LES FALAISES D'AULT PEINTES PAR GUSTAVE COURBET

 

GUSTAVE COURBET (1819-1877)
Les Falaises d'Ault (70 à 100m)
France

In " Falaises avec barques ", 1869, huile sur toile,  40 x 60 cm, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford

Les falaises
La ville d'Ault se situe sur la bordure Nord-Ouest du Bassin parisien ; elle marque la terminaison septentrionale de la centaine de kilomètres de falaises qui borde le littoral normand et picard, entre la baie de Seine et la baie de Somme. L’orientation de ces falaises est globalement de l'ordre de N40 (direction Sud-Ouest/Nord-Est), et leur altitude moyenne est d'environ 70 m, avec des maxima qui dépassent légèrement les 100 m (à Criel-sur-Mer en Seine-Maritime). La ville d'Ault s'est édifiée au sein d'une dépression qui permet l'accès à la mer : il s'agit d'une valleuse, petite vallée généralement sèche, parfois suspendue, dont les bords sont classiquement boisés (car inutilisables pour l'agriculture), contrastant avec le plateau alentour généralement agricole. Ces dépressions résultent de l'érosion superficielle associée à d'anciens cours d'eau, rapidement asséchés en raison de la forte perméabilité du sous-sol (craie du Crétacé supérieur). Il s'agit d'une formation homogène constituée par un limon éolien lœssique, fin, doux au toucher, beige, parfois tirant sur le brun-rouge, épais de quelques mètres, qui couronne les plateaux taillés dans le pédiplan finicrétacé. Le territoire de la feuille ne présente pas de bonne coupe de cette formation qui est en général attribuée pour une part au Würm et aussi, pour une autre part, sans doute importante, à des niveaux plus anciens. […] Le lessivage et la décalcification du limon produit à l'Holocène ont provoqué la formation, en surface, de la terre à brique ou lehm de teinte brunâtre. Outre la fabrication des briques, les limons ont été utilisés comme terre à pisé pour la construction des chaumières et des granges et de nombreuses petites carrières abandonnées sont encore visibles.

Le peintre
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet était un peintre français initiateur du mouvement réaliste dans la peinture française du 19e siècle. Engagé à peindre uniquement ce qu’il pouvait voir, il rejetait les conventions académiques et le romantisme de la génération précédente. Son indépendance a constitué un exemple important pour des artistes tels que les impressionnistes et les cubistes.
Les peintures de Courbet de la fin des années 1840 et du début des années 1850 lui valent sa première reconnaissance. Elles ont défié les conventions en représentant des paysans et des ouvriers non idéalisés, souvent dans de grands formats, traditionnellement réservée aux peintures de sujets religieux ou historiques. Les peintures ultérieures de Courbet étaient pour la plupart d'un caractère moins ouvertement politique : paysages, marines, scènes de chasse, nus et natures mortes. Il fut emprisonné pendant six mois en 1871 pour son implication dans la Commune de Paris et vécut en exil en Suisse de 1873 jusqu'à sa mort.
Courbet a peint quelques montagnes dans sa vie : les montagnes du Jura autour d'Ornans (France), les falaises de Picardie et quelques montagnes en Suisse lors de son exil. Comme beaucoup de peintres du 19e siècle, Courbet souvent ne  nomm les montagnes qu'il peints ; il aimait donner une description de l'atmosphère générale plutôt qu'une situation géographique précise.
  "J'ai cinquante ans et j'ai toujours vécu libre; laissez-moi finir ma vie libre; quand je serai mort, qu'on dise de moi ceci: 'Il n'appartenait à aucune école, à aucune église, à aucune institution, à aucune académie. , encore moins à tout régime autre que le régime de la liberté. »

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2023 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Wandering Vertexes ....
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

LE MONT SALÈVE PEINT PAR FERDINAND HODLER

 

FERDINAND HODLER (1853-1918)
Mont Salève (1, 379m - 4,524ft)
France (Haute-Savoie)

In  (Der Salève im Herbst - Le Salève en Automne, huile sur toile, 1891

La montagne
Le Salève  (1, 379m - 4,524ft) ou mont Salève est une montagne des Préalpes située dans le département de la Haute-Savoie, en France. On l'appelle aussi parfois le « balcon de Genève » car bien que situé intégralement en France, il est voisin de l'agglomération transfrontalière de Genève située au nord-ouest, la frontière passant au pied des falaises de l'extrémité nord de la montagne. Il offre l'un des points de vue les plus appréciés sur le canton de Genève et le Léman, étant facilement accessible par la route et par son téléphérique. Bien qu'appartenant d'un point de vue géologique au massif du Jura, ce crêt de calcaire plissé est rattaché aux Préalpes. Le Salève s’étend sur 21 kilomètres de longueur entre Étrembières au nord et le pont de la Caille au sud. Il est régulièrement orienté du nord-est au sud-ouest, et il est constitué de trois parties d’inégales longueurs, séparées par deux dépressions : le Petit Salève qui culmine à 899 mètres d'altitude au Camp des Allobroges, le Grand Salève qui culmine à 1 309 mètres d'altitude et le massif Pitons-Plan12 parfois appelé Salève des Pitons ou simplement Les Pitons. Ce dernier massif culmine au Grand Piton (1 379 mètres) et comporte trois autres sommets nommés : la pointe de la Piollière (1 349 mètres), le Petit Piton (1 369 mètres) au nord12 et la pointe du Plan au sud (1 349 mètres). Entre le Petit et le Grand Salève, le vallon de Monnetier a une altitude de 684 mètres et entre le Grand Salève et le massif des Pitons, le col de la Croisette s’élève à 1 175 mètres et est franchi par la route départementale 45. 

Le peintre 
Ferdinand Hodler est un peintre suisse considéré comme le peintre  qui a le plus marqué la fin du 19e et le début du 20e siècle. Ami de Klimt et de Jawlensky, admiré par Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin et Kandinsky, Hodler est l’un des principaux moteurs de la modernité dans l’Europe de la Belle Époque. Son œuvre, puissante, navigue entre réalisme, symbolisme et expressionnisme. Au cours de sa carrière, il aura touché à tous les genres, privilégiant le portrait, le paysage, la peinture historique et monumentale et les compositions de figures. Hodler était surtout réputé en Suisse dans les années 1900-1910 pour ses peintures à caractère patriotique. En novembre 1900, la Poste suisse choisit sur concours son Berger de Fribourg qui sera utilisé jusqu'en 1936. En 1909, la Banque nationale suisse lui commande deux vignettes monétaires, qui deviendront le billet de 50 (« Le Bûcheron ») et de 100 francs (« Le Faucheur »), mis en circulation en 1911.  L'Institut Ferdinand Hodler, sis à Genève et Delémont (Suisse) a été fondé dans le but de réunir les ressources et les compétences utiles à l'étude et à la valorisation de l'œuvre du peintre. La création de cette institution s'est faite progressivement, à la suite du décès de l'historien de l'art Jura Brüschweiler (1927-2013), l'un des plus importants spécialistes du peintre, à qui il a consacré sa vie de chercheur et de collectionneur. L'Institut Ferdinand Hodler mène un vaste programme de recherche et de publication consacré au peintre.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes ....
            Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
            Un blog de Francis Rousseau

LA ROCHE DE HAUTE-PIERRE BY GUSTAVE COURBET

GUSTAVE COURBET  (1819-1877), 

Roche de Haute-Pierre  (881m- 2,890 ft)

France  (Jura)

In Roches de Mouthier, ol on canvas, 1863, Phillips Collection, Washington D. C

The hill 
La Roche de Haute-Pierre  (881m) (The rock of Haute-Pierre)  is not located in the valley mais la dominates it at the height of the village of Lods and offers one of the most beautiful points of view on the Loue and its meanders.Named formerly Rock of the Sun, because it is the one that "the star of the day, while climbing on our horizon, favors the first of its nascent rays and that it salutes of its last goodbyes and while it moves away, it is by means of it, that by means of the pale or red tint of which it colors it, it predicts to the inhabitants for the morrow, or the serenity or the tears of the sky."
The painting by Courbet reproduce perfectly  that light effect on the hill.
At the summit one can discover a  royal point of view on the Loue valley, the Jura mountains and the  Mont Blanc.
After 10 minutes of a climb on a compact dirt path, we see the cross, planted at the top of the rock. The brown and crumbly earth suddenly gives way to limestone. Just a few meters and the gentle slope stops abruptly, changes inclination and turns into a cliff. The Loue flows 300 m below. The village of Mouthier-Haute-Pierre is on your left. Lods is located further downstream. In summer, one can see the canoes on the river and the trout fishermen on its shores. In winter, we simply let ourselves be taken by the quality of the landscape. This is one of the most beautiful views on the Loue Valley.

The Painter 

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.
Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death.
Courbet  painted a few mountains in his life : the Juras mountains around Ornans ( France) and a few  mountains in Switzerland during his exil; Like many painters of the 19th Century, Courbet didn't name the mountain he painted; he liked to give a description of the general atmosphere rather than  a precise geographical location.
 "I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty."

LE SALEVE PAINTED BY THEODORE ROUSSEAU

THEODORE ROUSSEAU  (1812-1867)  

  Mont Salève (1, 379 m - 4,524 ft)

France  (Haute-Savoie) 

In Falaises du Salève près de Genève,1834, oil on paper laid down on panel, 

Private collection - Gallery 19C, Beverly Hills  

The Mountain 

Le  Mont Salève (1,379 m - 4,524 ft) is a mountain of the French Prealps located in the departement of Haute-Savoie (France). It is also called the "Balcony of Geneva". Geographically, the Salève is a mountain of the French Prealps but geologically a part of the Jura chain, as the Vuache is.

Below the Salève is the Geneva urban area where more than 700,000 people live. The Salève consists of the Pitons, the Grand and the Petit Salève, and culminates at 1379 meters at the Grand Piton. It is accessible by a cable car since 1932 (rebuilt in 1983), the Salève stretches between Étrembières in the north and the suspension bridge de la Caille in the south. Between 1892 and 1935, the Salève was served by the first electric rack railway in the world.

The eastern side of the Salève dives under the molasse of the Bornes Massif while the abrupt mountain slope facing Geneva is subject to erosion. The vegetation - or its absence - enhances the limestone's layers. This side of the mountain is slit by several narrow and deep gorges, among which the Grande Varappe, which at the end of the 19th century gave its name to the activity of rock climbing in French. This discipline developed intensely there, at a time when it was only beginning.

The Monnetier valley, separating the Petit and the Grand Salève, is due to glaciary erosion. Modern geologists now think that this valley was dug by the subglaciary currents in a fissured region between the Petit and the Grand Salève, and not by the Arve as was assumed earlier.

The Salève occurs on one of the first European paintings depicting a realistic landscape, La Pêche Miraculeuse by Konrad Witz created in 1444 already posted on this blog.

The painter 

Etienne- Pierre-Théodore Rousseau was a French painter of the Barbizon school.  Not to be confused with Henri Rousseau (called Le Douanier), he was born in Paris, of a bourgeois family and received  t first a business training, but soon displayed aptitude for painting.  The influence of classically trained artists was against them, and not until 1848 was Rousseau presented adequately to the public.

In 1848, Rousseau  he took up his residence in the forest village of Barbizon, and spent most of his remaining days in the vicinity. He was now able to obtain fair sums for his pictures (but only about one-tenth of their value thirty years after his death), and the number of his admirers increased. He was still ignored by the authorities, for while Narcisse Virgilio Diaz was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1851,  Rousseau was left undecorated at this time, but was nominated and awarded the Cross soon afterwards. 

At the Exposition Universelle of 1853, where all Rousseau's rejected pictures of the previous twenty years were gathered together, his works were acknowledged to form one of the best of the many splendid groups there exhibited. But, after an unsuccessful sale of his works by auction in 1861, he contemplated leaving Paris for Amsterdam or London, or even New York.

Rousseau's pictures are always grave in character, with an air of exquisite melancholy. They are well finished when they profess to be completed pictures, but Rousseau spent so much time developing his subjects that his absolutely completed works are comparatively few. He left many canvases with parts of the picture realized in detail and with the remainder somewhat vague; and also a good number of sketches and water-color drawings. His pen work in monochrome on paper is rare. There are a number of good pictures by him in the Louvre, and the Wallace collection contains one of his most important Barbizon pictures. There is also an example in the Ionides collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

LE SALEVE PAINTED BY ALEXANDRE PERRIER

ALEXANDRE PERRIER (1862-1936)

  Mont Salève (1, 379m - 4,524ft)

France  (Haute-Savoie) 

1. In Le Salève au printemps, 1900, oil on pencil on textile, Private Collection, France 

2. Le Salève en hiver,  1919, oil on pencil on textile,Private Collection, France

2.  In Coucher de soleil sur le Salève, 1898, oil on pencil on textile, Private Collection, France

The Mountain 

Le Salève (1,379m - 4,524ft) is a mountain of the French Prealps located in the departement of Haute-Savoie (France). It is also called the "Balcony of Geneva". Geographically, the Salève is a mountain of the French Prealps but geologically a part of the Jura chain, as the Vuache is.

Below the Salève is the Geneva urban area where more than 700,000 people live. The Salève consists of the Pitons, the Grand and the Petit Salève, and culminates at 1379 meters at the Grand Piton. It is accessible by a cable car since 1932 (rebuilt in 1983), the Salève stretches between Étrembières in the north and the suspension bridge de la Caille in the south. Between 1892 and 1935, the Salève was served by the first electric rack railway in the world.

The eastern side of the Salève dives under the molasse of the Bornes Massif while the abrupt mountain slope facing Geneva is subject to erosion. The vegetation - or its absence - enhances the limestone's layers. This side of the mountain is slit by several narrow and deep gorges, among which the Grande Varappe, which at the end of the 19th century gave its name to the activity of rock climbing in French. This discipline developed intensely there, at a time when it was only beginning.

The Monnetier valley, separating the Petit and the Grand Salève, is due to glaciary erosion. Modern geologists now think that this valley was dug by the subglaciary currents in a fissured region between the Petit and the Grand Salève, and not by the Arve as was assumed earlier.

The Salève occurs on one of the first European paintings depicting a realistic landscape, La Pêche Miraculeuse by Konrad Witz created in 1444 already posted on this blog.

In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the creature after having fled climbs up the Salève (Chapter 7).

“ It was echoed from Saleve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy; vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant everything seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself from the preceding flash (...) I thought of pursuing the devil; but it would have been in vain, for another flash discovered him to me hanging among the rocks of the nearly perpendicular ascent of Mont Salève, a hill that bounds Plainpalais on the south. Who could arrest a creature capable of scaling the overhanging sides of Mont Saleve? "

The Dedicace to the Last song of Harold's Pilgrimage, proposed by Lamartine in 1825 as the conclusion of his friend Lord Byron's uncompleted poem, is located on the Salève. Byron died in 1824. 

The painter 

Alexandre Perrier  is one of the most prominent Swiss artists of the turn of the century, but he is perhaps the one whose work remains today the least studied. He counted among his friends and acquaintances Cuno Amiet, Albert Trachsel and Ferdinand Hodler and exhibited at the side of the latter at the Secession of Vienna in 1901, as well as at the Exposition Universelle in Paris the previous year. A landscape painter by vocation, he devoted his whole life to the pictorial transposition of a limited choice of sites, such as  Mont Salève, Lake Geneva, The Mont-Blanc and The Grammont, whose light and atmosphere he sought to bring back. Influenced by Neo-Impressionist tendencies, he uses a technique decomposing his touch into small dots and lines, situating it stylistically between pointillism and divisionism. In the second part of his career his style evolved towards a freer painting, dissociating color and drawing, an artistic approach that confirms its originality and its modernity.

At his debut, he worked for a short period in a bank before going to Mulhouse in 1881, for training as a signatory of textile printing. In 1891, he moved to Paris where he worked as a fashion illustrator; He discovered new artistic movements such as neo-impressionism, symbolism and Art Nouveau. Shortly before the turn of the century, he returned to Geneva, where he remained until his death. He received a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition of Paris in 1900. In 1902, he exhibited at the Secession of Vienna.

Source: 

- Musée d'art et d 'Histoire de Genève

LE MÔLE PAINTED BY KONRAD WITZ

KONRAD WITZ (1400 -1447)

 Le Môle (1,863m - 6,112ft)  (center)

France (Haute-Savoie) 

1. Le Salève and Le Môle (and the Mont blanc massif), occur on  the first European landscape paintings called La Pêche Miraculeuse (The Miraculous Draft of Fishes) 

painted by Konrad Witz in 1444, 

tempera on wood panel, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève. 

2. Detail of Le Salève (on left), Le Môle (center) and behind the Môle, 

one can see the white silhouette of the Mont Blanc massif 

About the painting 

This painting is most famous for its landscape, the first "topographic landscape" oanted in the History of art. This landscape reproduces exactly the real site as it was, and as it still (more or less) nowadays. Indeed, one can recognize the Lake of Geneva painted from Geneva at its western end ;  Les Voirons on the left ; the Mole, in the center, snowy Mont Blanc (on the back) and Petit Salève. On the hillside, to the far right, the sharp rock indicates a quarry of stones. And in the foreground, on the left, carved blocks of stone outcrop by transparency, they are old quarries under lacustrine. One could not be more precise in the description of a site. This topographical truth is combined with an exceptionally sharp rendering of reliefs and distances; the tiny figures that move in the fields on the other side of the lake are soldiers of the Duke of Savoy in training.

The mountain 

Le Môle (1,863m - 6,112ft) is a mountain of the Chablais Alps in the Haute-Savoie department of France which dominates the area around the town of Bonneville. The communes of Ayze, La Tour, Saint-Jean-de-Tholome, Marignier, Saint-Jeoire-en-Faucigny, Viuz-en-Sallaz, Peillonnex, and Faucigny encircle it.  Though a small mountain by Alpine standards, it is of great geographic importance as it divides the vallée de l'Arve to the south and the west from the vallée du Giffre to the north and southeast, and dominates the southern entrance to the Geneva basin. Mary Shelley, in her Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, quotes Le Môle as being seen by Victor Frankenstein from Geneva, where he was born and lived before being a student in Germany.

The painter 

Konrad Witz was a German-born painter, active mainly in Basel, Switzerland. His 1444 panel, The Miraculous Draft of Fishes (a portion of a lost altarpiece) has been credited as the earliest extant faithful portrayal of a landscape in European art history, being based on observation of real topographical features. Konrad Witz is most famous for painting three altarpieces, all of which survive only partially. The earliest is the Heilspiegel Altarpiece of about 1435 (today mostly in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, with isolated panels in other collections). The next is the Altarpiece of the Virgin (c. 1440), which has been associated with panels now in Basel, Nuremberg, and Strasbourg (Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame). Witz's final altarpiece is the St. Peter Altarpiece of 1444, painted for St. Peter's Cathedral, Geneva, and now in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva, which contains his most famous composition, the Miraculous Draught of Fishes (see above).

 Other independent works by Witz and his followers can be found in Naples, Berlin, and New York (Frick Collection).

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau