DUNES AT DOMBURG PAINTED BY PIET MONDRIAN

PiIET MONDRIAN(1872-1944)
Dunes at Domburg (50m -164ft)
The Netherlands

In Dunes near Domburg, 1910, oil on canvas 65,5x96cm, Kunstmuseum Den Haag

Mondrian and Domburg
Rather than being a painter of mountains, the great painter Piet Mondrian, will have been that of the dunes of his flat country. During his numerous vacations on this coast of the Netherlands, he painted the dune of Domburg on numerous occasions; first in 1909 then in 1910 and until 1921, these different canvases following the rapid evolution of his style towards abstraction. Here, it is the very first representation of the dune in 1909

The site
The dune of Domburg (50m-,164ft) major attraction of the region, is situated just behind the the village of Domburg, near the town center. The village of Domburg is located on the north west coast of Walcheren between the villages of Aagtekerke, Oostkapelle and Westkapelle, The Netherlands. It is the oldest seaside resort in the Netherlands, once a worldly and artistic holiday resort, it is now a still very popular family resort. dunes and beaches as far as Oostkapelle A forest, unique in Europe, borders the dunes, home to a rare diversity of plants and animals.

The painter
Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan,named  after 1906 Piet Mondrian, was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.He is known for being one of the pioneers of 20th-century abstract art, as he changed his artistic direction from figurative painting to an increasingly abstract style, until he reached a point where his artistic vocabulary was reduced to simple geometric elements. Mondrian's art was highly utopian and was concerned with a search for universal values and aesthetics.  He proclaimed in 1914: "Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of an abstract art. Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man." His art, however, always remained rooted in nature.
Mondrian's work had an enormous influence on 20th century art, influencing not only the course of abstract painting and numerous major styles and art movements , but also fields outside the domain of painting, such as design, architecture and fashion. 

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

BEN LOMOND/ BEINN LAOMAINN PAINTED BY ALFRED DE BREANSKI Sr.

ALFRED DE BREANSKI Sr. (1852-1928)
Ben Lomond / Beinn Laomainn (974 m - 3,196 ft)
United Kingdom (Scotland)

In Head of Loch Lomond, Scotland, Oil on canvas, 16" x 24".

The mountain

Ben Lomond / Beinn Laomainn (974 m- 3,196 ft) is a mountain in the Scottish Highlands, not to be confused with Ben Lomond/Turbunna (Autstralia) is  situated on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, it is the most southerly of the Munros, Scotland. Ben Lomond lies within the Ben Lomond National Memorial Park and the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, property of the National Trust for Scotland. Its accessibility from Glasgow and elsewhere in central Scotland, together with the relative ease of ascent from Rowardennan, makes it one of the most popular of all the Munros. On a clear day, it is visible from the higher grounds of Glasgow and across Strathclyde; this may have led to it being named 'Beacon Mountain', as with the equally far-seen Lomond Hills in Fife. Ben Lomond summit can also be seen from Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Britain, over 40 miles (64 km) away. The West Highland Way runs along the western base of the mountain, by the loch. Ben Lomond's popularity in Scotland has resulted in several namesakes in the former British colonies of Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States.

 

The painter 

Alfred de Breanski Sr. is a British landscape painter best known for his idyllic but realistic depictions of rural Scotland and Wales. Thanks to the particular attention paid to the multiple textures, light and colouristic qualities of each landscape, it is evident that Breanski is deeply influenced by the work of John Constable. It is also inspired by the dramatic nature of the Scottish countryside such as the Highlands, noted for their stark beauty and spectacular scenery. Born in 1852 in Greenwich, England, he exhibited his works at the Royal Academy in London from 1872 to 1918. Today, his works are in the collections of the Southampton City Art Gallery, the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle and museums Brighton & Hove in East Sussex. De Breanski died in London in 1928.

 
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

PICURIS MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY VICTOR HIGGINS

 

 

VICTOR HIGGINS ( 1884-1949)
Picuris Mountains (2,967 m - 9,734 ft)
United States of America (New Mexico)

In Taos Mountain, ca. 1940, oil on canvas, Private collection 

The mountains
Picuris Mountains (2,967 m - 9,734 feet) is one of the Ridge in Taos County, nearby Osha Canyon and Vallecitos. Named Pikuria – those who paint – by Spanish colonizer Juan de Oñate, Picuris is located 24 miles (38 km) southeast of Taos in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains via N.M. 68, 518, and 75. Picuris, once the largest, today is one of the smallest Tiwa pueblos, with some 1,801 inhabitants (Census 2000). Like Taos, it was influenced by Plains Indian culture, particularly the Apaches
If one like biking, the ride takes you into the scenic and historic part of Picuris Mountains. About 2 miles from the start of this ride you will cross the historic Camino Real, or “Royal Highway,” that served as the original highway to Taos for traders, settlers, and Native Americans traveling north and south for several hundred years.
In late spring through fall this ride is free of snow and dry. It can be pretty beastly pushing up this mountain in the middle of summer. Plan on riding early or late in the day to avoid the heat.

The artist
William Victor Higgins was an American painter and teacher, born at Shelbyville, Indiana. He studied at the Art Institute in Chicago and at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.
In Paris he was a pupil of Robert Henri, René Menard and Lucien Simon, and when he was in Munich he studied with Hans von Hayek. He was an associate of the National Academy of Design. Higgins moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1913 and joined in 1917 the Taos Society of Artists founded two years before by Joseph Henry Sharp, W. Herbert Dunton, Eanger Irving Couse et Oscar Edmund Berninghaus.
In 1923 he founded The Hartwood Foundation with Louise Harwood and Bert Phillips. He then painted a lot of works representing the mountains range surrounding the city of Taos and especially the Pueblo Mountains.
During the Depression, he was commissioned to paint a mural inside the Taos County Courthouse financed by the PWAP, titled Moises, El Legislador.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes 
A blog by Francis Rousseau

RAYAKOTTAI BY HENRY SALT

HENRY SALT (1780-1827)
Rayakottai (No elevation data)
India (Tamil Nadu)

In " Riacotta in the Baramahal,' aquatint, 1806, from  

Twenty Four Views in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt, 

 The British Library

About the plate
This aquatint was taken from plate 12 of Henry Salt's Twenty Four Views in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt. Salt visited Rayakottai in Tamil Nadu on his way to the Cauvery Falls. Viscount Valentia George Annesley wrote of its importance as a point of communication between Mysore and the Carnatic: "[Governor General] Lord Cornwallis ... had the fortifications strengthened. At present they consist of the hill, whose top is only approachable by a narrow flight of steps, and a fort at the bottom where are very comfortable houses for the officers. The scenery is wild and abrupt, consisting of rocky hills, with woods and jungle between ... the climate is so moderate, that every kind of fruit and vegetable may be reared in a degree of perfection that is unknown on the sultry plains around Madras.". For some reason, this impressed the british  by the fact it was " as high as a mountain". So.... do I year mountain ?

The place
Rayakottai, also spelled Rayakotta is not not really what we can alled a mountain, but a hill or a ridge like there are many others in this blog.  In reality it is a fort ! But it is designed quite like a mountain !!! It is located neat a town in Denkanikottai taluk, Krishnagiri District, Tamil Nadu, India. It is 73 kilometres (45 mi) from Bangalore.  The fort was built by King Krishna deverayar and situated within the town of Rayakottai which is one of the ancient fortress in the Krishnagiri district. It is now one of the protected monument by the Archaeological Survey of India. In the 18th century Hyder Ali and Tipu sultan captured this fort. The fort was captured by Major Gowdie during the third Anglo-Mysore War in 1791. According to the Treaty of Srirangapatna, this fort came into the hands of the British. 

The artist
Henry Salt was an English artist, traveller, collector of antiquities, diplomat, and Egyptologist.
After a time as a portrait painter, Salt was permitted to travel with the English nobleman George Annesley, Viscount Valentia as his secretary and draughtsman after being recommended by Thomas Simon Butt. They started on an eastern tour in June 1802, traveling on the British East India Company's extra (chartered) ship Minerva to India via the Cape Colony. In 1805, Valentia sent Salt on a journey into the Abyssinian area (now Ethiopia) to meet with the ras of Tigré to open up trade relations on behalf of the English. While visiting there, Salt gained the respect of the ras. He returned to England on 26 October 1806. His journey home took him through Egypt where he met the pasha Mehmet Ali. Salt's paintings from the trip were used in Valentia's Voyages and Travels to India, published in 1809. The originals of all the drawings were kept by Valentia, as also the copper plates after Salt's death. The format and style of the plates is similar to Thomas and William Daniell's work, "Oriental Scenery" (1795-1808).
Salt returned to Ethiopia in 1809 on a government mission to explore trade and diplomatic links with the Tigrayan warlord Ras Wolde Selassie. Upon arrival, he was unable to meet with the king due to unrest in the country, so instead he went to stay with his friend the ras of Tigré. During this venture, Salt took on the side mission of verifying and correcting the information about the region reported by the Scottish traveler, James Bruce many years earlier. Salt came back to England in 1811 with numerous specimens of both plants and animals.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

 

 

EL COTOPAXI PAINTED BY FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH

 

FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH (1826-1900)
Cotopaxi (5, 897 m - 19, 347 ft)
Ecuador

In Cotopaxi Seen from Ambato, 1853,  Brush and oil paint, graphite on paperboard, 17.5 × 28.9 cm Smithsonian-Cooper Hewitt

About the Cotopaxi paintings
Church has painted such a lot of times the Cotopaxi than you must have a second look to determine it the one you are looking at is the good one or a new view.
Church took two trips to South America, and stayed predominantly in Quito, Ecuador, the first in 1853 and the second in 1857. One trip was financed by businessman Cyrus West Field, who wished to use Church's paintings to lure investors to his South American ventures. Church was inspired by the Prussian polymath geographer Alexander von Humboldt's Cosmos (about “the Earth, matter, and space”) and his exploration of the continent in the early 1800s; Humboldt had challenged artists to portray the "physiognomy" of the Andes. After Humboldt’s Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America was published in 1852, Church jumped at the chance to travel and study in his icon’s footsteps (literally, as he stayed in Humboldt’s old house) in Quito, Ecuador. When Church returned in 1857 he added to his landscape paintings of the area. After both trips, Church had produced four landscapes of Ecuador: The Andes of Ecuador (1855), Cotopaxi (1855), Cayambe (1858), The Heart of the Andes (1859), and Cotopaxi while erupting in 1862 (see above). The Heart of The Andes as week as the Cotopaxi paintings are precious and precise documentation, scientific studies of every natural feature that exists in that area of the Andes. Every species of plant and animal is readily identifiable; even climatic zonation by altitude is delineated precisely.
In this way, Church pays a unique tribute to Humboldt (who inspired his journey) as well as maintains his Hudson River School roots. “Therefore instead of the fiery crimsons and oranges of his emotional crepuscular scenes, the palette here is comparatively restrained by Church's standards: quiet greens, blues, browns, ochres and subdued grayish purples of sky, stone, verdure and water in full, even daylight.”

The mountain
Cotopaxi (5,897 m - 19,347 ft) is an active stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains, located in the Latacunga canton of Cotopaxi Province, about 50 km (31 mi) south of Quito, and 33 km (21 mi) northeast of the city of Latacunga, Ecuador, in South America. It is the second highest summit in Ecuador, reaching a height of 5,897 m (19,347 ft). It is one of the world's highest volcanoes. Many sources claim that Cotopaxi means "Neck of the Moon" in an indigenous language, but this is unproven. The mountain was honored as a "Sacred Mountain" by local Andean people, even prior to the Inca invasion in the 15th century.
Most of the time, Cotopaxi is clearly visible on the skyline from Quito and is part of the chain of volcanoes around the Pacific plate known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. It has an almost symmetrical cone that rises from a highland plain of about 3,800 metres (12,500 ft), with a width at its base of about 23 kilometres (14 mi). It has one of the few equatorial glaciers in the world, which starts at the height of 5,000 metres (16,400 ft). At its summit, Cotopaxi has an 800 X 550 m wide crater which is 250 m deep. The crater consists of two concentric crater rims, the outer one being partly free of snow and irregular in shape. The crater interior is covered with ice cornices and rather flat. The highest point is on the outer rim of the crater on the north side.
The first recorded eruption of Cotopaxi was in 1534. With 87 known eruptions since then, Cotopaxi is one of Ecuador's most active volcanoes.

The painter
Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, perhaps best known for painting large panoramic landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets, but also sometimes depicting dramatic natural phenomena that he saw during his travels to the Arctic and Central and South America. Church's paintings put an emphasis on light and a romantic respect for natural detail. In his later years, Church painted classical Mediterranean and Middle Eastern scenes and cityscapes.
Church was the product of the second generation of the Hudson River School and the pupil of Thomas Cole, the school’s founder. The Hudson River School was established by the British Thomas Cole when he moved to America and started painting landscapes, mostly of mountains and other traditional American scenes. Both Cole and Church were devout Protestants and the latter's beliefs played a role in his paintings especially his early canvases. Church did differ from Cole in the topics of his paintings: he preferred natural and often majestic scenes over Cole's propensity towards allegory.
Church, like most second generation Hudson River School painters, used extraordinary detail, romanticism, and luminism in his paintings. Romanticism was prominent in Britain and France in the early 1800s as a counter-movement to the Enlightenment virtues of order and logic. Artists of the Romantic period often depicted nature in idealized scenes that depicted the richness and beauty of nature, sometimes also with emphasis on the grand scale of nature.
This tradition carries on in the works of Frederic Church, who idealizes an uninterrupted nature, highlighted by creating excruciatingly detailed art. The emphasis on nature is encouraged by the low horizontal lines, and preponderance of sky to enhance the wilderness; humanity, if it is represented, is depicted as small in comparison with the greater natural reality. The technical skill comes in the form of luminism, a Hudson River School innovation particularly present in Church's works. Luminism is also cited as encompassing several technical aspects, which can be seen in Church’s works. One example is the attempt to “hide brushstrokes,” which makes the scene seem more realistic and lessen the artist’s presence in the work. Most importantly is the emphasis on light (hence luminism) in these scenes. The several sources of light create contrast in the pictures that highlights the beauty and detailed imagery in the painting.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LES TABLEAUX QUI PARLENT - N° 4 : Katsushika Hokusai, sous la grande vague, le Mont Fuji

 

 

 

Podcasts video à but éducatif "La Grande Vague de Kanagawa "est la première de la série des estampes "36 Vues du Mont Fuji". C'est uene oeuvre très célèbre qui révolutionna l'histoire de la peinture aussi bien en Asie qu'en Occident, pour plusieurs raisons....et pas seulement techniques. 

Ce podcast passent en revue ces raisons en, 8 minutes et laissant tout le temps d'observer cette estampe et de se promener dans de paysage qui raconte toute une histoire ... 

© Francis Rousseau - All rights reserved

MOUNT KOLSASS PAINTED BY CLAUDE MONET

 

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Kolsås or Kolsass mountain (342 m - 1,122 ft)
Norway

In "Le village de Sandviken, près du Mount Kolsaas" Norvège, 1895, Huile sur toile 73,4 x92, 5 cm - Art Institute Chicago

Monet and Mount Kolsass
A text in french from the book Claude Monet, une vie dans le paysage by Marianne Alphant - Editions Hazan, 1993. (You may use the Google translation tool in this blog to tranlaste into your own langage)
« Au cours l'hiver 1895 le peintre français fit un séjour en Norvège. et peignit a plusieurs reprises à différentes heures du jour et dans différentes conditions climatiques une montagne, le mont Kolsaas. Mais sitôt réalisées leur auteur n'en fut guère satisfait et elles furent vite éclipsées par l'exposition des Cathédrales. Des vingt-sept ou vingt-huit qui furent recensées, le musée Rodin n'en propose qu'une douzaine, issues de collections publiques (Orsay, Marmottan) aussi bien que privées (Japon, Etats-Unis) et déjà présentées à Stavanger, en Norvège.
Monet effectua ce long voyage vers le Nord sur l'invitation de son beau-fils Jacques Hoschedé, pour saisir quelques effets de neige qu'il escomptait bien capter facilement là-bas. En quoi il se trompait généreusement, erreur à l'origine d'un de ses plus intéressants ratages.
Les quatre «portraits» du mont Kolsaas sont assez intrigants en ce que l’on y perçoit tout l'art du peintre pour «rendre» l'impalpable bien que cela l'entraînent vers des contrées inexplorées. « Le motif se met à flotter dans une atmosphère qui ne le porte plus, ne le soutient plus, l'abandonnant au gré d'une humeur vagabonde, à la manière d'un nuage libre de dériver au gré des vents. L'impression d'échec provient alors d'une incapacité à arrimer la figure, à saisir l'objet à bras le corps, à se tenir d'aplomb face à ce qui le surplombe. Mais la valeur inestimable de cet apparent échec excède largement cet effet de brouillon. (…)
Les peintures ne doivent pas leur sentiment d'incomplétude à une quelconque précipitation mais bien plutôt au désir de se fondre dans un immense éloge à la blancheur. (…)
Le mont Kolsaas ressemble de la sorte au dernier souffle ou à l'éternuement d'un linceul qui, l'instant suivant, s'affaissera dans l'indéterminé d'une forme sans contour. Autrement dit, l'informe. Ces quelques peintures représentent sans doute l'une des rares tentatives de distinguer la neige de la blancheur, de séparer les deux corps comme on le ferait dans une expérience chimique de dissociation. Car la neige n'est pas blanche, pas plus que le blanc n'est la couleur de la neige. L'un et l'autre entrent doucement en conflit pour que, dans l'intervalle, à la faveur d'une anecdote ­ petit pont ou rivière ­, se glisse l'élément qui permettra de rassurer la vision. Entre la neige et la blancheur, il y a un mariage fatal qu'il faut à tout prix éviter faute de s'y endormir. Entre le ciel et le bleu, c'est pareil mais c'est une autre histoire. Les deux histoires se rejouent chaque fois qu'un peintre essaie de fixer leur frontière, leur bord extrême. Comment cette peinture pourrait-elle alors s'achever ?."

The mountain
Kolsås or Kolsass Mountain (342 m - 1,122 ft) is a wooded mountain ridge in the municipality of Bærum, Norway. Geologically, Kolsås belongs to the Oslo Graben area. Its two peaks (one at 387m the other at 342m) consist of hard rhomb porphyric lava covering softer rocks, forming steep cliffs to the east, south and west. An old farm beneath the mountain has the name Kolsberg. The first element in this name is the genitive case of the old male name Kolr, and the last element is "berg" (mountain). The parish and municipality of Bærum (Old Norse Bergheimr) is probably named after this prominent mountain. The last element in the name of the mountain was later changed to ås (mountain ridge) to distinguish it from the name of the farm.
The French painter Claude Monet painted Mont Kolsaas in 1895 in a series of 4 paintings  one is permanently shown at the Musée d’Orsay , an other in Musée Marmottan. in Paris The 2 others shows on this blog are held in private collections in USA and Japan.

The painter
The painter Oscar-Claude Monet better known as Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting « Impression, soleil levant » (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.
Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons exactly like the japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) did with his 36 views of Mount Fuji.
  Monet repeated this kinf of "exercise de stylee with his series on Les Petites Dalles.

 
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ALPAMAYO PHOTOGRAPHED BY LEIGH ORTENBURGER

 

LEIGH ORTENBURGER (1929-1991)
Alpamayo (5,947m - 19,511 ft)
Peru

In Cordillera Blanca - Alpamayo - Peru, South West face, 1959 et 1960, black and white photos published in 1966, Courtsesy Stanford University Archives and collections

About the photo
In the July 1966 issue of the German magazine Alpinismus, a photo taken by American photographer Leigh Ortenburger, accompanied by an article resulting from an international survey among climbers and photographers, chose Alpamayo as "The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World." The photo (above) was of its Southwest Face which is a steep, almost perfect pyramid of ice? Although slightly smaller than many of its neighboring peaks, it is distinguished by its unusual ice runnels and overwhelming beauty especially when seen in the evening alpenglow. Günter Hauser, who made the first ascent, wrote: "As we pitched our tents the sun went down and Alpamayo became a kaleidoscope of swiftly-changing colour altogether becoming suffused with the pale lunar radiance of the evening before against the background of the dark blue sky with its diadem of stars."
This mountain was first photographed in 1936 by Erwin Schneider.

The photographer
Leigh Ortenburger (1929-1991) climbed and photographed for more than forty years in the world's greatest mountain ranges. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1952 with a degree in mathematics, and earned a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1953 and a second in statistics from Stanford in 1963, where he did additional work toward a Ph.D. He worked several years as a Teton mountain guide and served a two-year stint in the Army before settling into a career as a mathematician with Sylvania. His classic guidebook, A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range, is now in its third edition. Ortenburger’s extensive knowledge of the terrain equipped him to play a key role in the rescue of two climbers trapped on the North Face of the Grand Teton in 1967. Together with fellow climber Irene Beardsley, whom he met through the student-run Stanford Alpine Club in the 1950s, he raised a family in Palo Alto, California. He died October 20, 1991, in the firestorm that swept the Oakland, California hills.
No less impressive than the photographs of Alpamayo themselves is the process of making them, said Glen Denny, also a mountaineering photographer:  “Few realize the difficulty of creating images like Ortenburger's. During hard climbs, while others rested, he performed a painstaking ritual countless times: Plunge the tripod legs into soft snow until they are solid, mount and level the camera, select and attach the lens, huddle under the head cloth while composing the dim, upside-down image on the ground glass, with the wind snatching at the cloth and shaking the camera. Then take off your gloves and spin the delicate dials on the light meter, calibrate the exposure, set the aperture, and cock the shutter, while your fingers still have feeling left. Insert the film holder, pull out the slide, squeeze the cable release--very gently--and replace the slide. There! One shot taken.”

The mountain
Alpamayo ( 5,947m - 19,511 ft) possibly named from Quechua words is one of the most conspicuous peaks in the Cordillera Blanca of the Peruvian Andes. Alpamayo Creek originates northwest of it. The Alpamayo lies next to the slightly higher Quitaraju. n July 1966, the German magazine "Alpinismus", published a photo of Alpamayo taken by American photographer Leigh Ortenburger accompanied by an article on a survey among mountaineering experts, who chose Alpamayo as "The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World". Not defined by a single summit Alpamayo has two sharp summits, the North and south, which are separated by a narrow corniced ridge.
The first attempt on Alpamayo's summit was in 1948 by a Swiss expedition. Climbing by way of the heavily corniced North Ridge, the three climbers came within sight of the virgin summit when a large cornice broke under them and they were carried down the precipitous Northwest Face. By some amazing piece of good fortune, the three were neither buried nor injured by the 650 foot fall and they were able to make an 'orderly retreat' from the mountain. In 1951, a Franco-Belgian expedition including George and Claude Kogan claimed to have made the first ascent via the North Ridge. After studying the photos in George Kogan's book The Ascent of Alpamayo, the German team of Günter Hauser, Frieder Knauss, Bernhard Huhn and Horst Wiedmann came to the conclusion that the 1951 team did not reach the actual summit, thereby making their ascent via the South Ridge in 1957 the first. Although the South Ridge is no less steep or dangerous than the North Ridge, it has the advantage of leading directly to the higher south summit. This was written up in Hauser's book White Mountain and Tawny Plain. Although there are several climbing routes on the Southwest Face the most common is known as the Ferrari or Italian Route. It was opened in 1975 by a group of Italian alpinists led by Casimiro Ferrari. It begins at the top of the highest point of the snow slope where the bergshrund separates the upper face on the left and then ascends a steep runnel to the summit ridge. Because of its esthetic beauty, Alpamayo is one of the most climbed mountains in the Andes and the base camp can be a hodge-podge of nationalities. Each year the route is made easy by the first party to ascend the route as they usually leave snow-stakes in place at the belay stations. Then it is just a matter of finding out what length of rope they used so that your rope is long enough to reach each station. In the summer of 1988, they had used 50m ropes.
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

SOUTHERN ANDES SUMMIT PAINTED BY RHOD WULFARS (bn 1979)

 

 

RHOD WULFARS (bn. 1979)
Southern Andes (6,991 m - 22, 838ft)
Argentina

In Twin, acrylic on hardboard, 2018, Private collection @rhodwulfars

About this painting
The painter wrote: “It is not a real mountain. Most of my paintings are born from the combination of the imagination and the hours spent looking, walking and smelling them. I call them "Twins" because they are similar to those reliefs of the Argentinian Andean Coridilla called "acarreos", which are long slopes of very popular loose rock that can be easily viewed. very frequently observed. This painting is therefore that of an unknown mountain, dreamt up which sums up several, and which came out of my unconscious one afternoon when the brush gave it life in a mysterious way without my being able to explain it. "
And indeed this mountain that looks a lot like the Alpamayo in Peru is not the Alpamayo (even if it could  be the most famous South West face to be published very soon in this blog) !), any more than it is not the Cerro Poincenot, the Fitz Roy, the Cerro Torre or the Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Andes. These Twins imagined, encompassed, summarized and illustrated all these mountains at the same time. The most amazing being that they do it with a single stroke of the brushes as powerful and definitive as the rocky uplift itself.

The artist
Rhod Wulfars is a contemporary mountain painter using mainly acrylic technique for his paintings.
He was born in 1979 in Mendoza (Argentina). In his website he wrote: "I have spent my whole life by the mountains. On day I started to paint them". Using, in the manner of Nicolas de Staël, a style always beetween abstract and figurative, his very strong and very moving paintings described perfectly the majesty and the spectacular contents of the peaks he paints. Rhod Wulfars makes a surprising use of acrylic medium, in thick paste as one could do with oil paint. He used to named his works only bu numbers, and series letters, but sometime he writes the name of the peaks ans makes it more easy to identify. Other works by this artist on his website : rhodwulfars.wixsite.com/rhodwulfars/

The mountains
The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (Cordillera de los Andes in Spanish ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is 7,000 km (4,350 mi) long, 200 to 700 km (124 to 435 mi) wide (widest between 18°S - 20°S latitude), and has an average height of about 4,000 m (13,123 ft). The Andes extend from north to south through seven South American countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
The Andes Mountains are the highest mountain range outside Asia. The highest mountain outside Asia, Argentina's Mount Aconcagua, rises to an elevation of about 6,961 m (22,838 ft) above sea level. The peak of Chimborazo in the Ecuadorian Andes is farther from the Earth's center than any other location on the Earth's surface, due to the equatorial bulge resulting from the Earth's rotation. The world's highest volcanoes are in the Andes, including Ojos del Salado on the Chile-Argentina border, which rises to 6,893 m (22,615 ft).
The Andes are also part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the western "backbone" of North America, Central America, South America and Antarctica.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

DIE HOCHFEILER OR GRAN PILASTRO BY AUGUST STRINDBERG

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AUGUST STRINDBERG (1849-1912)
The Hochfeiler or Gran Pilastro (3,510 m -11,520 ft)
Austria - Italy border
 

In Alpine Landscape Austria, oil on canvas, Private collection

The artist
Johan August Strindberg known to be a famous  Swedish playwright was also  a novelist a poet, an essayist and a painter. Strindberg, something of a polymath, was also a telegrapher, theosophist, photographer and alchemist!  Painting and photography offered vehicles for his belief that chance played a crucial part in the creative process. Strindberg's paintings were unique for their time, and went beyond those of his contemporaries for their radical lack of adherence to visual reality. The 117 paintings that are acknowledged as his were mostly painted within the span of a few years, and are now seen by some as among the most original works of 19th-century art. Today, his best-known pieces are stormy, expressionist seascapes, selling at high prices in auction houses. Though Strindberg was friends with Edvard Munch and Paul Gauguin, and was thus familiar with modern trends, the spontaneous and subjective expressiveness of his landscapes and seascapes can be ascribed also to the fact that he painted only in periods of personal crisis. Anders Zorn also did a portrait.
Strindberg's interest in photography resulted, among other things, in a large number of arranged self-portraits in various environments, which now number among the best-known pictures of him. Strindberg also embarked on a series of camera-less images, using an experimental quasi-scientific approach. He produced a type of photogram that encouraged the development and growth of crystals on the photographic emulsion, sometimes exposed for lengthy periods to heat or cold in the open air or at night facing the stars. The suggestiveness of these, which he called Celestographs, provided an object for contemplation, and he noted: "Today, in these days of x-rays, the miracle was that neither a camera nor a lens was used. For me this means a great opportunity to demonstrate the real circumstances by means of my photographs made without a camera and lens, recording the firmament in early spring 1894."
His interest in the occult in the 1890s finds sympathy with the chance quality of these images, but for him they are also scientific. In 1895 Strindberg met Camille Flammarion and became a member of the Société astronomique de France. He gave some of his experimental astronomical photographs to the Society

The mountain
The Hochfeiler 3,510 m (11,520 ft) called Gran Pilastro in italian is a mountain, 3,510 metres high, and the highest peak in the Zillertal Alps on the border between Tyrol, Austria, and South Tyrol, Italy.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

NEWTONTOPPEN ( SPITZBERGEN) BY CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH

CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH (1776-1859)
Newtontoppen (1,713 m - 5,620ft)
Norway (Svalbard- Spitzbergen)

In Spitzbergen, Bearing South,  watercolor and graphite from Views of Polar region, Yale Center for British arts, USA

The mountain
Newtontoppen  (1,713 m - 5,620ft) or Newton Peak, named in 1898 after Isaac Newton, is the largest and highest mountain in Svalbard. Its peak is the highest point on Svalbard.  It is located at the north east corner on the island of Spitsbergen in the Chydeniusfjella range.  The nearest settlement is the formerly Soviet coal mining settlement, Pyramiden. The mountain is mostly made of Silurian granite. The mountain was first ascended by Helge Backlund on 4 August 1900.  Spitsbergen, (sharp mountains) is an island belonging to Norway and located in Svalbard, an archipelago forming a territory of this country. The island bears the name of Spitsbergen since1920, date of the signing of the treaty which regulates in particular fishing rights (whaling among others). The treaty signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden, leads all the contracting states to recognize the sovereignty of Norway over this territory.  France has two scientific research stations at Spitzbergen: the Charles Rabot base and the Jean Corbel base, the latter (created in 1964) being the oldest of the archipelago's scientific stations.
Spitsbergen was discovered by chance by Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz in 1596 while en route to China via the Northeast Passage. He then named the island Spitsbergen in reference to the craggy peaks he saw.  Nevertheless, the archipelago seems to have been known by Russian Pomor hunters as early as the 12th and 14th centuries. Tourism is nowadays  one of Spitsbergen's main sources of income with cruise ships, including those of the Hurtigruten company. The island is also served by the airports of Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund.

The artist
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier, and... spy as well !. His military career began in 1787, when he studied at the Austrian academy for artillery and engineers at Mechelen and Leuven in Belgium (his native country). Although his military service, which ended in 1820 and included the Napoleonic Wars, saw him travel extensively (including the West Indies, Canada, United States, Southern and Northern Europe and ...Antarctica).
As a prolific self-taught illustrator (over 38,000 drawings!) He left quite an important number of books of beautifully watercolored landscapes taken all around the world. those nooks of watercolors are nowadays in the collections of the Yale Center From British Art. Among them :
- Views of France, Volume I (81 watercolors), Views of France, Volume II (93 watercolors),
- Views of England and Wales, Volume I (82 watercolors), Views of England and Wales, Volume II (74 watercolors),
- Views of Northern Europe, Volume I (68 watercolors), Views of Northern Europe, Volume II (78) watercolors),
- Views of Polar Regions (75 watercolors) (see above)
- Views of Spain, Volume I (69 watercolors), Views of Spain, Volume II (72 watercolors), But one of his noteworthy achievements was an 1800 experiment to determine which color should be used for military uniforms. He is also known in military history circles for Costume of the Army of the British Empire, produced towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and an accurate depiction of contemporary British uniform.
As an antiquarian, he also produced, in collaboration with Samuel Rush Meyrick, Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Islands, 1815, and The Ancient Costume of England, with historical illustrations of medieval knights, ladies, shipsm and battles.
He also wrote on the history of the Seven Years' War and The Natural history of dogs.
Quite a productive fellow !

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TARAWERA AND LAKE PAINTED BY KENNETT WATKINS

KENNETT WATKINS (1847-1933)
Mount Tarawera (1, 111m - 3,645ft)
New Zealand (North Island)

In The Phantom Canoe - A Legend of Lake Tarawera , oil on canvas Auckland Art Gallery

The Legend
One legend surrounding the 1886 eruption  of Mount Tarawera is that of the phantom canoe. Eleven days before the eruption, a boat full of tourists returning from the Terraces saw what appeared to be a war canoe approach their boat, only to disappear in the mist half a mile from them. One of the witnesses was a clergyman, a local Maori man from the Te Arawa iwi. Nobody around the lake owned such a war canoe, and nothing like it had been seen on the lake for many years. It is possible that the rise and fall of the lake level caused by pre eruption fissures had freed a burial waka (canoe) from its resting place. Traditionally dead chiefs were tied in an upright position. A number of letters have been published from the tourists who experienced the event.
Though skeptics maintained that it was a freak reflection seen on the mist, tribal elders at Te Wairoa claimed that it was a waka wairua (spirit canoe) and was a portent of doom. It has been suggested that the waka was actually a freak wave on the water, caused by seismic activity below the lake, but locals believe that a future eruption will be signaled by the reappearance of the canoe.

 
The mountain  and the lake
Mount Tarawera (1, 111m - 3,645ft) is the volcano responsible for one of New Zealand's largest historic eruptions. Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua in the North Island, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured down the middle by an explosive basaltic eruption in 1886, which killed an estimated 120 people. These fissures run for about 17 kilometres northeast-southwest.
The volcano's component domes include Ruawahia Dome, Tarawera Dome and Wahanga Dome. It is surrounded by several lakes, most of which were created or drastically altered by the 1886 eruption. These lakes include Lakes Tarawera, Rotomahana, Rerewhakaaitu, Okataina, Okareka, Tikitapu (Blue Lake) and Rotokakahi (Green Lake). The Tarawera River runs northeastwards across the northern flank of the mountain from Lake Tarawera.
Main eruptions
- 1315 : Mount Tarawera erupted for the fist time on modern history. The ash thrown from this event may have affected temperatures around the globe and precipitated the Great Famine of 1315–17 in Europe.
- 1886 : Shortly after midnight on the morning of 10 June 1886, a series of more than 30 increasingly strong earthquakes were felt in the Rotorua area and an unusual sheet lightning display was observed from the direction of Tarawera. At around 2:00 am a larger earthquake was felt and followed by the sound of an explosion. By 2:30 am Mount Tarawera's three peaks had erupted, blasting three distinct columns of smoke and ash thousands of metres into the sky (see painting above). At around 3.30 am, the largest phase of the eruption commenced; vents at Rotomahana produced a pyroclastic surge that destroyed several villages within a 6 kilometre radius, and the Pink and White Terraces appeared to be obliterated.
The eruption was heard clearly as far away as Blenheim and the effects of the ash in the air were observed as far south as Christchurch, over 800 km away. In Auckland the sound of the eruption and the flashing sky was thought by some to be an attack by Russian warships.
Although the official contemporary death toll was 153, exhaustive research by physicist Ron Keam only identified 108 people killed by the eruption. Much of the discrepancy was due to misspelled names and other duplications. Allowing for some unnamed and unknown victims, he estimated that the true death toll was 120 at most. Some people claim that many more people died.
The eruption also buried many Māori villages, including Te Wairoa which has now become a tourist attraction (Buried Village of Te Wairoa) and the world-famous Pink and White Terraces were lost. A small portion of the Pink Terraces was rediscovered under Lake Rotomahana 125 years later. Approximately 2 cubic kilometres of tephra was erupted, more than Mount St. Helens ejected in 1980. Many of the lakes surrounding the mountain had their shapes and areas dramatically altered, especially the eventual enlargement of Lake Rotomahana, the largest crater involved in the eruption, as it re-filled with water. 

The painter
Kennett Watkins was born in India in 1847, the son of Major John Watkins and Martha Jane Simons; he was Christened on 21 July 1847 in Ootacamund, Madras, India. His father died some time before 1861. In the UK Census of 1861 he was recorded in the household of his widowed grandmother Sarah Simons at 59 Marine Parade, Brighton, Sussex, England. Aged 13 and a scholar. Also in the household was his widowed mother Martha, his three siblings Lydia, Edward and John, 23 year old cousin Lieut. William Ker and two servants. He was educated in England and, as an artist, in France and Switzerland.
Kennett Watkins migrated from England to New Zealand. He emigrated from England to New Zealand in 1873, where he married Clara Eliza Alice Davis in 1876.
He was a photographer, painter of lndscapes (oil and waterolors) and teacher in Auckland.
He passed away in 1933 at age 86 and was buried in the Mercury Bay Cemetery in Thames-Coromandel District, Waikato, New Zealand.
The earliest auction registered for Kenneth Watkins pianitngs is in1992 for a toal 57 worksoffered for sale of which 29 ( 51%) weresold. The highest price recorded wis $ 136,450 for Maro family Canoeing on the Waokato River.

LUNAR CRATER COPERNICUS SKETCHED BY JAMES NASMYTH

JAMES NASMYTH (1808-1890)
Copernicus Crater (- 3800m / - 12467ft)
The Moon (Solar System)

In Drawing of the Copernicus crater on the surface of the Moon, between May 1856 and May 1890, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge Nasmyth

The artist
Jamesall Nasmyth (sometimes spelled Naesmyth, Nasmith, or Nesmyth) was a Scottish engineer, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company manufacturers of machine tools. He retired at the age of 48, and moved to Penshurst, Kent where he developed his hobbies of astronomy and photography.
Nasmyth retired from business in 1856 as he said "I have now enough of this world's goods: let younger men have their chance". He renamed his retirement home "Hammerfield" and happily pursued his various hobbies. He built his own 20-inch reflecting telescope, in the process inventing the Nasmyth focus, and made detailed observations of the Moon. He co-wrote The Moon : Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite with James Carpenter (1840–1899). This book contains an interesting series of "lunar" photographs: because photography was not yet advanced enough to take actual pictures of the Moon, Nasmyth built plaster models based on his visual observations of the Moon and then photographed the models. A crater on the Moon is named after him. In memory of his renowned contribution to the discipline of mechanical engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering building at Heriot-Watt University, in his birthplace of Edinburgh, is called the James Nasmyth Building.

The site
Copernicus (- 3800m / - 12467ft) is a lunar impact crater located in eastern Oceanus Procellarum. It was named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). It typifies craters that formed during the Copernican period in that it has a prominent ray system. It may have been created by debris from the breakup of the parent body of asteroid 495 Eulalia 800 million years ago.  Copernicus crater is visible using binoculars, and is located slightly northwest of the center of the Moon's Earth-facing hemisphere. South of the crater is the Mare Insularum, and to the south-south west is the crater Reinhold. North of Copernicus are the Montes Carpatus, which lie at the south edge of Mare Imbrium. West of Copernicus is a group of dispersed lunar hills. Due to its relative youth, the crater has remained in a relatively pristine shape since it formed.
The circular rim has a discernible hexagonal form, with a terraced inner wall and a 30 km wide, sloping rampart that descends nearly a kilometer to the surrounding mare. There are three distinct terraces visible, and arc-shaped landslides due to slumping of the inner wall as the crater debris subsided.
Most likely due to its recent formation, the crater floor has not been flooded by lava. The terrain along the bottom is hilly in the southern half while the north is relatively smooth. The central peaks consist of three isolated mountainous rises climbing as high as 1.2 km above the floor. These peaks are separated from each other by valleys, and they form a rough line along an east–west axis. Infrared observations of these peaks during the 1980s determined that they were primarily composed of the mafic form of olivine.
Copernicus H, a typical "dark-halo" crater, was a target of observation by Lunar Orbiter 5 in 1967. Dark-halo craters were once believed to be volcanic in origin rather than the result of impacts. The Orbiter image showed that the crater had blocks of ejecta like other craters of similar size, indicating an impact origin. The halo results from excavation of darker material (mare basalt) at depth. 


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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau