LE COL DU SIMPLON PEINT PAR JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT  (1856-1925)
Le col du Simplon (2,006 m)
Suisse (Valais)

Le col
Le col du Simplon est un col des Alpes suisses situé dans le canton du Valais. Situé à 2 006 mètres1, il fait partie de la route principale 9, menant de Brigue à la frontière italienne, puis par la SS33, à Stresa. La déclivité moyenne est de 9 %. Le col est ouvert toute l'année et connaît un important trafic de poids lourds. Il est aussi placé sur la route européenne 62 (E62) reliant Nantes à Gênes. Le col du Simplon se trouve entre les Alpes valaisannes à l'ouest et les Alpes lépontines à l'est. Il relie le bassin du Rhône au bassin du Pô, se trouvant précisément entre la vallée de la Taferna, affluent de la Saltina qui se jette dans le Rhône à Brigue, et la vallée de la Diveria (Doveria en Suisse), affluent du Toce qui se jette dans le lac Majeur, relié au Pô par la rivière Tessin. La distance routière de Brigue (altitude : 691 m) au col du Simplon est de 22 km (dénivelé : 1 317 m) ; du col à la frontière italienne, de 20 km ; de la frontière à Stresa, sur le lac Majeur (altitude : 200 m, soit un dénivelé de 1 808 m), de 64 km. La route principale ne passe pas strictement au col orographique mais légèrement plus haut. Le véritable col se trouve légèrement à l'ouest de la route, à une altitude de 1 996 mètres.

Le peintre
John Singer Sargent, est un peintre américain qui vécut essentiellement en Europe. Élève de Carolus-Duran, de Léon Bonnat et d'Adolphe Yvon, il étudie à l'École des beaux-arts de Paris. Il est ami ou proche de grands artistes de l'époque, comme Claude Monet, Paul Helleu, Albert Besnard, Gabriel Fauré ou encore Edmund Gosse. Sargent est particulièrement connu pour son habileté dans les portraits, caractérisés par un style sophistiqué, une virtuosité visuelle et une certaine audace théâtrale. Il réalise sur commande des portraits d'hommes et de femmes les plus célèbres, riches ou puissants d'Europe ou des États-Unis,. Au cours de sa carrière, il composa environ neuf cents toiles et plus de deux mille aquarelles, ainsi que d'innombrables croquis et dessins. Son œuvre documente ses voyages à travers le monde, de Venise au Tyrol, de Corfou au Moyen-Orient, ou encore du Montana à la Floride. Il fut actif en France et en Angleterre et peignit des compositions à personnages, compositions religieuses, scènes de genre, figures, portraits, intérieurs, paysages, marines, des compositions murales, à la gouache, à l'aquarelle. Ce fut aussi un dessinateur. Il est proche du courant de l'impressionnisme américain.

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

 

THE EIGER SKETCHED BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856-1925)
The Eiger (3,970 m -13,020 ft)
Switzerland


In Eiger from Mürren (from Splendid Mountain Watercolours Sketchbook),
Watercolor and graphite, 40.6 x 27.6 cm,
The MET (Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond, 1950. Public Domain.

The painter
John Singer Sargent was an American artist who created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Switzerland, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.
He was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, but in later life he expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe. Each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure. Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night. His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, "Everything is given with the intensity of a dream." In the Middle East and North Africa Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.
With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness. His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: 'To live with Sargent's water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, 'the refluent shade' and 'the Ambient ardours of the noon.'
Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America's greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer.


The mountain
The Eiger (3,970m- 13,020 ft) is located in the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau at (4,158 m-13,642 ft), constituting one of the most emblematic sights of the Swiss Alps. While the northern side of the mountain rises more than 3,000m -10,000 ft above the two valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, the southern side faces the large glaciers of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, the most glaciated region in the Alps. The most notable feature of the Eiger is its 1,800-metre-high - 5,900 ft north face of rock and ice, named Eigerwand or Nordwand, which is the biggest north face in the Alps. This huge face towers over the resort of Kleine Scheidegg at its base, on the homonymous pass connecting the two valleys.
The first ascent of the Eiger was made by Swiss guides Christian Almer and Peter Bohren and Irishman Charles Barrington, who climbed the west flank on August 11, 1858.
The north face, considered amongst the most challenging and dangerous ascents, was first climbed in 1938 by an Austrian-German expedition with Anderl Heckmair, Ludwig Vцrg, Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek. The Eiger has been highly-publicized for the many tragedies involving climbing expeditions.
In 1973 : first all female ascent of the face by Wanda Rutkiewicz, Danuta Gellner-Wach and Stefania Egierszdorff. All Polish.
In June 2006, François Bon and Antoine Montant make the first speedflying descent of the Eiger
Since 1935, at least sixty-four climbers have died attempting the north face, earning it the German nickname Mordwand, literally "murder(ous) wall"—a pun on its correct title of Nordwand (North Wall).
Although the summit of the Eiger can be reached by experienced climbers only, a railway tunnel runs inside the mountain, and two internal stations provide easy access to viewing-windows carved into the rock face. They are both part of the Jungfrau Railway line, running from Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch, between the Mцnch and the Jungfrau, at the highest railway station in Europe. The two stations within the Eiger are Eigerwand (behind the north face) and Eismeer (behind the south face), at around 3,000 metres.
The Eiger is mentioned in records dating back to the 13th century, but there is no clear indication of how exactly the peak gained its name. The three mountains of the ridge are commonly referred to as the Virgin (German: Jungfrau – translates to "virgin" or "maiden"), the Monk (Mцnch), and the Ogre (Eiger; the standard German word for ogre is Oger). The name has been linked to the Latin term acer, meaning "sharp" or "pointed", but more commonly to the German eigen, meaning "own".

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE JUNFRAU BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

 

JOHN SINGER SARGENT  (1856-1925)

The Jungfrau (4,158m -13, 642ft)

Switzerland

 

In Jungfrau from "Splendid Mountain Watercolours",  Sketchbook,  The MET museum

The mountain
The Jungfrau (4,158 m-13,642 ft) ("The virgin" in german) is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps, located between the northern canton of Bern and the southern canton of Valais, halfway between Interlaken and Fiesch. Together with the Eiger and Mönch, the Jungfrau forms a massive wall overlooking the Bernese Oberland and the Swiss Plateau, one of the most distinctive sights of the Swiss Alps. It is one of the most represented by artists summits with the Matterhorn and the Mont Blanc.
Politically, the Jungfrau is split between the municipalities of Lauterbrunnen (Bern) and Fieschertal (Valais). It is the third-highest mountain of the Bernese Alps after the nearby Finsteraarhorn and Aletschhorn, respectively 12 and 8 km away. But from Lake Thun, and the greater part of the canton of Bern, it is the most conspicuous and the nearest of the Bernese Oberland peaks; with a height difference of 3,600 m between the summit and the town of Interlaken. This, and the extreme steepness of the north face, secured for it an early reputation for inaccessibility.
The landscapes around the Jungfrau are extremely contrasted. Instead of the vertiginous precipices of the north-west, the south-east side emerges from the upper snows of the Aletsch Glacier at around 3,500 metres. The 20 km long valley of Aletsch on the south-east is completely uninhabited and also surrounded by other similar glacier valleys. The whole area constitutes the largest glaciated area in the Alps as well as in Europe.
More about The Jungfrau 

The painter
John Singer Sargent was an American artist who created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Switzerland, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.
He was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, but in later life he expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe. Each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure. Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night. His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, "Everything is given with the intensity of a dream."  

 In the Middle East and North Africa Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.
With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness. His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: 'To live with Sargent's water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, 'the refluent shade' and 'the Ambient ardours of the noon.'
Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America's greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer.
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2020 - Wandering Vertexes / Mountain paintings
by Francis Rousseau

 

PUIG FUMAT BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT  (1856-1925)

 Puig Fumat  (384 m -1,260ft)
Spain (Mallorca)

In Mallcorca- Cap san Vicente, watercolour, The Brooklyn Museum

The mountain 

Puig  Fumat (384m)  is the cape at the northeastern tip of Mallorca dominating Cape Formentor and the bay of San Vicente. In 1925, Antoni Parietti Coll (Palma, 1899-1979) made the route between Port de Pollença and the end of the peninsula of Formentor, opening ample tourism in this portion, as well as the perspective of the luxury hotel.

The painter 
John Singer Sargent  was an American artist who  created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Switzerland, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. He was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, but  in later life he expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe.  Each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure.  Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night.  His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, "Everything is given with the intensity of a dream." In the Middle East and North Africa Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.
With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness.   His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited 86 watercolors in New York City, 83 of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: 'To live with Sargent's water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, 'the refluent shade' and 'the Ambient ardours of the noon.'
Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America's greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOAB MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856-1925)  

Mountains of Moab  (910 m -3,000 ft) - (1,300 m - 4,300 ft)

Jordan

Painted in 1905 

The mountain

Moab mountains occupied a plateau about  (910 m -3,000 ft) above the level of the Mediterranean, or  1,300 m - 4,300 ft above the Dead Sea, and rising gradually from north to south.

It was bounded on the west by the Dead Sea and the southern section of the Jordan River; on the east by Ammon and the Arabian desert, from which it was separated by low, rolling hills; and on the south by Edom. The northern boundary varied, but generally is represented by a line drawn some miles above the northern extremity of the Dead Sea.

In Ezekiel 25:9 the boundaries are given as being marked by Beth-jeshimoth (north), Baal-meon (east), and Kiriathaim (south). That these limits were not fixed, however, is plain from the lists of cities given in Isaiah 15-16 and Jeremiah 48, where Heshbon, Elealeh, and Jazer are mentioned to the north of Beth-jeshimoth; Madaba, Beth-gamul, and Mephaath to the east of Baalmeon; and Dibon, Aroer, Bezer, Jahaz, and Kirhareseth to the south of Kiriathaim. The principal rivers of Moab mentioned in the Bible are the Arnon, the Dimon or Dibon, and the Nimrim.

The limestone hills which form the almost treeless plateau are generally steep but fertile. In the spring they are covered with grass and the table-land itself produces grain.

In the north are a number of long, deep ravines, and Mount Nebo, famous as the scene of the death of Moses. The rainfall is fairly plentiful and the climate, despite the hot summer, is cooler than the area west of the Jordan river, snow falling frequently in winter and in spring.

The plateau is dotted with hundreds of dolmens, menhirs, and stone circles, and contains many ruined villages, mostly of the Roman and Byzantine periods. The land is now occupied chiefly by Bedouin, though it contains such towns as al-Karak.

The territory occupied by Moab at the period of its greatest extent, before the invasion of the Amorites, divided itself naturally into three distinct and independent portions: the enclosed corner or canton south of the Arnon (referred to as "field of Moab"); the more open rolling country north of the Arnon, opposite Jericho and up to the hills of Gilead (called the "land of Moab"); and the district below sea level in the tropical depths of the Jordan valley.

The painter 
John Singer Sargent  was an American artist who  created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Switzerland, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. He was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, but  in later life he expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe.  Each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure.  Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night.  His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, "Everything is given with the intensity of a dream." In the Middle East and North Africa Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.
With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness.   His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: 'To live with Sargent's water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, 'the refluent shade' and 'the Ambient ardours of the noon.'
Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America's greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer.

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE CERVIN /MATTERHORN BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT  (1856–1925) 

 Le Cervin  or Matterhorn  (4,478m -14,691ft)

Switzerland - Italy border

 In The Cervin, watercolour, 1905 -  Private collection 

The mountain 

The  Mont Cervin (4,478m -14,691ft) also known as the Matterhorn is an alpine summit located on the Swiss-Italian border between the canton of Valais and the Aosta Valley in Switzerland. It has several other names: Cervino in Italian, Grand'Bèca in Arpitan, Matterhorn in German. The Cervin / Matterhorn is the most famous mountain in Switzerland, including the pyramidal shape that it offers from the village of Zermatt, in the German-speaking part of the canton of Valais.

Its four sides are joined about 400 meters below the summit in a summit pyramid, called "roof." Its summit is a broad ridge about two meters, on which stand actually two summits: one called "Swiss summit," the farther east, and the "Italian summit" slightly lower (4,476 meters), on the west side of the ridge. The two are separated by a notch in the hollow of which a cross was laid in September 1901.

Its north face is one of the three great north faces of the Alps with the Eiger and the Grandes Jorasses.

The most famous faces of the Matterhorn are the faces east and north, seen from Zermatt. The first

1, 000 meters high, has great risk of falling rocks, which makes it dangerous climb. The north face high of 1100 meters, is one of the most dangerous sides of the Alps, particularly because of the risks of landslides and storms. The south side, overlooking the Breuil (Valtournenche above) is high, it, 1 350 meters. This is the face that offers the most channels. And finally, the west face the highest with its 1400 meters, is the one that is the subject of fewer climbs attempts. Between the west side and the north side there is also the north-northwest side, which does not stretch to the summit but stopped Zmutt Nose, on the bridge of the same name. This is the most dangerous route for climbing the Matterhorn. There is also a south-facing southeast, deemed to be the most difficult of the south face route, which leads to the Pic Muzio, on Furggen Shoulder.

Due to its pyramidal form, the Matterhorn has four main ridges, through which pass most of climbing routes. The easiest ridge, that borrows the normal route, is the Hörnli ridge (Hörnligrat in German): it is between the faces east and north, facing the Zermatt valley. Further west lies the Zmutt ridge (Zmuttgrat), between the north and west sides. Between the western and southern sides is the Lion ridge (Liongrat), also known as Italian ridge, which passes through the Tyndall peak, summit of the southern part of the west side, at which begins the upper face. Finally, the south side is separated from the face is Furggen

Swiss normal route from the cabin of the Hörnli, located at 3260 meters. Since Zermatt is accessed by gondola Schwarzsee; there are 700 vertical meters to the hut and 1200 vertical meters to the summit.

Difficulty (Hörnli ridge): AD (fairly difficult), 3 climbing passage; fixed ropes were installed near the top for easy ascension.

The Italian normal route, taking his departure in Breuil, follows almost entirely the southwest ridge, called the Lion ridge. It was inaugurated by the guide valtournain Jean-Antoine Carrel 17 July 1865.

The climb from the Italian side includes three steps:

- du Breuil (2012 meters) at the shelter Duke of Abruzzi in Oriondé (2802 meters)

- the refuge Duca degli Abruzzi refuge to Jean-Antoine Carrel (3830 meters)

- Jean-Antoine Carrel refuge at the summit (4478 meters).

The ascent by Hörnli ridge, July 14, 1865, was considered the last of the great feats of mountaineering in the Alps. But this ascent error ended at the beginning of the descent, in the death of 4 of the 7 members of the roped Victorieuse.

The painter 
John Singer Sargent  was an American artist who  created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Switzerland, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. He was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, but  in later life he expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe.  Each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure.  Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night.  His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, "Everything is given with the intensity of a dream." In the Middle East and North Africa Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.
With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness.   His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: 'To live with Sargent's water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, 'the refluent shade' and 'the Ambient ardours of the noon.'
Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America's greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer.

2016 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SCHRECKHORN PAINTED BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT  (1856-1925)

Schreckhorn (4,078 m -13,379 ft)

Switzerland

 The MET, New York 

The mountain 

The Schreckhorn (4,078 m -13,379 ft)   is the highest peak located entirely in the canton of Berne Eastern Bernese Oberlands Alps, between Grimsel and the Fiescher and Eismeer Glaciers.  It forms with Lauteraarhorn an impressive double-summit. The Schreckhorn is the northernmost Alpine four-thousander and the northernmost summit rising above 4,000 metres in Europe, considered as  the most rugged and hardest 4.000 meter mountain in the Bernese Alps. 

This mountain is hard to approach, regardless from which side. In this point we can compare Schreckhorn with mountains like Aiguille Verte or La Dent Blanche.

The first ascent was on 16 August 1861 by Leslie Stephen, Ulrich Kaufmann, Christian Michel and Peter Michel. Their route of ascent, via the upper Schreck Couloir to the Schrecksattel and then by the south-east ridge, was the normal route for the following fifty years, but is now seldom used.

The peak had been attempted several times before this, most notably by the Swiss naturalist Joseph Hugi in 1828 (the Schreckhorn's Hugisattel is named after him) and the guided party of Pierre Jean Edouard Desor (a Swiss geologist) in 1842. 'The ambition of hoisting the first flag on the Schreckhorn, the one big Bernese summit which was untrodden, was far too obvious for us to resist', Desor later wrote, but they climbed a secondary summit of the Lauteraarhorn by mistake.

The first ascent by the south-west ridge (AD+) – the normal route by which the Schreckhorn is climbed – was made by John Wicks, Edward Branby and Claude Wilson on 26 July 1902. They decided to climb the very steep ridge without the help of local guides and succeeded in reaching the summit. The north-west ridge (the Andersongrat, D) was first climbed by John Stafford Anderson and George Percival Baker, with guides Ulrich Almer and Aloys Pollinger on 7 August 1883.

The painter 

John Singer Sargent  was an American artist who  created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Switzerland, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.

He was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, but  in later life he expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe.  Each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure.  Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night.  His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, "Everything is given with the intensity of a dream." In the Middle East and North Africa Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.

With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness.   His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: 'To live with Sargent's water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, 'the refluent shade' and 'the Ambient ardours of the noon.'

Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America's greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer. 

2016 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau