THE PUY GRIOU PAINTED BY CHARLES JAFFEUX

CHARLES JAFFEUX  (1902-1941)
Puy Griou  (1,690 m  - 5,544 ft)
France (Cantal) 

In  Vue d'un buron près du Puy Griou dans les Monts d'Auvergne, Mandailles, oil on canvas,  40 x 50cm, Private collection

The mountain
The Puy Griou (1,690-meter) is peak in the Cantal mountains located on the ridge line between the Cère and Jordanne valleys, halfway in the municipalities of Saint-Jacques-des-Blats and Mandailles.
The summit is called Puei Griu in Aurillac Occitan which means “painful to climb”.
Due to its position in the center of the Cantal mountains and its very slender conical shape, the Puy Griou has long been presented as the eroded chimney of the Cantal volcano. But it has since lost this rank and geologists now consider it to be a phonolite dome occupying a central position but of similar origin to other peaks in the massif such as the Hozières rock. It would have been in place about 6 million years ago, after the paroxysmal eruptive phases experienced by Cantal between 8.5 Ma and 6.5 Ma4. During the cold periods of the recent Quaternary, the repeated action of freezing and thawing cut the rock into slates to form a scree sleeve.
The GR 400 follows the ridge line between the Col du Pertus and the Col de Rombière, near the Lioran ski resort. At the foot of the dome, a path deviates towards the south, allowing the ascent of the last 200 meters of drop.

The painter
Charles Jaffeux, is a French painter and engraver from the Auvergne region. His father François Jaffeux, watchmaker and jeweler in Riom, was a watercolorist and passionate about painting. A pupil of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Clermont-Ferrand, then the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was a pupil of Charles Albert Waltner (1846-1925), he also attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. He is attached to the artists of the Murol school. Back in Auvergne, he launched into the production of etchings of the monuments of the region which he had published as postcards, which ensured him a comfortable income allowing him to devote himself to painting landscapes of the region. Auvergne. He also draws and paints cities and characters from other regions, in particular from Brittany, the landscapes of the Alps, Provence. His engraved work includes more than 436 pieces representing views, animated or not, of Auvergne, and the south of the Massif-Central, the Alps, Brittany, the Center-West, Normandy, the south of France as well as only views of Bourges, Lyon, Paris, Pérouges. It excels in rendering old buildings and old walls. Charles Jaffeux exhibited twice at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts, in 1935 and 1936, where he presented copper engravings.

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