PIZ ROSEG PAINTED BY JOHANNES SCHÜTZ

JOHANNES SCHÜTZ (1886-1953)
Piz Roseg (3,937 m -12,917 ft)
Switzerland - Italy border

In Piz Roseg and the Sellagruppe as seen from Fuorcla-Surlej, Graubunden, Switzerland. oil on canvas, 82 x 62cm, 1934, Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery

The mountain
Piz Roseg (3,937 m -12,917 ft)  is a mountain of the Bernina Range, overlooking the Val Roseg in the Swiss canton of Graubünden.There are two summits on its main ridge:
- the south-east and higher summit (3,937 m)
- the north-west summit, known as the Schneekuppe (3,920 m). There is also a prominent top on the east-north-east ridge, called the Roseg Pitschen (3,868 m) (Italian border).
The first ascent of the mountain to the Schneekuppe was by F. T. Bircham with guides Peter Jenny and Alexander Fleury on 31 August 1863. The highest point of the mountain was reached two years later by A. W. Moore and Horace Walker with guide Jakob Anderegg on 28 June 1865.
Piz Roseg is separated from the neighbouring Piz Scerscen by the Porta da Roseg (3,522 m), also called the Güssfeldtsattel. The Swiss side of this col – a steep ice slope of up to 70° – was first climbed by Paul Güssfeldt, with guides Hans Grass, Peter Jenny and Caspar Capat on 13 September 1872. Grass and Capat had spent the previous day cutting steps up the first two-fifths of the route. The following day they added at least another 450 steps on the first ascent.
The 700-metre north-east face of Piz Roseg was first climbed by Christian Klucker and L. Norman-Neruda on 16 July 1890; the face – with a notable serac band halfway up – sports a number of difficult routes. Klucker, together with M. Barberia, also made the first traverse from the Italian side of the Porta da Roseg on 21 June 1898.

The artist
Schütz is a academic Swiss painter, born in the Netherlands. He comes from a family of artists. He is reknown for having painted the Swiss and Italian Alps mountains. No biographical details are avalaible about him, even if his works appears quite often in auctions.

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2021- Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONT-BLANC DU TACUL PAINTED BY CESARE MAGGI

 

CESARE MAGGI (1881-1962)
Mont Blanc du Tacul (4,248m -13,937 ft)
France ( Haute-Savoie)

 In Mont Blanc du Tacul seen from the Glacier du Géant, Chamonix, France. oil on panel, 27 x 37cm, courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London 

The mountain
Mont Blanc du Tacul (4,248m - 13,937 ft) is a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif of the French Alps situated midway between the Aiguille du Midi and Mont Blanc. The Mont Blanc du Tacul looks like a large, snow-covered trapezoid. It is part of the peaks of the Alps over 4,000 meters, of which it is the twenty-fourth highest. To the north of the summit is the Aiguille du Midi, from which it is separated by the Col du Midi (3,532 m), to the south the Mont Maudit, from which it is separated by the Col Maudit (4,035 m), at the is the Aiguilles du Diable then the Glacier du Géant and to the west the Aiguille de Saussure (3,839 m) then the Bossons glacier which rises to its summit. It has a secondary summit, the eastern summit (4,247 m), which is the exit from the Gervasutti pillar. The official first ascent of Mont Blanc du Tacul was by a guideless party comprising Charles Hudson, Edward John Stevenson, Christopher and James Grenville Smith, E. S. Kennedy, Charles Ainslie and G. C. Joad on 8 August 1855. However, Courmayeur guides may have already ascended the peak during their attempts in 1854 and 1855 to force a way up Mont Blanc from the Italian side.

The painter
The italian painter Cesare Maggi was born into a family of actors, Maggi embarked on classical studies at his father’s wish but also took up painting at a very early age His debut in Florence at the Esposizione Annuale della Società di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1898 was followed by a short trip to Paris to catch up with the latest developments.
The crucial turning point in Maggi’s art came in 1889 with the posthumous show of work by Giovanni Segantini held by the Milanese Society of Fine Arts, which prompted a definitive shift to landscape painting of a Divisionist character. After a short stay in the Engadin, he returned to Milan before finally settling in Turin. Commercial collaboration with Alberto Grubicy until 1913 enabled Maggi to establish himself quickly as one of the leading representatives of the second generation of Divisionist painters in Italy. He painted a repertoire of readily comprehensible mountain landscapes focusing primarily on aspects of the visual perception of the reflection of light and colour but lacking the deep spirituality of Segantini’s work. He took part in the major Italian and European exhibitions and the Venice Biennale devoted an entire room to his work at the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte of Venice in 1912. After an interlude devoted to portrait painting in the same decade, the artist’s mature work focused on greater simplification of subject matter, mostly in landscapes.
Maggi obtained the chair in painting at the Albertina Academy, Turin, in 1936.



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2021- Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

BLACK MESA ( 2) PAINTED BY GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

 

 

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Black Mesa (1,739 m - 5,705 ft)
United States of America (Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma)

In Mesa and Road East, oil on canvas, 1952, Private collection

The mountain
Black Mesa (1,739 m - 5,705 feet) is a mesa in the U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. It extends from Mesa de Maya, Colorado southeasterly 28 miles (45 km) along the north bank of the Cimarron River, crossing the northeast corner of New Mexico to end at the confluence of the Cimarron River and Carrizo Creek near Kenton in the Oklahoma panhandle. Its highest elevation is in Colorado. The highest point of Black Mesa within New Mexico is 1,597 m - 5,239 feet. The plateau that formed at the top of the mesa has been known as a "geological wonder" of North America. There is abundant wildlife in this shortgrass prairie environment, including mountain lions, butterflies, and the Texas horned lizard. The plateau has been home to Plains Indians. In the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century the area was a hideout for outlaws such as William Coe and Black Jack Ketchum. The outlaws built a fort known as the Robbers' Roost. The stone fort housed a blacksmith shop, gun ports, and a piano. The present-day Oklahoma Panhandle area, which was then considered a no man's land, lacked law enforcement agencies and hence the outlaws found it safe to hide in the region. However, as new settlers arrived in the area for copper and coal mining and also for cattle ranching activities by grazing cattle in the mesa region, law enforcement became more effective, and the outlaws were brought under control.


The painter
Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.
Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.
O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.
In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.
In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.
Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”
Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art. In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.
Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

VOLCÀN ORSONO PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROBERT GERSTMANN

 

ROBERT GERSTMANN (1896-1960)
Volcàn Orsono (2,652 m - 8700 ft)
Chile

in Lago Villarrica e Volcan Orsono, photo, 1932

The volcano
The Osorno is a stratovolcano located between the province of Osorno and that of Llanquihue, in the Lakes region of Chile. At an altitude of 2,652 meters, it is the most active volcano in the southern Chilean Andes.  It rises to the east of Lake Llanquihue, known worldwide as a symbol of the local landscape. The volcano also dominates Lake Todos los Santos. Its last eruption dates from 1869. Charles Darwin saw the Osorno from afar on his second voyage on HMS Beagle and witnessed its eruption1 in January 18352. Its first ascent was made in 1848 by Jean Renous.

The photographer
Robert Gerstmann was a photographer very famous in South America. Gerstmann was a Vienna born electrical engineer who, as a young man, developed an interest in photography. In 1924, he immigrated to Chile and from there traveled to Bolivia, where he made some 5000 photographs, a selection of which appear as photogravures in his Bolivia, 150 Grabados en Cobre (1928), which was reissued in 1996 by the Fundación Quipus in La Paz. Gerstmann ranged far, photographing the altiplano from La Paz south to the Argentine border, west to the Chilean border, and east to the Yungas, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, and the lowlands along the Ríos Beni and Mamoré. Only Tarija and the Chaco escaped his lens. Five of his photographs illustrate Stewart E. McMillan's "The Heart of Aymara Land" National Geographic Magazine (February 1927), and several appear in Gustavo-Adolfo Otero's Bolivia (Guía Sinóptica) 1929. Gerstmann settled in Santiago in 1929. He published other photo albums, including Chile: 280 grabados en cobre (1932), Colombia: 200 grabados en cobre (1951), and Chile en 110 cuadros (1960?), and dabbled in film-making in Bolivia. He is thought to have died in Santiago ca. 1960. Several thousand of his glass plates are said to be at a university in Antofagasta. 

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONTE BURNEY BY ROBERT OLIVER CUNNINGHAM

ROBERT OLIVER CUNNINGHAM (1841-1918)
Monte Burney (1,758m - 5,768 ft)
Chile

In Monte Burney, engraving, 1871

The volcano
Monte Burney (1,758m - 5,768 ft) is a volcano in southern Chile, part of its Austral Volcanic Zone which consists of six volcanoes with activity during the Quaternary.  This volcanism is linked to the subduction of the Antarctic Plate beneath the South America Plate and the Scotia Plate. The volcano is named after James Burney, a companion of James Cook.  It is one of the many English language placenames in the region, which are the product of the numerous English research expeditions such as these by Robert FitzRoy and Phillip Parker King in 1825-1830.Monte Burney is formed by a caldera with a glaciated stratovolcano on its rim. This stratovolcano in turn has a smaller caldera. An eruption is reported for 1910, with less certain eruptions in 1970 and 1920.  Tephra analysis has yielded evidence for many eruptions during the Pleistocene and Holocene, including two large explosive eruptions during the early and mid-Holocene. These eruptions deposited significant tephra layers over Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

The naturalist
Robert Oliver Cunningham  was a Scottish naturalist. In January 1866 he was appointed Professor of Natural History in the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, but resigned in June in consequence of being appointed by the Admiralty to collect plants as naturalist on board HMS Nassau, ] then commissioned for the survey of the Straits of Magellan and the west coast of Patagonia.  This voyage started on 24 August 1866 from the Thames, and on 18 February 1967 she arrived in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands to coal, departing again on 2 March, much to Cunningham's regret. They returned to the Falklands in 1868 enabling Cunningham to explore and study the plants and seaweeds on East Falkland returning a third time early in 1869.  The Nassau returned to England on 31 July 1869 but Cunningham remained employed by the Navy so that he could write up his natural history notes and his narrative of the voyage, this was published in 1871 as The Natural History of the Straits of Magellan.  In all, Cunningham published 18 scientific papers before 1872 his first which was about gannets was his theses but the others were mainly on his observations from voyage of the Nassau.  He presented some of these papers to the Zoological Society of London and to the Linnean Society, becoming a fellow of the latter in 1870.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

 

THE STROMBOLI VOLCANO PAINTED BY ROBINET TESTARD (1480)

ROBINET TESTARD (fl. 1471-1531)
The Stromboli volcano (924 m -3,031 ft)
Italy (Island of Stromboli)

In "Les Iles Eoloiennes"  from  "Secrets de l'Histoire naturelle,  ca.1480-1485, BnF Paris

The mountain
Stromboli  is a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the north coast of Sicily, containing one of the three active volcanoes (924 m -3,031 ft) in Italy. It is one of the eight Aeolian Islands, a volcanic arc north of Sicily. This name is derived from the Ancient Greek name Strongulē which was given to it because of its round swelling form. The island's population is about 500. The volcano has erupted many times and is constantly active with minor eruptions, often visible from many points on the island and from the surrounding sea, giving rise to the island's nickname "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean". The most recent major eruption was on 13 April 2009. Stromboli stands 926 m (3,034 ft) above sea level, and over 2,700 m (8,860 ft) on average above the sea floor. There are three active craters at the peak. A significant geological feature of the volcano is the Sciara del Fuoco ("Stream of fire"), a big horseshoe-shaped depression generated in the last 13,000 years by several collapses on the northwestern side of the cone. Two kilometers to the northeast lies Strombolicchio, the volcanic plug remnant of the original volcano.
Mt. Stromboli has been in almost continuous eruption for the past 2,000 years. A pattern of eruption is maintained in which explosions occur at the summit craters, with mild to moderate eruptions of incandescent volcanic bombs, at intervals ranging from minutes to hours. This Strombolian eruption, as it is known, is also observed at other volcanoes worldwide. Eruptions from the summit craters typically result in a few short, mild, but energetic bursts, ranging up to a few hundred meters in height, containing ash, incandescent lava fragments and stone blocks. Stromboli's activity is almost exclusively explosive, but lava flows do occur at times when volcanic activity is high: an effusive eruption occurred in 2002, the first in 17 years, and again in 2003, 2007, and 2013–14. Volcanic gas emissions from this volcano are measured by a Multi-Component Gas Analyzer System, which detects pre-eruptive degassing of rising magma, improving prediction of volcanic activity.

The artist
Robinet Testard (fl. 1470–1531) was a French medieval enluminist and painter, whose works are difficult to attribute since none of them was signed or dated. He is known to have worked for the family of Charles, Count of Angoulême (1459–96) in Cognac, and made Valet de Chambre to the family in 1484. When the Count of Angoulême died in 1496, Testard accepted service with the Count's widow, Louise of Savoy, and is mentioned at the time of her death in 1531. Testard started his career in Poitiers.  His works include a page in Le  Missel de Poitiers, the Les Heures de La Rochefoucauld , and two other Books of Hours. His middle period, characterised by tight compositions and sharply defined colouring, is typified by his Roman de la Rose, the Nouailher Missal and the Book of Hours, probably painted for Charles, Count of Angoulême about 1480.  Surprisingly, 17 engravings by Israhel van Meckenem were included in the tome and coloured by Testard. He produced another Book of Hours, a copy of Dioskurides and mythological illustrations after Solinus and Pliny titled Les Secrets de l'histoire naturelle contenant les merveilles et choses memorables du monde (cf. above) . He also illustrated Matthaeus Platearius' "The Book of Simple Medicines".

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONTE EPOMEO PAINTED BY SIMON DENIS

 

SIMON DENIS (1755-1813)
Monte Epomeo (789 m - 2,589 ft)
Italy (Ischia Island)

 In Le sommet du mont Epomeo dans l'île d'Ischia, Oil on paper, Musée du Louvre, Paris

The mountain  

Monte Epomeo (789 m - 2,589 ft) is the highest mountain on the volcanic island of Ischia, in the Gulf of Naples, Italy. Epomeo is believed to be a volcanic horst which towers above the rest of Ischia. Much of Epomeo is covered in lush greenery, with a few vineyards also occupying its slopes. Approximately 75 m (246 ft) from the peak the mountain is covered in white lava which may be confused with snow. A path leads to the summit of the mountain from Fontana, one of its quiet traditional villages.

The painter
Simon-Joseph-Alexandre-Clément Denis was a Belgian painter active primarily in Italy. Denis first studied in his native city of Antwerp, with the landscape and animal painter H.-J. Antonissen.
He moved to Paris in the 1780s, and soon gained the patronage of genre painter and art dealer Jean-Baptiste Lebrun, whose support allowed him to move to Rome in 1786. His paintings there attracted favorable attention, and in 1787 he married a local woman. He remained close to the Flemish community in Rome, and in 1789 was elected to head the Foundation St.-Julien-des-Flamands. He also developed ties within the French artistic community; Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun stayed with him for some days in 1789 and that same year he and she traveled with François-Guillaume Ménageot to visit Tivoli. François Marius Granet sought his advice when he arrived in Rome in 1802.
In 1803, he was elected to the Accademia di San Luca; in 1806 he settled for good in Naples, becoming court painter to Joseph Bonaparte. His wonderful Landscape near Rome during a Storm (1786–1806) an oil on paper probably representating Monte Cavo as well, is now visible at The MET in New York city.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE DACHSTEIN PAINTED BY KONRAD PETRIDES

KONRAD PETRIDES (1864-1944)
Hoher Dachstein (2, 995m - 9, 826ft)
Austria  

In Dachstein mit Gosausee, 1899,  Private collection

The mountain  

The Dachstein (2, 995m - 9, 826ft) is a strongly karstic Austrian mountain, and the second highest mountain in the Northern Limestone Alps. It is situated at the border of Upper Austria and Styria in central Austria, and is the highest point in each of those states. Parts of the massif also lie in the state of Salzburg, leading to the mountain being referred to as the Drei-Lander-Berg ("three-state mountain"). The Dachstein massif covers an area of around 20x30 km with dozens of peaks above 2,500 m, the highest of which are in the southern and south-western areas. Seen from the north, the Dachstein massif is dominated by the glaciers with the rocky summits rising beyond them. By contrast, to the south, the mountain drops almost vertically to the valley floor.
The summit was first reached in 1832 by Peter Gappmayr, via the Gosau glacier, after an earlier attempt by Erzherzog Karl via the Hallstätter glacier had failed. Within two years of Gappmayr's success a wooden cross had been erected at the summit. The first person to reach the summit in winter was Friedrich Simony, on 14 January 1847. The sheer southern face was first climbed on 22 September 1909 by the brothers Irg and Franz Steiner.
Being the highest point of two different Bundesländer, the summit is a popular goal in both summer and winter. In fine weather as many as 100 climbers may be attempting the ascent, leading to congestion at key sections of the climb.

The artist
Konrad Petrides was a Viennese landscape and stage painter in the studio Hermann Burghart, where the painters Anton Brioschi, Josef Kautsky, Georg Jany and Leopold Rothaug also worked. He also painted many veduras, especially from Lower Austria and East Tyrol. Petrides was a member of the Dürer League, in whose exhibitions he participated and whose silver medal he received in 1919. In 1904 he also received the gold medal at the World's Fair in St. Louis, USA.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

TOFANE PAINTED BY ELIJAH WALTON

 

ELIJAH WALTON (1832-1880)
Tofane (3,244 m  - 10,643 ft) 
Italy 

In Tofane as seen from near Cortina d'Ampezzo, Tyrol. 1866 , Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

 

The mountain

 Tofane is a mountain group in the Dolomites of northern Italy, west of Cortina d'Ampezzo in the province of Belluno, Veneto. Most of the Tofane lies within Parco naturale delle Dolomiti d'Ampezzo, a nature park. The highest peaks of the Tofane group are Tofana di Mezzo (3,244 m -10,643 ft), Tofana di Dentro (3,238 m-10,623 ft), and Tofana di Rozes (3,225 m -10,581 ft). Tofana di Mezzo is the third highest peak in the Dolomites, after Marmolada (3,343 m -10,968 ft)) and Antelao (3,262 m -10,702 ft). All three peaks were first climbed by Paul Grohmann along with local mountain guides, in 1863 (Tofana di Mezzo - with Francesco Lacedelli), 1864 (Tofana di Rozes - with Francesco Lacedelli, Angelo Dimai and Santo Siorpaes) and 1865 (Tofana di Dentro - with Angelo Dimai).During the First World War, the Tofane was a battlefield of the Italian Front for clashes between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces. The front lines went through the mountains.At the 1956 Winter Olympics, Mount Tofane hosted five of the six alpine skiing events. It regularly hosts women's speed events on the World Cup circuit, and is scheduled to host the World Championships in 2021. The route is famous for the Tofana Schuss, where the athletes can reach 130 kilometers per hour.


The artist
The British landscapist, Elijah Walton is best known for his landscapes of mountains in the Alps.
Due to the poorness of his family, without the help of one or two friends he would have been unable to study art, for which his talent was soon exhibited. After passing some years at the art academy in Birmingham, he became at the age of eighteen a student at the Royal Academy Schools in London, where he had already exhibited a picture. There he worked assiduously, drawing from the antique and from life. Nearly ten years later an accidental circumstance revealed to a friend his capabilities in mountain landscape, and in 1860, immediately after his marriage, he went to Switzerland. Thence he proceeded to Egypt, where unhappily his wife died of dysentery near the second cataract. He remained in the east, spending some time in Syria and at Constantinople, till the spring of 1862, when he returned for a short time to London. But for the next five years he was much abroad, working either in the Alps or in Egypt. His sketching tours then became rarer and shorter, though he visited Greece, Norway, and the Alps. At first he resided at Staines, then removed to the neighbourhood of Bromsgrove, living most of the time at the Forelands, near that town. In 1872 his wife died, and the loss permanently affected his health. He died on 25 August 1880 at his residence Beacon Farm, Lickey near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, leaving three sons. Walton's life was bound up in his art. He worked both in oils and in watercolours, but was more successful with the latter. Most thorough and conscientious in the study both of form and of colour, he delighted especially in mountain scenery and in atmospheric effects, such as an Alpine peak breaking through the mists, or a sunset on the Nile. Few men have equalled him in the truthful rendering of rock structure and mountain form. His pictures were much appreciated by lovers of nature; but as those of small size sold better than larger and more highly finished works, this fostered a tendency to mannerisms.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau