PICO DEL TEIDE SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
Pico del Teide (3, 718 m -12, 198 ft)
Tenerife - Canari Islands - Spain

 In  "Intérieur du Cratère du Pic de Teneriffe " Dessin, Alexander von Humboldt

The mountain
Pico del Teide (3,718m - 12,198 ft) (« Teide Peak") is a volcano on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Spain. Before the 1495 Spanish colonization of Tenerife, the native Guanches called the volcano Echeyde, which in their legends referred to a powerful figure leaving the volcano, which could turn into hell. El Pico del Teide is the modern Spanish name.
Its summit is the highest point in Spain and the highest point above sea level in the islands of the Atlantic. If measured from its base on the ocean floor, it is at 7,500 m-24,600 ft the third highest volcano on a volcanic ocean island in the world after Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Its elevation makes Tenerife the tenth highest island in the world. It remains active: its most recent eruption occurred in 1909 from the El Chinyero vent on the northwestern Santiago rift.
Historical volcanic activity on the island is associated with vents on the Santiago or northwest rift (Boca Cangrejo in 1492, Montañas Negras in 1706, Narices del Teide or Chahorra in 1798 and El Chinyero in 1909) and the Cordillera Dorsal or northeast rift (Fasnia in 1704, Siete Fuentes and Arafo in 1705). The 1706 Montañas Negras eruption destroyed the town and principal port of Garachico, as well as several smaller villages.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus reported seeing "a great fire in the Orotava Valley" as he sailed past Tenerife on his voyage to discover the New World. This was interpreted as indicating that he had witnessed an eruption there. Radiometric dating of possible lavas indicates that in 1492 no eruption occurred in the Orotava Valley, but one did occur from the Boca Cangrejo vent.
The last summit eruption from Teide occurred about the year 850 CE, and this eruption produced the "Lavas Negras" that cover much of the flanks of the volcano.
About 150,000 years ago, a much larger explosive eruption occurred, probably of Volcanic Explosivity Index 5.
The United Nations Committee for Disaster Mitigation designated Teide a Decade Volcano because of its history of destructive eruptions and its proximity to several large towns, of which the closest are Garachico, Icod de los Vinos and Puerto de la Cruz. Teide, Pico Viejo and Montaсa Blanca form the Central Volcanic Complex of Tenerife.
In a publication of 1626, Sir Edmund Scory, who probably stayed on the island in the first decades of the 17th century, gives a description of Teide, in which he notes the suitable paths to the top and the effects the considerable height causes to the travellers, indicating that the volcano had been accessed via different routes before the 17th century. In 1715 the English traveler J. Edens and his party made the ascent and reported their observations in the journal of the Royal Society in London.
After the Enlightenment, most of the expeditions that went to East Africa and the Pacific had Teide as one of the most rewarding targets. The expedition of Lord George Macartney, George Staunton and John Barrow in 1792 almost ended in tragedy, as a major snowstorm and rain swept over them and they failed to reach the peak of Teide, just barely getting past Montaña Blanca.
During an expedition to Kilimanjaro, the German adventurer Hans Heinrich Joseph Meyer visited Teide in 1894 to observe ice conditions on the volcano. He described the two mountains as "two kings, one rising in the ocean and the other in the desert and steppes"
The volcano and its surroundings comprise Teide National Park, which has an area of 18,900 hectares (47,000 acres) and was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on June 28, 2007. Teide is the most visited natural wonder of Spain, the most visited national park in Spain and Europe and – by 2015 – the eighth most visited in the world, with some 3 million visitors yearly. A major international astronomical observatory is located on the slopes of the mountain.

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

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

PICO TURQUINO (3) PAINTED BY EDMUND DARCH LEWIS

 

EDMUND DARCH LEWIS (1835-1910) 

Pico Turquino  (1,974m- 6,476 ft) 

Cuba 

In Pico Turquino - View of Cuba, oil on canvas, 1850.

The mountain
Pico Turquino (literally "Turquoise Peak") is Cuba's highest point at 1,974 meters above sea level. Located in the center of the Sierra Maestra, it lies within the Turquino National Park - also known as the Sierra Maestra National Park. Its summit has been the subject of a sort of pilgrimage since the father of the revolutionary fighter Celia Sánchez erected in 1953 a bust of the national hero José Martí.

The artist
Edmund Darch Lewis was an American landscape painter known for his prolific style, marine oils and watercolors. Lewis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a well-to-do family. He started training at age 15 with German-born Paul Weber (1823–1916) of the Hudson River School.
At age 19 he exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and was elected an Associate of the Academy at age 24.
Lewis's early work in oil, because of his excellent training, was precocious and is considered technically superior to his later work. He traveled throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, painting river scenes, and for two decades he traveled to the White Mountains and painted landscapes of mountains, rivers, and lakes. He made extensive marine paintings throughout New England, becoming a prolific and successful artist. His work was appreciated because of the luminosity of their objects. Because of the lively yet glowing work, he is considered one of the Luminist painters in the Hudson River School.
After mastering oil painting early in his career, Lewis switched to watercolor painting. Although not as technically outstanding, his watercolors were also admired for their luminosity - Luminism, and Lewis continued to generate canvases in mass production style.
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MUQUR PHOTOGRAPHED BY FRÉDÉRIC GADMER

FRÉDÉRIC GADMER (1878-1954)
Muqur (2,003 m -6,572 ft)
Afghanistan

In La chaine du Moqor, autochrome Lumière, glass tint, 1928, Mission Clémenceau,
Musée Albert Kahn

The Photographer
Frédéric Georges Gadmer was born in 1878 in France into a Protestant family; his father, Leon, son of Swiss émigré, was confectioner. Before World War II, he follows his family in Paris and works as a photographer for the house Vitry, located Quai de la Rapée. As an heliogravure company, it performs work for the sciences and the arts, travel and education. In 1898 Gadmer completed his military service as a secretary to the staff then recalled in 1914 at the time of mobilization. In 1915, he joined the newly created  "Photographic Section of the Army" and carried pictures on the front, in the Dardanelles, with General Gouraud, then in Cameroon. In 1919, at age 41, he was hired as a photographer by Albert Khan for his project called "Archives of the Planet". He finds there his comrades of  "the film and photographic section of the army" Paul Castelnau and Fernand Cuville. Soon as he arrived, he made reports in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Palestine. It was the first to make a color portrait of Mustafa Kemal, leader of the Young Turks. In 1921, he returned to the Levant with Jean Brunhes, the scientific director of the Archives of the Planet. The same year, he attended General Gouraud, appointed High Commissioner in Syria. Operator and prolific photographer, specializing in distant lands and landscapes, it covers Iraq, Persia, Afghanistan, Algeria and Tunisia. In 1930, he accompanied Father Francis Aupiais in Dahomey. He also works in Europe. In 1931, at the request of Marechal Lyautey, he photographies the Colonial Exhibition. It is one of the last person to leave the "Archives of the Planet" threatened by the Albert Kahn's bankruptcy in 1932. He then worked at the famous french newspaper L'Illustration and carries postcards for Yvon. He died in Paris, unmarried, in 1954.

The mountains
Muqur (other names: Qala-i-Sarkari, Mukar, Qala-i-Sarkāri, Moqur, Mukur, Moqur, Moqor) is located in the southern part of Muqur District, Ghazni, Afghanistan. Muqur  is a district in the southwest of Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. Its population, which is mostly Pashtun (99%) with a Hazara and Tajik minority, was estimated at 70,900 in 2002, of whom 19,538 were children under 12.


About the  "Autochrome Lumière"
The autochrome is a photographic reproduction of process colors patented December 17, 1903 by Auguste and Louis Lumière french brothers. This is the first industrial technique of photography colors, it produces positive images on glass plates. It was used between 1907 and 1932 approximately an particularly in many pictures of the World War I. A important number of photographs of mountains and landscapes around the world was made with this technique, particularly in the for  the Project "The archives of the planet" by Albert Kahn now in the Musée Départemental Albert Kahn

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

HIRA MOUNTAINS /唐崎夜雨 BY UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE / 歌川 広重

  
 

UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE / 歌川 広重 (1797-1858)
Hira Mountains / 比良暮雪 (1,214 m- 3,984 ft)
Japan

In Omi Hirai from the series Eight Views of Ōmi, ca. 1835, Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 22.2 × 34.6 cm

About the series
The Eight Views of Ōmi (近江八景 ) are traditional scenic views of Ōmi Province which is now Shiga Prefecture in Japan. They were inspired by the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang in China which were first painted in the 11th century and then brought to Japan as a popular theme in the 14–15th centuries. The theme was then used to describe Ōmi province in poetry by Prince Konoe Masaie and his son, Prince Hisamichi, in the 15–16th centuries. The Eight Views of Ōmi then became a popular subject for artists such as Suzuki Harunobu and Utagawa Hiroshige. The theme continued to develop, being transposed to other locations and settings in a process which the Japanese called mitate, such as in Harunobu's Zashiki Hakkei series

The artist
Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川 広重), also know as Andō Hiroshige (安藤 広重), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his landscapes, such as the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō  and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō for his depictions of birds and flowers. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints.  Hiroshige produced over 8,000 works
He dominated landscape printmaking with his unique brand of intimate, almost small-scale works compared against the older traditions of landscape painting descended from Chinese landscape painters such as Sesshu. The travel prints generally depict travelers along famous routes experiencing the special attractions of various stops along the way. They travel in the rain, in snow, and during all of the seasons. In 1856, working with the publisher Uoya Eikichi, he created a series of luxury edition prints, made with the finest printing techniques including true gradation of color, the addition of mica to lend a unique iridescent effect, embossing, fabric printing, blind printing, and the use of glue printing (wherein ink is mixed with glue for a glittery effect).
For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists closely studied Hiroshige's compositions, and some, such as Vincent van Gogh or Claude Monet, painted copies of Hiroshige's prints.

The mountains
The three main peaks of the Hira Mountains are Mount Bunagatake (1,214 m- 3,984 ft) ; Hōraisan, (1,174 m- 3,852 ft),and Mount Uchimi (1,103 m - 3,619 ft).
The Hira Mountains (比良山地 Hira-sanchi) are a mountain range to the west of Lake Biwa on the border of Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The range runs 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north to south. It is narrowest in the southern part of the range, running 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east to west, and broadest at the northern part of the range, running 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) km east to west. The eastern side of the Hira Mountains looks steeply over Lake Biwa, while the western side of the range forms a gentler valley in Kyoto.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

SUMMIT OF FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博

 

HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博 (1876-1950)
Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)
Japan

In Ten Views of Fuji- Summit of Fuji Series- woodblock Print

 
The painter
Hiroshi Yoshida  / 吉田 博 (  (not to be confused with Toshi Yoshida) was born in 1876. He began his artistic training with his adoptive father in Kurume, Fukuoka prefecture. Around the age of twenty, he left Kurume to study with Soritsu Tamura in Kyoto, subsequently moving to Tokyo and the tutelage of Shotaro Koyama. Yoshida studied Western-style painting, winning many exhibition prizes and making several trips to the United States, Europe and North Africa selling his watercolors and oil paintings. In 1902, he played a leading role in the organization of the Meiji Fine Arts Society into the Pacific Painting Association. His work was featured in the exhibitions of the state-sponsored Bunten and Teiten. While highly successful as an oil painter and watercolor artist, Yoshida turned to printmaking upon learning of the Western world’s infatuation with ukiyo-e.
Following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Yoshida embarked on a tour of the United States and Europe, painting and selling his work. When he returned to Japan in 1925, he started his own workshop, specializing in landscapes inspired both by his native country and his travels abroad. Yoshida often worked through the entire process himself: designing the print, carving his own blocks, and printing his work. His career was temporarily interrupted by his sojourn as a war correspondent in Manchuria during the Pacific War. Although he designed his last print in 1946, Yoshida continued to paint with oils and watercolors up until his death in 1950.
Yoshida was widely traveled and knowledgeable of Western aesthetics, yet maintained an allegiance to traditional Japanese techniques and traditions. Attracted by the calmer moments of nature, his prints breathe coolness, invite meditation, and set a soft, peaceful mood. All of his lifetime prints are signed “Hiroshi Yoshida” in pencil and marked with a jizuri (self-printed) seal outside of the margin. Within the image, most prints are signed “Yoshida” with brush and ink beside a red “Hiroshi” seal.


The mountain
The legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山) i  located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). Several names are attributed to it: "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san". The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji, have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳／富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers. Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

COPERNICUS CRATER AS SEEN BY J.A. GILLET AND W.J.ROLFE

JOSEPH ANTHONY GILLET ( 1837-1908)
WILLIAM JAMES ROLFE  (1827-1910)
Copernicus Crater (- 3800m / - 12467ft)
The Moon (Solar System)

In "Astronomy for the use of schools and academies", 1882,
Astronomical photography and ink
The Library of Congress

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. 

The author
William James Rolfe, Litt.D.was an American educator and Shakespearean scholar. Rolfe was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He attended Amherst College from 1845 through 1848, but left without graduating after three years due to financial hardship. Amherst, though, nonetheless later awarded him an honorary degree. Between 1852 and 1868, he served as headmaster of high schools at Dorchester, Lawrence, Salem, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1882 to 1887, he served as president of Martha's Vineyard Summer Institute. Early in his career, he edited selections from Ovid and Virgil and (in collaboration) the Cambridge Course of Physics (six volumes, 1867–68). Rolfe's Shakespearean work began with an American edition of George Lillie Craik's English of Shakespeare (3rd revised ed., 1864, , which Crosby and Ainsworth published in 1867.This led to his preparation for Harper & Brothers of a complete edition of Shakespeare – the Friendly Edition (forty volumes, 1870–83; new edition, 1903–07). Rolfe's editions proved to be the best-selling versions in America (during a time of increased use of Shakespeare in high school classrooms) due both to his credentials as a high school administrator and to his use of Bowdlerization of the text in order to remove much of Shakespeare's lewd content. Rolfe also edited a complete edition of Tennyson (twelve volumes, 1898) and verse by many of the other great English poets. He wrote a very useful Satchel Guide to Europe, revised annually for 35 years, and at least five other books.

 
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE BASTEI CLIFF PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

 

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)
The Bastei Cliff (194 m - 636 ft)
Germany  / Czech Republic border

 In "Felsenschlucht", oil on canvas , 1822

 

The rock
The Bastei (194 m - 636 ft) is a rock formation rising 194 metres above the Elbe River in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains  (723 m - 2,372 ft) of Germany. Reaching a height of 305 metres above sea level, the jagged rocks of the Bastei were formed by water erosion over one million years ago. They are situated near Rathen, not far from Pirna southeast of the city of Dresden, and are the major landmark of the Saxon Switzerland National Park. They are also part of a climbing and hiking area that extends over the borders into the Bohemian Switzerland (Czech Republic). The Bastei has been a tourist attraction for over 200 years. In 1824, a wooden bridge was constructed to link several rocks for the visitors. This bridge was replaced in 1851 by the present Bastei Bridge made of sandstone. The rock formations and vistas have inspired numerous artists, among them Caspar David Friedrich in "Felsenschlucht" (above)
The spa town of Rathen is the main base for visiting the Bastei; the town can be reached from Dresden by paddle steamer on the river Elbe.
The Bastei is one of the most prominent lookout points in Saxon Switzerland. In 1819 August von Goethe extolled the views: "Here, from where you see right down to the Elbe from the most rugged rocks, where a short distance away the crags of the Lilienstein, Königstein and Pffafenstein stand scenically together and the eye takes in a sweeping view that can never be described in words." Today the Bastei still has the highest number of visitors of all the lookout points in Saxon Switzerland. In addition to the actual vista, there are also other points of interest. At the Jahrhundertturm, a rock pinnacle on the Bastei Bridge, there are tablets commemorating the first mention of the Bastei in travel literature (in 1797) as well as the memory of Wilhelm Lebrecht Götzinger and Carl Heinrich Nicolai. These last two were amongst the pioneers of tourism in Saxon Switzerland, thanks to their descriptions of their journeys and their other works. Another tablet commemorates the Saxon court photographer, Hermann Krone, who took the first landscape photographs in Germany at the Bastei Bridge in 1853. From the Ferdinandstein, part of the Wehltürme rock towers, there is a famous view of the Bastei Bridge. It is reached over a branch from the route to the bridge. Another well-known rock formation in the vicinity of the Bastei is the Wartturm, a large piece of which broke off in 2000. Neurathen Castle, the largest rock castle in Saxon Switzerland, may be reached from the Bastei by crossing the Bastei Bridge. The ruins of the castle, some timber rebates, rooms carved out of the rock, a cistern and stone shot from a medieval catapult or slingshot may be viewed on a self-conducted circular walk. A replica slingshot was put on display in the castle in 1986. The finds from excavations in the area, especially pottery, can also be seen. The climb from Rathen to the Bastei runs past an open-air museum dedicated to Slavic settlement in the region and also past the path leading to the Rathen Open Air Stage. Another famous landmark in the local area is the fortress of Königstein.

The painter
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization"....


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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE PIC DU MIDI D'OSSAU BY THOMAS ALLOM

THOMAS ALLOM (1804-1872)
Le Pic du Midi d'Ossau  (2, 848m-9,462 ft)
France ( Pyrénées)

In "Les Eaux Bonnes dans les Pyréneées ",vers 1840, Lithographed by J. Kernot

The mountain
The Pic du Midi d'Ossau (2, 848m-9,462 ft) not to be confused with the Pic du Midi de Bigorre is a mountain rising above the Ossau Valley in the French Pyrenees. Despite possessing neither a glacier nor, in the context of the range, a particularly high summit, its distinctive shape makes it a symbol of the French side of the Pyrenees. This familiar shape also makes it easily recognisable from afar, and it is particularly distinctive from the Boulevard des Pyrénées in Pau, some 55 km to the north.
The Pic du Midi d'Ossau lies within the commune of Laruns, in the département of Pyrénées Atlantiques and the Aquitaine region of France. It lies within the fully protected area of the Pyrenees National Park. As normally seen from the north, the mountain presents itself as having two distinct peaks, although from the south two other summits are also visible. It stands separate from any surrounding peaks, being largely surrounded by the valleys of the Gave de Bious, to the west, and the Gave du Brousset, to the east. These two mountain streams come together in the hamlet of Gabas at the foot of the mountain's northern slopes, to form the Gave d'Ossau.
The valley of Ossau is placed in the Béarnaises Pyrénées, between la vallée d'Aspe and the Vallée de Gavarnie, from Rébénacq to the French-Spanish frontier (Col du Portalet). The Col d'Aubisque closes the valley to the east. The villages (from N to S) of the high Ossau are: Bilhères, Bielle, Béon, Bélesten, Gère-Bélesten, Aste-Béon, Louvie-Soubiron, Béost, Assouste, Aas, Laruns, Eaux-Bonnes, Gourette, Eaux-Chaudes, Goust, Gabas, Arouste-Fabréges and Pont de Camps.
The Pic du Midi d'Ossau was reputedly first climbed in 1552 by an expedition led by François de Foix-Candale, later to become the Bishop of Aire. Although the success of this first climb is disputed, it is known that the mountain had been successfully climbed by 1787 when a military surveyor noted that a triangulation cairn had been built on the summit. The first fully recorded climb was by Guillaume Delfau accompanied by Mathieu (a shepherd from Eaux-Bonnes) on October 2, 1797.
The mountain offers many routes of ascent; the voie normale is a serious scramble and rock climb with a grading of PD, II+, 550 m. It approaches the summit via the Refuge de Pombie, a Club Alpin Français owned mountain hut situated at 2,031 m - 6,663 ft, and requires most of a day to execute.
Two others refuges : Cabane Pyrenea Sports belonging to Société Pyrénées Sports at Pau, 25 places located on the NE shore of Lac de Bious-Artigues, and Cabane de Peyreget (1.950 m)
non guarded, 4 places located near Lac de Peyreget and W of Peyreget' little peak ridge.

 The artist
Thomas Allom was an English architect, artist, and topographical illustrator. He was a founding member of what became the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). He designed many buildings in London, including the Church of St Peter's and parts of the elegant Ladbroke Estate in Notting Hill. He also worked with Sir Charles Barry on numerous projects, most notably the Houses of Parliament, and is chiefly known for his numerous topographical works, which were used to illustrate books on travel. From the 1820s onwards, he travelled extensively through the UK and mainland Europe. In 1832 he published Westmorland, Durham and Northumberland Illustrated from Original Drawings (three volumes). In 1834 Allom arrived in Istanbul, Turkey, and produced hundreds of drawings during journeys through Anatolia, Syria and Palestine. The results of this expedition were published in 1838 in Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor published in two volumes with text by Robert Walsh.  He is also remembered for numerous illustrations of China, published in China Illustrated in 1845. He also provided illustrations for "Family Secrets" by Mrs Ellis (1841) and E W Brayley's "A topographical history of Surrey" (1850).

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MITREPEAK / RAHOTU SKETCHED BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)
Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft)
New Zealand (South Island)

  In Milford sound, series of watercolours Milford Sounbdof, 1870

The mountain
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron.
Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight. The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.
The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.
Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.


The Painter
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London, the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

 
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

NUPTSE PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE  (bn 1966)
Nuptse  (7,861 m - 25,791 ft)
Nepal

In Nuptse Himalaya ,2011, Acrylic on paper,  Courtesy John Mitchell  Gallery, London

The mountain
Nuptse or Nubtse is a mountain in the Khumbu region of the Mahalangur Himal, in the Nepalese Himalayas. It lies two kilometres WSW of Mount Everest. Nubtse is Tibetan for "west peak", as it is the western segment of the Lhotse-Nubtse massif.
The main peak, Nubtse I, was first climbed on May 16, 1961 by Dennis Davis and Sherpa Tashi and the following day by Chris Bonington, Les Brown, James Swallow and Pemba Sherpa, members of a British expedition led by Joe Walmsley. After a long hiatus, Nubtse again became the objective of high-standard mountaineers in the 1990s and 2000s, with important routes being put up on its west, south, and north faces. While Nubtse is a dramatic peak when viewed from the south or west, and it towers above the base camp for the standard south col route on Everest, it is not a particularly independent peak: its topographic prominence is only 319 m (1,047 ft). Hence it is not ranked on the list of highest mountains.

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

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau