrucand, "he highlighted the essential lines of the landscapes, sculpting large swathes of the Kabyles valleys " .
He is knighted by the Legion of Honor.
He is considered, and quoted, as the "cantor of Kabylie" and one of the founders of the School of Algiers (following Maxime Noiré, and with Léon Carré, Léon Cauvy, Paul Jouve). He also paints landscapes and types of the region of Bougie, the Mzab (where he is one of the first painters to enter, after Étienne Dinet, with Maurice Bouviolle, Touggourt where he regularly stays after 1945 (L'Heure Blonde, 1950), Témacine (1953), and Sidi Bou Saïd, or Spain and Morocco, Casablanca, Rabat or Fez.
His works are highly sought after by collectors as representing scenes of Kabyle life, landscapes, pastoral scenes; "He substitutes for the notion of ethnic identification, that infinitely more poetic allegory " wrote Élisabeth Cazenave, while in 1930 Pierre Angel : "Marius de Buzon continued on these African shores the ancient dreams of the pagan mysticism. "
Marius de Buzon died at the end of November 1958 in Algiers; his son Jean and grandson Jean-Frédéric were murdered in 1962 while trying to move and save the workshop of their father and grandfather.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau


Wednesday, February 17, 2021

MOUNT EREBUS BY EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON


https://wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com/2021/02/mount-erebus-by-edward-adrian-wilson.html

EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (1872-1912)
Mount Erebus (3, 794 m - 12, 448ft)
Antarctica (Ross Island)


In Mount Erebus, 1906, watercolour, Royal Geographical Society Museum, London


The mountain
Mount Erebus (3, 794 m - 12, 448ft), not to be confused with Mount Elbrus is the second-highest volcano in Antarctica (after Mount Sidley) and the southernmost active volcano on Earth. It is the sixth highest ultra mountain on an island, located on Ross Island, which is also home to three inactive volcanoes: Mount Terror, Mount Bird, and Mount Terra Nova.
The volcano has been active since c. 1.3 million years ago and is the site of the Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory run by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
Mount Erebus was discovered on January 27, 1841 (and observed to be in eruption) by polar explorer Sir James Clark Ross who named it and its companion, Mount Terror, after his ships, Erebus and Terror (which were later used by Sir John Franklin on his disastrous Arctic expedition). Erebus is a dark region in Hades in Greek mythology. Present with Ross on the Erebus was the young Joseph Hooker, future president of the Royal Society and close friend of Charles Darwin. Erebus was an Ancient Greek primordial deity of darkness, the son of Chaos.
Mount Erebus is classified as a polygenetic stratovolcano. The bottom half of the volcano is a shield and the top half is a stratocone. The composition of the current eruptive products of Erebus is anorthoclase-porphyritic tephritic phonolite and phonolite, which are the bulk of exposed lava flow on the volcano. Erebus is the world's only presently erupting phonolite volcano.
Researchers spent more than three months during the 2007–08 field season installing an unusually dense array of seismometers around Mount Erebus to listen to waves of energy generated by small, controlled blasts from explosives they buried along its flanks and perimeter and to record scattered seismic signals generated by lava lake eruptions and local ice quakes. By studying the refracted and scattered seismic waves, the scientists produced an image of the uppermost (top few km) of the volcano to understand the geometry of its "plumbing" and how the magma rises to the lava lake. These results demonstrated a complex upper-volcano conduit system with appreciable upper-volcano magma storage to the northwest of the lava lake at depths hundreds of meters below the surface.


The artist
Edward Adrian Wilson, nicknamed "Uncle Bill" was an English physician, polar explorer, natural historian, painter and ornithologist. Wilson took part in two British expeditions to Antarctica, the Discovery Expedition (1901-1904) and the tragic Terra Nova Expedition (1907-1912), both under the leadership of Scott.
Dr. Edward A. Wilson is widely regarded as one of the finest artists ever to have worked in the Antarctic. Sailing with Captain Scott aboard 'Discovery' (1901-1904), he became the last in a long tradition of 'exploration artists' from an age when pencil and water-colour were the main methods of producing accurate scientific records of new lands and animal species. He combined scientific, topographical and landscape techniques to produce accurate and beautiful images of the last unknown continent. Such was the strength of his work that it also helped to found the tradition of modern wildlife painting. In particular Wilson captured the essence of the flight and motion of Southern Ocean sea-birds on paper.
Returning with Captain Scott aboard 'Terra Nova' (1910-1913) as Chief of Scientific Staff, he continued to record the continent and its wildlife with extraordinary deftness. Chosen to accompany Captain Scott to the South Pole, his last drawings are from one of the most famous epic journeys in exploration history. Along with his scientific work, Wilson's pencil recorded the finding of Roald Amundsen's tent at the South Pole by Captain Scott. Wilson died, along with the other members of the British Pole Party, during the return journey, in March 1912. The drawings and paintings were created at considerable personal cost in the freezing conditions in which Wilson worked. He often suffered severely from the cold whilst sketching and also from snow-blindness, or sunburn of the eye. They provide a remarkable testament to one of the great figures of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. The book has been produced as a companion volume to 'Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks' by two of Wilson's great nephews, to mark the centenary of his death.


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2021 - Wandering Vertexes..
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

Sunday, February 14, 2021

UNDOOLYA PAINTED BY ALBERT NAMATJIRA

 

https://wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com/2021/02/undoolya-painted-by-albert-namatjira.html

ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902-1959)
Undoolya (794 m - 2,606 ft)
Australia (Northern Territory) 

 In  Undoolyia range, watercolor, 1947


The mountain
Undoolya or Mount Undoolya (794 m- 2,606 ft) is located in the MacDonnell region and the Northern Territory state, in the central part of Australia, 1,900 km north-west of Canberra is the nation's headline. The ground around Mount Undoolya is usually flat, but on the east it is the hills. The surrounding area has an altitude of 871 meters and 14.8 km north of Mount Undoolya. Nor more than 2 people per square kilometer around Mount Undoolya. No city around. Mount Undoolya is surrounded by lakes. The climate is warm.


The Painter
Albert Namatjira born Elea Namatjira, was a Western Arrernte-speaking Aboriginal artist from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. As a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was the most famous Indigenous Australian of his generation.
Born and raised at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, Namatjira showed interest in art from an early age, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32), under the tutelage of Rex Battarbee, that he began to paint seriously. Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting. He became a household name in Australia—indeed, reproductions of his works hung in many homes throughout the nation—and he was publicly regarded as a model Aborigine who had succeeded in mainstream society.
Although not the first Aboriginal artist to work in a European style, Albert Namatjira is certainly the most famous. Ghost gums with luminous white trunks, palm-filled gorges and red mountain ranges turning purple at dusk are the hallmarks of the Hermannsburg school. Hermannsburg Mission was established by Lutheran missionaries in 1877 on the banks of the Finke River, west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Namatjira learnt watercolour technique from the artist, Rex Battarbee.


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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

KANGCHENJUNGA PAINTED BY GAGANENDRANATH TAGORE

 

https://wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com/2021/02/kangchenjunga-painted-by-gaganendranath.html

GAGANENDRANATH  TAGORE  (1867-1938)
Kangchenjunga (8, 538m - 28,169 ft)
India, Népal

In Kangchenjunga, watercolor,  National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi



The painter
Gaganendranath Tagore was an Indian painter and cartoonist of the Bengal school. Along with his brother Abanindranath Tagore, he was counted as one of the earliest modern artists in India. Gaganendranath Tagore was born at Jorasanko into a family whose creativity defined Bengal's cultural life. Gaganendranath was the eldest son of Gunendranath Tagore, grandson of Girindranath Tagore and a great-grandson of Prince Dwarkanath Tagore. His brother Abanindranath was a pioneer and leading exponent of the Bengal School of Art. He was a nephew of the poet Rabindranath Tagore and the paternal great-grandfather of actress Sharmila Tagore. Gaganendranath received no formal education but trained under the watercolourist Harinarayan Bandopadhyay. In 1907, along with his brother Abanindranath, he founded the Indian Society of Oriental Art which later published the influential journal Rupam. Between 1906 and 1910, the artist studied and assimilated Japanese brush techniques and the influence of Far Eastern art into his own work, as demonstrated by his illustrations for Rabindranath Tagore's autobiography Jeevansmriti (1912). He went on to develop his own approach in his Chaitanya and Pilgrim series. Gaganendranath eventually abandoned the revivalism of the Bengal School and took up caricature. The Modern Review published many of his cartoons in 1917. From 1917 onwards, his satirical lithographs appeared in a series of books, including Play of Opposites, Realm of the Absurd and Reform Screams.
Between 1920 and 1925, Gaganendranath pioneered experiments in modernist painting.  Partha Mitter describes him as "the only Indian painter before the 1940s who made use of the language and syntax of Cubism in his painting". From 1925 onwards, the artist developed a complex post-cubist style.

The mountain
Kangchenjunga (8,586 m - 28,169 ft) is the third highest mountain in the world. It lies partly in Nepal and partly in Sikkim, India. Kangchenjunga is the second highest mountain of the Himalayas after Mount Everest. Three of the five peaks – Main, Central and South – are on the border between North Sikkim and Nepal. Two peaks are in the Taplejung District, Nepal.
Kangchenjunga Main is the highest mountain in India, and the easternmost of the mountains higher than 8,000 m (26,000 ft).
Until 1852, Kangchenjunga was assumed to be the highest mountain in the world, but calculations based on various readings and measurements made by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1849 came to the conclusion that Mount Everest., known as Peak XV at the time, was the highest.
It is listed int the Eight Thousanders and as Seven Third Summits
Kangchenjunga is the official spelling adopted by Douglas Freshfield, A. M. Kellas, and the Royal Geographical Society that gives the best indication of the Tibetan pronunciation. Freshfield referred to the spelling used by the Indian Government since the late 19th century. There are a number of alternative spellings including Kangchendzцnga, Khangchendzonga, and Kanchenjunga.
Local Lhopo people believe that the treasures are hidden but reveal to the devout when the world is in peril; the treasures comprise salt, gold, turquoise and precious stones, sacred scriptures, invincible armor or ammunition, grain and medicine. Kangchenjunga's name in the Limbu language is Senjelungma or Seseylungma, and is believed to be an abode of the omnipotent goddess Yuma Sammang.
It rises in a section of the Himalayas called Kangchenjunga Himal that is limited in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak Chu and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River. It lies about 128 km (80 mi) east of Mount Everest.
Allowing for further verification of all calculations, it was officially announced in 1856 that
Kangchenjunga was first climbed on 25 May 1955 by Joe Brown and George Band, who were part of a British expedition. They stopped short of the summit as per the promise given to the Chogyal that the top of the mountain would remain inviolate. Every climber or climbing group that has reached the summit has followed this tradition...

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

Sunday, February 7, 2021

ELYSIUM MONS BY NASA VIKING PROGRAM (1975-1982)



NASA VIKING PROGRAM (1975-1982)
Elysium Mons (13, 900m / 13, 9km - 46,000 ft / 8,6 mi)
MARS

Image from camera B (541A44, 541A46). Red filter used . Resolution is about 144 m/pixel. 
Approximate north is at top. taken on 10 December 1977, USGS Astrogeology Science Center 


The Mountain
Elysium Mons (13,900m / 13, 9km - 46,000 ft / 8,6 mi) is a volcano on Mars located in the volcanic province Elysium, at 25.02°N 147.21°E, in the Martian eastern hemisphere. It stands about above the surrounding lava plains, and about 16 km (52,000 ft) above the Martian datum. Its diameter is about 240 km (150 mi), with a summit caldera about 14 km (8.7 mi) across. It is flanked by the smaller volcanoes Hecates Tholus to the northeast, and Albor Tholus to the southeast.
A 6.5 km diameter crater at 29.674 N, 130.799 E, in the volcanic plains to the northwest of Elysium Mons has been identified as a possible source for the nakhlite meteorites, a family of similar basaltic Martian meteorites with cosmogenic ages of about 10.7 Ma, suggesting ejection from Mars by a single impact event. This implies that Martian volcanism had slowed greatly by that point in history.


The Mission
NASA Viking Orbiter 1 was the first of two spacecraft (along with Viking 2) sent to Mars as part of NASA's Viking program. On July 20, 1976, it became the second spacecraft to soft-land on Mars, and the first to successfully perform its mission. (The first spacecraft to soft-land on Mars was the Soviet Union's Mars 3 on December 2, 1971, which stopped transmitting after 14.5 seconds.) Viking 1 held the record for the longest Mars surface mission of 2307 days (over 6​1⁄4 years) or 2245 Martian solar days, until that record was broken by the Opportunity rover on May 19, 2010. Following launch using a Titan/Centaur launch vehicle on August 20, 1975, and an 11-month cruise to Mars, the orbiter began returning global images of Mars about 5 days before orbit insertion. The Viking 1 Orbiter was inserted into Mars orbit on June 19, 1976, and trimmed to a 1513 x 33,000 km, 24.66 h site certification orbit on June 21. Landing on Mars was planned for July 4, 1976, the United States Bicentennial, but imaging of the primary landing site showed it was too rough for a safe landing. The landing was delayed until a safer site was found, and took place instead on July 20, the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The lander separated from the orbiter at 08:51 UTC and landed at Chryse Planitia at 11:53:06 UTC. It was the first attempt by the United States at landing on Mars.
The instruments of the orbiter consisted of two vidicon cameras for imaging (VIS), an infrared spectrometer for water vapor mapping (MAWD) and infrared radiometers for thermal mapping (IRTM). The orbiter primary mission ended at the beginning of solar conjunction on November 5, 1976.
The extended mission commenced on December 14, 1976, after solar conjunction. Operations included close approaches to Phobos in February 1977. The periapsis was reduced to 300 km on March 11, 1977. Minor orbit adjustments were done occasionally over the course of the mission, primarily to change the walk rate — the rate at which the areocentric longitude changed with each orbit, and the periapsis was raised to 357 km on July 20, 1979. On August 7, 1980, Viking 1 Orbiter was running low on attitude control gas and its orbit was raised from 357 × 33943 km to 320 × 56000 km to prevent impact with Mars and possible contamination until the year 2019. Operations were terminated on August 17, 1980, after 1485 orbits. A 2009 analysis concluded that, while the possibility that Viking 1 had impacted Mars could not be ruled out, it was most likely still in orbit. More than 57,000 images were sent back to Earth. 

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 (n°13) BY KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAÏ

 

 

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAÏ (1760-1849)
Fujiyama / 富士山 (3,776.24 m -12,389 ft)
Japan

In Fujiyama from the Village of Sekiya at Sumida river,
n °13 from the series 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, 1830-32,
Edo Tokyo Museum, Japan


About the 36 Views of Mt Fuji

Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūrokkei) is a series of landscape prints created by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai (1760?1849). The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. The original thirty-six prints were so popular that Hokusai expanded the series by ten.
The earliest impressions appear faded when compared to the versions usually seen, but are closer to Hokusai's original conception. The original prints have a deliberately uneven blue sky, which increases the sky's brightness and gives movement to the clouds. The peak is brought forward with a halo of Prussian blue. Subsequent prints have a strong, even blue tone and the printer added a new block, overprinting the white clouds on the horizon with light blue. Later prints also typically employ a strong benigara (Bengal red) pigment, which lent the painting its common name of Red Fuji. The green block colour was recut, lowering the meeting point between forest and mountain slope.

The artist
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji " both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. In this series, Mt Fuji is painted on different meteorological conditions, in different hours of the days, in different seasons and from different places.

The mountain
This is the legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山).
It is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). Several names are attributed to it: "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san". The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji, have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳/富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.


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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau