FJORD D'OSLO / ÎLE DE JELØYA PEINTE PAR EDVARD MUNCH

EDVARD MUNCH (1863-1944)
Fjord D'oslo / Ile de Jeløya (140m)
Norvège

In " The Island ", huile sur toile, 1900, Collection privée

A propos de ce tableau
L'ile de Jeløya a l'extrémité du Fjord d'Oslo est connue pour avoir été une des sources d'inspiration principales des paysages peints par Edvard Munch.

Le relief
Le fjord d'Oslo est un fjord du Sud de la Norvège, débouchant au large sur le détroit de Skagerrak, et au fond duquel se trouve la capitale du pays : Oslo. Il mesure 17 kilomètres de long pour un kilomètre de large au passage le plus étroit au niveau de la ville de Drøbak. Géologiquement, il correspond au rift d'Oslo. L'ile de Jeløya était en fait une péninsule du fjord d'Oslo, mais elle a été séparée du continent en 1855 par le canal de Moss-, un canal de 20 mètres de large construit à travers l' isthme bas. Le pont-canal -constitue le lien entre Jeløya et le continent à Moss. Avec 19 km2 , Jeløya (140m) est la plus grande île du fjord d'Oslo. Géologiquement, Jeløya est en grande partie constituée d'un jeune type de roche de lave de la période Permienne  D'autres îles du fjord d'Oslo formées au cours de la même période comprennent Revlingen, Eldøya  Missingene et Søsterøyene. Du grès Ringerike se trouve dans certaines parties de Jeløya et des céphalaspides fossiles ont été trouvés. La plus grande moraine norvégienne de la période glaciaire traverse Jeløya, va à l'est de Moss et Rygge et continue à travers la Suède jusqu'en Finlande. Jeløya est un site sur lequel beaucoup de manisons de campagne et de fermes sont intallées, notamment Grønli gård et Kubberød gård. Grimsrød gård a hébergé Edvard Munch pendant plusieurs années. Roed gård a été créé en tant que centre artistique et culturel combiné. Alby gård abrite l'une des galeries d'art les plus connues de Norvège, la Galleri F 15.

Le peintre
Edvard Munch, prononcé est un peintre et graveur expressionniste norvégien. Edvard Munch peut, a posteriori, être considéré après l'exposition berlinoise de 1892, comme le pionnier de l'expressionnisme dans la peinture moderne. Il est très tôt réputé pour son appartenance à une nouvelle époque artistique en Allemagne et en Europe centrale. L'importance de son œuvre est aujourd'hui reconnue en Europe et dans le monde. Les œuvres de Munch les plus connues sont celles conçues au début des années 1890, notamment Le Cri. Son œuvre ne connaît véritablement le succès dans les pays nordiques qu'à partir de 1909, grâce à la grande exposition rétrospective organisée par son ami Jappe Nilssen et par Jens Thiis, directeur de la galerie nationale d'Oslo. Le peintre absent est momentanément convalescent dans une clinique privée de Copenhague, après y être entré en état de dépression nerveuse, victime de troubles graves du comportement, physiques et nerveux, en 1908.  Ses techniques de prédilection sont essentiellement la peinture et la tempera sur carton. Il est aussi un pionnier de l'art accessible à tous, un art dévoilé, montré et non caché, dans les rues et les espaces publics, dans les divers lieux de nature.Edvard Munch a toujours été captivé par les paysages de rivage du fjord d'Oslo (ci-dessus), qu'il a découverts dans sa jeunesse par des chemins de terre, puis jeune artiste depuis la mer grâce à Hans Jaeger, capitaine affréteur de petits navires d'excursion et de cabotage de loisir. Quelques-unes de ses contrées sont devenues des lieux emblématiques de sa vie.

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2011-2024 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau  

LE SOGNEFJORD PEINT PAR JOHAN CHRISTIAN DAHL

Johan Christian Dahl (Norwegian, 1788–1857)
Sognefjord (1000m)
Norvège

In Winter at the Sognefjord (February 1827) Huile sur toile, 75.5 x 61.5 cm. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

Le Fjord
Le Sognefjord (plus de 1000 mètres) Sognefjorden en norvégien, est un fjord situé au nord de Bergen, en Norvège. Le Sognefjord est le fjord le plus long d'Europe et le deuxième plus long du monde après le Scoresby Sund au Groenland ; il s'agit également du fjord le plus large de Norvège. Situé dans le comté de Sogn og Fjordane dans l'ouest de la Norvège, il s'enfonce dans les terres sur 204 kilomètres, jusqu'à la ville de Skjolden. Sa profondeur atteint 1 308 mètres en dessous du niveau de la mer. Les profondeurs maximales sont atteintes un peu à l'intérieur des terres : près de son embouchure, le fond du fjord monte de façon abrupte jusqu'à un plateau situé à 100 m en dessous du niveau de la mer. La largeur moyenne du Sognefjord est d'environ 4,5 km. Des falaises le surplombent jusqu'à des hauteurs supérieures à 1 000 m. Parmi les villes situées sur le fjord et ses bras, on peut citer Balestrand, Gudvangen et Flåm. La beauté du fjord en fait une destination touristique très prisée. De nombreuses croisières sont possibles sur le Sognefjord, été comme hiver. Une ligne touristique de chemin de fer, la ligne de Flåm, longe le Sognefjord.

Le peintre
Johan Christian Dahl (ou J. C. Dahl) est un peintre paysagiste norvégien. issu d'un milieu simple : son père étant un pêcheur modeste de Bergen, en Norvège. Enfant, Dahl étudie à la cathédrale de Bergen pour devenir prêtre, mais ses capacités artistique précoces l'amènent à tenter une carrière dans la peinture. De 1803 à 1809, il étudie avec le peintre Johan Georg Müller , dont l'atelier est alors le plus important de Bergen. Il se met à travailler la peinture pour des décors de théâtre, s'essaie à l'art du portrait et des vues de Bergen et de ses environs. Dahl poursuit ses études à l'Académie de Copenhague, ville dont il peint la campagne environnante. En 1812, il écrit à Lyder Sagen, l'un de ses mentors, que Jacob van Ruisdael et Caesar van Everdingen sont parmi les paysagistes qu'il a le plus imités.
 Dahl participe à des expositions d'art annuelles à Copenhague à partir de 1812, mais sa vraie percée se produit en 1815, quand il expose pas moins de treize tableaux. Le prince danois Christian Frederik veille à ce que ses œuvres soit achetées pour la collection royale ; il devient aussi un ami et un mécène de l'artiste. En 1816, Dahl rencontre C.W. Eckersberg et devient son ami. Après son succès à Copenhague, Dahl devient un artiste indépendant. Toutefois, ses préférences académiques demeurent attachées aux peintures historiques véhiculant des messages moraux, ainsi qu'aux paysages pourtant considérés comme un art bas et, dans certains milieux, même pas comme de l'art du tout mais comme une imitation purement mécanique de la nature. Les seuls paysages pouvant être considérés comme de l'art, selon l'Académie, sont des idéaux, des paysages imaginaires dans les styles pastoral ou héroïque. Conformément à ce goût régnant alors, Dahl tente de donner à ses thèmes danois un certain caractère atmosphérique afin de les élever au-dessus de ce qui est alors considéré comme un niveau artistique purement commercial. En même temps, il conserve intact son désir le plus profond de donner une image plus fidèle de la nature norvégienne. Cette volonté reste en partie motivée par la nostalgie et le patriotisme, mais il s'agit également d'une marque d'adaptation de la sensibilité de l'artiste au goût du public. En septembre 1818, Dahl se rend à Dresde. Il y rencontre Caspar David Friedrich qui l'aide à s'y établir et devient un ami proche. Un critique écrit : « Friedrich produit alors des paysages minutieusement exécutés - exemples d'un art informé par son éducation protestante stricte et d'une recherche de la volonté divine dans la nature - qui ont été à juste titre célèbres au moment où il fait la connaissance de Dahl. De cette période, nous sommes en mesure de voir ses Deux hommes contemplant la lune (1819) ; tout comme le tableau Greifswald au clair de lune (1816-1817) qui dépeint la ville natale de l'artiste, en Poméranie, sur la côte de la Baltique: baignant dans un même clair de lune. » De Dresde, Dahl voyage à la campagne pour rechercher des sujets qui pourraient lui être utiles dans les grands travaux qui seraient peints plus tard dans son atelier. Il écrit au prince Christian Frederik en 1818 que « la plupart du temps, [il] représente la nature dans toute sa liberté et sa sauvagerie ». Dahl a assez de matière dans la région de Dresde pour fournir des motifs pour ses peintures, mais il continue à peindre des paysages imaginaires de forêts, de montagnes et de cascades. Par exemple, une peinture intitulée Norsk fjellandskap med elv (Montagnes du paysage norvégien avec un fleuve), achevée en 1819, suscite une grande attention parmi les jeunes artistes. Une autre peinture, représentant une monumentale chute d'eau, est achevée en 1820. La même année, Dahl est accepté à l'Académie de Dresde. Le prince Christian Frederik écrit à Dahl en 1820 depuis l'Italie et l'invite à le rejoindre sur le golfe de Naples. Il y passe finalement dix mois. Ce séjour devient un facteur décisif de son développement artistique. C'est en Italie, avec sa forte lumière méridionale, que l'art de Dahl atteint véritablement son apogée.
Dahl est à Rome en février 1821. Il passe beaucoup de temps à visiter les musées, rencontre des artistes et peint. Parmi les sujets que lui inspire l'Italie, il peint le site de Rome et le golfe de Naples. En tant que membre de l'académie, Dahl consacre toujours une partie de son temps à la formation de jeunes artistes. En 1824, Caspar David Friedrich le nomme professeur extraordinaire, ce qui lui permet de recevoir un salaire régulier. Parmi ses élèves, figurent Knud Baade, Peder Balke et Thomas Fearnley. Avec son épouse, Dahl vit à Dresde à partir de 1823. En 1827, Emilie Dahl meurt quand elle accouche de leur quatrième enfant. En 1829, leur second enfant meurt de la scarlatine. En janvier 1830, Dahl épouse son élève Amalie von Bassewitz, mais elle aussi meurt en couches en décembre de la même année. Quelques années plus tard, son plus jeune enfant meurt, laissant Dahl avec deux enfants survivants, Caroline et Siegwald. Bien que vivant à Dresde, il multiplie les voyages en Norvège, où il se rend en 1826, 1834, 1839, 1844 et 1850, la plupart du temps pour peindre les montagnes. Lors de son dernier voyage en Norvège en 1850, il se découvre vieillissant et très affaibli, bien qu'il s'astreint à continuer de peindre des paysages dans les montagnes. Ce dernier voyage dans son pays natal est toutefois l'occasion pour lui de réaliser plusieurs de ses œuvres parmi les plus saisissantes.

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

 

MITREPEAK / RAHOTU SKETCHED BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

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

  In Milford sound, series of watercolours Milford Sounbdof, 1870

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


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

 
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU PAINTED BY LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON

LAURENCE WILLIAM  WILSON  (1851-1912)

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft)

New Zealand 

In Mitre Peak, Milford Sound, oil on canvas,  Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand

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

The painter
Laurence William Wilson emigrated to Auckland in 1877 and then travelled extensively to settle in Dunedin in 1884. He painted in both oils and watercolours, became a painting companion of George O'Brien and a teacher. One of his pupils was the Dunedin artist Alfred O'Keefe. In 1895, LW Wilson together with Grace Joel, Alfred O'Keefe, Jane Wimperis and Girolami Nerli formed the Easel Club , a breakaway from the Dunedin Establishment, which offered a programme of special classes and the introduction of a professional lady model for life drawing. In 1904 LW Wilson left Dunedin for Melbourne where he spent 5 months on a commissioned painting of the city before he set out for England, eventually returning to New Zealand via India and Africa. He exhibited with the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1882 and the Otago Art Society between 1994 and 1904. His work was included in the NZ and South Seas Exhibition Dunedin 1889-90 and at the St Louis Exposition in 1904. LW Wilson is represented in the collections of all the major public galleries in New Zealand.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN HOYTE

JOHN  HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

In Milford sound, series of watercolour, 1870

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

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

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ALMIRANTAZGO FJORD PAINTED BY ROCKWELL KENT

ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971),

Almirantazgo Fjord (no elevation data)

Chile ( Tierra del Fuego) 

 In  Admiralty Sound/ Tierra del Fuego, oil on canvas

The fjord
Almirantazgo Fjord (Fiordo Almirantazgo), also known as Almirantazgo Sound or Admiralty Sound, is a Chilean fjord located in the far south of the country at 54°19′S 69°30′W.

 The fjord cuts deeply into the west coast of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, extending southeastwards from the Whiteside Channel, which separates Isla Grande from Dawson Island. On its south side several smaller fjords and bays make significant indentations into the north coastline of the Cordillera Darwin. One of these, Ainsworth Bay, is home to a colony of elephant seals.[

 Azopardo River empties into the head of the fjord.
The sound was discovered in 1827 by the British Captain Phillip Parker King and named after the British Admiralty.
Ainsworth Bay, fed by the meltwater of Marinelli Glacier is a notable inlet along the Almirantazgo Fjord. The Marinelli Glacier has been in a state of retreat since at least 1960, and the retreat continues to the present time of 2008.

About the artist
Rockwell Kent spent much of his life in New York City, studying painting under influential artists including William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri before venturing in 1903 to New Hampshire to apprentice with Abbott Handerson Thayer. Kent’s personal stylistic formation was influenced by modernism, grounded in realism, and wedded to his mystical beliefs about the power of nature and man’s insignificance in face of it. In 1905 Kent moved to Monhegan Island in Maine, the first of a series of trips to remote locations that included Newfoundland, Alaska, Greenland, and Tierra del Fuego. Kent attended Socialist meetings in Pittsfield, MA in 1909, and his politics became increasingly controversial after WWII. By the 1930s he was associated with the Communist Party. During the Cold War, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was denied a passport in 1957. He eventually gave eighty works of art to the Soviet Union.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

2. In Mitre Peak from Milford Sound, watercolour, 1870 

About the works
During his years in New Zealand, from 1860 to 1879, John Barr Clark Hoyte travelled around the country searching for dramatic landscapes to paint.
The watercolours of Mitre Peak are thought to date from the 1870s.

The mountain
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron.
Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight. The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.
The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.
Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.
Climbing
Mitre Peak is difficult to climb and not many people do so. The first attempt was made in 1883, but was aborted due to bad weather. The next attempt was on 13 March 1911 by JR Dennistoun from Peel Forest. People did not believe Dennistoun, who claimed to have built a cairn on the peak to which he had fixed his handkerchief. Those facts were confirmed by the next successful climbers in 1914. There are six routes up to Mitre Peak, and most climbers start by getting a boat to Sinbad Bay.

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

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU PAINTED BY JOHN GULLY

JOHN GULLY (1819 -1888)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

In Milford Sound , watercolour, Museum of New Zealand Te-papa

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

The artist
John Gully (1819 -1888) was a New Zealand landscape painter born in United Kingdom.

Gully's formal education finished when he was apprenticed to Stothert's foundry aged around 13. He worked in the designing and drafting department. He received some training in painting from a Bristol watercolourist, W. J. Muller.
In 1852 Jane and John decided to emigrate with their family of three children to New Zealand.

On 31 July 1860, Gully and his family left New Plymouth on the Airedale for the city of Nelson, where he spent the rest of his life.
He was encouraged by the geologist Julius von Haast, who commissioned him to complete 12 watercolours of Canterbury mountains and glaciers to illustrate a lecture given by Haast at the Royal Geographical Society in London in 1864.
 Eventually in 1863, with assistance of his friend, politician and amateur painter James Crowe Richmond (whom he had met while in New Plymouth), Gully was appointed as a full-time draughtsman at the Nelson provincial survey office. James Crowe Richmond was a lifelong friend of Gully's and his companion in many painting expeditions. He continued to paint in his spare time until 1878 when he was able to resign his position to paint full-time. He was a popular artist during his lifetime and is now regarded as one of New Zealand's foremost landscape painters.
Painting almost entirely in watercolour, Gully often went on sketching trips and filled sketch-books with careful pencil studies and numerous quick-wash drawings both in colour and sepia.
Gully's large watercolours became immensely popular at Art Society shows. He sold all of the watercolours he submitted to the 'New Zealand Exhibition' in Dunedin in 1865 before the exhibition even opened and won a silver medal. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1871 and in 1873 sent 9 paintings to the New Zealand court at the International Industrial Exhibition in Vienna. 

In 1886, he exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London and the 'Intercolonial Exhibition' in Melbourne. He also exhibited works with the Society of British Watercolour Artists in London.
Gully died on 1 November 1888 at the age of sixty-nine after a long and painful illness.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

RAHOTU / MITRE PEAK BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

In Mitre Peak, 1870 , watercolour, 1870 

About the works
During his years in New Zealand, from 1860 to 1879, John Barr Clark Hoyte travelled around the country searching for dramatic landscapes to paint.
The numerous watercolours of Mitre Peak he painted are thought to date from the 1870s.

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

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

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY GORDON TOVEY

 GORDON TOVEY (1901-1974)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

  In Mitre Peak, 1966, oil on canvas,  Christchurh Art gallery.

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

 The painter
Arthur Gordon Tovey was a notable New Zealand artist, art teacher and administrator, educationalist, and writer. Born in Wellington, he started exhibiting in 1922, and in 1924 he took a job as an artist with the Railways Advertising Branch.  This work took him to London, where some of his posters for the Southern Railway Posters won praise.  In 1930, following his marriage, he moved back to New Zealand, and two years later he began teaching art at the Dunedin School of Art at King Edward Technical College.  He rose to be head of the school in 1937 and became known for innovative programs integrating the visual and performing arts.  His students in this period included Colin McCahon and Doris Lusk.
During World War II, he worked on camouflage.
 In 1943, he became a full-time art lecturer at Dunedin Training College, where he again introduced educational innovations.  In 1946, he was appointed the first supervisor of art and craft for the Wellington Department of Education.  He was particularly interested in fostering understanding of, and education in, Maori arts, crafts, music, and mythology, and he wrote two books on these subjects, Art and Craft for the South Pacific (1959) and The arts of the Maori (1961).
He retired in 1966, returning to painting and writing full-time. During this period, he published an epic poem, The Twice Born Seed.

MITREPEAK/ RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

 Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

1.  In Milford sound, series of watercolours  Milford Sounbdof, 1870

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

The Painter 

John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London,  the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.

Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.

During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.

His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.

The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

 Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

1.  In Milford sound, watercolour, 1870  

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

Climbing

Mitre Peak is difficult to climb and not many people do so.  The first attempt was made in 1883, but was aborted due to bad weather. The next attempt was on 13 March 1911 by JR Dennistoun from Peel Forest. People did not believe Dennistoun, who claimed to have built a cairn on the peak to which he had fixed his handkerchief. Those facts were confirmed by the next successful climbers in 1914. There are six routes up to Mitre Peak, and most climbers start by getting a boat to Sinbad Bay.

The Painter 

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

MITRE PEAK/ RAHOTU PAINTED BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

EUGENE VON GUERARD  (1811-1901)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

In Mitre Peak and Milford Sound, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Australia

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

The painter 
Johann Joseph Eugene von Guerard was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia from 1852 to 1882. Known for his finely detailed landscapes in the tradition of the Düsseldorf school of painting, he is represented in Australia's major public galleries, and is referred to in the country as Eugene von Guerard. In 1852 von Guerard arrived in Victoria, Australia, determined to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. As a gold-digger he was not very successful, but he did produce a large number of intimate studies of goldfields life, quite different from the deliberately awe-inspiring landscapes for which he was later to become famous. Realizing that there were opportunities for an artist in Australia, he abandoned the diggings and was soon undertaking commissions recording the dwellings and properties of wealthy pastoralists.
By the early 1860s, von Guerard was recognized as the foremost landscape artist in the colonies, touring Southeast Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of the sublime and the picturesque.  He is most known for the wilderness paintings produced during this time, which are remarkable for their shadowy lighting and fastidious detail.  Indeed, his View of Tower Hill in south-western Victoria was used as a botanical template over a century later when the land, which had been laid waste and polluted by agriculture, was systematically reclaimed, forested with native flora and made a state park. The scientific accuracy of such work has led to a reassessment of von Guerard's approach to wilderness painting, and some historians believe it likely that the landscapist was strongly influenced by the environmental theories of the leading scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Others attribute his 'truthful representation' of nature to the criterion for figure and landscape painting set by the Düsseldorf Academy.
In 1866 his Valley of the Mitta Mitta was presented to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; in 1870 the trustees purchased his Mount Kosciusko shown in this article was titled "Northeast view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko", which is actually  "from Mount Townsend".
In 2006, the City of Greater Geelong purchased his 1856 painting View of Geelong for A$3.8M. His painting, Yalla-y-Poora, is in the Joseph Brown Collection on display at the National Gallery of Victoria.  The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney holds an extensive collection of working sketchbooks by Eugene von Guerard, as well as larger drawings and paintings and a diary. The sketchbooks cover regions as diverse as Italy and Germany, Tasmania, New South Wales, and of course, Victoria.
In 1870 von Guerard was appointed the first Master of the School of Painting at the National Gallery of Victoria, where he was to influence the training of artists for the next 11 years. His reputation, high at the beginning of this period, had faded somewhat towards the end because of his rigid adherence to picturesque subject matter and detailed treatment in the face of the rise of the more intimate Heidelberg School style. Amongst his pupils were Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Von Guerard retired from his position at the National Gallery School the end of 1881 and departed for Europe in January 1882. In 1891 his wife died. Two years later, he lost his investments in the Australian bank crash and he lived in poverty until his death in Chelsea, London, on 17 April 1901.
Several paintings of mountains of Australia and New Zealand by Eugène von Guerard are published in this blog, check the link in the name list of painters....

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

 JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

 Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

1.  In Mitre Peak, 1870 , watercolour, 1870  

2.  In Mitre Peak from Milford Sound, watercolour 1870

About the works 

During his years in New Zealand, from 1860 to 1879, John Barr Clark Hoyte travelled around the country searching for dramatic landscapes to paint.
The watercolours of Mitre Peak are thought to date from the 1870s.

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

Climbing

Mitre Peak is difficult to climb and not many people do so.  The first attempt was made in 1883, but was aborted due to bad weather. The next attempt was on 13 March 1911 by JR Dennistoun from Peel Forest. People did not believe Dennistoun, who claimed to have built a cairn on the peak to which he had fixed his handkerchief. Those facts were confirmed by the next successful climbers in 1914. There are six routes up to Mitre Peak, and most climbers start by getting a boat to Sinbad Bay.

The Painter 

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