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

PARINACOTA AND POMERAPE BY RAMOS CATALAN

RAMOS CATALAN (1888-1961)

El Parinacota  (6,380 m (20,930 ft)

El Pomerape (6,282 m -20,610 ft) 

Chile - Bolivia border 

The mountains
El Parinacota  (6,380 m (20,930 ft) or Parina Quta or Parinaquta is a dormant stratovolcano on the border of Chile and Bolivia. Together with Pomerape it forms the Nevados de Payachata volcanic chain. Part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its summit reaches an elevation of 6,380 metres (20,930 ft) above sea level. The symmetrical cone is capped by a summit crater with widths of 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) or 500 metres (1,600 ft). Farther down on the southern slopes lie three parasitic centres known as the Ajata cones. These cones have generated lava flows. The volcano overlies a platform formed by lava domes and andesitic lava flows.
The volcano started growing during the Pleistocene and formed a large cone. At some point between the Pleistocene and the Holocene, the western flank of the volcano collapsed, generating a giant landslide that spread west and formed a large, hummocky landslide deposit. The avalanche crossed and dammed a previously existing drainage, impounding or enlarging Lake Chungará; numerous other lakes now forming the headwaters of the Rio Lauca sprang up within the deposit. Volcanic activity rebuilt the cone after the collapse, cancelling out the collapse scar.
Parinacota had numerous effusive and explosive eruptions during the Holocene, the latest about 200 years ago. While there are no recorded eruptions, legends of the local Aymara people imply that they may have witnessed one eruption. Renewed activity at Parinacota is possible in the future, although the relatively low population density in the region would limit the amount of damage that could occur. Some towns and a regional highway between Bolivia and Chile are potentially exposed to the effects of a new eruption.
El Pomerape  (6,282 m -20,610 ft) is a stratovolcano is part of the Payachata complex of volcanoes, together with Parinacota Volcano to the south. The name "Payachata" means "twins" and refers to their appearance.  It hosts glaciers down to elevations of 5,300–5,800 metres (17,400–19,000 ft), lower on the northern slope.
Pomerape is a complex of lava domes, accompanied by lava flows which were emplaced atop of the domes.  It was active about 200,000 years ago.  The lava domes formed first and were later buried by the actual volcanic cone, which unlike the rhyolitic-dacitic domes is formed by hornblende andesite.  The "Chungará Andesites" and lava dome complex of Parinacota were laid down at this time. Pomerape is associated with an adventive vent that has erupted mafic magmas. The main cone was last active 106,000 +- 7,000 years ago, the adventive vent is dated to 205,000 ± 24,000 years ago.

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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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

TWIN VOLCANOES PARINACOTA & POMERAPE BY RAFAEL SALAS

RAFAEL SALAS  (1824-1906)  

Parinacota  (6,348 m - 20,827ft)

Pomerape (6,282m-20,610ft)

Chile - Bolivia border 

In Bista del Pomerope and Parinacota, oil on canvas, 1870  

The Mountains 
Parinacota (6,348 m-20,827ft) or Parina Quta or Parinaquta  and Pomerape (6,282m-20,610ft) are two twin massive dormant stratovolcanoes on the border of Chile and Bolivia.  The range they are part of, Cerros de Payachata, means twin mountains and there are only those two peaks in the range.
It is usually counted as a sub-range in the Cordillera Occidental,  part of the Payachata volcanic  Pleistocene group. Both volcanoes are right on the Chilean - Bolivian border and can be climbed from either side. Their closest neighbor is Bolivia's highest mountain Sajama (6,542m-21,463ft) which isn't more than 20km away.
Parinacota is located in the extreme NE of Chile, where the country borders to Bolivia. The closest really large city is La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, which is about 300km and five hours away. Arica, in Chile is at the Pacific coast and is about 180 km far (and almost 5000 vertical meters!).
 Parinacota's last eruptive phase has been dated using the helium surface exposure technique, which ties the eruption to 290AD ± 300 years.
One of the most dramatic eruptive events in the volcano's past was 8,000 years ago, when a major collapse of the edifice produced a 6 kmі (1.44 cubic miles) debris avalanche, which blocked nearby drainage patterns, creating Chungara Lake.
The volcano and Pomerape straddle the border between Sajama National Park (Bolivia) and Lauca National Park (Chile).

The painter 
Rafael Salas was an important Ecuadorian  landscape and genre painter  of nineteenth century South America neoclassicism. He was the last son of the famous Salas artists dynasty among which  his  half brother Ramon Salas ( 1815-1880), the fist professor a t Academy of fine Arts of Quito and  responsive for the taste of Costumbrismo; and above all their father Antonio Salas (1795-1860) a colonial artist specialized in religious themes like La Muerte de San José and La Negacion de San Pedro in the Cathedral of Quito.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

NEVADO ILLIMANI IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1949

VINTAGE POSTCARD 1949

Nevado Illimani or El Illimani (6,438 m - 21,122ft) 

Bolivia

The mountain 
Nevado Illimani is the highest mountain in the Cordillera Real (part of the Cordillera Oriental, a subrange of the Andes) of western Bolivia. It lies near the cities of El Alto and La Paz at the eastern edge of the Altiplano. It is the second highest peak in Bolivia, after Nevado Sajama, and the eighteenth highest peak in South America.  The snow line lies at about 4,570 metres (15,000 ft) above sea level, and glaciers are found on the northern face at 4,983 m (16,350 ft). The mountain has four main peaks; the highest is the south summit, Nevado Illimani, which is a popular ascent for mountain climbers. Geologically, Illimani is composed primarily of granodiorite, intruded during the Cenozoic era into the sedimentary rock, which forms the bulk of the Cordillera Real.
The mountain has been the subject of many local songs, most importantly "Illimani", with the following refrain: "Illimani, Illimani, centinela tu eres de La Paz! Illimani, Illimani, patrimonio eres de Bolivia!" ("Illimani, Illimani, you are the sentinel of La Paz! Illimani, Illimani, you are Bolivia's heritage!")
Illimani was first attempted in 1877 by the French explorators Charles Wiener, J. de Grumkow, and J. C. Ocampo. They failed to reach the main summit, but did reach a southeastern subsummit, on 19 May 1877, Wiener named it the "Pic de Paris", and left a French flag on top of it.  In 1898, British climber William Martin Conway and two Swiss guides, A. Maquignaz and L. Pellissier, made the first recorded ascent of the peak, again from the southeast. (They found a piece of Aymara rope at over 6,000 m (20,000 ft), so an earlier ascent cannot be completely discounted.)
The current standard route on the mountain climbs the west ridge of the main summit. It was first climbed in 1940, by the Germans R. Boetcher, F. Fritz, and W. Kühn, and is graded French PD+/AD-. This route usually requires four days, the summit being reached in the morning of the third day.
In July 2010 German climber Florian Hill and long-time Bolivian resident Robert Rauch climbed a new route on the 'South Face', completing most of the 1700m of ascent in 21 hours. Deliver Me (WI 6 and M6+) appears to climb the gable-end of the South West Ridge, a very steep wall threatened by large broken seracs.
Illimani was the site where Eastern Air Lines Flight 980 crashed on January 1, 1985.

Vintage postcards 
- More informations about Vintage Postcards 

LICANCABUR PAINTED BY JOSEPH SELLENY

JOSEPH SELLENY (1824-1896)

Licancabur (5,916m - 19, 409ft)

Chile - Bolivia

In The Atacama desert, Chile, with the Licancabur volcano beyond, 

oil on canvas, 1858, Private collection

The Mountain
Licancabur  (5,916m - 19, 409ft) is a stratovolcano on the border between Bolivia and Chile, south of the Sairecabur volcano and west of Juriques. Part of the Andean Central Volcanic Zone, it has a prominent high cone. A 400-metre (1,300 ft) summit crater containing Licancabur Lake, a crater lake which is among the highest lakes in the world, caps the volcano. Three stages of lava flow emanate from the volcano, which formed on Pleistocene ignimbrites.
Licancabur has been active during the Holocene, after the ice ages. Although no historic eruptions of the volcano are known, lava flows extending into Laguna Verde have been dated to 13,240 ± 100 BP. The volcano has primarily erupted andesite, with small amounts of dacite and basaltic andesite.
Its climate is cold, dry and very sunny, with high levels of ultraviolet radiation.
 Licancabur is not covered by glaciers, and vegetation such as cushion plants and shrubs are found lower on its slopes. Chinchillas were formerly hunted on the volcano.
Licancabur is considered a holy mountain by the Atacameno people, related to the Cerro Quimal hill in northern Chile. Archeological sites have been found on its slopes and in the summit crater, which was possibly a prehistoric watchtower. The name "Licancabur" derives from the Kunza words used by the Atacameño people to refer to the volcano: lican ("people", or pueblo) and cábur ("mountain"); thus, "mountain of the people".
Because Licancabur is considered divine, attempts to climb it were discouraged and sometimes met by force; climbing it supposedly brought misfortune.  It is said that Licancabur would punish people who climbed it,  and the volcano is the mate of Quimal in the Cordillera Domeyko; at the solstices, the mountains overshadow one another.  According to local myth, this copulation fertilizes the earth.  Licancabur is considered "male" and a mountain of fire, in contrast to San Pedro (considered a mountain of water). The 1953 Antofagasta earthquake was considered divine retribution for an attempt to climb the mountain that year. According to legend, a golden object (most commonly a guanaco) was offered as tribute in the summit crater; human sacrifices have been reported on the volcano during the Inca pre-Columbian times.
Source:
 - Mercuria Calama

The painter 
Joseph Selleny (also Sellény) is an Austrian landscape painter, draftsman and lithographer and official illustrator. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and  traveled to South Tyrol, Lombardy and Venice. He obtained a scholarship from the Academy in Rome and Naples in 1854-1855. He was introduced to the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian who appreciates his works and asks him participates, as draftsman, in the expedition of the SMS Novara which circumnavigates the world in 1857-1859, under the command of Captain v. Wüllerstorf-Urbair. In the course of this expedition he produced more than 2000 watercolors, sketches and drawings representing the landscapes and the natives encountered, which on his return were a great success.  He painted watercolor directly on a pattern, then works in his studio. In addition, he made engravings of the expedition in several newspapers of the time. He also photographs many views, at this time of the beginnings of photography which today constitute a real treasure. The publication of the report of the expedition in 21volumes further increases its notoriety, as many of the 224 illustrations of the first edition is inspired by his drawings.
Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian then invited Selleny to accompany him on his journey to North Africa, Cape Verde, the Canary Islands and Brazil. Selleny also designed landscaping projects, such as the Vienna Stadtpark (1862) or the castle of Miramare, owned by the archduke in Trieste.  In 1867, tragically enough, the Archduke  Ferdinand Maximilian was shot by the revolutionaries a few days after being crowned Emperor of Brazil.  Then, Joseph Selleny felt in deep depression and settled in South Tyrol where he painted imposing landscapes.  Suffering more or more of depression, he was taken to a nursing home in Inzersdorf, where he died at the age of fifty-one. A street in the district of Leopoldstadt in Vienna is dedicated to him.

PARINACOTA PAINTED BY RAMOS CATALAN

RAMOS CATALAN (1888-1961)

 Parinacota  (6,348 m - 20,827ft)
Chile - Bolivia

From the series " Mountains of Chile" possibly volcano Parinacota seen from the south 

The Mountain 

Parinacota (6,348 m- 20,827ft) or Parina Quta or Parinaquta is a massive dormant stratovolcano on the border of Chile and Bolivia. Cerros de Payachata, means twin mountains and there are only two peaks in the range. It is usually counted as a sub-range in the Cordillera Occidental. Parinacota is slightly higher than its twin brother/sister Pomerape (6,282m). Both volcanoes are right on the Chilean - Bolivian border and can be climbed from either side. Their closest neighbor is Bolivia's highest mountain Sajama (6,542m) which isn't more than 20km away. Parinacota is located in the extreme NE of Chile, where the country borders to Bolivia. The closest really large city is La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, which is about 300km and five hours away. Arica, in Chile is at the Pacific coast and is about 180 km far (and almost 5000 vertical meters!).

It is part of the Payachata volcanic group. The other major edifice in that group is the Pleistocene peak of Pomerape.  Parinacota's last eruptive phase has been dated using the helium surface exposure technique, which ties the eruption to 290AD ± 300 years.

One of the most dramatic eruptive events in the volcano's past was 8,000 years ago, when a major collapse of the edifice produced a 6 kmі (1.44 cubic miles) debris avalanche, which blocked nearby drainage patterns, creating Chungara Lake.

The volcano and Pomerape straddle the border between Sajama National Park (Bolivia) and Lauca National Park (Chile).

Climbing

Parinacota was first climbed in 1928 by Joseph Prem and Carlos Terán.

Climbing the volcano is  alpine F grade, on a snow/rubble slope of about 35 degrees. A camp can be established at 5,300 m at the saddle between Parinacota and Pomerape. Depending on the season, the main difficulty can be a snow formation called penitentes which make the ascent physically difficult or impossible. It is attempted by about one party per week in the season. If needed, guides and transport can be hired from Sajama village, 27 km away on the Bolivian side of the mountain.

The main climbing season is from late June to mid September. This is the winter season of the southern hemisphere. It's also the time with the lowest precipitation and most stable weather. Between May and September there's almost no risk of any rain or snow at all. 

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, particularly 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.

2016 - WanderingVertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau