PICO DE ORIZABA / CILALTÉPETL PAINTED BY DIEGO RIVERA

 

DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)
Pico de Orizaba / Citlaltépetl (5,636 m -18,491 ft) 
Mexico (Vera Cruz)

The mountain
Pico de Orizaba (5,636 m -18,491 ft) also known as Citlaltépetl is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America, after Denali of Alaska in the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. It rises in the eastern end of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, on the border between the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The volcano is currently dormant but not extinct, with the last eruption taking place during the 19th century. It is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro. Pico de Orizaba was important in pre-Hispanic cultures, such as those of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs and the Totonacs. The volcano is part of many native mythologies. Pico de Orizaba is located 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Mexico City and approximately 480 kilometres (300 mi) south of the Tropic of Cancer. A companion peak lying about six km to the southwest of Pico de Orizaba is the Sierra Negra, at 4,640 metres (15,223 ft). Pico de Orizaba is one of only three volcanoes in México that continue to support glaciers and is home to the largest glacier in Mexico, Gran Glaciar Norte. Orizaba has nine known glaciers: Gran Glaciar Norte, Lengua del Chichimeco, Jamapa, Toro, Glaciar de la Barba, Noroccidental, Occidental, Suroccidental, and Oriental. Pico de Orizaba, like the Sierra Madre Oriental, forms a barrier between the coastal plains of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican Plateau. The volcano blocks the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from saturating central Mexico and influences the climates of both areas. Both the state of Veracruz and Puebla depend on Pico de Orizaba for supplying fresh water. The largest river originating on the volcano is the Jamapa River.

The painter
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican mural movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Rivera had a volatile marriage with fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. In 1926, Rivera became a member of AMORC, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, an occult organization founded by American occultist Harvey Spencer Lewis. In 1926, Rivera was among the founders of AMORC's Mexico City lodge, called Quetzalcoatl, and painted an image of Quetzalcoatl for the local temple. In 1954, when he tried to be readmitted into the Mexican Communist Party from which he had previously been excluded because of his support of Trotsky, Rivera had to justify his AMORC activities. The Mexican Communist Party at that time excluded from its ranks members of Freemasonry, and regarded AMORC as suspiciously similar to Freemasonry. Rivera answered that, by joining AMORC, he wanted to infiltrate a typical “Yankee” organization on behalf of Communism. However, he also claimed that AMORC was “essentially materialist, insofar as it only admits different states of energy and matter, and is based on ancient Egyptian occult knowledge from Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti.”
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

EL CAPITAN PAINTED BY WAYNE THIEBAUD

WAYNE THIEBAUD (1920-2021)
El Capitan (2,309m - 7,573 ft)
United States of America

 In Mount and Cloud, 1972, oil on canvas 20 1/4 x 22 in.

 
The painter
Morton Wayne Thiebaud was an American painter known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his landscapes and figure paintings. Thiebaud is associated with the pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his early works, executed during the fifties and sixties, predate the works of the classic pop artists. Thiebaud used heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements are almost always included in his work.
Thiebaud was averse to labels such as "fine art" versus "commercial art" and described himself as "just an old-fashioned painter". He disliked Andy Warhol's "flat" and "mechanical" paintings and did not consider himself a pop artist.
In addition to pastries, Thiebaud painted characters such as Mickey Mouse as well as landscapes, streetscapes, and cityscapes, which were influenced by the work of Richard Diebenkorn. His paintings such as Sunset Streets (1985) and Flatland River (1997) are noted for their hyper realism, and have been compared to Edward Hopper's work, another artist who was fascinated with mundane scenes from everyday American life.
In 1962, Thiebaud's work was included, along with Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, and Robert Dowd, in the historically important and ground-breaking "New Painting of Common Objects" curated at the Pasadena Art Museum.  This exhibition is considered to have been one of the first Pop Art exhibitions in the United States. These painters were part of a new movement, in a time of social unrest, which shocked the U.S. and the art world.

The mountain
El Capitan (2,309m - 7,573 ft) is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, located on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith extends about 3,000 feet (900 m) from base to summit along its tallest face and is one of the world's favorite challenges for rock climbers.
The formation was named "El Capitan" by the Mariposa Battalion when it explored the valley in 1851. El Capitan ("the captain") was taken to be a loose Spanish translation of the local Native American name for the cliff, variously transcribed as "To-to-kon oo-lah" or "To-tock-ah-noo-lah".
It is unclear if the Native American name referred to a specific tribal chief or simply meant "the chief" or "rock chief". In modern times, the formation's name is often contracted to "El Cap", especially among rock climbers and BASE jumpers.
The top of El Capitan can be reached by hiking out of Yosemite Valley on the trail next to Yosemite Falls, then proceeding west. For climbers, the challenge is to climb up the sheer granite face. There are many named climbing routes, all of them arduous, including Iron Hawk and Sea of Dreams, for example.
The Nose was first climbed in 1958 by Warren Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore in 47 days using "siege" tactics: climbing in an expedition style using fixed ropes along the length of the route, linking established camps along the way.
In September 1973, Beverly Johnson and Sibylle Hechtel were the first team of women to ascend El Capitan via the Triple Direct route.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT LISTER & MOUNT HOOKER PAINTED BY DAVID ROSENTHAL

DAVID ROSENTHAL (bn. 1953)
Mount Lister  ( 4,025m- 13, 200ft)
Mount Hooker ( 3, 800m - 12, 500 ft)
Antarctica (Victoria Land)

The mountain
Mount Lister is a massive mountain,forming the highest point in the Royal Society Range of Victoria Land, Antarctica. It was discovered by the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901–1904) which named it for Lord Joseph Lister, President of the Royal Society, 1895–1900. Waikato Spur, a rock spur about 3 nmi (5.6 km) long, extends northwestward from Mount Lister. The spur separates the upper part of Emmanuel Glacier from the Carleton Glacier. The spur was named by the US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) in 1994 after the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, in association with nearby features that are named after colleges and universities. 

Mount Hooker standing immediately south of Mount Lister in the Royal Society Range of Victoria Land, Antarctica. It was discovered by the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, which named it for Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker.

The Painter
David Rosenthal is known as one of the best Antarctic Painter, Painter of Ice, Arctic Artist, Alaskan Artist and an Extreme Artist. He has been lured to cold climates regularly to record snow, ice, and landscapes. Davids paintings of glaciers and icebergs are astoundingly realistic and at the same ethereal at the same time. However his work also includes much more than ice, icebergs and glaciers... Cordova, Alaska is the place David Rosenthal calls home. As an artist and art teacher David has taught and continues to teach many students in Alaska. While teaching art in Alaska, David has instructed students and artist in many programs including the Alaska Artists in the Schools Program, Prince William Sound Community College and University of Alaska Fairbanks Summer Sessions. Alaskan artist David Rosenthal makes it a priority to travel around Alaska as much as possible to continue to capture the incredible beauty in his artwork of Alaska.
Having spent over sixty months on the Ice, including four austral winters and six austral summers, David became an Antarctic artist and has created art images from a large variety of places in every season. David has completed paintings of the antarctic landscape from all across Antarctica. Time in Antarctica included travel as a participant in the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program during a summer and a winter at McMurdo Station as well as most of a winter at Palmer Station. David has also worked for the NSF contractor for two winters and four summers in various job capacities as a way to spend time and become familiar with the landscape.
Rosenthal's work also includes many water colors, oil paintings, sketches and small studies. The paintings seem to magically reflect the intensity of nature's colors and the atmospheric phenomena that David witnesses. David really is a master of Extreme Art!

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MER DE GLACE AND GRAND CHARMOZ PAINTED BY GABRIEL LOPPÉ

 

GABRIEL LOPPÉ (1825-1913),
Les Aiguilles du Grand Charmoz (3,445m -11,302ft)
France

In La Mer de Glace et les Grands Charmoz, Chamonix, Huile sur toile, 

Courtesy John Mitchell Fine Arts, London, and Artcurial Paris,

 
The painter
Toussaint Gabriel Loppé was a French painter, photographer and mountaineer. He became the first foreigner to be made a member of the Alpine Club in London. His father was a captain in the French Engineers and Loppé's childhood was spent in many different towns in south-eastern France. Aged twenty-one Loppé climbed a small mountain in the Languedoc and found a group of painters sketching on the summit. He had found his calling and subsequently went off to Geneva where he met the reputed leading Swiss landscapist, Alexandre Calame (1810 -1864). Loppé took up mountaineering in Grindelwald in the 1850s and made friends easily with the many English climbers in France and Switzerland. Although he was frequently labelled as a pupil of Calame and his rival François Diday, Loppé was almost an entirely self-taught artist. He became the first painter to work at higher altitudes during climbing expeditions earning the right to be considered the founder of the peintres-alpinistes school, which became established in the Savoie at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Notable followers of Loppé include, Charles Henri Contencin (1875-1955) and Jacques Fourcy (1906-1990). Together with the first ascent of Mt Mallet in Chamonix’s Grandes Jorasses range, Loppé made over 40 ascents of Mont Blanc during his climbing career, which lasted until the late 1890s. He frequently made oil sketches from alpine summits, including a panorama of the view from the summit of Mont Blanc.
His paintings became celebrated for their atmosphere and spontaneity and he soon found himself taking part in many exhibitions in London and in Paris.
By 1896 Loppé had spent over fifty seasons climbing and painting in Chamonix. As the valley’s unrivalled ‘Court painter’ his work was in constant demand with the majority of his pictures going to English climbers and summer tourists.
In his later years, Loppé became fascinated with photography and was quite an innovator in this field too. His long exposure photograph of the Eiffel Tower struck by lightning, now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris remains one of his iconic images. 

 
The mountain
The Aiguille des Grands Charmoz (3,445 m), is one of the Chamonix needles in the Mont Blanc massif. It is made up of a ridge bristling with " gendarmes", including La Carrée, and Bâton Wicks. The first ascent was done on August 9, 1885 by H. Dunod and P. Vignon with the guides J. Desailloux, F. Folliguet, F. and G. Simond, by the corridor Charmoz-Grépon. It is today the normal way of descent, the climb generally being made by the south-west slope and the northwestern edge (AD +), climbed 15 July 1880 by Albert F. Mummery with Alexandre Burgener and Benedikt Venetz, which stopped before the summit at point 3 435 m. The Aiguille des Grands Charmoz is linked with the Aiguille du Grépon for the crossing of Charmoz-Grépon (D), one of the great rocky classics of the Mont Blanc massif. The first crossing was done by Laurent Croux in 1904. The first ascent of the north face, via the needle of the Republic, and crossing the edges of the Charmoz was done by Raymond Leininger and G. Bicavelle in 1946. In 1974, Jean-Claude Droyer succeeded the solo climb of the western pillar of the Grand Charmoz (Cordier lane opened in 1970 by Patrick Cordier).
The Mt Blanc is one of the 7 highest summits in earth, (which are obviously 8 with 2 in Europe !):
Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m), Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Mount Vinson (4,892m) and Mount Kosciuszko (2,228m) in Australia.

The Glacier
The Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) is an alpine valley glacier located on the northern slope of the Mont-Blanc massif. It is formed by the confluence of the Tacul glacier and the Leschaux glacier and flows into the Arve valley, on the territory of the municipality of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, giving rise to the Arveyron. The glacier is seven kilometers long, its supply basin has a maximum length of twelve kilometers and an area of ​​40 km2, while its thickness reaches 300 meters. In the middle of the 20th century, an ice cave was pierced for the first time in the Mer de Glace. Due to the attraction's success, a cable car was put into service in 1961 to access it, then replaced by a cable car in 1988. Since 1973, an underground hydroelectric power station has been using the meltwater from the glacier.
Almost a million visitors go to Montenvers every year to contemplate the Mer de Glace. During peak periods, half of them visit the ice cave. Three museums are also located on the site. Skiing is possible from the Aiguille du Midi in winter. However, the retreat of the glacier, measured since 1860-1870, causes a loss of thickness of 120 meters in a century in its terminal part. It causes difficulties at the level of the ice cave, where more and more steps are necessary to reach the gondola, and requires considering its upstream movement, like the catchment of the hydroelectric power station in 2011.
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONT AGEL PAINTED BY CLAUDE MONET

 

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Mont Agel (1,151m - 3,776 ft)
France - Monaco border

In Cap Martin près de Menton, Huile sur toile, 1884  65 x 82cm, Private Collection 

About this painting
Another painting was done by Monet exactly  in the same place but at a different time of day. It has already been published in this blog. Colors and  general impression are totally different. One can compare the two paintings. this one is supposed to have been painted at 10 a.m, the other à 6 p.m. Monet, like the japanese painters ,and particularly Hokusai who painted the 36 views of Mount Fuji, reproduced the same artistic behavior by painting series of the same mountains, in the same place, at different hours of the day or different seasons. At Cap Martin and Mont Agel, Monet painted about ten of them.

 The mountain
Mont Agel (1,151m - 3,776 ft) is a summit of the Alps located in the South of France, overlooking part of the French Riviera, Monaco, Beausoleil, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin... exactly as shwon in the Monet's painting above !
It has held a historic strategic position since Antiquity and still houses military aerial detection installations today. Mount Agel is precisely located in the French commune of Peille, ( Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region). It rises in the Prealps of Nice and constitutes the highest point of the Monegasque watershed. The highest point of the principality, of Monaco, on the slopes of this mountain, can be reached by the Chemin des Révoires. A massive summit, Mount Agel is visible from a great distance: from certain districts of Nice as well as from a large part of the French Riviera between Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Antibes, and the Principality of Monaco and likewise from the Italian Riviera to around Vintimiglia and Bordighiera.
The history of Mount Agel begins with the Celto-Ligurian tribes who occupied the site and some of whose members were involved in the boarding and looting of boats engaged in cabotage. They are submitted from 23 to 13 BC. BC by the Romans who restored the old coastal route passing through the slopes of Mount Agel to link Ventimiglia to Narbonne Gaul and forming part of the Via Aurelia.
From 1931, new elements of fortification were built within the framework of the Maginot line.
Mount Agel now houses a large work of artillery equipped with turrets, linked together by deeply buried galleries. During the fighting of June 1940, his shots participated in the defense of Menton and supported the outpost of Pont-Saint-Louis and the work of Cap-Martin.
Until 2012, the 943 Capitaine Auber air base of the French Air Force was located there.
Today, only radars remain, which continue their watch in automatic mode, the information being transmitted and used by the Detection and Control Center at 942 Lyon-Mont Verdun air base.
Mount Agel also shelters on its slopes, the Monte-Carlo Golf Club, a very selective club. A little to the east of the golf course is the transmitter center of Fontbonne. Until its recent redevelopment, there were various protohistoric constructions.
Close to Mount Agel and the golf course is also the summer residence of Princes of Monaco (Rocagel site).

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. and Kolsass mountain.
Monet has been described as "the driving force behind Impressionism". Crucial to the art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other. Monet's long career as a painter was spent in the pursuit of this aim.
In 1856, his chance meeting with Eugene Boudin, a painter of small beach scenes, opened his eyes to the possibility of plein-air painting. From that time, with a short interruption for military service, he dedicated himself to searching for new and improved methods of painterly expression. To this end, as a young man, he visited the Paris Salon and familiarised himself with the works of older painters, and made friends with other young artists.[54] The five years that he spent at Argenteuil, spending much time on the River Seine in a little floating studio, were formative in his study of the effects of light and reflections. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes rather than scenes and objects. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. Having rejected the academic teachings of Gleyre's studio, he freed himself from theory, saying "I like to paint as a bird sings."
In 1877 a series of paintings at Gare St-Lazare had Monet looking at smoke and steam and the way that they affected colour and visibility, being sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent. He was to further use this study in the painting of the effects of mist and rain on the landscape. The study of the effects of atmosphere were to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. This process began in the 1880s and continued until the end of his life in 1926.
His first series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. In 1892 he produced what is probably his best-known series, Twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral. In these paintings Monet broke with painterly traditions by cropping the subject so that only a portion of the facade is seen on the canvas. The paintings do not focus on the grand Medieval building, but on the play of light and shade across its surface, transforming the solid masonry.
Other series include Peupliers, Matins sur la Seine, and the Nenuphars that were painted on his property at Giverny. Between 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, including a series of paintings in Antibes (above) and Venice. In London he painted four series: the Houses of Parliament, London ; Charing Cross Bridge ; Waterloo Bridge, and Views of Westminster Bridge. Helen Gardner writes: "Monet, with a scientific precision, has given us an unparalleled and unexcelled record of the passing of time as seen in the movement of light over identical forms."
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE SIMPLON PASS BY ANONYMOUS FRENCH PAINTER

 ANONYMOUS FRENCH PAINTER
Col du Simplon (2,005 m - 6,578 ft)
Switzerland

In  "Le passage des Alpes par l'armée napoléonienne",   Huile sur toile, non rentoilée, ca. 1806,            64,5 x 77 cm  Private collection  

 
About the painting
This historical painting tells how and above all where the army of Napoleon 1st crossed the Alps to enter Italy, at the Simplon Pass (Col du Simplon). The road was built between 1801 and 1805 by the engineer Nicolas Céard, on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte who wanted to open a passage for his artillery (described above); the cost was more than 8 million francs.  It was also Napoleon who, on February 21, 1801, without even consulting the canons of Saint-Bernard, decided to create a hospice in every way similar to that of the Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard, of which he had a lot appreciated the usefulness.  When Napoleon fell, only the first floor had been built. The building remained as it was until the mid-1820s, when work resumed and was completed in 1831.

The mountain pass
The Col du Simplon (2,005 m - 6,578 ft) (Simplon Pass in english) is a high mountain pass between the Pennine Alps and the Lepontine Alps in Switzerland. It connects Brig in the canton of Valais with Domodossola in Piedmont (Italy). The pass itself and the villages on each side of it, such as Gondo, are in Switzerland. The Simplon Tunnel was built beneath the vicinity of the pass in the early 20th century to carry rail traffic between the two countries.
The lowest point of the col (pass) and the lowest point on the watershed between the basins of the Rhone and the Po in Switzerland lies in marshland about 500 m - 1,640 ft west of the Simplon Pass settlement at an altitude of 1,994 m - 6,542 ft.
Rotelsee is a lake located near the pass at an elevation of 2,028 m (6,654 ft).
There are several great peaks around that can be climbed directly from the pass. These include Wasenhorn, Hubschhorn, Breithorn (Simplon), and Monte Leone.

The French school of painting in the 19th century
This term designates artworks produced in 19th-century France that reflects the teachings of the École des Beaux-Arts, the Parisian state-sponsored art academy.  Prioritizing draftsmanship over painting, the school taught students to employ fine line work and soft, blended shading in their drawings. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s drawings, epitomize the Academic style, which is characterized by close attention to detail, near-invisible brushstrokes, and an emphasis on realistic modeling and shading. Academic painters often depicted scenes from history, literature, the Bible, or classical mythology, although this style can also be seen in pastoral scenes.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LE GRAND COMBIN PAINTED BY GUSTAVE DORÉ

GUSTAVE DORÉ (1832-1883)
Le Grand Combin (4,314 m- 14, 154ft)
Switzerland

In Le Grand Combin, Suisse romande, Oil on panel,  26 x 35 cm. Private collection (Christies)

The mountain
The Grand Combin is a mountain massif in the western Pennine Alps in Switzerland. With its 4,314 metres (14,154 ft) highest summit, the Combin de Grafeneire, it is one of the highest peaks in the Alps and the second most prominent of its range. The Grand Combin is also a large glaciated massif consisting of several summits, among which three are above 4000 metres:
- Combin de Grafeneire (4,314 m -14,154 ft),
- Combin de Valsorey (4,183 m -13,724 ft),
- Combin de la Tsessette (4,134 m -13,563 ft).
The massif of the Grand Combin lies south of Verbier between the Val d'Entremont (west) and Val de Bagnes (west). The north-western facing side of Grand Combin is entirely covered by eternal snows and glaciers which are prone to serac falls. The southern and eastern walls are more steep and thus exempt of snow.
The topography of the Grand Combin is intricate. Between the Val d'Entremont and the Val de Bagnes are two high ridges, nearly parallel to each other and to those valleys, which both diverge from a short transverse ridge of great height. The southern end of the space enclosed between these three ridges is an elevated plateau of great extent, where the snows accumulate and feed the Corbassière Glacier which descends thence for about ten kilometers to the north. The glacier is surrounded by the peaks of Petit Combin, Combin de Corbassière and Combin de Boveire on the west, Grand Tavé and Tournelon Blanc on the east. Smaller glaciers lie on the external flanks such as Boveire and Mont Durand Glacier.
The Grand Combin, which yields in height to only a few European mountains, was long one of the least known of Alpine summits. The first to commence the exploration of the great massif which separates the Val de Bagnes from the Val d'Entremont was Gottlieb Samuel Studer, of Berne, who on August 14, 1851 reached for the first time the summit of the Combin de Corbassière with the guide Joseph-Benjamin Fellay, and has published an account of that and a subsequent excursion in Bergund Gletscher-Fahrten. He was followed in that ascent five years later by W. and C. E. Mathews, and in 1857, William Mathews anticipated Studer in the ascent of the second peak of the Grand Combin.
The first four expeditions on Grand Combin reached only the minor summit east of Grand Combin (Aiguille du Croissant). The first one was made by mountain guides from the valley (Maurice Fellay and Jouvence Bruchez) on July 20, 1857. The first complete ascent of Grand Combin was finally made on July 30, 1859 by Charles Sainte-Claire Deville with Daniel, Emmanuel and Gaspard Balleys, and Basile Dorsaz.
The Grand Combin de Valsorey on the west was reached for the first time on 16 September 1872 by J. H. Isler and J. Gillioz. They climbed the south south face above the Plateau du Couloir. The itinerary on the south-east ridge was opened on 10 September 1891 by O. Glynne Jones, A.Bovier and P. Gaspoz.
The "Penitents", those reliefs of ice that one see rising on the surface of the glacier of the Grand Combin, in this 1787 painting, have all disappeared at the beginning of 21th century, because of global warming...


The painter
Paul-Gustave-Louis-Christophe Doré said Gustave Doré, born January 6, 1832 in Strasbourg and died January 23, 1883 in Paris in his house in the rue Saint-Dominique, is an illustrator, writer, cartoonist, painter and French sculptor. It has been internationally recognized in his lifetime.
In 1851, two albums Three artists misunderstood and unhappy and Des-approval for a pleasure trip are published at Aubert. Freed from the inspiration of Rudolf Töppfer and compliance executives, Gustave Doré performs freely arranged vignettes with several dimensions. The plurality of page composition, its innovations and graphic variants are deployed mainly in Des-approval for a pleasure trip. His technique uses the lithographic pencil, drawing directly on the stone.
Paul Lafon, writer and editor, he had met with Philipon, agreed to his request to illustrate the works of Rabelais. In 1854, the book is published by Bry with 99 vignettes and 14 inset plates engraved on wood. This affordable edition with low printing quality and modest size (large octavo) is not up to the high ambitions of Gustave Doré. In 1854 and 1873 shows two versions of "Rabelais Works" and in 1855: The Hundred Tales of comical by Honoré de Balzac.
In 1856 he illustrates with a painter's hand, The Wandering Jew, a poem set to music by Pierre Dupont, a work break in his artistic career and in the history of the woodcut. Abandoning copper engraving usually privileged, Gustave Doré chooses the color of wood technical (interpretation etching). Doré formed its own school burners. Each plank of the work, with a short caption end of the poem is a work of painting. The large format of the book allows the transition to movies folio. The image is independent of the text. This work is having great success with the public.
Gustave Doré wants to deploy his talent in illustration of the great works of literature, with contempt observed towards caricature and drawing current. It will list the thirty masterpieces in the epic, comic or tragic his ideal library wishing illustrate them in the same format as the Wandering Jew, Dante's Inferno, the Tales by Perrault, Don Quixote, Homer, Virgil, Aristotle, Milton (The lost paradise) or Shakespeare ... The publishers refuse to perform these luxury publications of too much cost. Gustave Doré should self-publish the works of Dante in 1861. The critical and popular success hails striking prints on the text. A critic will assert that: "The author is crushed by the designer. More than Dante illustrated by Doré, Doré is illustrated by Dante. "
In the 1860s, he illustrated the Bible.
He attended high society and expands his pictorial activities it consists of large paintings like Dante and Virgil in the ninth circle of Hell (1861 - 311 × 428 cm - Musée de Brou), The Enigma (Musée d'Orsay ) or the Christ leaving court (1867-1872 - 600 × 900 cm² Museum of modern and Contemporary Art of Strasbourg).
According to Ray Harryhausen, famous designer of special effects, multiplying together drawings and illustrations of all kinds (fantastic, portraits-loads), its reputation extends to Europe, he met a huge success in England with the Doré Gallery that opened in London in 1869. In 1875, the figure of Samuel Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Lament of the Ancient Mariner) published in London by Golden Gallery is one of his greatest masterpieces.
His art of composition culminated in London, a Pilgrimage by Blanchard Jerrold, true story about the London of the late nineteenth century when all classes are present, inspiration is particularly striking in the description of the London slums.
He died of a heart attack at age 51 on January 23, 1883, leaving an impressive work of more than ten thousand pieces, which will have later a strong influence on many illustrators. His friend Ferdinand Foch organizes the funeral at St. Clotilde, burial at Père Lachaise and a farewell meal at 73 rue Saint-Dominique

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

GIEWONT PAINTED BY ALEKSANDER KOTSIS

ALEKSANDER KOTSIS (1836-1877)
Giewont Massif (1, 895 m- 6, 217 ft)
Poland

 In Giewont (oil on canvas, 39,5 x 55,5 cm, 1870, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie.

 
The  painter
Aleksander Kotsis  was a Polish painter. He created landscapes, portraits, and genre scenes in a combination Romantic and Realistic style. Most of his paintings are small. He grew up just outside Kraków, where his family had a small farm. They moved into Kraków in 1846 to become merchants and he began his studies in 1850 at the Academy of Fine Arts with Wojciech Stattler and Władysław Łuszczkiewicz. His father was not supportive of his studies, so he had to continue working in their shop and taking his lessons intermittently. In 1857, he began exhibiting with the Society of Friends of Fine Arts.  Finally he sold some paintings and, with the assistance of Stattler, obtained a scholarship from the Ministry of Religion and Education which enabled him to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he studied with Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, among others. He returned to Kraków in 1862 and became involved with a patriotic group that met in the studio of the sculptor, Parys Filippi, which was located in the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Although this group became involved in the January Uprising, Kotsis spent most of the years 1862 to 1864 painting church murals.
After receiving another scholarship in 1866, he moved to Warsaw, then to Paris in 1867, followed by Brussels. When he returned home, he established a studio and worked constantly, spending his summers painting en plein aire in the Tatra mountains. He also began exhibiting extensively throughout Poland and Northern Europe. After 1870, he travelled frequently and, from 1871 to 1875, lived primarily in Munich, where he often exhibited with the Kunstverein München.  He shared a studio with his friends, Antoni Kozakiewicz and Franz Streitt, and went on painting excursions to the Bavarian Alps with them. In 1875, he received an offer of a professorial chair at his alma mater but, that same year, was diagnosed with an incurable brain disorder. He was forced to refuse the chair and was unable to continue working.[ He died two years later.

The mountain
Giewont is a mountain massif in the Tatra Mountains of Poland. It is 1,895 m - at its highest.The massif has three peaks (all m/metres in AMSL):
- Great Giewont - Wielki Giewont (1,895 m- 6, 217 ft)
- Long Giewont - Długi Giewont (1,867 m- 6, 125 ft)
- Small Giewont - Polish Mały Giewont (1,728 m - 5,669 ft)
There is a mountain pass located between Great and Long Giewont, known as Szczerba (1,823 m- 5, 980 ft). Long Giewont and Great Giewont are situated at a higher altitude than the nearby town of Zakopane, making them clearly visible from that city.
On Great Giewont, there is a 15 m steel cross (erected in 1901) - the site of religious pilgrimages. The area is notorious for its hazardous nature during thunderstorms, so this should be taken into consideration when approaching the summit.
The first recorded ascent to Giewont's summit was undertaken in 1830 by Franciszek Herbich and Aleksander Zawadzki (a19th century explorer). The first winter ascent of Giewont occurred in 1904 by a group of five mountaineers led by Mariusz Zaruski. Nowadays the climbing on Giewont is strictly banned. On the other hand, hiking on the hiking trails is allowed and the access (except the winter) is not difficult hence Giewont is a very popular destination among amblers and Sunday tourists. In the summer up to few thousands tourists a day ascend the top.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

DER NIESEN PAINTED BY MARCUS JACOBI

MARCUS JACOBI (1891-1969)
Der Niesen (2, 362m - 7,749ft
Switzerland

In The Niesen, Lake Thun, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland, oil on canvas, 105 x 96cm, 1941,
Courtesy John Mitchell Fine paintings, London 

The mountain
The Niesen (2, 362m - 7,749ft) is a mountain of the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. It overlooks Lake Thun, in the Bernese Oberland region, and forms the northern end of a ridge that stretches north from the Albristhorn and Mannliflue, separating the Simmental and Kandertal valleys. The literal translation of the German word "Niesen" is "sneeze", but the Niesen because of its shape, is often called The Swiss Pyramid. Administratively, the summit is shared between the municipalities of Reichenbach im Kandertal, to the south-east, and Wimmis, to the west and north. Both municipalities are in the canton of Bern. The summit of the mountain can be reached easily by using the Niesenbahn funicular from Mülenen (near Reichenbach). The construction of the funicular was completed in 1910. Alongside the path of the Niesenbahn is the longest stairway in the world with 11,674 steps. It is open only once a year to the public for a stair run.
The literal translation of the German word Niesen is sneeze. Because of its shape, the Niesen is often called the Swiss Pyramid. Since the 18th century, the Niesen was the subject of a number of paintings which will all be published in this blog, one by one. The Ferdinand Holder's paintings are the two first ones to have been published. The Niesen was also the subject of a number of paintings by Paul Klee, in which it was represented as a quasi-pyramid.

The painter
Born in Biel, Marcus Jacobi came from a family of piano manufacturers and went to study medicine in Bern before becoming a painter. In the 1920s he moved to Merligen on the northern shore of Lake Thun from where this summer panorama was painted. Floating between Ferdinand Hodler and Felix Vallotton, two of the giants of Swiss twentieth century painting, Jacobi’s landscape style fused elements of Realism and Symbolism. He became known for his views of the Niesen, the volcano-like peak which rises to well over 2,000 metres and is one of Switzerland’s most iconic mountains.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

RAS MOULAY ALI PAINTED BY JACQUES MAJORELLE

JACQUES MAJORELLE (1886-1962)
Ras Moulay Ali, (603 m-1 978 fr)
Morocco

In "Tassa, Haut Sexaoua, Grand Atlas, le Ras Moulay Ali", Technique mixte rehaussée d'or et d'argent,1929

About the painting
In 1926 Majorelle undertook a journey across the Kasbahs of the Atlas. Tassa, easily recognized by its impressive terrace-like layout, was a frequent source of inspiration for Majorelle in the course of 1929. His use of an elaborate technique of tempera with gold and silver highlights adds a strong graphic dimension to the painting. Applying black and ochre highlights, Majorelle subtly hints to the warm lighting of sunset, which accentuates the volume effect, highlighting the terraces and the Great-Atlas in the background. Also, the greenery diffuses an impression of coolness which is in stark contrast with the consuming heat of the dry mineral landscape.“His new compositions exude a distinctive penchant for neatness and simplicity, immense precision and an effort in researching a voluntarily decorative layout.  His fifty compositions were drawn with implacable rigor. The coloring appears in mellow hues and muted shades, which once highlighted with gold and silver, invigorate the entire composition with rich, stirring intemporality” In November 1930, in parallel with an exhibition of seventy drawings and paintings of Kasbahs held at the Renaissance gallery, a book containing thirty views of Kasbahs was also published.
(cf, Félix Marcilhac, La vie et l'œuvre de Jacques Majorelle (1886 - 1962), ed.ACR, 1995, p.137-138)

The painter
Jacques Majorelle son of the celebrated Art Nouveau furniture designer Louis Majorelle, was a French painter. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nancy in 1901 and later at the Académie Julian in Paris with Schommer and Royer. Majorelle became a noted Orientalist painter, but is most remembered for constructing the villa and gardens that now carry his name, Les Jardins Majorelle in Marrakech.
In around 1917 he travelled to Morocco to recover from heart problems and after short period spent in Casablanca, he visited Marrakech, where he fell in love with the vibrant colours and quality of light he found there. Initially, he used Marrakech as a base for trips to Spain, Italy and other parts of North Africa, including Egypt. Eventually, however, he settled in Marrakech permanently.
He drew inspiration for his paintings from his trips and from Marrakesch itself. His paintings include many street scenes, souks and kasbahs as well as portraits of local inhabitants. He opened a handicrafts workshop in Marrakech and also designed posters to promote travel to Morocco. His work was profoundly affected by his voyages around the Mediterannean and North Africa. He introduced a more coloured vision, bathed in light where the drawing disappears and the image emerges from large spots of colour laid flat. It seemed as if he had discoved the sun in these countries. His style exhibited more freedom and spontaneity.
In 1919, he married Andrée Longueville and the pair lived in an apartment near the Jemâa el-Fna Square (then at the palace of Pasha Ben Daoud). In 1923, Jacques Majorelle bought a four acre plot, situated on the border of a palm grove in Marrakech and in 1931, he commissioned the architect, Paul Sinoir, to design a Cubist villa for him. He gradually purchased additional land, extending his holding by almost 10 acres. In the grounds around the residence, Majorelle began planting a luxuriant garden which would become known as the Jardins Majorelle or Majorelle Garden. He continued to work on the garden for almost forty years. The garden is often said to be the his finest work. Majorelle developed a special shade of the colour blue, which was inspired by the blue tiles prevalent in southern Morocco. This colour was used extensively in Majorelle's house and garden, and now carries his name; Majorelle Blue.
The garden proved costly to run and in 1947, Majorelle opened the garden to the public with an admission fee designed to defray the cost of maintenance. He sold the house and land in the 1950s, after which it fell into disrepair.
Majorelle was sent to France for medical treatment in 1962 following a car accident, and died in Paris, later that year of complications from his injuries. He is buried in Nancy, the place of his birth.
During his lifetime, many of Majorelle's paintings were sold to private buyers and remain in private collections. Some of his early works can be found in Museums around his birthplace such as the Musée de l'Ecole de Nancy. Examples of his later work can be seen in the Mamounia Hotel, Marrakesch, the French Consulate of Marrakech and in the Villa at the Majorelle Gardens.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau