MOUNT HIEI / 比叡山 PAINTED BY GUYOSHŪ HAYAMI / 速水 御舟

 

GUYOSHŪ HAYAMI / 速水 御舟 (1894-1935)
Mount Hiei / 比叡山 (848m - 2,762ft)
Japan

In Mont Hiei,   colors on silk, 1920,  Tokyo National Museum

The mountain
Mount Hiei / 比叡山 (848m - 2,762ft) is a mountain to the northeast of Kyoto, lying on the border between the Kyoto and Shiga Prefectures, Japan.  The temple of Enryaku-ji, the first outpost of the Japanese Tendai  sect of Buddhism, was founded atop Mount Hiei by Saichōin 788 and rapidly grew into a sprawling complex of temples and buildings that were roughly divided into three areas:

The Saitō ("West Pagoda") area near the summit, and technically in Kyoto Prefecture.
The Tōdō ("East Pagoda") area, also near the summit, where Enryaku-ji Temple was first founded, and located just within Shiga Prefecture.
The Yokawa  ("Along the river") area near the northernmost end of Mount Hiei. Due to its remoteness, as a temple complex it experienced periods of revival and decline, starting with Ennin, later revived by Ryōgen and made famous by the scholar-monk Genshin.   Due to its position north-east of Kyoto, it was thought in ancient geomancy practices to be a protective bulwark against negative influences on the capitol, which along with the rise of the Tendai sect in Heian period Japan (8th - 12th centuries) meant that the mountain and the temple complex were politically powerful and influential. Later schools of Buddhism in Japan were almost entirely founded by ex-monks of the Tendai sect, who all studied at the temple before leaving Mount Hiei to start their own practices.
The temple complex was razed by Oda Nobunaga in 1571 to quell the rising power of Tendai's warrior monks (sōhei), but it was rebuilt and remains the Tendai headquarters to this day.
The 19th-century Japanese ironclad Hiei was named after this mountain, as was the more famous World War II-era battleship Hiei, the latter having initially been built as a battlecruiser.
The mountain is a popular area for hikers and a toll road provides access by automobile to the top of the mountain; there are also buses that connect the mountaintop to town a few times a day. There are also two routes of funiculars: the Eizan Cable from the Kyoto side to the connecting point with an aerial tramway ("ropeway") to the top, and the Sakamoto Cable from the Shiga side to the foot of Enryaku-ji. The attractions on the mountain are quite spread out, so there are regular buses during the daytime connecting the attractions. The center for these is the bus center, in front of the entrance to the main temple complex at Tō-tō (東塔, "East Pagoda").

The painter
Gyoshū Hayami (速水 御舟) was the pseudonym of a Japanese painter in the Nihonga style, active during the Taishō and Shōwa eras. His real name was Eiichi Maita. Gyoshū was born in the plebeian downtown district of Asakusa in Tokyo. He studied traditional painting techniques as an apprentice to Matsumoto Fuko from the age of 15. When he was 17, his talent was recognized by Shikō Imamura, who invited him to join the Kojikai circle of leading young artists. With the revival of the Japan Fine Arts Academy (Nihon Bijutsuin), Gyoshū became a founding member. He worked in many schools of painting, including Yamato-e, Rinpa and Bunjinga, with his style evolving gradually towards a detailed realism influenced also by his studies of Chinese paintings from the Song dynasty and the Yuan dynasty. His later works evolved further towards Symbolism. In 1914, Gyoshū formed a group called Sekiyokai to study new styles of Japanese painting. He had a leg amputated after being hit by a train in 1919, but the incident did not affect his artistic output. He devoted himself to creation, submitting numerous works to the Inten Exhibition, as well as touring Europe in 1930. His flower and bird drawings in India ink painting style and his portraits were especially well received by art critics. His most famous work, Dance of Flames (炎舞) dates from 1925. It was the first art work of the Shōwa period to be accorded the status of Important Cultural Property (ICP) by the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs. Gyoshū died suddenly from typhoid fever in 1935 at the age of 40. Over 104 of his paintings were collected by the Yamatane Museum in Tokyo. One of Gyoshū's works, Dance of Flames, was selected as the subject of a commemorative postage stamp as part of the Japanese government's Modern Art Series in 1979. In the year 1994, Gyoshū himself was the subject of a commemorative postage stamp under the Cultural Leaders Series by Japan Post.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ISLET DE VERDELET PAINTED BY JOACHIM PATINIER

JOACHIM PATINIER (1483-1524)
Islet de Verdelet (47m -154ft)
France (Côtes d'Armor)

In Saint Jerome in a rocky landscape, oil on wood panel, 1524, Private collection

About the painting
According to experts, it seems that it was the Ilot du Verdelet, about forty kilometers from Dinan (France), that inspired Joachim Patinier to skate the impressive relief of this St Jerome (one of the three paintings on this thme Patinier paintend).  A rock  47m high, which appears on this canvas like if it was at least 2000m ! Only the sea seen in the background of this primitive landscape, allows experts to locate the scene near Dinan and precisely in this Islet of Verdelet.
 

The rock formation
The islet of Verdelet which culminate at 47m (154ft) stands at the tip of Piégu in the town of Pléneuf-Val-André in the Côtes-d'Armor. Thanks to the initiative of a local association for the protection of nature, this islet was transforment in 1973 as an ornithological reserve with a hunting ban.

The painter
Joachim Patinier, also called Patenir or Patinir, was a major Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, then the centre of the art market in the Netherlands. Patinier was a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre and he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter. He effectively invented the world landscape, a distinct style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes which is Patinier's important contribution to Western art.
There are only five paintings signed by Patinier, but many other works have been attributed to him or his workshop with varying degrees of probability. The ones that are signed read: (Opus) Joachim D. Patinier, the "D" in his signature signifying Dionantensis ("of Dinant"), reflecting his place of origin. The 2007 exhibition at the Museo del Prado in Madrid contained 21 pictures listed as by Patinier or his workshop, and catalogued a further 8 which were not in the exhibition.
Patinier was the friend of not only Dürer, but with Quentin Metsys as well, with whom he often collaborated. The Temptation of St Anthony (Prado) was done in collaboration with Metsys, who added the figures to Patinier's landscape. His career was nearly contemporary with that of the other major pioneer of paintings dominated by landscape, Albrecht Altdorfer, who worked in a very different style.
Patinier's immense vistas combine observation of naturalistic detail with lyrical fantasy. The steep outcrops of rocks in his landscapes are more spectacular versions of the group of very individual formations just around his native Dinant but also of sacred mountains of the time like the Sainte- Baume ; these became a part of the world landscape formula, and are found in the works of many painters who never saw the originals. His landscapes use a high viewpoint with a high horizon, but his grasp of aerial perspective is far from complete. He uses a consistent and effective colour scheme in his landscapes, which was influential on later landscape painting. The foreground is dominated by brownish shades, while "the middle ground [is] a bluish green and the background a pale blue", creating an effective sense of recession into the distance; "When combined with the frequently hard-toned browns, greens and blues that alternate with significant areas of white, a sense of impending doom is created by the threatening clouds, the capricious and sharply pointed contours of the rocks and the crowding together of natural elements."
Examples of his work include The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Prado, who have four Patinier, including two signed ones), The Baptism of Christ (one of two in Vienna), St. John at Patmos (by or with his workshop, National Gallery, London), Landscape with the Shepherds (Antwerp), and The Rest on the Flight to Egypt (Museo Nacional del Prado Madrid ; National Gallery of Art, Washington), Saint Mary Magdalene in ecstasy (Kunsthaus, Zürich). There is also a triptych attributed to him called The Penitence of St. Jerome and a Saint Jerome in tthe Wildernbess (Louvre Museum).

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 PHOTOGRAPHED BY HERBERT PONTING

HERBERT PONTING (1870-1935),
FujiYama / 富士山 (3,776 m - 12,389 ft)
Japan

In Fuji from Lake Motosu, 1905 June-1st, postcard, private collection

The photographer
Herbert George Ponting, FRGS is best known as the expedition photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to the Ross Sea and South Pole (1910–1913). In this role, he captured some of the most enduring images of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
As a member of the shore party in early 1911, Ponting helped set up the Terra Nova Expedition's Antarctic winter camp at Cape Evans, Ross Island. The camp included a tiny photographic darkroom. Although the expedition came more than 20 years after the invention of photographic film, Ponting preferred high-quality images taken on glass plates.
Ponting was one of the first men to use a portable movie camera in Antarctica. The primitive device, called a cinematograph, could take short video sequences. Ponting also brought some autochrome plates to Antarctica and took some of the first known color still photographs there.
The catastrophic end of "Scott's Last Expedition" also affected Ponting's later life and career. When the Terra Nova had sailed south in 1910, it had left massive debts behind. It was expected that Scott would return from the South Pole as a celebrity and that he could use moving images from his expedition in a one-man show. Ponting's cinematograph sequences, pieced out with magic lantern slides, were to have been a key element in the expedition's financial payback.
In 2009, SPRI and publisher Salto Ulbeek platinum-printed and published a selection of the Collection. In addition, one of Ponting's photographic darkrooms was reconstructed in the collections of the Ferrymead Heritage Park in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The mountain
Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山) 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 (The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku , 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 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

TORRES DEL PAINE (2) PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)
Torres del Paine (2,500 m - 8,200 ft)
Chile

In Los Cuernos del Paine last light, oil on vanvas 2018, courtesy John Mitchell Gallery 

The mountains
The Torres del Paine (2,500 metres - 8,200 ft) are the distinctive three granite peaks of the Paine mountain range or Paine Massif. They are known as Torres d'Agostini, Torres Central and Torres Monzino. They are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. The area also boasts valleys, rivers such as the Paine, lakes, and glaciers. The well-known lakes include Grey, Pehoé, Nordenskiöld, and Sarmiento. The glaciers, including Grey, Pingo and Tyndall, belong to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.
he landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the spectacular granite spires and mountains of the massif. These are: Valle del Francés (French Valley), Valle Bader, Valle Ascencio, and Valle del Silencio (Silence Valley).
The Southern Patagonian Ice Field mantles a great portion of the park.

The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes and Mountain paintings
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

EL JORULLO SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
El Jorullo (1,329m- 4,360ft)
Mexico

 In Volcan de Jorullo,  Vue des Coridllères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique, 1816, Paris chez F. Schoell.

About this drawing
Alexander von Humboldt climbed El Jorullo during the Mexican portion of his scientific expedition to Spanish America. When he visited on 19 September 1803, its multiple cones were still smoldering and the air was extremely hot and filled with volcanic gases. He wrote a detailed description of the climb, noting that his face and those of his travel companions were burned. The volcano enriched the local soil and there was considerable vegetation. Humboldt sketched the volcano in the distance (see above), showing multiple smoking cones. Humboldt undertook the climb with his scientific travel partner Aimé Bonpland, as well as a local Basque settler Ramón Epelde, and two local indigenous servants, whose names have not been recorded. Humboldt noted their assistance on site. Humboldt also notes that he consulted a 1782 publication Rusticatio Mexicana, by Rafael Landívar, who calculated the height of the volcano and the temperature of the thermal waters.


The volcano
El Jorullo  (1,329m- 4,360ft) is a cinder cone volcano in Michoacán, central Mexico, on the southwest slope of the central plateau, 33 miles (53 kilometers) southeast of Uruapan in an area known as the Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field.  It is about 6 miles (10 km) east-northeast of La Huacana.  El Jorullo has four smaller cinder cones which have grown from its flanks.  El Jorullo's crater is about 1,300 by 1,640 feet (400 by 500 m) wide and 490 feet (150 m) deep.   El Jorullo is one of two known volcanoes to have developed in Mexico in recent history. The second, born about 183 years later, was named Parícutin after a nearby village that it eventually destroyed. Parícutin is about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of El Jorullo. El Jorullo was first erupted on 29 September 1759. Earthquakes occurred prior to this first day of eruption. Once the volcano started erupting, it continued for 15 years, eventually ending in 1774.
El Jorullo did not develop on a corn field like Parícutin did, but it did destroy what had been a rich agricultural area. It grew approximately 820 feet (250 meters) from the ground in the first six weeks. The eruptions from El Jorullo were primarily phreatic and phreatomagmatic. This 15 year eruption was the longest one El Jorullo has had, and was the longest cinder cone eruption known. Lava flows can still be seen to the north and west of the volcano.  Parícutin and El Jorullo both rose in an area known for its volcanoes. Called the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the region stretches about 700 miles (1,120 km) from east to west across southern Mexico. The eruptive activity deposited a layer of volcanic rock some 6,000 feet thick, creating a high and fertile plateau. During summer months, the heights snag moisture-laden breezes from the Pacific Ocean; rich farmland, in turn, has made this belt the most populous region in Mexico. Though the region already boasted three of the country's four largest cities: Mexico City, Puebla, and Guadalajara (the area around Parícutin, some 200 miles west of the capital), it was still a peaceful backwater inhabited by Purépecha in the early 1940s. The crater and lake can now be reached by car.


The artist
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes and Mountain paintings 
by Francis Rousseau

OPALA VOLCANO BY STEPAN KRASCHENINNIKOW

STEPAN  KRASCHENINNIKOW (1711-1755)
Opala volcano (2,475m-8100 ft)
Russia (Kamchatka)

 In Mountains of Kamtschatka, St Petersbourg 1755

The volcano
Opala (Опала)  (2,475m-8100 ft)  is a large stratovolcano located in South Kamchatka about 50 km west of the Eastern volcanic front.  The volcano sits on the northern rim of a 14x12 km large Late Pleistocene caldera. The summit of the volcano has a nice small crater. The most prominent feature at the foot of the volcano is Baranii Amphitheater - a large Novarupta-type crater filled with extrusive domes. This crater formed about 1500 years BP and produced 9-10 km3 of rhyolitic pumice that is about 4.5 km3 of magma. Later the crater was filled with extrusive domes. There was at least one later eruption within the crater, which formed explosive craters on the surface of the extrusive domes and produced minor pumiceous tephra.  Several hazy reports of Opala's historical eruptions were known, but no real evidence of recent eruptions had been found at the slopes of the volcano.  However,  later studies have allowed to document a significant explosive eruption from the summit crater, which occurred as recently as about 300 years ago and produced rhyolitic tephra (informally known as "Ghost layer"). Earlier eruptions from Opala produced lava flows and pumiceous tephra.  The eruption from Baranii  Amphitheater was one of the most voluminous explosive eruptions in Kamchatka during the Holocene.  Opala is undoubtedly an active volcano posing a serious hazard to the region.  Recent eruptions from Opala produced dominantly rhyolitic material that indicates a presence of living silicic chamber under the volcano. Holocene products of Opala volcano are high potassic andesites-rhyolites. Baranii Amphitheater crater produced uniform rhyolites without any admixture of more mafic varieties.  Opala volcano has been producing andesitic-dacitic lavas and tephras for most of Holocene; the last significant eruption of this kind was ab. 3500 14C yrs BP.  How was it possible to produce, accumulate, store and finally erupt - just in a couple of millenia - about 4.3 km3 of rhyolitic magma from the crater located on the volcano's slope, a mere 5 km from its summit? Was the OP eruptionit a part of the Opala volcano story or any special event? Why is this magma so similar to Chasha crater's one, stored 15 km away? These are genral questions to this volcano.

The artist 
Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (Степа́н Петро́вич Крашени́нников) was a Russian explorer of Siberia, naturalist and geographer who gave the first full description of Kamchatka in the early 18th century. He was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1745. The Krasheninnikov Volcano on Kamchatka is named in his honour. He embarked upon the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1731–42). Krasheninnikov was to study plants, animals and minerals, but in addition he developed a strong interest in Siberian history and geography. During the early part of the expedition, he accompanied professor Gmelin on the travel through the Urals and western Siberia to Yeniseysk. He made numerous observations of natural history, ethnology and linguistics, e.g. records of Evenki (tungus) and Buryat vocabulary. From Bering’s headquarters at Yakutsk, the expedition professors Gmelin and Gerhard Friedrich Müller sent Krasheninnikov ahead to Okhotsk and Kamchatka to build house and make preliminary observations. Thus, he became the member of the expedition with the most extensive knowledge of the peninsula. He published his observations in 1755 (Описание земли Камчатки); English translation by James Grieve (1764) as History of Kamtschatka. However, he drew extensively on the manuscripts of the deceased Georg Wilhelm Steller. Apart from detailed accounts of the plants and animals of the region, there also were reports on the language and culture of the indigenous Itelmen and Koryak peoples, with whom he is said to have got along extremely well. Krasheninnikov spent ten years on the Second Kamchatka Expedition. On his return to St Petersburg, he wrote and defended his doctoral thesis on ichthyology in 1745. He was appointed adjunct at the Academy of Sciences, and later head of the Academy's Botanic Garden and professor of natural history at the university. He was one of only 26 Russians to become Academy members in the 18th century. In 1752, Krasheninnikov went on his last expedition to the tracts of Lake Ladoga and Novgorod to investigate the flora. He died before being able to publish his observations, which instead were published by David de Gorter.

JABAL AN-NOUR PAINTED BY NICHOLAS ROERICH

 

NICHOLAS ROERICH (1874-1947)
Jabal an-Nour (640m -2,100ft)
Saudi Arabia

In Mohammed on Mount Hira. 1925.Tempera on canvas. 73.6 x 117 cm, Roerich Museum, NYC

The mountain
Jabal an-Nour ( 640 m -2,100 ft) meaning Mountain of the Light or Hill of the Illumination, is a mountain near Mecca in the Hejazi region of Saudi Arabia. The mountain houses the grotto or cave of Hira' which holds sacred significance for Muslims throughout the world, as the Islamic prophet Muhammad is said to have spent time in this cave meditating, and it is widely believed that it was here that he received his first revelation, which consisted of the first five ayats of Surah Al-Alaq from the angel Jibra'il (as is pronounced in certain Quran recitation schools and some Arab tribes; also known as Gabriel.  It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Makkah. Nonetheless one to two hours are needed to make the strenuous hike to the cave. There are 1750 steps to the top which, even for a fit individual, can take anywhere between half an hour and one-and-a-half hours. One physical feature that differentiates Jabal al-Nour from other mountains and hills is its unusual summit, which makes it look as if two mountains are on top of each other. The top of this mountain in the mountainous desert is one of the loneliest of places. However, the cave within, which faces the direction of the Kaaba, is even more isolated. While standing in the courtyard back then, people could only look over the surrounding rocks. Nowadays, people can see the surrounding rocks as well as buildings that are hundreds of meters below and hundreds of meters to many kilometers away. Hira is both without water or vegetation other than a few thorns. Hira is higher than Thabīr and is crowned by a steep and slippery peak, which Muhammad with some companions once climbed. Taking 1750 walking steps to reach, the cave itself is about 3.7 m (12 ft) in length and 1.60 m (5 ft 3 in) in width. The cave is situated at a height of 270 m (890 ft).  During the season of Ḥajj ('Pilgrimage'), an estimated five thousand visitors climb to the cave daily to see the place where Muhammad is believed to have received the first revelation of the Quran on the Night of Power by the angel Jibreel. 

The painter
Nicholas Roerich known also as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (Никола́й Константи́нович Ре́рих) is quite an important figure of mountain paintings in the early 20th century. He was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, perceived by some in Russia as an enlightener, philosopher, and public figure. In his youth was he was quite influenced by a movement in Russian society around the occult and was interested in hypnosis and other spiritual practices. His paintings are said to have hypnotic expression. In

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes / Mountain paintings
By Francis Rousseau

ADRAR SAGRO PAINTED BY PAUL-JEAN FLANDRIN

PAUL-JEAN FLANDRIN (1811-1902)
Adrar Sagro  (2,712m - 8,897ft)
Morocco 

 In   "Les Gorges de l'Atlas, " 1843, oil on canvas, 1843, Private collection

The mountain
Adrar Saghro or Jebel Saghro (2,712m - 8,897ft) is a mountain in southern Morocco, located east of Ouarzazate, 70 km south of the central High Atlas, dominating the Drâa valleys to the west and south, and that of Dades to the north. It constitutes the eastern part of the Anti-Atlas. Jebel Saghro is the driest area of the Anti-Atlas range. Unlike the areas located further west, it does not benefit from a high enough air humidity due to the remoteness of the Atlantic Ocean. Annual precipitation does not exceed 100 mm in the south and 300 mm on the summits. Jebel Saghro is oriented along a southwest / northeast axis, and extends towards Jebel Ougnat east of Wadi Alnif and the Tizi n'Boujou pass. It borders the Dades valley and the High Atlas to the north and links the Drâa valley to the south. Lunar landscape of plateaus, peaks, canyons crossed by wadis, forests, all dominated by basalt peaks. Oleanders, junipers, mountain flowers ... occupy the valley bottoms. The north-south crossings are made by three passes crossed by difficult and very spectacular tracks: the Tazazert pass (2,283 m), the Kouaouch pass (2,592 m), and the Tagmout pass (1,919 m). The highest point of the mountain is Amalou n Mansour (2,712 m) which is located to the south-east of the village of Iknioun.
Charles de Foucauld, still only in search of adventure, is one of the first Western travelers to have described his crossing of Jebel Saghro (Reconnaissance au Maroc published in 1888 in Paris). It completes its description with a topographic survey. Jebel Saghro was also later the setting for fierce fighting linked to the progression of the French army within the framework of the protectorate, the battle of Bougafer (February-March 1933), in which the French troops allied to those of the Sultan of Morocco faced an impressive and heroic resistance from the Aït Atta tribes led by Sheikh Assou Oubasslam. It is in this massif that the famous captain Henry de Bournazel, one of the protagonists of this war, was killed in the fight against the Berbers, while assaulting the rocky dome.

 
The painter
Paul-Jean Flandrin is a French painter, younger brother of the painters Auguste Flandrin and Hippolyte Flandrin. he first received advice from the landscape and animal painter Antoine Duclaux, as well as from the sculptor Jean-François Legendre-Héral, before joining the École des beaux-arts de Lyon, then that of Paris and the workshop by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
He failed twice in the Prix de Rome competition but nevertheless joined at his own expense his brother Hippolyte in Italy. They stayed in Rome for four years, during which Paul specialized in landscape painting. He carried out studies from nature which he used to undertake historical compositions which he presented at the Parisian Salons. He also regularly collaborates on the landscapes of his older brother's paintings. Flandrin continued until late in the nineteenth century this tradition of classical landscape of which he was one of the best representatives, alongside Édouard Bertin or his father-in-law Alexandre Desgoffe. He combines this with a sense of line and ideal inherited from the lessons of his master Ingres. Charles Baudelaire thus accuses him of wanting to “Ingriser” (painted like Ingres) the landscape, a criticism that will long be associated with it. 

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ODORAY MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY J.E.H. MACDONALD

J.E.H. MACDONALD (1873-1932)
Odoray mountain (3,137 m- 10,292 ft)
Canada (British Columbia)

In Mont Odoray, 1930, Huile sur carton, 21,6 x 26,7cm, Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa

The mountain
Odaray Mountain (3,137-m - 10,292 ft) is a summit located west 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 Huber, 3.86 km (2.40 mi) to the east. The standard climbing route follows the southeast glacier and ridge starting from Elizabeth Parker hut. Pronunciation sounds like the two words "ode array". Odaray Mountain 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. The first ascent of the mountain was made in 1887 by James J. McArthur, and he named it Odaray which is the expression for "many waterfalls" in the Stoney language. Other reports have it being named in 1894 by Samuel Evans Stokes Allen for the Stoney Indianword for "cone". However, it is possible that McArthur only ascended the lesser secondary summit cone (2965 m) now known as Little Odaray which is southeast of the true summit. The mountain's current name became official in 1952 when the Geographical Names Board of Canada rescinded the name Mount Odaray.

The artist
James Edward Hervey MacDonald RCA was an English-Canadian artist who initiated the first major Canadian national art movement. He was the father of the illustrator Thoreau MacDonald. n 1895, MacDonald took a position as a commercial designer at Grip Ltd, an important commercial art firm, where he further developed his design skills. In the coming years, he encouraged his colleagues—including future artist Tom Thomson—to develop their skills as painters. In 1920, MacDonald co-founded the Group of Seven, which dedicated itself to promoting a distinct Canadian art developed through direct contact with the Canadian landscape. The other founding members were Frederick Varley, A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and Franklin Carmichael. MacDonald had worked with Lismer, Varley, Johnston, and Carmichael at the design firm Grip Ltd. in Toronto. Together they initiated the first major Canadian national art movement, producing paintings directly inspired by the Canadian landscape. Every summer beginning in 1924, MacDonald travelled to the Canadian Rockies to paint the mountainous landscapes that dominated his later work. By this time he had become somewhat alienated from the rest of the Group of Seven, as many of the younger members were beginning to paint in a more abstract manner.  Today, MacDonald is viewed with general admiration for his art, with one writer commenting, "no Canadian landscape painter possessed a richer command of colour and pigment than J. E. H. MacDonald ... His brushwork is at once disciplined and vigorous. His best on-the-spot sketches possess an intensity and freshness of execution not dissimilar from Van Gogh."

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau