JEBEL AÏSSA PEINT PAR AZOUAOU MAMMERI

AZOUAOU MAMMERI (1890-1954)
Jebel Aïssa (2,236 m- 7,336ft)
Algérie

In Le Bouvier Et Son Troupeau, Musée national des Beaux Arts d'Alger, Belouizdad

La montagne
Jebel Aïssa (2 236 m) en arabe جبل عيسى‎ ou Mont Issa est une montagne située à l'ouest de l'Algérie,  la 4ème plus haute du pays. Elle fait partie de la chaîne des Ksour de l'Atlas saharien, au sein du plus grand système montagneux de l'Atlas. Le Jebel Aïssa est situé dans la province du Naâma et constitue l'un des principaux sommets des montagnes de l'Atlas saharien.
Le parc national de Jebel Aissa est une zone protégée au sein de la montagne depuis 2003.
La chaîne des Ksour (جبال القصور‎) ou Jebel Ksour, s'étendant sur les provinces de Béchar et d'El Bayadh, c'est la chaîne la plus occidentale de l'Atlas saharien, avec la chaîne de l'Amour plus à l'est.
L'art néolithique, sous forme de pierres gravées représentant des chevaux, des éléphants et d'autres animaux, se retrouve dans différentes grottes et parois à travers le massif (comme à Thyout).

Le peintre
Azouaou Mammeri (en kabyle: Azwaw At Mɛemmer,),  est un peintre algérien.Issu de la tribu des Aït Yenni, il est le plus illustre représentant de la famille Mammeri qui, depuis les débuts de la présence française en Kabylie a fourni de nombreux Amin-El-Oumena et des caïds à l'administration. Il appartient à la même famille que l'écrivain et anthropologue Mouloud Mammeri. Son petit-fils Azwaw Mammeri (1954-2021), qui signe « Azwaw », est également peintre.
De 1906 à 1909 il suit les cours de l'École Normale d'Alger (Bouzaréah) et part visiter la France avec un groupe d'élèves.
Il est nommé instituteur en octobre 1909 à Toudja, près de Béjaia. Il y fait la connaissance d'Édouard Herzig qui le conseille à ses débuts de peintre.
En 1913 il est nommé à Gouraya entre Cherchell et Ténès et y est remarqué par Léon Carré qui lui fait partager durant huit mois son savoir pictural.
En 1916 il se rend à Fès auprès de son cousin précepteur du prince Mohamed (futur Mohamed V) fils du Sultan Moulay Youssef, et il est successivement professeur à Fès et Rabat, puis professeur de dessin d'ornement au collège musulman de Rabat.
En 1921 Léonce Bénédite acquiert pour le Musée du Luxembourg ses deux premières toiles exposées. Revenu en Algérie en 1922, rappelé comme caid du douar des Beni-Yenni, Azouaou Mammeri obtient en 1922 du Gouvernement général d'Algérie une bourse d'études pour l'Espagne dont il ramène en 1924 de nombreuses toiles peintes à Cordoue, Grenade, Séville ou Tolède. Il retourne au Maroc en 1927, et occupe les postes de professeur de dessin à Fez, d'inspecteur régional des arts indigènes à Rabat en 1928, et le 1er janvier 1929 est nommé inspecteur des arts marocains à Marrakech poste qu'il conservera jusqu'en 1948. Il fonde après sa retraite un musée des Arts indigènes à Dar Si Said (Marrakech), une école et des orchestres de musique andalouse et de chants berbères, disposant d'une émission hebdomadaire sur Radio Rabat.
Il est fait chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur en 1950.
Il sera également illustrateur pour Jérôme Tharaud (Marrakech ou les seigneurs de l'Atlas, 1920), et Thérèse Gadola (La féerie marocaine).
Azouaou Mammeri est représenté à l'exposition des « Peintres algériens » organisée en 1963 à Alger pour les « Fêtes du 1er novembre » .

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2024 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

 

MONT BABOR / ADRAR N BABUR PEINT PAR LÉON CARRÉ

LÉON CARRÉ (1878-1942)
Mont Babor / Adrar n Babur ( 2,004 m)
Algérie (Petite Kabylie)

In "En Kabylie ", huile sur toile, collection privée

La montagne
Le mont Babor (2004 m), djebel Babor ou adrar n Babor parfois Grand Babor, est une montagne de la chaîne des Babors culminant en Petite Kabylie (Algérie), à l'extrémité nord de la wilaya de Sétif. La montagne abrite des forêts de Cèdre de l'Atlas et du Sapin de Numidie (espèce endémique du Babor et du Tababort). C'est sur cette montagne que fut découverte la Sittelle kabyle (oiseau endémique de la région) le 5 octobre 1975 par le belge Jean-Paul Ledant.  Le climat de la région est froid et humide avec de fortes chutes de neige en automne et en hiver et des précipitations dépassant les 1 700 mm/an. En hiver, les températures sont basses et très souvent négatives mais chaudes en été, atteignant parfois les 30 degrés.

Le peintre
Léon-Georges-Jean-Baptiste Carré entre à l'école des beaux-arts de Rennes, puis il intègre l'École des beaux-arts de Paris le 11 mars 1896 grâce à Léon Bonnat dont il suit les cours, ainsi que ceux de Luc-Olivier Merson. Il fut le double lauréat du prix Chenavard. Il expose au Salon des artistes français en 1900 puis, dès 1905, au Salon des indépendants, et effectue un premier voyage en Algérie en 1907. Il expose au Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts à partir de 1911, ainsi qu'au Salon d'automne. Lauréat de la bourse de la Villa Abd-el-Tif en 1909, il se fixe à Alger. Peintre orientaliste, il pratique l'huile, la gouache et le pastel. En 1927, Léon Carré contribue à la décoration du paquebot Île-de-France pour la Compagnie transatlantique, et dessine de nombreuses affiches pour la Compagnie PLM (dont celle du centenaire de l'Algérie en 1930). Il a également dessiné le billet de 50 francs de la Banque de l'Algérie émis en 1942. En 1935, il publie des compositions pour le conte de Paul Wenz, L'homme qui resta debout, dans le numéro spécial de Noël de L'Illustration.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

LE MONT TAMGOUT PHOTOGRAPHIÉ EN AUTOCHROME LUMIÈRE

AUTOCHROME LUMIÈRE
Mont Tamgout (1, 252m)
Algérie

In Tamgout, Atlas Tellien, Algérie, Autochrome Lumière, anonyme circa 1922

La montagne
Mont Tamgout (1, 252m) est une montagne de l'Atlas tellien culminant à 1 252 m d'altitude sur le territoire de la commune d'Akerrou dans la wilaya de Tizi-Ouzou, région de Kabylie, en Algérie. Le village le plus proche de cette montagne est, le chef-lieu de la commune d'Akerrou, Tifrit n'Aït el Hadj. Le mont Tamgout est entouré du massif du même nom dont la superficie dépasse les 3 800 hectares. C'est le point culminant du territoire des Ait Flik et de toute la Kabylie maritime.

Le procédé photographique
L'Autochrome Lumière est un des premiers procédés de photographie couleur. Breveté en 1903 par les frères Lumière en France et commercialisé pour la première fois en 1907, c'était le principal procédé de photographie couleur utilisé avant l'avènement du film couleur négatif au milieu des années 1930.
Entre 1909 et 1931, une collection de 72 000 photographies autochromes, documentant la vie à l'époque dans 50 pays à travers le monde, a été créée par le banquier français Albert Kahn. La collection, l'une des plus importantes du genre au monde, est conservée au musée Albert Kahn à la périphérie de Paris. Une nouvelle compilation d'images de la collection Albert Kahn a été publiée en 2008. Plusieurs images de la collection Albert Kahn ont déjà été publiées dans ce blog.
La National Geographic Society a largement utilisé les autochromes et autres plaques d'écran couleur en mosaïque pendant plus de vingt ans. 15 000 plaques autochromes originales sont encore conservées dans les archives de la Société.
Dans l'immense collection d'œuvres du photographe pictorialiste américain Arnold Genthe de la Bibliothèque du Congrès des États-Unis, 384 de ses plaques autochromes figuraient parmi les collections en 1955.
De nombreux photographes l'ont également utilisé, comme ici, de manière anonyme. 

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
            Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
            Un blog de Francis Rousseau

DJEBEL AÏSSA BY FREDERIC GADMER / AUTOCHROME LUMIÈRE

 

FREDERIC GADMER (1878-1954)
Djebel Aïssa  (2,236 m  -7,336 ft)
Algeria

In Djebel Aïssa, Aïn Sefra, Algérie; Autochrome de Frédéric Gadmer,  1929

The mountain
Mount Issa or Djebel Aïssa (جبل عيسى‎) is a mountain in western Algeria, thus the 4th highest in Algeria. It is part of the Ksour Range of the Saharan Atlas, within the larger Atlas Mountain System. Mount Issa is located in the Naâma Province and is one of the main summits of the mountains of the Saharan Atlas. The Djebel Aissa National Park is a protected area within the area of the mountain since 2003.

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.

About the  "Autochrome Lumière" Photos
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.
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CHENOUA PAINTED BY MARIUS DE BUZON

MARIUS DE BUZON (1879-1958)
Chenoua (905 m- 2969 ft)
Algeria

In La Côte d'Alger aux Environs de Tipiza, oil on canvas, 1951, Private collection

The mountain
The Chenoua (905 m- 2969ft) in Berber: Adrar n Cenwa) is a mountain located in the region of Tipaza, in the north of Algeria. The massif of Mount Chenoua is, in the west, the highest point of the hills of the Algiers Sahel. It is surrounded to the east by Wadi Nador, Tipaza river and to the west by Wadi El Hachem, Cherchell river. By joining the sea, the Chenoua forms an alternation of cliffs and beaches, visible from the panoramic road that runs along the Mediterranean. The Chenoua corniche, which stretches as far as Cherchell (Caesarea), is home to small picturesque beaches. Cape Chenoua or Ras el Amouch offers a view of the bay and a walk in the caves of the cliff. Marble is taken from the Chenoua quarries. The novels by Albert Camus : "La mort heureuse"  and "Noces " are partly set in  the Chenoua.

The painter
Marius de Buzon is a French painter of the school of Algiers of Spanish ancestry, descendant of Francisco de Goya. In 1939, the well known french journalist and writer Max-Pol Fouchet said about him in Algeria : "The praise of M. de Buzon seems to me useless to do. We know the serious and powerful art of this painter, but he also knows how to release on his canvases a Corotian tenderness before such a French landscape. He moves only more." While according to Victor Barrucand, "he highlighted the essential lines of the landscapes, sculpting large swathes of the Kabyles valleys " .
He is knighted by the Legion of Honor.
He is considered, and quoted, as the "cantor of Kabylie" and one of the founders of the School of Algiers (following Maxime Noiré, and with Léon Carré, Léon Cauvy, Paul Jouve). He also paints landscapes and types of the region of Bougie, the Mzab (where he is one of the first painters to enter, after Étienne Dinet, with Maurice Bouviolle, Touggourt where he regularly stays after 1945 (L'Heure Blonde, 1950), Témacine (1953), and Sidi Bou Saïd, or Spain and Morocco, Casablanca, Rabat or Fez.
His works are highly sought after by collectors as representing scenes of Kabyle life, landscapes, pastoral scenes; "He substitutes for the notion of ethnic identification, that infinitely more poetic allegory " wrote Élisabeth Cazenave, while in 1930 Pierre Angel : "Marius de Buzon continued on these African shores the ancient dreams of the pagan mysticism. "
Marius de Buzon died at the end of November 1958 in Algiers; his son Jean and grandson Jean-Frédéric were murdered in 1962 while trying to move and save the workshop of their father and grandfather.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LALLA KHEDIDJA ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN-LEWIS SHONBORN

 

JOHN-LEWIS SHONBORN (1852- 1931)  (attributed to)

Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft)

Algeria (Kabylie) 

The mountain
Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft) in the Jurjura Range is the highest summit of the Tell Atlas, a mountain chain over 1,500 km (932 mi) in length, belonging to the Atlas mountain ranges in North Africa, stretching from Morocco, to Tunisia through Algeria. The ranges of this system have average elevations of about 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and form a natural barrier between the Mediterranean and the Sahara. Several large cities such as the Algerian capital, Algiers and Oran lie at the base of the Tell Atlas. The Algerian city Constantine lies 80 km inland and directly in the mountains at 650 meters in elevation. A number of smaller towns and villages are situated within the Tell; for example, Chiffa is nestled within the Chiffa gorge.
The Tell Atlas runs parallel to the Mediterranean coast. Together with the Saharan Atlas to the south it forms the northernmost of two more or less parallel ranges which approach one another towards the east, remaining quite distinct from one another in Western Algeria and merging in Eastern Algeria. At the western end, it ends at the Rif and Middle Atlas ranges in Morocco. The Tell Atlas are also a distinct physiographic section of the larger Atlas Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger African Alpine System physiographic division. The Tell Atlas and the Saharan Atlas form two natural barriers, the first against the Mediterranean and the second against the Sahara. Between them lies the valley of the Chelif and various lesser rivers.

 The painter
 Born from Hungarian parents who settled while still very young in American Middle-West, John-Lewis Schonborn studied horses in the family farm, from his childhood. He stays in Paris in the studio of the painter Léon Bonnat, then specializes in equestrian paintings very fashionable at that time, under the leadership of  Géricault. He participated in a mission in Tunisia and went to Kairouan. During this stay, he painted many landscapes of Algeria and  Kabylia, on all kinds of supports he could find (oil on cardboard or on paper, watercolour, oil on fabric or on wood ...).
He is one of the American orientalist painters.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

JEBEL ALMOUR & JEBEL KSEL PAINTED BY LÉON CARRÉ

LÉON CARRÉ (1878-1942) 

Jebel Amour, Jebel Ksel (2,008 m - 6,588 ft) 

Algeria 

In Paysage d'Algérie, oil on canvas 

The mountain
The Jebel Amour (Amour Range)  of which Highest point is Jebel Ksel ( 2,008 m - 6,588 ft)  is located in the central area of the Saharan Atlas, with the Ksour Range in the western end and the Ouled-Naïl Range in the eastern end.
The town of Aflou, one of the highest municipalities in Algeria and also one of the coldest, is located in the range at an elevation of 1,426 m. There are about 35,000 people living in the area of the Amour Range. In Taouïala (تاوياله), located 35 km to the southeast of Aflou, there is an ecotouristic village. The mountains of the Amour Range have altitudes averaging between 1,400 and 2000 m. The highest summit of the range is Djebel Ksel, which sits at an elevation of 2,008 m.
Other notable peaks are:
 Guern Arif (1,721 m ; Mount Sidi Okba  (1,707 m  ; Mount Gourou  1,7O6m ; Oum El Guedour 1,686 m ; Kef Sidi Bouzid  1,503 m).

The artist
The French orientalist painter and illustrator Léon Carré entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, then he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 1896 thanks to Léon Bonnat. He was the double winner of the Chenavard prize. He exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1900 and, in 1905, at the Salon des Independants, and made a first trip to Algeria in 1907.
He exhibited at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts from 1911, and at the Autumn Fair.
Winner of the Villa Abd-el-Tif scholarship in 1909, he settled in Algiers. Orientalist painter, he practices oil, gouache and pastel. In 1927, Léon Carré helped decorate the Ile-de-France liner for the Transatlantic Company, and designed numerous posters for the PLM Company (including the centenary of Algeria in 1930).
He also drew the 50 franc banknote issued by the Bank of Algeria in 1942.
He was recently rediscovered as a great landscaper regarded to his numerous post impressionist paintings and watercolors of Atlas mountains and Kabylia landscapes (see above)

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LALLA KHEDIDJA (2) BY MARIUS DE BUZON

 

MARIUS DE BUZON (1879-1958) 

Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft)

Algeria (Kabylie)

In La vue de l'Atlas Huile sur toile,  46 x 55,5 cm, Collection privée

The mountain
Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft) in the Jurjura Range is the highest summit of the Tell Atlas, a mountain chain over 1,500 km (932 mi) in length, belonging to the Atlas mountain ranges in North Africa, stretching from Morocco to Tunisia through Algeria. The ranges of this system have average elevations of about 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and form a natural barrier between the Mediterranean and the Sahara. Several large cities such as the Algerian capital, Algiers and Oran lie at the base of the Tell Atlas. The Algerian city Constantine lies 80 km inland and directly in the mountains at 650 meters in elevation. A number of smaller towns and villages are situated within the Tell; for example, Chiffa is nestled within the Chiffa gorge.
The Tell Atlas runs parallel to the Mediterranean coast. Together with the Saharan Atlas to the south it forms the northernmost of two more or less parallel ranges which approach one another towards the east, remaining quite distinct from one another in Western Algeria and merging in Eastern Algeria. At the western end, it ends at the Rif and Middle Atlas ranges in Morocco. The Tell Atlas are also a distinct physiographic section of the larger Atlas Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger African Alpine System physiographic division. The Tell Atlas and the Saharan Atlas form two natural barriers, the first against the Mediterranean and the second against the Sahara. Between them lies the valley of the Chelif and various lesser rivers.

The painter
Frederic Marius de Buzon is a French painter of the school of Algiers of Spanish ancestry, descendant of Francisco de Goya.
In 1939, the well known french journalist and writer Max-Pol Fouchet said about him in Algeria : "The praise of M. de Buzon seems to me useless to do. We know the serious and powerful art of this painter, but he also knows how to release on his canvases a Corotian tenderness before such a French landscape. He moves only more." While according to Victor Barrucand, "he highlighted the essential lines of the landscapes, sculpting large swathes of the Kabyles valleys " .
He is knighted by the Legion of Honor.
He is considered, and quoted, as the "cantor of Kabylie" and one of the founders of the School of Algiers (following Maxime Noiré, and with Léon Carré, Léon Cauvy, Paul Jouve). He also paints landscapes and types of the region of Bougie, the Mzab (where he is one of the first painters to enter, after Étienne Dinet, with Maurice Bouviolle, Touggourt where he regularly stays after 1945 (L'Heure Blonde, 1950), Témacine (1953), and Sidi Bou Saïd, or Spain and Morocco, Casablanca, Rabat or Fez.
His works are highly sought after by collectors as representing scenes of Kabyle life, landscapes, pastoral scenes; "He substitutes for the notion of ethnic identification, that infinitely more poetic allegory " wrote Élisabeth Cazenave, while in 1930 Pierre Angel : "Marius de Buzon continued on these African shores the ancient dreams of the pagan mysticism. "
Marius de Buzon died at the end of November 1958 in Algiers; his son Jean and grandson Jean-Frédéric were murdered in 1962 while trying to move and save the workshop of their father and grandfather.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

AFKADOU MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY LÉON CARRÉ

LÉON CARRÉ (1878-1942) 

Afkadou (1,623m - 5,424ft)

Algeria (Kabylie)

In Bergers en Kabylie 1918, oil on canvas, private owner 

The mountains
Akfadou (1,623m - 5,424ft) is a mountain range of Kabylie (Algéria), dominated by two peaks, one to the west overlooking the Akfadou plateau where the TDA station is located, the other to the east is Azrou Taghat (1,542 m - 50,59ft). Snow is abundant in the cold season and rains exceed 2m (6,56 ft) per year. Akfadou extends the Djurdjura north-east and extends from Tizi Icelladen in the east to Yakouren in the west. It serves as the junction point between high and low Kabylie. Oriented full East, it faces the valley of Soummam.
The weather conditions are very harsh with heavy snow in cold seasons and rains often exceed 2,000 mm per year. With its remarkable diversity and richness in both flora and fauna, the Akfadou forest occupies most of this natural crossroads of unprecedented scale in North Africa to the point of becoming the lungs of Algeria.

The artist
The French orientalist painter and illustrator Léon Carré entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, then he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 1896 thanks to Léon Bonnat. He was the double winner of the Chenavard prize. He exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1900 and, in 1905, at the Salon des Independants, and made a first trip to Algeria in 1907.
He exhibited at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts from 1911, and at the Autumn Fair.
Winner of the Villa Abd-el-Tif scholarship in 1909, he settled in Algiers. Orientalist painter, he practices oil, gouache and pastel. In 1927, Léon Carré helped decorate the Ile-de-France liner for the Transatlantic Company, and designed numerous posters for the PLM Company (including the centenary of Algeria in 1930).
He also drew the 50 franc banknote issued by the Bank of Algeria in 1942.
He was recently rediscovered as a great landscaper regarded to his numerous post impressionist paintings and watercolors of Atlas mountains and Kabylia landscapes (see above)

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

JEBEL CHELIA PAINTED BY LÉON CARRÉ

LÉON CARRÉ (1878-1942)

Jebel Chelia (2,398m - 7,867ft)

Algeria 

In  Paysage Algérien, Oil on canvas, 1934,  Private collection 

The mountain 
Jebel Chelia (2,398m - 7,867ft)  is a mountain located in the east of Algeria. It constitutes the highest peak of the Aurés mountain range, on the border of the wilaya of Batna and the wilaya of Khenchela. Mount Chelia is the second highest mountain peak in Algeria after Mount Tahat in the Hoggar and the highest regularly snow-covered from late November to late February or early March.
Many specialists highlight the Aurès as to the potential for developing seasonal tourism in the region (skiing, hiking, trekking, climbing, etc.) especially as neighboring countries such as Tunisia or Libya do not do not have high mountains. However, the means have so far not been put in place to exploit these potentialities. The construction of the first Maghreb astronomical observatory is planned at the summit of Mount Chelia, taking advantage of its altitude.

The artist
The French orientalist painter and illustrator Léon Carré entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, then he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 1896 thanks to Léon Bonnat. He was the double winner of the Chenavard prize. He exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1900 and, in 1905, at the Salon des Independants, and made a first trip to Algeria in 1907.
He exhibited at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts from 1911, and at the Autumn Fair.
Winner of the Villa Abd-el-Tif scholarship in 1909, he settled in Algiers. Orientalist painter, he practices oil, gouache and pastel. In 1927, Léon Carré helped decorate the Ile-de-France liner for the Transatlantic Company, and designed numerous posters for the PLM Company (including the centenary of Algeria in 1930).
He also drew the 50 franc banknote issued by the Bank of Algeria in 1942.
He was recently rediscovered as a great landscaper regarded to his numerous post impressionist paintings and watercolors of Atlas mountains and Kabylia landscapes (see above)

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MZAB PLATEAU PAINTED BY NASR'EDDINE ETIENNE DINET

 

NASR'EDDINE ETIENNE DINET (1861-1929),

The Mzab Plateau (526m - 1,725ft)

Algeria (Sahara)

In Caravane se dirigeant vers Ghardaia (Caravan on the way to Ghardaia), oil on canvas

The formation
The Mzab plateau is a rocky formation whose altitude varies between 300 and 800 meters.  The average altitude is 500 meters (Ghardaia: 526 meters).This relief, of which the origin is  from the Upper Cretaceous, is in the form of a vast stony expanse and brown and blackish rocks. The grounds are limestone. Their roughly horizontal structure indicates that they have remained in place, away from the orogenic movements, since their formation.
The deepest valleys bordered by rocky cliffs with steep slopes have a gradient that rarely exceeds 100 meters in relation to the plateau.
The M'zab is therefore generally a flat region but where fluvial erosion, combined with the action of the desert climate, has created a multitude of superficial accidents that make communications most difficult.
Due to  the low latitude and the moderate altitude, the temperature is very high in summer (absolute maximum in Ghardaia: 50 ° C), moderately cool in winter (absolute minimum: minus 1 ° C in Ghardaia).  In winter as in summer, the diurnal variation of temperature is important, due to the perfect dryness of the atmosphere. For the same reason, the brightness is intense.
Sandwash from the southwest periodically accentuate the dryness of the climate. They are particularly frequent and violent in late winter and early spring.
The Mzab Valley is part of World Heritage since 1982, as an untouched example of a traditional human habitat perfectly adapted to the environment.

The painter 

Nasr'Eddine Dinet (born as Alphonse-Étienne Dinet in Paris) was a French orientalist painter.

Compared to modernist painters such as Henri Matisse, who also visited northern Africa in the first decade of the 20th century, Dinet’s paintings are extremely conservative. They are highly mimetic, indeed ethnographic, in their treatment of their subject.

Dinet’s understanding of Arab culture and language set him apart from other orientalist artists. Surprisingly, he was able to find nude models in rural Algeria. Before 1900, most of his works could be characterized as "anecdotal genre scenes". As he became more interested in Islam, he began to paint religious subjects more often. He was active in translating Arabic literature into French, publishing a translation of an Arab epic poem by Antarah ibn Shaddad in 1898.

Dinet was born the son of a prominent French judge.   From 1871, he studied at the prestogious Lycée Henry IV in Paris, where the future president Alexandre Millerand was also among the students. Upon graduation in 1881 he enrolled in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and entered the studio of Victor Galland. The following year he studied under William Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian. He also exhibited for the first time at the Salon des artistes français.

Dinet made his first trip to Bou Saâda by the Ouled Naïl Range in southern Algeria in 1884, with a team of entomologists. The following year he made a second trip on a government scholarship, this time to Laghouat. At that time he painted his first two Algerian pictures: les Terrasses de Laghouat  (Laghouat Terraces) or  Oued M’Sila après l’orage (Oued M'Sila after the storm).

He won the silver medal for painting at the Exposition Universelle in 1889, and in the same year founded the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts along with Meissonier, Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin, Carolus-Duran and Charles Cottet. In 1887 he further founded with Léonce Bénédite, director of the Musée du Luxembourg, the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français.

In 1903 he bought a house in Bou Saâda and spent three quarters of each year there.

He announced his conversion to Islam in a private letter of 1908, and completed his formal conversion in 1913, upon which he changed his name to Nasr’Eddine Dinet. In 1929 he and his wife undertook the Hajj to Mecca. The respect he earned from the natives of Algeria was reflected by the 5,000 who attended his funeral on 12 January 1930 in Bou Saâda. There he was eulogized by the former Governor General of Algeria Maurice Viollette.

.___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LAILA GOURAYA PAINTED BY MARIUS DE BUZON

MARIUS DE BUZON (1879-1958)

Laila Gouraya (660 m - 2,165 ft)

Algeria

In  La bucolique Kabylie, oil on canvas,  1923  112 x186 cm, Musée des Beaux Arts de Bordeaux 

The mountain 
Laila Gouraya (660 m - 2,165 ft) also named Yemma Gouray  is a mountain that overlooks the city of Béjaïa in Algeria. It would also be the burial place of the saint patron of the city, Yemma Gouraya, but no archaeological evidence exists.
According to tradition, Yemma Gouraya was the sister of Yemma Mezghitane,  saint patron of Jijel, and Yemma Timezrit, saint  patron of Timezrit.
Mount Gouraya is part of the Gouraya National Park. It is a protected area, very popular with tourists: it welcomes around 1,200,000 visitors a year, especially in summer.

The painter
Frederic Marius de Buzon  is a French painter of the school of Algiers of Spanish ancestry, descendant of Francisco de Goya.
In 1939, the well known french journalist and writer Max-Pol Fouchet said about him in Algeria : "The praise of M. de Buzon seems to me useless to do. We know the serious and powerful art of this painter, but he also knows how to release on his canvases a Corotian tenderness before such a French landscape. He moves only more."  While according to Victor Barrucand, "he highlighted the essential lines of the landscapes, sculpting large swathes of the Kabyles valleys " .

He is knighted by the Legion of Honor.
He is considered, and quoted, as the "cantor of Kabylie" and one of the founders of the School of Algiers (following Maxime Noiré, and with Léon Carré, Léon Cauvy, Paul Jouve). He also paints landscapes and types of the region of Bougie, the Mzab (where he is one of the first painters to enter, after Étienne Dinet, with Maurice Bouviolle, Touggourt where he regularly stays after 1945 (L'Heure Blonde,  1950), Témacine (1953), and Sidi Bou Saïd, or Spain and Morocco, Casablanca, Rabat or Fez.
His works are highly sought after by collectors as representing scenes of Kabyle life, landscapes, pastoral scenes; "He substitutes for the notion of ethnic identification, that infinitely more poetic allegory  " wrote Élisabeth Cazenave, while in 1930 Pierre Angel : "Marius de Buzon continued on these African shores the ancient dreams of the pagan mysticism. "

Marius de Buzon died at the end of November 1958 in Algiers; his son Jean and grandson Jean-Frédéric were murdered in 1962 while trying to move and save the workshop of their father and grandfather.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

JEBEL KSEL PAINTED BY EUGENE FROMENTIN

EUGÈNE FROMENTIN (1820-1876) 

Jebel Ksel (2, 008 m - 6, 588ft )

Algeria 

In Un Campement dans les Montagnes de l'Atlas, oil on canvas, (150 x 190 cm), ca. 1865,

The Walters Art Museum

About this painting 
Prosper Dorbec in "L'Hellénisme d'Eugène Fromentin" in the "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"   (1924)  singled out Fromentin as a classicist among Orientalists. For the painter-writer, according to Dorbec, the desert and the ramparts of Aïn Mahdy became the plains of Ilium. In this spacious view, characteristic of the artist's production in the mid-sixties, the bold silhouettes of the horsemen, their generalized treatment and the essentially static composition reaffirm the classical character of Fromentin's painting. Shown are a group of Arabs examining a horse being displayed for sale.

A rather similar composition, "Horse Market in Algeria" 1867, appeared on the New York art market in 1913. Related studies include a view similar to the group of would-be purchasers in this scene, "Five Standing Arabs" 1874, The William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center; a smaller subject sold in the Verdé-Delisle Collection, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, May 29, 1879, no. 35; and a three-figured composition sold at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 12, 1943, no. 26.
The painting above was acquired by William T. Walters, between 1878 and 1884

The mountain 

Jebel Ksel (2.008 m - 6,588ft) ) is the highest of the six peaks of the Amour Range, located in the Algerian Atlas, which are  Guern Arif, Mount Sidi Okba, Mount Gourou,  Oum El Guedour, Kef Sidi Bouzid. Jebel Ksel summit is located 400 km south of Algiers, in the province of El Bayadh, in the north of the country. The largest city  around  is El Bayadh, located 13.2 km west of Djebel Ksel.

The Amour Range is a mountain range in Algeria, which comprises part of the Saharan Atlas of the Atlas Mountain System.
The Amour Range is located in the central area of the Saharan Atlas, with the Ksour Range in the western end and the Ouled-Naïl Rangein the eastern end.
The town of Aflou, one of the highest municipalities in Algeria and also one of the coldest, is located in the range at an elevation of 1,426 m. There are about 35,000 people living in the area of the Amour.  

The painter 

Brilliant student from a bourgeois family of La Rochelle, Eugene Fromentin is moving towards a career as a magistrate. In order not to disappoint paternal ambitions, he studies law in Paris. At the same time, he showed a great interest in the arts, notably painting and literature. In 1845, he even published a brilliant review of the Salon of 1845 in "The Organic Review of the West" a literary journal of his friend Emile Beltremieux, as well as some poems. It then becomes obvious to the young man that law is not his vocation. Assisted by Charles Michel, a family friend, he manages to convince his father to let him follow artistic studies.

He thus enters the studio of Joseph Remond before integrating the following year that of Louis-Nicolas Cabat. Fromentin flourishes beside his new master, who introduces him to landscape painting. However, the young artist who wants to paint more exotic panoramas decides to visit Algeria. He arrived in Algiers in 1846, accompanied by his friend Armand du Mesnil, then went to Blida nicknamed "the city of roses". The artist is captivated by the charm of a warm and colorful nature.

Returning to Paris in 1847, he exhibited for the first time three paintings at the Salon of French Artists "Les  Gorges de la Chiffa", " Une Mosquée près d'Alger" and " Une ferme dans les environs de  La Rochelle" which immediately attract attention of connoisseurs and critics. Two years later, he received his first medal with the "Place de la Breche, Constantine", and in 1850 he exhibited eleven paintings, memories of his trip to Biskra. In 1852, he returned to Algeria accompanied by his wife, and this time he went to the desert to settle in Laghouat. During this stay, he made more than a hundred studies that will be the source of a fruitful production of orientalist works.

In 1857, he published his travelogues "Une année au Sahel" and "Un été au Sahara" in the Revue de Paris. This is the dedication for Fromentin who is recognized as a painter of talent but also as a great writer. After the publication of these two volumes, Theophile Gauthier writes "M. Fromentin has a privilege that I have not yet seen anyone possess to an equal degree! He has two muses: he is a painter in two languages. He is not an amateur in one or the other, he is the artist, conscientious, stern and fine in both ".

The mailings to the Salon of French Artists follow one another so much the work of the painter is prolix. The artist obtained many medals between 1859 and 1867. Classified out of competition and elevated to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1869, Eugène Fromentin is recognized as one of the greatest Orientalist artists of his time.

In a jury report, Mr. Cador said: "M. Fromentin triumphs ... he has created a new genre in painting, as much as to say that he has discovered a world, his paintings falling under no tradition, no school; it is an original talent, in the good sense of the word, full of ardor and brilliance, which attracts and captivates by the powerful charm of its color, the grace of the details, by the poetic sentiment which overflows of all its compositions " .

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

LALLA KHEDIDJA PAINTED BY MARIUS DE BUZON

MARIUS DE BUZON (1879-1958) 

Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft)

Algeria ( Kabylie)

In Grande Kabylie. Oil on Isorel panel, private collection 

The mountain
Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft) in the Jurjura Range is the highest summit of the Tell Atlas, a mountain chain over 1,500 km (932 mi) in length, belonging to the Atlas mountain ranges in North Africa, stretching from Morocco, to Tunisia through Algeria. The ranges of this system have average elevations of about 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and form a natural barrier between the Mediterranean and the Sahara. Several large cities such as the Algerian capital, Algiers and Oran lie at the base of the Tell Atlas. The Algerian city Constantine lies 80 km inland and directly in the mountains at 650 meters in elevation. A number of smaller towns and villages are situated within the Tell; for example, Chiffa is nestled within the Chiffa gorge.
The Tell Atlas runs parallel to the Mediterranean coast. Together with the Saharan Atlas to the south it forms the northernmost of two more or less parallel ranges which approach one another towards the east, remaining quite distinct from one another in Western Algeria and merging in Eastern Algeria. At the western end, it ends at the Rif and Middle Atlas ranges in Morocco. The Tell Atlas are also a distinct physiographic section of the larger Atlas Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger African Alpine System physiographic division. The Tell Atlas and the Saharan Atlas form two natural barriers, the first against the Mediterranean and the second against the Sahara. Between them lies the valley of the Chelif and various lesser rivers.

The painter
Frederic Marius de Buzon  is a French painter of the school of Algiers of Spanish ancestry, descendant of  Francisco de Goya.
In 1939, the well known french journalist and writer Max-Pol Fouchet said about him in Algeria : "The praise of M. de Buzon seems to me useless to do. We know the serious and powerful art of this painter, but he also knows how to release on his canvases a Corotian tenderness before such a French landscape. He moves only more."  While according to Victor Barrucand, "he highlighted the essential lines of the landscapes, sculpting large swathes of the Kabyles valleys " .

He is knighted by the Legion of Honor.
He is considered, and quoted, as the "cantor of Kabylie" and one of the founders of the School of Algiers (following Maxime Noiré, and with Léon Carré, Léon Cauvy, Paul Jouve). He also paints landscapes and types of the region of Bougie, the Mzab (where he is one of the first painters to enter, after Étienne Dinet, with Maurice Bouviolle), Touggourt where he regularly stays after 1945 (L'Heure Blonde,  1950), Témacine (1953), and Sidi Bou Saïd, or Spain and Morocco, Casablanca, Rabat or Fez. His works are highly sought after by collectors as representing scenes of Kabyle life, landscapes, pastoral scenes; "He substitutes for the notion of ethnic identification, that infinitely more poetic allegory  "wrote Élisabeth Cazenave, while in 1930 Pierre Angel : "Marius de Buzon continued on these African shores the ancient dreams of the pagan mysticism. "

Marius de Buzon died at the end of November 1958 in Algiers; his son Jean and grandson Jean-Frédéric were murdered in 1962 while trying to move and save the workshop of their father and grandfather.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

AFKADOU MASSIF PAINTED BY LÉON CARRÉ

LÉON CARRÉ (1878-1942)

Afkadou (1,623m - 5,424ft))

Algeria (Kabylie)

In L'Akfadou, Kabylie 1919, technique mixte, private owner 

The mountains
Akfadou (1,623m - 5,424ft) is a mountain range of Kabylie (Algéria), dominated by two peaks, one to the west overlooking the Akfadou plateau where the TDA station is located, the other to the east is Azrou Taghat (1,542 m - 50,59ft). Snow is abundant in the cold season and rains exceed 2m (6,56 ft) per year. Akfadou extends the Djurdjura north-east and extends from Tizi Icelladen in the east to Yakouren in the west. It serves as the junction point between high and low Kabylie. Oriented full East, it faces the valley of Soummam.
The weather conditions are very harsh with heavy snow in cold seasons and rains often exceed 2,000 mm per year. With its remarkable diversity and richness in both flora and fauna, the Akfadou forest occupies most of this natural crossroads of unprecedented scale in North Africa to the point of becoming the lungs of Algeria.

The artist
The French orientalist painter and illustrator Léon Carré entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, then he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 1896 thanks to Léon Bonnat. He was the double winner of the Chenavard prize. He exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1900 and, in 1905, at the Salon des Independants, and made a first trip to Algeria in 1907.
He exhibited at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts from 1911, and at the Autumn Fair.
Winner of the Villa Abd-el-Tif scholarship in 1909, he settled in Algiers. Orientalist painter, he practices oil, gouache and pastel. In 1927, Léon Carré helped decorate the Ile-de-France liner for the Transatlantic Company, and designed numerous posters for the PLM Company (including the centenary of Algeria in 1930).
He also drew the 50 franc banknote issued by the Bank of Algeria in 1942.
He was recently rediscovered as a great landscaper regarded to his numerous post impressionist paintings and watercolors of Atlas mountains and Kabylia landscapes (see above)

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

JEBEL AÏSSA PAINTED BY LÉON CARRÉ

LÉON CARRÉ (1878-1942) 

Jebel Aïssa (2,236 m- 7,336ft) 

Algeria

In Paysages de l'Atlas, watercolour, 1940, Private collection 

The mountain 
Jebel Aïssa (2,236 m- 7,336ft) in arabic جبل عيسى‎  or Mount Issa high mountain in western Algeria, thus the 4th highest in Algeria. It is part of the Ksour Range of the Saharan Atlas, within the larger Atlas Mountain System. Jebel Aïssa  is located in the Naâma Province and is one of the main summits of the mountains of the Saharan Atlas.
The Jebel Aissa National Park is a protected area within the area of the mountain since 2003.
The Ksour Range (جبال القصور‎ ) or Jebel Ksour , Stretching across the provinces of Béchar and El Bayadh, it is the westernmost range of the Saharan Atlas, with the Amour Range further east.
Neolithic art, in the form of engraved stones representing horses, elephants and other animals, is found in different caves and walls throughout the range (such as at Thyout)

The artist
The French orientalist painter and illustrator Léon Carré entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, then he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 1896 thanks to Léon Bonnat. He was the double winner of the Chenavard prize. He exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1900 and, in 1905, at the Salon des Independants, and made a first trip to Algeria in 1907.
He exhibited at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts from 1911, and at the Autumn Fair.
Winner of the Villa Abd-el-Tif scholarship in 1909, he settled in Algiers. Orientalist painter, he practices oil, gouache and pastel. In 1927, Léon Carré helped decorate the Ile-de-France liner for the Transatlantic Company, and designed numerous posters for the PLM Company (including the centenary of Algeria in 1930).
He also drew the 50 franc banknote issued by the Bank of Algeria in 1942.
He was recently rediscovered as a great landscaper regarded to his numerous post impressionist paintings and watercolors of Atlas mountains and Kabylia  landscapes (see above)

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

LALLA KHEDIDJA PAINTED BY LÉON CARRÉ

LÉON CARRÉ  (1878-1942) 

Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft)

Algeria

 In Paysage du Djurdjura, 1926, Private collection

The mountain 

Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft) in the Jurjura Range is the  highest summit of the Tell Atlas, a mountain chain over 1,500 km (932 mi) in length, belonging to the Atlas mountain ranges in North Africa, stretching from Morocco, to Tunisia through Algeria. The ranges of this system have average elevations of about 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and form a natural barrier between the Mediterranean and the Sahara.  Several large cities such as the Algerian capital, Algiers and Oran lie at the base of the Tell Atlas. The Algerian city Constantine lies 80 km inland and directly in the mountains at 650 meters in elevation. A number of smaller towns and villages are situated within the Tell; for example, Chiffa is nestled within the Chiffa gorge.

The Tell Atlas runs parallel to the Mediterranean coast. Together with the Saharan Atlas to the south it forms the northernmost of two more or less parallel ranges which approach one another towards the east, remaining quite distinct from one another in Western Algeria and merging in Eastern Algeria. At the western end, it ends at the Rif and Middle Atlas ranges in Morocco. The Tell Atlas are also a distinct physiographic section of the larger Atlas Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger African Alpine System physiographic division.  The Tell Atlas and the Saharan Atlas form two natural barriers, the first against the Mediterranean and the second against the Sahara. Between them lies the valley of the Chelif and various lesser rivers.  

The artist
The French orientalist painter and illustrator Léon Carré entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, then he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 1896 thanks to Léon Bonnat. He was the double winner of the Chenavard prize. He exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1900 and, in 1905, at the Salon des Independants, and made a first trip to Algeria in 1907.
He exhibited at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts from 1911, and at the Autumn Fair.
Winner of the Villa Abd-el-Tif scholarship in 1909, he settled in Algiers. Orientalist painter, he practices oil, gouache and pastel. In 1927, Léon Carré helped decorate the Ile-de-France liner for the Transatlantic Company, and designed numerous posters for the PLM Company (including the centenary of Algeria in 1930).
 He also drew the 50 franc banknote issued by the Bank of Algeria in 1942.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MONT THALETAT BY FRANCISQUE NOAILLY

FRANCISQUE NOAILLY (1855-1942) 

Thaletat (1,638m -5,374ft)
Algeria

In Montagnes de Kabylie , oil on canvas, 1908 

The mountain 

Thaletat (1,638m -5,374ft) ) is one of the Djurdjura peaks in Kabylie (Algeria). Thaletat is located in the Akouker Massif which occupies the center of the Djurdjura range. To the north, its rocks drop almost a single jet on the valley of Timeghras. To the south, it is dominated by the Lalla-Khadidja cone, the highest peak of the Tellian Atlas. The word Thaletat means "auricular" in Kabyle. The French gave the mountain the name "Hand of the Jew" because, according to the natives, its appearance of a six-fingered hand. According to legend, the mount was the place of prayer of a Jewish ascetic.

The painter 
Louis François Marie Noailly, known as Francisque Noailly, was born in Marseille in 1855. After studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, he studied with William Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
From 1875, he performed his military service in Algeria in the Zouaves regiment. He gets married in Algiers and installs his workshop in the district of La Redoute.From its wide windows, the view stretched from Bouzaréah to Cape Matifou and plunged into the port which he could look at without ever being dazzled except by the beauty of the view.
Landscapes, portraits and especially scenes typical of Algerian life are treated with the same talent. The port, the city, the streets of the Algiers' Kasbah, the indigenous interiors and the Jebel are the frames. Vendor of donuts, child guiding a blind man, women returning from the source to their mechta, odalisques in a Moorish court, small trades ... these are his subjects. In his paintings, oil or watercolors, he plays with shadows, light and against the light: dockers unloading a swing or woman weaving a carpet.
He taught for many years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, rue des Généraux Morris, and was responsible, as director and professor, for the School of Decorative and Industrial Arts. A contemporary of Rochegrosse, Deshayes, Etienne Dinet and many others, he was part of the Orientalist painters' society and in 1935 received the first painting prize, Léon Cauvy, awarded by the Artistic Union of North Africa.
Francisque Noailly died in his house in Algiers, surrounded by his family, and left the memory of a right and sensitive man who hide his feelings under a grumpy aspect.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

JEBEL EL-AZREG PAINTED BY NASR'EDDINE ETIENNE DINET

NASR'EDDINE ETIENNE DINET (1861-1929)

Jebel el-Azreg (1,491 m - 4,892 ft)

Algeria

In  Midi en juillet à Bou-Saâda (Noon In July in Bou Saâda), watercolour, 1884  

The mountain
Jebel el-Azreg  (1,491m) is the highest point of the Ouled Nail mountains (جبال أولاد نايل), a  range of the Saharian Atlas, located in Algeria near the town of Bou-Saâda. The Ouled Nail mountains  owe their name to the tribal confederation of Ouled Naïl who live in the massif.
The Ouled Nail mountains  are located between Jebel Amour to the east and the Zab mountains to the west, from Djelfa to Messaad, and constitute a set of links and depressions. The human presence in the region is attested from prehistoric times; enameled vestiges of Libyan-Berber writings, rock engravings and funerary monuments are found here. In antiquity, the region was populated by the Gétules, then by the Romans who installed advanced military posts as the castellium of Demmedi in Messaad.
During the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the seventh century, the region was inhabited by Zen Berbers: Sindjas, Ghomra and Laghouat who were islamized but remained independent over successive dynasties and empires. In the eleventh century, Zoghba Arab hordes enter the region.
During the Ottoman period, the Eastern tribes (Ouled Naipl Cheraga) depended on the authority of the Beylik of Constantine while the tribes of the West (Gheraba) fell under that of the Titteri.
The first French incursions into the region date from 1843, in 1861 the city of Djelfa is created. During the Algerian war, the region became a stronghold of the NLA, the armed wing of the FLN.
The Ouled Nail mountains  are home to some ksour, especially to Zaccar and Amourah, which testify that sedentary and village life was more developed at certain times. Numerous rock formations are present in the Ouled Naïl mountains, which are an extension of those of Jebel Amour and the Ksour mountains, the oldest dating back to 8000 BC .

The painter 

Nasr'Eddine Dinet (born as Alphonse-Étienne Dinet in Paris) was a French orientalist painter.

Compared to modernist painters such as Henri Matisse, who also visited northern Africa in the first decade of the 20th century, Dinet’s paintings are extremely conservative. They are highly mimetic, indeed ethnographic, in their treatment of their subject.

Dinet’s understanding of Arab culture and language set him apart from other orientalist artists. Surprisingly, he was able to find nude models in rural Algeria. Before 1900, most of his works could be characterized as "anecdotal genre scenes". As he became more interested in Islam, he began to paint religious subjects more often. He was active in translating Arabic literature into French, publishing a translation of an Arab epic poem by Antarah ibn Shaddad in 1898.

Dinet was born the son of a prominent French judge.   From 1871, he studied at the prestogious Lycée Henry IV in Paris, where the future president Alexandre Millerand was also among the students. Upon graduation in 1881 he enrolled in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and entered the studio of Victor Galland. The following year he studied under William Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian. He also exhibited for the first time at the Salon des artistes français.

Dinet made his first trip to Bou Saâda by the Ouled Naïl Range in southern Algeria in 1884, with a team of entomologists. The following year he made a second trip on a government scholarship, this time to Laghouat. At that time he painted his first two Algerian pictures: les Terrasses de Laghouat  (Laghouat Terraces) or  Oued M’Sila après l’orage (Oued M'Sila after the storm).

He won the silver medal for painting at the Exposition Universelle in 1889, and in the same year founded the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts along with Meissonier, Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin, Carolus-Duran and Charles Cottet. In 1887 he further founded with Léonce Bénédite, director of the Musée du Luxembourg, the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français.

In 1903 he bought a house in Bou Saâda and spent three quarters of each year there.

He announced his conversion to Islam in a private letter of 1908, and completed his formal conversion in 1913, upon which he changed his name to Nasr’Eddine Dinet. In 1929 he and his wife undertook the Hajj to Mecca. The respect he earned from the natives of Algeria was reflected by the 5,000 who attended his funeral on 12 January 1930 in Bou Saâda. There he was eulogized by the former Governor General of Algeria Maurice Viollette.

.___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

PIC LAPERRINE PAINTED BY CAMILLE LEROY

CAMILLE LEROY (1905-1995) 

Pic Laperrine or Pic Iharen (1, 732m - 5, 682ft)

Algeria 

In Le pic Laperrine dans le massif du Hoggar en Algérie, watercolour, 1955

The mountain 
Pic Laperrine or Iharen ((1, 732m - 5, 682ft), in the Hoggar (Algeria) is located a few kilometers northeast of Tammanrasset ; it is inhabited by Tuareg. The Laperrine peak is named after a French general ot he colonial era, François-Henry Laperrine d'Hautpoul who died of exhaustion not far away on March 5, 1920 after being forced to land his plane out of fuel.

The artist
Camille Leroy is a french painter who practiced, at the age of eleven, the miniature on wood and watercolor. He studied at the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris, then at the National School of Fine Arts from 1920 to 1927 where he was a pupil of Fernand Cormon (1845-1815) , François Flameng (1856-1923) and Lucien Simon (1861-1945).
He received the General Council Prize, the Artistic Grand Prize of the city of Algiers and the  Gold Medal of the Society of Orientalist Painters.
He did his military service in Algeria in 1925. He received the Abd El Tif Prize in 1937 and then settled permanently in Algiers.
He was appointed professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Algiers in 1940.
Involved int he french  "Resistance" against german occupation, he joined the Free French Forces and took part in the campaign in Tunisia, the Italian campaign, the landing in France and the Rhine and Danube countryside. He received the Croix de Guerre.
At the end of the war, he resumed his activities at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Algiers.
He left Algeria in 1970, approximatively the years after the declaration of Independence of Algeria c and moved to Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in France where he died.