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

EL CHIMBORAZO SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
Chimborazo (6,263 m-20,549 ft)
Ecuador

In  El Chimborazo vu de la plaine de Tapia, 1810

The mountain
El Chimborazo (6,263 m -20,548 ft) is a currently inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes ans the highest mountain in Ecuador and the Andes north of Peru ; it is higher than any more northerly summit in the Americas. Chimborazo is not the highest mountain by elevation above sea level, but its location along the equatorial bulge makes its summit the farthest point on the Earth's surface from the Earth's center.
Chimborazo is at the main end of the Ecuadorian Volcanic Arc, north west of the town of Riobamba. Chimborazo is in la Avenida de los Volcanes (the Avenue of Volcanoes) west of the Sanancajas mountain chain. Carihuairazo, Tungurahua, Tulabug, and El Altar are all mountains that neighbor Chimborazo. The closest mountain peak, Carihuairazo, is 5.8 mi (9.3 km) from Chimborazo. There are many microclimates near Chimborazo, varying from desert in the Arenal to the humid mountains in the Abraspungo valley.
Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around A.D. 550.
Until the beginning of the 19th century, it was thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth (measured from sea level), and such reputation led to many attempts on its summit during the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1746, the volcano was explored by French academicians from the French Geodesic Mission. Their mission was to determine the sphericity of the Earth. Their work along with another team in Lapland established that the Earth was an oblate spheroid rather than a true sphere. They did not reach the summit of Chimborazo.
In 1802, during his expedition to South America, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montufar, tried to reach the summit. From his description of the mountain, it seems that before he and his companions had to return suffering from altitude sickness they reached a point at 5,875 m, higher than previously attained by any European in recorded history. (Incans had reached much higher altitudes previously). In 1831, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault and Colonel Hall reached a new "highest point", estimated to be 6,006 m.
On 4 January 1880, the English climber Edward Whymper reached the summit of Chimborazo. The route that Whymper took up Chimborazo is now known as the Whymper route. Edward Whymper, and his Italian guides Louis Carrel and Jean-Antoine Carrel, were the first Europeans to summit a mountain higher than 20,000 feet. As there were many critics who doubted that Whymper had reached the summit, later in the same year he climbed to the summit again, choosing a different route (Pogyos) with the Ecuadorians David Beltrбn and Francisco Campaсa.


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

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

TORRES DEL PAINE (2) PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

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

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

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

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

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

VOLCAN PUNTIAGUDO PHOTOGRAPHED IN 1932 BY ROBERT GERSTMANN

ROBERT GERSTMANN (1896-1960)
Volcàn Puntiagudo (2, 493 m - 8, 179ft)
Chile

In Volcàn Puntiagudo, photograph,1932, Private collection

The volcano
Volcàn Puntiagudo (2, 493 m - 8, 179ft) also called Cerro Cenizas or Cerro Puntiagudo is a volcano in Chile remarkable for its volcanic chimney released by erosion and forming a summit neck. Puntiagudo is located in central Chile, in the Andes mountain range, between the Rupanco lakes to the north and Todos Los Santos to the south. Administratively, it is located on the border between the provinces of Llanquihue and Osorno of the Region of Lakes. Puntiagudo is an andesitic stratovolcano whose flanks have been eroded by glaciers, especially in their upper par1. Its summit is thus made up of a neck by the release of the volcanic chimney. This physiognomy makes it resemble Corcovado, another Chilean volcano located further south. Cordón Cenizos is a group of fissures and volcanic cones, stretches from Puntiagudo to the northeast. Puntiagudo began to be built at the end of the Pleistocene. However, its last eruption occurred on an unknown date.


The photographer
Robert Gerstmann was a photographer very famous in South America. Gerstmann was a Vienna born electrical engineer who, as a young man, developed an interest in photography. In 1924, he immigrated to Chile and from there traveled to Bolivia, where he made some 5000 photographs, a selection of which appear as photogravures in his Bolivia, 150 Grabados en Cobre (1928), which was reissued in 1996 by the Fundación Quipus in La Paz. Gerstmann ranged far, photographing the altiplano from La Paz south to the Argentine border, west to the Chilean border, and east to the Yungas, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, and the lowlands along the Ríos Beni and Mamoré. Only Tarija and the Chaco escaped his lens. Five of his photographs illustrate Stewart E. McMillan's "The Heart of Aymara Land" National Geographic Magazine (February 1927), and several appear in Gustavo-Adolfo Otero's Bolivia (Guía Sinóptica) 1929. Gerstmann settled in Santiago in 1929. He published other photo albums, including Chile: 280 grabados en cobre (1932), Colombia: 200 grabados en cobre (1951), and Chile en 110 cuadros (1960?), and dabbled in film-making in Bolivia. He is thought to have died in Santiago ca. 1960. Several thousand of his glass plates are said to be at a university in Antofagasta.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

VOLCÀN ORSONO PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROBERT GERSTMANN

 

ROBERT GERSTMANN (1896-1960)
Volcàn Orsono (2,652 m - 8700 ft)
Chile

in Lago Villarrica e Volcan Orsono, photo, 1932

The volcano
The Osorno is a stratovolcano located between the province of Osorno and that of Llanquihue, in the Lakes region of Chile. At an altitude of 2,652 meters, it is the most active volcano in the southern Chilean Andes.  It rises to the east of Lake Llanquihue, known worldwide as a symbol of the local landscape. The volcano also dominates Lake Todos los Santos. Its last eruption dates from 1869. Charles Darwin saw the Osorno from afar on his second voyage on HMS Beagle and witnessed its eruption1 in January 18352. Its first ascent was made in 1848 by Jean Renous.

The photographer
Robert Gerstmann was a photographer very famous in South America. Gerstmann was a Vienna born electrical engineer who, as a young man, developed an interest in photography. In 1924, he immigrated to Chile and from there traveled to Bolivia, where he made some 5000 photographs, a selection of which appear as photogravures in his Bolivia, 150 Grabados en Cobre (1928), which was reissued in 1996 by the Fundación Quipus in La Paz. Gerstmann ranged far, photographing the altiplano from La Paz south to the Argentine border, west to the Chilean border, and east to the Yungas, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, and the lowlands along the Ríos Beni and Mamoré. Only Tarija and the Chaco escaped his lens. Five of his photographs illustrate Stewart E. McMillan's "The Heart of Aymara Land" National Geographic Magazine (February 1927), and several appear in Gustavo-Adolfo Otero's Bolivia (Guía Sinóptica) 1929. Gerstmann settled in Santiago in 1929. He published other photo albums, including Chile: 280 grabados en cobre (1932), Colombia: 200 grabados en cobre (1951), and Chile en 110 cuadros (1960?), and dabbled in film-making in Bolivia. He is thought to have died in Santiago ca. 1960. Several thousand of his glass plates are said to be at a university in Antofagasta. 

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONTE BURNEY BY ROBERT OLIVER CUNNINGHAM

ROBERT OLIVER CUNNINGHAM (1841-1918)
Monte Burney (1,758m - 5,768 ft)
Chile

In Monte Burney, engraving, 1871

The volcano
Monte Burney (1,758m - 5,768 ft) is a volcano in southern Chile, part of its Austral Volcanic Zone which consists of six volcanoes with activity during the Quaternary.  This volcanism is linked to the subduction of the Antarctic Plate beneath the South America Plate and the Scotia Plate. The volcano is named after James Burney, a companion of James Cook.  It is one of the many English language placenames in the region, which are the product of the numerous English research expeditions such as these by Robert FitzRoy and Phillip Parker King in 1825-1830.Monte Burney is formed by a caldera with a glaciated stratovolcano on its rim. This stratovolcano in turn has a smaller caldera. An eruption is reported for 1910, with less certain eruptions in 1970 and 1920.  Tephra analysis has yielded evidence for many eruptions during the Pleistocene and Holocene, including two large explosive eruptions during the early and mid-Holocene. These eruptions deposited significant tephra layers over Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

The naturalist
Robert Oliver Cunningham  was a Scottish naturalist. In January 1866 he was appointed Professor of Natural History in the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, but resigned in June in consequence of being appointed by the Admiralty to collect plants as naturalist on board HMS Nassau, ] then commissioned for the survey of the Straits of Magellan and the west coast of Patagonia.  This voyage started on 24 August 1866 from the Thames, and on 18 February 1967 she arrived in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands to coal, departing again on 2 March, much to Cunningham's regret. They returned to the Falklands in 1868 enabling Cunningham to explore and study the plants and seaweeds on East Falkland returning a third time early in 1869.  The Nassau returned to England on 31 July 1869 but Cunningham remained employed by the Navy so that he could write up his natural history notes and his narrative of the voyage, this was published in 1871 as The Natural History of the Straits of Magellan.  In all, Cunningham published 18 scientific papers before 1872 his first which was about gannets was his theses but the others were mainly on his observations from voyage of the Nassau.  He presented some of these papers to the Zoological Society of London and to the Linnean Society, becoming a fellow of the latter in 1870.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

 

DEDO DE DEUS PAINTED BY ELISEU VISCONTI

ELISEU VISCONTI (1866-1944)
Dedo de Deus (1,682m - 5,551ft)
Brazil

The mountain
Dedo de Deus (The Finger of God) (1,682m - 5,551ft) is a peck whose outline resembles a hand pointing the index finger to the sky. It is one of the several geological monuments of Serra dos Órgãos which is located in Serra do Mar, between the cities of Petrópolis, Guapimirim and Teresópolis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. The mountaineering in Brazil is closely linked to the achievement of the Dedo de deus. The peak is a state symbol Rio de Janeiro, appearing on its flag and coat of arms. As for the coat of arms of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the first section, occupying the upper half, is blue, representing the sky and symbolizing justice, truth and loyalty, with the silhouette of the Serra dos Órgãos, highlighting the Dedo de Deus.  The symbol was created by the 1892 State Constitution and made official under the government of José Tomás da Porciúncula, with small differences over time.  In 1912, José Guimarães Teixeira, Raul Carneiro and the brothers Américo, Alexandre and Acácio de Oliveira, all from Teresópolis, were the first to step on top of the rock formation.

The artist
Eliseu Visconti, born Eliseo d'Angelo Visconti was an Italian-born Brazilian painter, cartoonist, and teacher. He is considered one of the very few impressionist painters of Brazil. He is considered the initiator of the art nouveau in Brazil.
Thanks to a prize received in 1892, Visconti travelled to Paris, where he attended the École des Beaux Arts the following year. He also took classes at the Académie Julian and the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, where he was a pupil of art nouveau master Eugène Grasset. He was accepted at the Salon de la Nationale des Beaux Arts and at the Salon of the Société of des Artistes Français. As one of the Brazilian representatives to the Exposition Universelle 1900 he exhibited the paintings Gioventú and Oréadas, for which he received a silver medal. Back in Brazil, Visconti exhibited in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and obtained the first place in a contest for the drawing of postal stamps for the Brazilian Casa da Moeda.  He traveled again to Europe, where he exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1905 the portrait of the artist Nicolina Vaz de Assis now at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes. In this same year, he was invited to paint the stage curtain for the Teatro Municipal of Rio de Janeiro which he completed in his studio in Paris.
Decorative schemes executed for the National Library or Biblioteca Nacional in (Rio de Janeiro) date from this period as does another gold medal he received at the International Exhibition of Saint-Louis (Louisiana Purchase Exposition), in 1904, for the painting Recompensa de São Sebastião (see external links). The museum of Santiago of the Chile acquired his Sonho Místico (Mystical Dream) in 1912.  In 1913, Visconti returned to Europe in order to paint large scale panels for the "foyer" of the Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. His plans to return were interrupted by the First World War so he stayed in France until 1920. The resulting paintings for the "foyer" were sent to Brazil during the war, in 1915.  In 1922 his triptych "Lar" gained him the Medal of Honor in a large exhibition created in Rio de Janeiro to commemorate the first centennial of Brazilian Independence, the Exposição do Centenário.  The following year Visconti painted the mural decoration of Rio de Janeiro's municipal council hall. In 1924, he painted the panel depicting the signature of the first Republican Constitution, for the old federal court, also in Rio de Janeiro.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

EL TUPUNGATO PAINTED BY RAMOS CATALAN

  

RAMOS CATALAN ( 1888-1961)

El Tupungato (6,635 m - 21,768 ft ) 

Chili Argentina border

 In Tupungato at sunset, oil on canvas, 1930, Valparaiso Fine Art Museum, Chile

The volcano
Tupungato (6,635m -  one of the highest mountains in the Americas, is a massive Andean lava dome dating to Pleistocene times.  It lies on the border between the Chilean Metropolitan Region (near a major international highway about 80 km (50 mi) east of Santiago) and the Argentine province of Mendoza, about 100 km (62 mi) south of Aconcagua, the highest peak of both the Southern and Western hemispheres. Immediately to its southwest is the active Tupungatito volcano (literally, little Tupungato), which last erupted in 1987.
Tupungato Department, an important Argentine wine-producing region in Mendoza province, is named for the volcano.

The painter
Benito Ramos Catalán (1888-1961) was a chilean painter who used to sign "Ramos Catalan". Known for his marines and landscapes of the Andes and Chile, and most particularly for his mountains paintings. Most of them have the same title: "Mountains of Chile" or "Mountains landscapes of Andes", making quite difficult to know which mountain was exactly depicted, in a country which has quite a lot of summits ! To add to the difficulty, he used to paint the most famous mountains of his country under very unusual angles or with proportions that do not correspond exactly to their real size... making even more difficult to recognize and identify them for experts ! That is why today, 55 years after his death, some of these mountains paintings are not clearly identified and presented, in the public sales, as 'possibly' a particular summit of Chile or Andes...
His works are in many Chilean institutions like Viña del Mar Fine Art Museum, O'Higginiano Fine Art Museum in Talca, Valparaiso Fine Art Museum, and Navy Schools in Valparaiso and Talcahuano, Ranos.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

TOIRRES DEL PAINE PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)

Torres del Paine (2,500 m - 8,200 ft) 

Chile 

In Torres del paine and single cloud, oil on vanvas 2018, courtesy John Mitchell Gallery

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

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

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

CERRO TORRE (3) PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)

Cerro Torre (3,128 m - 10,262 ft)

Argentina, Chile border

In Cerro Torre, 2018, oil on canvas, Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery London

The mountain
Cerro Torre (3,128 m - 10,262 ft) is one of the mountains of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in South America. It is located in the border between Argentina and Chile, west of Cerro Chalten /Fitz Roy. The peak is the highest in a four mountain chain: the other peaks are Torre Egger (2,685 m), Punta Herron, and Cerro Standhardt. The top of the mountain often has a mushroom of rime ice, formed by the constant strong winds, increasing the difficulty of reaching the actual summit.
Cesare Maestri claimed in 1959 that he and Toni Egger had reached the summit and that Egger had been swept to his death by an avalanche while they were descending. Maestri declared that Egger had the camera with the pictures of the summit, but this camera was never found. Inconsistencies in Maestri's account, and the lack of bolts, pitons or fixed ropes on the route, have led most mountaineers to doubt Maestri's claim.
More about the mountain =>

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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2020 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

CERRO EL AVILA PAINTED BY FRITZ MELBYE

 

 FRITZ MELBYE (1826-1896)  

Cerro El Avila / Pico Naiguatá (2,765m - 9,072ft)

Venezuela

 In Vista de Caracas y del Cerro El Avila, oil on canvas

 The mountain
 Pico Naiguatá (2,765m - 9,072ft) is the summit of a mountain called Cerro el Avila in South America near Caracas, Venezuela, part of the Venezuelan Coastal Range, of which it is the highest peak. It is situated on the border of the Venezuelan states Miranda and Vargas. It is the highest point in both of these states and the fourth highest of the Caribbean after Pico Simón Bolivar and Pico Cristóbal Colón of The Santa Marta Coastal range in Colombia and Pico Duarte in the Dominican Republic.
The El Ávila National Park (or Waraira Repano, from an indigenous name for the area) protects part of the Cordillera de la Costa Central mountain range, in the coastal region of central-northern Venezuela. El Ávila National Park is located along the central section of the Cordillera de la Costa mountain system, in the Cordillera de la Costa Central mountain range. El Ávila was declared a park in 1958, fulfilling an interest in its protection that had been prevalent since the 19th century. With its creation came the protection of the forested mountains that surround Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. These mountains now serve as both a recreational area and as a buffer to pollution and urban expansion. El Ávila has always been an important resource for the inhabitants of Caracas, who have used the area for a variety of activities, some of which have threatened its conservation.

The painter 

Fritz Sigfred Georg Melbye  was a Danish marine painter, the brother of Anton Melbye and Vilhelm Melbye who were also marine painters. He traveled widely, painting seascapes, coastal and harbour scenes as well as some landscapes in Europe, the Caribbean, Venezuela, North America and Asia.

In 1849, he set off for the Danish West Indies, settling on Saint Thomas. There he met the young Camille Pissarro whom he inspired to take up painting as a full-time profession. Pissarro became his pupil as well as close friend.

In April 1852, Melbye was on Saint Croix, preparing a trip to Venezuela. Pissarro decided to join him and they spent two years together in Caracas and the harbour city of La Guaira before Pissarro returned to Saint Thomas. Melbye stayed until 1856 and then briefly returned to Europe, living some time in Paris, before traveling to North America where he set up a studio in New York City.

He continued to travel widely, mainly to the Caribbean but also north to Newfoundland. A close friend in New York and frequent travelling companion on his Caribbean travels was the famous American landscape painter Frederick Church who also had a studio in New York.

In 1866, Melbye set off on a journey to the Far East in search of new adventures, leaving his studio in Church's care. In Asia he used Peking as a base for travels around the region which also took him to Japan. He died in Shanghai three years later.

Fritz Melbye initially painted seascapes in the family tradition his brother had taught him, but he increasingly turned to landscapes, coastal and town views with mountains. He preferred a realistic style, often with romantic scenes. He exhibited at Charlottenborg in Copenhagen from 1849-1858.

In Peking he was commissioned to paint the Imperial Summer Palace and during his years in America he exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

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Wandering Vertexes 2020
A blog by Francis Rousseau 

CERRO ACONCAGUA BY LEO WEHRLI

 

LEO WEHRLI (1870–1854)

Cerro Aconcagua (6, 961m - 22,838ft) 

Argentina

In Aconcagua, von der Cumbre de Uspallata, photo1897, hand colorized by Anna Wehrli-Frey 1918,

ETH Library, Zurich 

The mountain
Cerro Aconcagua (6,961 meters -22,838 ft) is the highest mountain outside of Asia and by extension the highest point in both the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere.
Aconcagua is not a volcano.
The origin of the name is contested; it is either from the Mapuche "Aconca-Hue", which refers to the Aconcagua River, the Quechua "Ackon Cahuak", meaning "Sentinel of Stone", or Quechua "Anco Cahuac", meaning "White Sentinel" or the Aymara "Janq'u Q'awa" meaning "White Ravine", "White Brook".
Aconcagua is located in the Andes mountain range, in the Mendoza Province, Argentina, and lies 112 kilometers (70 mi) northwest of its capital, the city of Mendoza and 108 km (67 mi) from Santiago de Chile (the capital of Chile). The summit is in fact located about 5 kilometers from San Juan Province and 15 kilometers from the international border with Chile; its nearest higher neighbor is Tirich Mir in the Hindu Kush, 16,520 kilometers (10,270 mi) away.
Aconcagua is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. The 7 summits (which are obviously 8 !)... are :  Mt Everest (8,848m),  Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m), Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Vinson Massif (4,892m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko (2,228m). Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass.
The mountain and its surroundings are part of the Aconcagua Provincial Park. The mountain has a number of glaciers. The largest glacier is the Ventisquero Horcones Inferior at about 10 km long, which descends from the south face to about 3600 m altitude near the Confluencia camp. Two other large glacier systems are the Ventisquero de las Vacas Sur and Glaciar Este/Ventisquero Relinchos system at about 5 km.

The photographer
Leo Wehrli was a Swiss geologist, professor and explorer. After studying music, botany, chemistry, mineralogy, petrography and geology in Berlin and Zurich, Wehrli became assistant to Albert Heim. Immediately after completing his thesis, he left for Argentina with the famous Carl Emanuel Burckhardt in 1896. Accredited by the La Plata Museum and the government of Argentina, he explored the Andes he crossed at least five times during a stay of two years. His work was more particularly oriented on the delimitation of the border between Argentina and Chile after the agreement signedbetween these two countries in 1881 and on the determination of the property of mountain peaks, ridge lines and basins slopes.
After his return to Switzerland, he worked between 1900 and 1935 as a teacher and then lecturer for the Geol. Centralblatt in Berlin ; between 1901 and 1912, he wrote nearly 500 articles. He made other trips through Europe and North Africa (Egypt) before going back to Argentina again in 1938. He has summarized his research results in numerous articles, notably in the Geographic Lexicon of Switzerland. He participated in the founding of the Zurich Adult Education Center and gave lectures there from 1921 to 1953. From 1931 to 1951 he was a member of the Swiss Alpine Club SAC commission for the Central Library and has was president for 14 years.
Wehrli left a collection of 15,000 slides, some of which were hand-colored by his wife, born Anna Frey. A large part of the works is made available online by the photographic archives of the ETH-Bibliothek in Zurich.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

EL ALTAR / CAPAK URCU PAINTED BY KONSTANTIN BOGAEVSKY

 

KONSTANTIN  BOGAEVSKY (1872-1943)
El Altar / Capak Urcu (5,319 m (17,451 ft)
Ecuador

In Altars, 1907, Private collection 

The mountain
El Altar (5,319 m - 17,451 ft) or Capac Urcu (in Kitchwa)  is an extinct volcano on the western side of Sangay National Park in Ecuador, 170 km (110 mi) south of Quito. Spaniards named it so because it resembled two nuns and four friars listening to a bishop around a church altar. In older English sources it is also called The Altar.
The mountain consists of a large stratovolcano of Pliocene-Pleistocene age with a caldera breached to the west. Inca legends report that the top of Altar collapsed after seven years of activity in about 1460, but the caldera is considered to be much older than this by geologists. Nine major peaks over 5,000 metres (16,400 ft) form a horseshoe-shaped ridge about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) across, surrounding a central basin that contains a crater lake at about 4,200 m (13,800 ft), known as Laguna Collanes or Laguna Amarilla. 

 The painter
Konstantin Fyodorovich Bogaevsky  was a Russian painter notable for his Symbolist landscapes who  took first lessons in art from Ivan Aivazovsky.  1891-1897 he studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in the class of Arkhip Kuindzhi. The art of young Konstantin was not popular with the Academy and he was even at some stage temporarily discharged from the Academy for "lack of talent". Despite this, Kuindzhi always had a high respect for his pupil and protected him. In 1898 Konstantin traveled to Italy and France where he became acquainted with the works of Claude Lorrain, whom he proclaimed as his true teacher. His first exhibition was in Moscow in 1898.
From 1900 Bogaevsky worked in Feodosia. The main theme of his works became the symbolist landscapes of a non-existent land (known to his friends as Bogaevia) that he saw only in his dreams. Konstantin Bogaevsky became a popular painter after Maximilian Voloshin published a series of essays titled Konstantin Bogaevsky. Voloshin highly praised the symbolism of Bogaevsky's paintings. Contemporaries often drew parallels between Bogaevsky and Nicholas Roerich.
Bogaevsky was a member of Mir iskusstva, Union of Russian Artists, and the Zhar-Tsvet. In 1906 he exhibited his paintings on Exposition de l'Art Russe organized by Sergei Diaghilev. In 1911 he visited Italy and discovered for himself the paintings of Andrea Mantegna, which were to strongly influence Bogaevsky's own later work.
Bogaevsky returned in 1912 to Feodosia where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He maintained a friendship of many years with another famous Feodosian and a bard of a non-existent land, Alexander Grin, as well as with the Koktebel group of Russian Intelligentsia including Maximilian Voloshin, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Osip Mandelstam.
After the October Revolution Bogaevsky retreated into relative obscurity, although works such as the 1932 Port of an Imaginary City were highly regarded as art in the school of Socialist Realism painting of the DnieproGES.
A minor planet, 3839 Bogaevskij, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1971, is named after him.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CERRO RICO PAINTED BY GASPAR MIGUEL DE BERRIO

 

GASPAR MIGUEL DE BERRIO  (1706-1762)

Cerro Rico (4,782 m - 15,689 ft)

Bolivia

  In Vista panoracmica de Potosi, oil on canvas,  Museo de Charcas, Sucre, Bolivia

The mountain
Cerro Rico  (4,782 m - 15,689 ft) "rich mountain" in spanish or  Cerro Potosí or Sumaq Urqu,  "beautiful, good, pleasant mountain" in Quechua, is a mountain in the Andes near the Bolivian city of Potosí. Cerro Rico, which is popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore, was famous for providing vast quantities of silver for Spain during the period of the New World Spanish Empire. It is estimated that 85%percent of the silver produced in the central Andes during this time came from Cerro Rico. As a result of mining  operations in the mountain, the city of Potosí became one of the largest cities in the New World.
Cerro Rico de Potosí was accidentally discovered in 1545 by Diego de Huallpa, a Quechua silver miner for Spanish invaders, while he was searching the mountain for an Inca shrine or traditional burial offering.  The red mountain, now known as Cerro Rico, sits nestled between the Porco and Sucre mines, which had previously been discovered, being at lower altitudes and therefore easier to mine. However, once Cerro Rico was found to carry predominantly silver ores, mining focus shifted to the harvesting of the more costly ore over ores like tin, zinc, and lead found in Porco and Sucre. Now one of the largest silver mines in Bolivia, and in the world, the Cerro Rico de Potosí mine has estimated reserves of 1.76 billion ounces of silver and 540 million tons of ore grading 0.17% tin. After centuries of brutal Spanish extraction and forced labor, decades of foreign control and private investment in the late 20th century, and the failure of the state-run mining company COMIBOL led to the displacement of 25,000 miners following plummeting mineral prices in the 1990s, "informal, self-managed associations" began selling "unrefined product to private operators".Bolivia's cooperative mining sector, whose center is in Potosí, has been given many privileges included favorable tax treatment and exemption from labor and environmental regulations since the election of socialist president Evo Morales in 2006. National Federation of Mining Cooperatives in Bolivia (FENCOMIN)  was a vital player in insuring the successful popular election of Evo Morales and also functioned as one of the leaders in drafting Bolivia's new constitution establishing a plural mining economy (state, private, and cooperative). However, over the last ten years much conflict has arisen between cooperative miners and state miners. In 2006, state miners and cooperatives clashed at Huanuni leaving 16 dead leading to the firing of Morales' first Mining Minister, a member of FENCOMIN. Most recently in 2016, Bolivia's Deputy Interior Minister Rodolfo Illanes was tortured and killed, allegedly by a Bolivian mining cooperative. This outburst of violence has led to clashes between cooperative miners and the police leaving five miners dead and severing a decade of strong ties between cooperative mining and the Morales government

The painter 
Gaspar Miguel de Berrío was a painter, representative of the South American baroque who worked in Potosí, then viceroyalty of Peru in Upper Peru but nowadays located in present-day Bolivia.
He is listed as one of the main representatives of the Potosí school, after Melchor Pérez de Holguín, of which he is said to have been a disciple. His work combines religious themes, echoes of  "spanish darkness", the use of gold leaf and   landscapes of his pwn city,  the very rich Potosy town.
It is credited today with about thirty paintings, generally of good quality, such as : The panoramic view of Potosí, (above) today at the Museum of Charcas in Sucre the Adorations of the Shepherds and Kings, at the National Museum of La Paz, the Patronage of San José and others at the National Currency Museum.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

EL PANECILLO BY ERNEST CHARTON DE TREVILLE

 

ERNEST CHARTON DE TREVILLE (1816-1877),

El Panecillo (3,016 m - 9,895 ft)

Ecuador

In Vista de Quito, Ecuador , 1860, oil on canvas  58 x 90cm, Private collection

The mountain
El Panecillo (3,016 m - 9,895 ft) from Spanish: "bun" is a hill overlooking Quito at the top of which is the statue of the welle known Virgin of Quito. El Panecillo can be seen at the south end of Venezuela Street, one of the longest in the old town. From its summit, one can see the historic battlefield where Marshal Sucre defeated the Spanish in the decisive battle of independence in 1822 on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano to the west.

The painter
Ernest-Marc-Jules Charton Thiessen of Treville better known as Ernest Charton or Ernesto Charton was a French painter, famous for his pastel portraits and realistic- style customary paintings. He made most of his artistic career in South America - particularly in Argentina Chile and Ecuador -, a continent where his first name, as was customary at the time, was Castilianized, which is why he was known as Ernesto Charton.
He was initially established in Valparaíso (Chile), but in 1848 he moved to Santiago where he opened a studio neighboring that of Raymond Monvoisin, another French pioneer of Chilean painting and also belonging to traveling artists as was also at that time the watercolorist Carlos Wood.
Brother of Edouard Charton, director of the Parisian magazine Le Tour du Monde Ernesto was a typical adventurous artist of the nineteenth century in search of the most exotic expressions of unexplored nature, following in this aspect the motivation of numerous European painters of the time. Many of his American experiences were reflected in the L'llustration , a magazine also directed by his brother and of which he was a correspondent, sending not only chronicles but also drawings, such as those he sent from the streets of Valparaíso before the bombing. He also sent a drawing of the bombing of Callao, which was recorded by Louis Le Breton and published on June 23.
Tempted by the gold rush in California he embarked on October 25, 1848 on the schooner Rosa Segunda, who arrived in the Galapagos Islands within two weeks to get water; when most of the passengers were ashore, the ship abandoned them to their fate. The painter, like his companions, lost everything, including his works.
Charton, who in 1862 would return to Ecuador, managed to settle in Quito with the help of the French consul. He taught drawing and painting at the University of that city; in addition, he directed the Miguel de Santiago Liceo of Painting, a direct antecedent of the School of Fine Arts of that country. As a result of his stay in Ecuador, he left a 48-watercolors album (cf. above)
He returned to France, but in 1855 he returned to Chile with his family; he gained fame as a portraitist, landscaper and teacher. In this last quality he had a famous controversy with the first director of the Academy of Painting of Santiago. ]
In 1870 he left Chile to Argentina, crossing the Andes. From that experience, his large oil painting was born the following year View of the Andes mountain range (115x197cm) that is today in the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBABA) of that country, in Buenos Aires, city where he settled until his death.
In addition to the countries mentioned, he travelled in Italy, Panama (when it was still part of Colombia) and Peru .
As a Photographer, he used snapshots as a base for his paintings, portraying typical clothes, customs and parties that he then tracked to the web.
Charton's works are characterized by their vibrant color and the realistic expression of popular customs and motifs. He left among his students from Chile, Ecuador and Argentina this cultural vision of pictorial realism applied to the theme of each country, leaving aside religious, mythological or literally copied motifs of European models.
His paintings can be seen in museums in Argentina, Chile and Ecuador.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes
A blog by Francis Rousseau

EL COTOPAXI ATTRIBUTED TO RAFAEL TROYA

RAFAEL TROYA (1845 - 1920)  (attributed to...)
Cotopaxi (5,897 m - 19,347 ft)
Ecuador

 In   Cotopaxi volcano, Ecuador,  oil on canvas  50.1 x 76.2cm, Private collection

The mountain
Cotopaxi is an active stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains, which rises at 5,897 m - 19,347 ft and is 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
Rafael Troya (1845-1920) was an Ecuadorian painter born, the son of the painter Vicente Troya. Being a teenager, he is taken to the Colegio de la Compañia de Jesus in Quito, but he soon abandons the clerical career to dedicate himself to what was his true vocation: painting. With the painter Luis Cadena, he learns the technique of colors. In 1872, he definitely choose the landscape and accompanied Reis and Stübel on their study trips in Ecuador on Nature and Archeology. Troya becomes the portraitist of nature, painting compositions full of color and life. In 1890 he came back in the capital of Imbabureña, and decided to be completely dedicated to his art. There he made several masterpieces, such as the paintings on the Apostles, which today are admired in the Ibarra Cathedral, the Ibarra Foundation, preserved in the Hall of the city of Ibarra; Allegory of love, panoramic view of Ibarra; The earthquake of Imbabura, and several religious canvases that are conserved in some churches of Quito, in the church of Caranqui and in the Museum of the Central Bank of Quito. In his paintings, green and bluish tones predominate, characteristic of his native land. He painted a lot of mountains of the Andes and the most famous volcanoes of the Cordillera.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CERRO PICO DEL BARROSO PAINTED BY ANTONIO SMITH

 

ANTONIO SMITH (1832-1877)
Cerro Pico del Barroso (4 ,858 m - 15, 938 ft)

Chile

In El rio Cachapoal (Rancagua o'Higgins region, Chile), 1870

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile

The mountains
Cerro Pico del Barroso (4 ,858 m - 15, 938 ft) is a mountain  is located in the province of Provincia de Cachapoal and the region of Región de O'Higgins, in the southern part of the Chile, 110 km southeast of the capital Santiago de Chile. The terrain around Cerro Pico del Barroso is mainly mountainous, but to the southeast it is hilly.  Around Cerro Pico del Barroso is very sparsely populated, with 5 inhabitants per square kilometer. There are no communities nearby.
The Rio Cachapoal, which means "green" in the Mapudungun language, is a river in Chile located in the region of the Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins. It flows into Lake Rapel. He gave his name to the Province of Cachapoal
It is a river of pluvio-nival regime, it has its source in the Andes, in the region of the Overo volcano, the Pico del Barroso and the Nevado de los Piuquenes.






The painter
Painter and caricaturist Chilean, Antonio Smith is considered the first satirico-politico artist of his country and one of the first truly contemporary painters, mainly cultivated the romantic landscape and exerted a considerable influence on later artists like Pedro Lira.
Son of an English father and Spanish mother, Antonio Smith studied at the National Institute of the Chilean capital, and then entered the Academy of fine arts, directed at that time by the Italian Alejandro Ciccarelli. During this time, the lessons taught in the Centre were subordinate to the rigid rules of pictorial academicism, inspired in turn by neoclassicism; This environment wasn't the young artist, who because of his disagreements with Ciccarelli, became the first student that would disappear from the Academy before the end of the studies. His eternal spirit of rebellion also led him to abandon the military career (1857), which had initiated in the cavalry squadron of grenadiers, to begin a life of dissident and 'Bohemian' artist, and frequent the most critical intellectual circles with the ruling classes of the country; then dedicated themselves to publishing cartoons in the pages of the literary mail that ridiculed to various public figures of the era, including, as not, the own Ciccarelli. The increasingly critical tone that was acquiring finally forced him to leave the country and go to Europe; This European stage, during which he/she worked in several Italian and French, painting workshops was crucial in defining its pictorial style and the definitive removal of academicism. In 1866 he/she returned to Chile, where he/she developed the rest of his career.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CERRO CHACHE PAINTED BY ONOFRE JARPA-LABRA

 

ONOFRE JARPA-LABRA (1849 - 1940)

Cerro Chache   (2, 333 m  - 7,654 ft)

Chile

In Cordillera de Petorca,  oil on canvas, 1933, Museo nacional debellas Artes Santiago, Chile 

The mountain 
Cerro Chache is a Chilean mountain, the highest summit of the central Costa mountain range, located in Cabildo in the Valparaíso Region. It is part of the so-called Melon mountain range, which runs between the La Ligua River and the Aconcagua River. The Cerro Chache is accessed by the Las Pataguas Mineral, just over 15 km southeast of La Ligua. Its approach and ascent involve at least two days of excursion.
From its summit you can see Mount Aconcagua, Cerro La Campana, Cerro El Roble, as well as much of the Melon mountain range and the coast of the Valparaíso region.
It is common to read that El Roble Hill or that the Altos de Cantillana correspond to the highest heights of the Costa mountain range in its central section. However, there are certain sources that cite the Chache hill as the highest altitude. The discussion basically lies in the interlacing of mountain ranges that predominate in this transitional zone from Transversal Valleys to Longitudinal Valley, which causes confusion when talking about Chache Hill, when taking it as part of the transverse cord that separates the hydrographic holes of the La Ligua River and the Aconcagua River. This thesis is denied, when studying the letters of the Military Geographical Institute or ascending to the hill El Roble or the hill La Campana, and realizing that the Chache hill is in a continuous line towards the north, distancing itself from the sea almost by the same kilometers in a straight line, like the El Roble hill, and also that the adjacent transverse cord, in the east direction, which joins it to the Andes mountain range, is of lower altitude than the entire Melon mountain range, where the Chache hill. These tests make it the highest altitude of this section of the Chilean Coast Range.

The painter 
The  Chilean landscape painter  Onofre Jarpa Labra was a Romantic style painter and an essayist on various artistic topics. His education began at the Instituto Nacional, a prestigious school that has produced many of Chile's presidents. He continued his studies at the Academia de Bellas Artes, directed by the conservative Italian painter Alejandro Ciccarelli, who resigned in 1869 and was replaced by the German painter, Ernesto Kirchbach, who took a progressive approach that was more amenable to Jarpa's temperament.
In 1875, he won second prize at an international exhibition in Santiago and, six years later, received a government grant to study in Europe, where he visited Spain, Rome and Paris. In Spain, he worked with Francisco Pradilla, who had a major influence on his style. His most important period, however, came during his stay in Venice, where his style became more Naturalistic and he began producing still-lifes. He also became devoted to painting en plein air. After his European tour, he visited the Holy Land, where he painted scenes from the River Jordan and Mount Carmel.
Upon returning to Chile, he became a teacher. Among his best-known students were José Tomás Errázuriz, Alberto Valenzuela Llanos and the caricaturist Jorge Délano Frederick.  He resisted the trends toward French Impressionism, represented by his former classmate, Juan Francisco González, although he was on good terms with the Grupo Montparnasse and the Generación del 13.
In addition to his landscapes and still lifes, he painted several portraits of notable public figures. A quiet, deeply religious man, he continued to paint almost until the day of his death. Most of his works are now in private collection.

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2020 - Men Portraits
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

RITACUBA BIANCO PAINTED BY RAFAEL TROYA

 

RAFAEL TROYA (1845-1920)

Ritacuba Bianco ( 5,410 m (17,750 ft) 

Colombia

In  Vista de la Cordillera Oriental desde Tiopullo, 1914, óleo/lienzo, 99 x 169 cm, Museo Nacional del Banco Central del Ecuador, Quito

The mountain
Ritacuba Bianco ( 5,410 m (17,750 ft) (in the background of the painting)  is the highest peak of Cordillera Oriental, in the Andes Mountains of Colombia. It's also named Ritak'uwa, an ancient name from the U'wa indigenous people that live in the lowlands of the National Park Sierra Nevada del Cocuy y Güicán, where the Ritacuba Blanco is located. The summit is accessible from the west via the town of El Cocuy, the village of Güicán and the hamlet of Las Cabañas. Because of global warming, its glacier is melting at very high rates, backing down 25 linear mts per year; same is happening at amazing speeds to all other snow-covered tropical mountains in Colombia.
 In 1950, Ritacuba Blanco's glacier extended down to 4,500 metres (14,800 ft) above sea level; in January 2007 its lowest point was at 4,800 metres (15,700 ft) above sea level. If this melting rate continues, the glacier is expected to disappear before 2025.

The painter
Rafael Troya (1845-1920) was an Ecuadorian painter born, the son of the painter Vicente Troya. Being a teenager, he is taken to the Colegio de la Compañia de Jesus in Quito, but he soon abandons the clerical career to dedicate himself to what was his true vocation: painting. With the painter Luis Cadena, he learns the technique of colors. In 1872, he definitely choose the landscape and accompanied Reis and Stübel on their study trips in Ecuador on Nature and Archeology. Troya becomes the portraitist of nature, painting compositions full of color and life. In 1890 he came back in the capital of Imbabureña, and decided to be completely dedicated to his art. There he made several masterpieces, such as the paintings on the Apostles, which today are admired in the Ibarra Cathedral, the Ibarra Foundation, preserved in the Hall of the city of Ibarra; Allegory of love, panoramic view of Ibarra; The earthquake of Imbabura, and several religious canvases that are conserved in some churches of Quito, in the church of Caranqui and in the Museum of the Central Bank of Quito. In his paintings, green and bluish tones predominate, characteristic of his native land. He painted a lot of mountains of the Andes and the most famous volcanoes of the Cordillera.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CERRO POINCENOT PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966),

Cerro Poincenot (3,002 m - 9,848 ft)

Argentina - Chile 

In  Cerro Poincenot and glacier, acrylic and pencil on card, 12x15cm. 2018, Private collection

The mountain
Ceero Poincenot or Poincenot Needle (3002 m - 9,848 ft) is a mountain located to the east of the Southern Patagonian ice field in the sector pending delimitation on the border between Argentina (Province of Santa Cruz) and Chile (Region of Magallanes and the Chilean Antarctic) dating from the 1998 Agreement;.  This sector is from the south of Mount Fitz Roy to Cerro Murallón, in the Treaty it was intended to delimit from Fitz Roy to Cerro Daudet, however, due to disagreement as to delimit the northern sector, it was only defined from the Hill Murallón to the Daudet. Because of this, its political and neutral status is that of an international hill, and of which it belongs to both countries, of which both must define a definitive border.
The mountainous group to which it belongs forms one of the great nunataks of the Patagonian ice field. The spire is located south of Mount Fitz Roy (which measures about 350 meters more), and stands out for its pointed figure and vertical walls.
The summit was named in memory of the French mountaineer Jacques Poincenot, who died during the French expedition to reach the top of Mount Fitz Roy for the first time, composed of Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone. During the long walk to Fitz Roy, Poincenot drowned in the Fitz Roy River.5 His remains rest in the town of Puerto Santa Cruz.
The first ascent was made in 1962 by the Irishman Frank Cochrane and the British Don Whillans, who used the southwest face.

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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2020 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau