TORRES DELLA CEBOLLEDA III PAINTED BY CARLOS DE HAES

CARLOS DE HAES ( 1829-1898) 

Torres della Cebolleda III  (2,445 m - 8,022 ft)

Spain (Asturias) 

 In Picos de Europa, oil on canvas, c. 1872-1875   Museo nacional del Prado 

The mountain 
Torre de Cebolleda III is located in the Western Massif of the Picos de Europa or Cornión, on the edge of the Asturian councils of Amieva and Cangas de Onís in the Cantabrian Mountains. It is the main and highest peak of the three towers called Torres de Cebolleda. The difficulty of his ascension is classified as something difficult higher. The normal itinerary starts from the Lakes of Covadonga and passes through the refuge of Vegarredonda.
Torre de CebolledaIII is part of the  The Picos de la Europa massif, a mountainous massif located in the north of Spain that belongs to the central part of the Cantabrian mountain range. Although not very extensive, its proximity to the sea makes it lavish in geographic features of great interest. Currently, the Picos de Europa National Park is the second most visited national park in Spain.
This limestone formation extends through Cantabria, León and the Principality of Asturias, and its heights stand out, in many cases above 2500 m, because of how close they are to the Cantabrian Sea, because at its northernmost point they are only a short distance away. 15 kilometers from the sea.

The painter 
The spanish painter Carlos Sebastián Pedro Hubert de Haes was noted for the Realism in his landscapes, and was considered to be the "first contemporary Spanish artist able to capture something of a particularly Spanish 'essence' in his work". He was cited along with Jenaro Perez Villaamil and Aureliano de Beruete as one of the three Spanish grand masters of landscape painting, the latter of which was his pupil.
In the 1850s, Haes was involved in the rise of the Realist school of landscape. Coincidentally his landscape and wildlife paintings of the Monasterio de Piedra occurred at the time of an academic opening for the Painting School of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the selection to be made by a landscape competition. In 1857 he became the first professor of landscape painting, the first in Spain to teach painting directly from nature. In 1860, he became an Academic at the Royal Academy. In 1876, he presented at the National Exhibition with La Canal de Mancorbo en los Picos de Europa ("The Canal of Mancorbo in the Picos de Europa") later acquired by the Spanish state to be part of the collection of the Museo del Prado, because of its significance as a realistic Spanish landscape painting.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
A blog by Francis Rousseau

THE BUET PAINTED BY GABRIEL LOPPÉ

GABRIEL LOPPÉ (1825-1913)

 Mount Buet  (3, 096 m - 10, 157 ft)  

 France 

 In Le Buet vu du glacier d'Argentière, oil on canvas,  John Mitchell Fine Paintings Gallery, London

The mountain 
Mount Buet  (3, 096 m - 10, 157 ft)    also called simply The Buet is a summit of the massif of Giffre, in Haute-Savoie. It is also called the Mont Blanc des Dames (The Ladies Mont Blanc). It dominates the Cirque des Fonds.  From its summit, the highest in the department except  the Mont-Blanc massif, offers an exceptional view of the latter, as well as the red needles and the Haut-Giffre. The Buet played an important role in the birth of mountaineering and the conquest of Mont Blanc in the 18th century.
 The first a ascension took place in 1765 by Genevan scientist Jean André Deluc and his brother. The brothers Deluc reach first the summit of the Buet, on the side of Sixt in 1770. They conduct a series of experiments, including the calculation of the time required to bring water to a boil at this altitude. They are the first to use the barometer to measure an altitude. This epic is considered the first climb in the high mountains in the Alps. Six years later, in 1776, Horace-Bénédict de Saussure took the route and made preliminary observations to the ascent of Mont Blanc.
In 1910, the Grenairon refuge was built on Mount Buet. Destroyed in 1984 by a fire, it was rebuilt in 1985 in the same way.

The painter 

Toussaint Gabriel Loppé was a French painter, photographer and mountaineer. He became the first foreigner to be made a member of the Alpine Club in London. His father was a captain in the French Engineers and Loppé's childhood was spent in many different towns in south-eastern France. Aged twenty-one Loppé climbed a small mountain in the Languedoc and found a group of painters sketching on the summit. He had found his calling and subsequently went off to Geneva where he met the reputed leading Swiss landscapist, Alexandre Calame (1810 -1864). Loppé took up mountaineering in Grindelwald in the 1850s and made friends easily with the many English climbers in France and Switzerland. Although he was frequently labelled as a pupil of Calame and his rival François Diday, Loppé was almost an entirely self-taught artist. He became the first painter to work at higher altitudes during climbing expeditions earning the right to be considered the founder of the peintres-alpinistes school, which became established in the Savoie at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Notable followers of Loppé include, Charles Henri Contencin (1875-1955) and Jacques Fourcy (1906-1990). Together with the first ascent of Mt Mallet in Chamonix’s Grandes Jorasses range, Loppé made over 40 ascents of Mont Blanc during his climbing career, which lasted until the late 1890s.  He frequently made oil sketches from alpine summits, including a panorama of the view from the summit of Mont Blanc.

His paintings became celebrated for their atmosphere and spontaneity and he soon found himself taking part in many exhibitions in London and in Paris.

By 1896 Loppé had spent over fifty seasons climbing and painting in Chamonix. As the valley’s unrivalled ‘Court painter’ his work was in constant demand with the majority of his pictures going to English climbers and summer tourists.

In his later years, Loppé became fascinated with photography and was quite an innovator in this field too. His long exposure photograph of the Eiffel Tower struck by lightning, now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris remains one of his iconic images. 

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE GRANDE CASSE PAINTED BY HENRI MATISSE

HENRI MATISSE (1869- 1954) 

The Grande Casse (3, 855 m - 12,648 ft)  

France 

 In  Les Alpes de Savoie, 1901. oil on canvas,  Musée Picasso, Paris 

The mountain 
The Grande Casse (3, 855 m - 12,648 ft) is the highest mountain of the Vanoise Massif in the Graian Alps in the region of Savoie, France. It is located in the heart of the Vanoise National Park, near the village of Pralognan-la-Vanoise, which is about 25 km southeast of the nearest town, Moûtiers. It has a steep 600 m high north face. The other sides of the mountain are more gentle, mostly consisting of broken rocks. A high ridge connects it to the nearby peak of Grande Motte. The ridge connecting the Grande Casse and the Grande Motte is the watershed between the Tarentaise Valley in the north and Maurienne valley to the south.
The first ascent was made by William Mathews along with guides Michel Croz and E. Favre via the southwest face on 8 August 1860.  The north face was climbed on 6 August 1933 by the Italians Aldo Bonacossa and L. Binaghi.

The painter 
The most famous french artist Henri Émile Benoît Matisse is known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.
The intense colorism of the works he painted between 1900 and 1905 brought him notoriety as one of the Fauves.  Many of his finest works were created in the decade or so after 1906, when he developed a rigorous style that emphasized flattened forms and decorative pattern. In 1917 he relocated to a suburb of Nice on the French Riviera, and the more relaxed style of his work during the 1920s gained him critical acclaim as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. After 1930, he adopted a bolder simplification of form. When ill health in his final years prevented him from painting, he created an important body of work in the medium of cut paper collage.
His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
The painting above showing The Grande Casse peak from the west, belongs to the early paintings period, all painted before 1905.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

SASSOLUNGO PAINTED BY KONRAD PETRIDES

KONRAD PETRIDES  (1864-1944)

The Sassolungo  (3,181 m- 10,436ft)

Italy

  In The Langkofelgruppe- View of Saslonch-Langkofel in the Dolomites, watercolour,

The mountain 

The Sassolungo  (3,181 m- 10,436ft) (Langkofel in german)  which means Long stone is a mountain massif of the western Dolomites  (Trentino-Alto Adige). The summits of the Sassolungo group in their entirety form a circular arc, which opens only to the northwest and thus has a kind of inner courtyard. The area originated in the early Triassic period (about 230 million years ago) as a coral reef in the tropical shallow sea, where hard limestone could form on the outside of the reef, while the rock remained brittle inside and after the uplift of the mountains could be washed out quickly. 

The Sassolungo is a complex mountain with high slopes and many secondary summits :  Sasso Levante or Punta Grohmann (3,126 m -10,256 ft) ;  Punta delle Cinque Dita or Fünffingerspitze (2,998 m - 9,8360 ft) ; Sasso Piatto  or Plattkofel (2,958 m - 9,7080 ft) and Campanile Comici.
It was first First climbed by Paul Grohmann, Franz Innerkofler and Peter Salcher in 1869.

The artist 
Konrad Petrides  was a Viennese landscape and stage painter in the studio Hermann Burghart, where the painters Anton Brioschi, Josef Kautsky, Georg Jany and Leopold Rothaug also worked. He also painted many veduras, especially from Lower Austria and East Tyrol. Petrides was a member of the Dürer League, in whose exhibitions he participated and whose silver medal he received in 1919. In 1904 he also received the gold medal at the World's Fair in St. Louis, USA.

DRAKENSBERG MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY RUDOLF SAUTER

RUDOLF HELMUT SAUTER (1895-1977)

Thabana Ntlenyana (3, 482m - 11, 424ft) 

South Africa, Lesotho 

  In Drakensberg mountains - South Africa 1926, oil on canvas, John Mitchell Gallery London 

The mountain 
Thabana Ntlenyana  (3,482m - 11, 424ft)  which literally means "Beautiful little mountain" in Sesotho, is the highest point in Lesotho and the highest mountain in southern Africa. It is situated on the Mohlesi ridge of the Drakensberg/Maloti Mountains, north of Sani Pass.  The peak is usually climbed by groups completing a Grand Traverse of the Drakensberg - even though the peak is technically in the Maloti Mountains.
The Maloti Mountains, also spelled Maluti are a mountain range of the highlands of the Kingdom of Lesotho. They extend for about 100 km into the Free State. The Maloti Range is part of the Drakensberg system that includes ranges across large areas of South Africa. “Maloti” is also the plural for Loti, the currency of the Kingdom of Lesotho. The range forms the northern portion of the boundary between the Butha-Buthe District in Lesotho and South Africa’s Orange Free State.
The Drakensberg  is the name given to the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau.

The painter 
Rudolf Helmut Sauter was the son of the German-born artist Georg Sauter (1866-1937), who had settled in London in 1894 and established a career as a portrait painter and landscapist. Educated at Harrow, the young Sauter studied art in London and Munich, and exhibited his work at the Royal Academy, the Royal West of England Academy and the Paris Salon.
During the First World War, Sauter was interned at Alexandra Palace in London and in Frimley in Surrey, where he produced a number of drawings illustrating life in the camp. His letters describing the conditions in the camp, written to his wife in 1918 and 1919, are today in the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London.
 Sauter was the nephew and heir of the writer John Galsworthy, and illustrated an edition of his complete works, as well as painting portraits of the writer and his wife. He exhibited at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and the Royal Society of British Artists, and also produced a number of lithographs of landscape subjects. Sauter developed a particular skill as a pastellist, and showed his work at the Pastel Society.

Sauter travelled extensively, and over his career exhibited landscapes and views of England, South Africa, Italy (particularly Venice and Sicily), Morocco and the westerns states of America, notably views of the Grand Canyon. Apart from showing at the Salons in Paris, he also had one-man exhibitions in New York (at the C. W. Kraushaar Galleries in 1928) and South Africa. His work was exhibited with less frequency after John Galsworthy’s death in 1933, perhaps partly due to the fact that, as the novelist’s heir, he was better able to support himself financially. Much of his work was destroyed in a fire in the 1980’s, shortly after his death, which means that relatively few works by him survive today.

AMBA ALAGI BY DANIEL HAVELL

DANIEL HAVELL  (1785-1822)

Amba Alagi  (3,438 m -11,280 ft )

Ethiopia 

 In The Vale of Calaat , Ethiopia,  engraving 1800, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The mountain Amba Alagi is the one situated on extreme right of the engraving 

The mountain
Amba Alagi  (3,438 m -11,280 ft )is a mountain, or an Amba, in northern Ethiopia. Located in the Debubawi Zone of the Tigray Region, Amba Alagi dominates the roadway that runs past it from the city of Mek'ele south to Maychew. Because of its strategic location, Amba Alagi has been the location of several battles. As Anthony Mockler describes it,
It was [a] real amba, flat-topped, covered with crevices and canyons and caves, impregnable on the north and north-east where the Tug Gabat ran round its flanks through precipitous ravines, falling steeply away in the rear to the spur of Antalo, behind which lay the broad plain of Mahera.
Amba Alagi  (3,438 m -11,280 ft)is a mountain, or an amba, in northern Ethiopia. Located in the Debubawi Zone of the Tigray Region, Amba Alagi dominates the roadway that runs past it from the city of Mek'ele south to Maychew. Because of its strategic location, Amba Alagi has been the location of several battles. As Anthony Mockler describes it,
It was [a] real amba, flat-topped, covered with crevices and canyons and caves, impregnable on the north and north-east where the Tug Gabat ran round its flanks through precipitous ravines, falling steeply away in the rear to the spur of Antalo, behind which lay the broad plain of Mahera.

The artist
In older texts (and in the current Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), Daniel Havell is often claimed as the father of Robert (and sometimes of Luke as well); but more recent references generally place him as born in 1785, the son of Luke's brother Thomas, also a painter, who was born in 1762.  Daniel moved to London, and set up in partnership as an aquatint engraver with Robert Havell. Together they published aquatints of Twenty Four Views Taken in St. Helena (1809–10) after pictures by Henry Salt, and Twelve Picturesque Views of the River Thames (1812) from watercolours by William Havell. But the partnership did not last, and soon Daniel was working independently, including plates for Rudolph Ackermann's History of Cambridge (1815) and Ackermann's history of various Public Schools including Eton, Winchester and Rugby (1816), as well as a celebrated view of St Paul's Cathedral (1818) and various other London landmarks for Ackermann's Repository of Arts. Other subjects included topographical views of Devon, and of North Wales; and views of naval engagements. Havell's final work was for E.W. Brayley's Historical and descriptive accounts of the theatres of London (1826) "illustrated with a view of each theatre, elegantly coloured, drawn and engraved by the late Daniel Havell."
The Daniel Havell who was the son of Thomas Havell was baptised on 30 November 1786 at St Mary's, Reading; married Maria Wilmot on 5 June 1813 at St James's in Paddington; and was buried on 19 May 1822 at Kingston upon Thames, his occupation given as "artist".

MOUNT NARODNAYA PAINTED BY VLADIMIR KAZANTSEV

 VLADIMIR KAZANTSEV (1849- 1902)

Mount Narodnaya (1,894 m - 6,214 ft)

Russia

  In The Urals 1888, oil on canvas, Irkutsk Regional Art Museum

The mountain 
Mount Narodnaya  (1,894 m - 6,214 ft), also known as Naroda and Poenurr which means  "People's Mountain"  is the highest peak of the Urals in Russia.  It is in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug in Tyumen Oblast, 0.5 km to east from the border of Komi Republic.  It is the highest point in European Russia outside the Caucasus. This leads to its large topographic prominence (1,772 me -5,814 ft). Narodnaya is located in the Ural mountains water divide, and therefore on the border between Europe and Asia: the Naroda river flows south-east from the summit into the Ob river in Siberia, and the Kos'yu river flows north-west from the summit into the Pechora river in Europe.
The mountain is formed with quartzites and metamorphosed slates of the Proterozoic Eon and Cambrian Period. There are some glaciers on the mountain. Also, there are sparse forests of larch and birch in the deep valleys at the foot of the mountain. The slopes of the mountain are covered with highland tundra. The easiest route to the summit is a technically easy hike on the moderate north-west slope. Depending on snow and ice conditions, crampons may be required. The south wall of Narodnaya is steeper and less commonly used to reach the summit.

The painter
Vladimir G. Kazantsev was a Russian landscape painter enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 31. Before that, he was a lawyer, graduated from the Law Faculty of Moscow State University and worked as a judicial investigator. Since 1883 Kazantsev become a permanent member of academic exhibitions. In 1884, the artist's permit for the contest, the winner of which gets the right to travel to a foreign trip. His picture did not win, but the title of academic painter and "artist of the second degree" was given to him. In his paintings  h captured many parts of Russia through  different seasons and different times of day. VG Kazantsev was fortunate enough to work at a time  the landscape was in a leading position in  arts in Russia.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOURRE NEGRE BY JEAN-BAPTISTE OLIVE

 JEAN-BAPTISTE OLIVE (1848-1936)    

Mourre Nègre  (1, 125m - 3, 691 ft)  

 France (Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur) 

In Champs de coquelicots dans le Luberon, 1872,  oil on canvas  Private collection 

The mountain 

The Mourre Nègre  (1, 125m - 3, 691 ft)   is the highest point of the Luberon Massif. Nowadays, this summit is rounded and capped with a hertzian antenna, which allows to see it from quite far away. It is located in the Grand Lubéron, straddling the communes of Auribeau, Cabrières-d'Aigues and Castellet.

Mourre and Negre both come from the Provençal, the first means "muzzle" and is often used to designate rounded summits, the second means "black".

The Grand Lubéron is the main part of the Luberon massif in terms of size, length and width. It must not be confused with Monts du Vaucluse. 

Open or semi-open (closed in drought) to road traffic, the "path of the peaks" and the "path of the riders" roam the peaks of the Grand Lubéron including Mourre Nègre. It is accessed by Lourmarin, Cucuron, Cabrières-d'Aigues and Vitrolles-en-Luberon South Luberon side as well as by Auribeau North side. Several other paths allow the discovery of the Luberon. Some are reserved for walkers, or riders. 

The painter 

Jean-Baptiste Olive was a French painter, the son of a wine merchant, born in Marseille. Étienne Cornellier, a decorator, encouraged him to register at École des beaux-arts de Marseille where he studied under the guidance of Joanny Rave. While training as a decorator, he painted many scenes of Marseille, its Vieux-Port (Old Harbour), its islands, and its seashore. In 1874 he travelled to Italy, mainly to Genoa and Venice. He occasionally participated in some of Provence's exhibitions at the time. In 1881 he became a member of Société des Artistes Français, and one year later he relocated to Paris. He contributed to the decoration of several Parisian places like the Cirque d’Hiver, the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur and the Exposition Universelle warded several prizes there.  In 1900 he won an order by the company Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée for two paintings created as decoration for the golden room at Le Train Bleu, a spectacular restaurant designed by architect Marius Toudoire in the Paris-Gare de Lyon train station (both paintings can still be seen there in this restaurant still in activity).
He was supported by several patrons, among them General Malesherbes and Marie-Louis Gassier, the owner of company Berger, a producer of pastis. In 1948, twelve years after his death, Marseille's Musée Cantini dedicated an exhibition to his centenary, displaying eighty-two of his paintings.
Although relatively little-known outside France - unlike his Marseillais fellow citizen Adolphe Monticelli, Olive is one of Provence's most iconic painters and an emblematic figure of the French marine art movement.
While proud of his Marseille origins, he long remained doubtful of his own painting talent.  While proud of his Marseille origins, he long remained doubtful of his own painting talent. His introverted character was in sheer contrast with his artwork's dazzling luminosity.

XIAO MOUNTAINS / 崤山 PAINTED BY XIA GUI / 夏圭

XIA GUI / 夏圭  (active ca. 1195-1230),

Xiao mountains  / 崤山 (1, 903m - 6, 243ft) 

China

 In  Mountain Market, Clearing Mist, Album leaf, ink on silk, The MET  

About the painting

According to the MET notice : 

 "This album leaf presents a poetic evocation of one of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. The Eight Views became a popular subject for painters beginning in the late eleventh century after the Chan (Japanese: Zen) Buddhist monk Huihong (1071–1128) composed eight poems on these themes. His poem Mountain Market, Clear with Rising Mist offers vivid images for painters to interpret:

Last night's rain is letting up, mountain air is heavy,

Steam rising, sun and shadow, shifting light

amid trees;

The silkworm market comes to a close, the crowd

thins out,

Roadside willows by the market bridge: golden

threads play;

Whose house with flower-filled plot is across

the valley?

A smooth-tongued yellow bird calls in spring breeze;

Wine flag in hazy distance-look and you can see:

It's the one west of the road to Zhe Tree Reidge

Valley.

(Alfreda Murck, trans., in Images of the Mind - Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1984, p. 226)

In Xia Gui's interpretation, boldly executed brushstrokes and ink dots create an abstract language of visual signs rather than merely descriptive forms: the kinesthetic brushstrokes, which change effortlessly from outlines and foliage dots to wedge-shaped modeling strokes and ink wash, at once simplify and unify the landscape and human forms, breathing life into the moisture-drenched landscape. It was this brilliantly simplified idiom of ink wash and ax-cut brush that infused gesture with meaning, preparing the way for the expressive calligraphic revolution of the ensuing Yuan dynasty."

The painter 

Xia Gui (Chinese: 夏圭 or 夏珪), courtesy name Yuyu (禹玉), was a Chinese landscape painter of the Song dynasty. Very little is known about his life, and only a few of his works survive, but he is generally considered one of China's greatest artists. He continued the tradition of Li Tang, further simplifying the earlier Song style to achieve a more immediate, striking effect. Together with Ma Yuan, he founded the so-called Ma-Xia (馬夏) school, one of the most important of the period.
Although Xia was popular during his lifetime, his reputation suffered after his death, together with that of all Southern Song academy painters. Nevertheless, a few artists, including the Japanese master Sesshū, continued Xia's tradition for hundreds of years, until the early 17th century.
Contemporary accounts describe Xia as a painter who worked very fast, and with great ease. Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mountains is a work on paper, which absorbs ink quickly, and so must be an example of such spontaneous creation. Xia was also praised for his technical skill in drawing architecture and similar objects freehand, rather than using a ruler. Some sources mention the painter's preference for brushes with worn tips, used to avoid excessive smoothness, and "split" brushes, which allowed making two or more strokes at the same time.

The mountain 
Mount Xiao or Mount Yao (崤山) is a range of mountains in western Henan, China north of the Luo River and south of Sanmenxia. Major peaks include Qīnggǎngfēng (1, 903m - 6, 243ft)  and Guānyúnshān (1,666 m - 5,465 ft). The range is part of the Xiáo  historical region on the border of Hénán and Shānxī provinces in China. The area between Yáo and the strategic Hángǔ Pass was called Xiáohán.

ALVAND KUH BY FREDERIC GADMER

FREDERIC GADMER (1878-1954)

Alvand Kuh (3,580 m - 11,750 ft)

Iran

 In Alvan Kuh at sunset, Autochrome Lumière, 1927, Musée Départemental Albert Kahn 

The mountain 

Alvand  Alwand or Alvand Kuh  (3,580 m - 11,750 ft) is one the most famous mountain of Iran. It is  located near Hamedan, west of Iran. Mountain of Alvand belong to pro-Zagros range mountains. IIts summit  consists mainly of intrusive rocks (granite, granitoid and diorite). The range bears a trilingual ancient inscription (Neo Elamite, Neo Babylonian and Old Persian) of King Darius the great and king Xerxes I, called Ganj Nameh, 10km south of Hamadan. To reach Alvand Kuh, travel in Iran to Hamedan. From Tehran to Hamedan (330 km) takes 5.5 hours by bus. You can stay in Hamedan a few days. Hamedan is oldest alive city of the world. It was the first capital of Persia (700-530 BC). Take a taxi in the city and go to Ganj-Nameh (5 km from the city center).

The photographer
Frédéric Georges Gadmer was born in 1878 in France into a Protestant family; his father, Leon, son of Swiss émigré, was confectioner. Before World War II, he follows his family in Paris and works as a photographer for the house Vitry, located Quai de la Rapée. As an heliogravure company, it performs work for the sciences and the arts, travel and education. In 1898 Gadmer completed his military service as a secretary to the staff then recalled in 1914 at the time of mobilization. In 1915, he joined the newly created  "Photographic Section of the Army" and carried pictures on the front, in the Dardanelles, with General Gouraud, then in Cameroon. In 1919, at age 41, he was hired as a photographer by Albert Khan for his project called "Archives of the Planet". He finds there his comrades of  "the film and photographic section of the army" Paul Castelnau and Fernand Cuville. Soon as he arrived, he made reports in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Palestine. It was the first to make a color portrait of Mustafa Kemal, leader of the Young Turks. In 1921, he returned to the Levant with Jean Brunhes, the scientific director of the Archives of the Planet. The same year, he attended General Gouraud, appointed High Commissioner in Syria. Operator and prolific photographer, specializing in distant lands and landscapes, it covers Iraq, Persia, Afghanistan, Algeria and Tunisia. In 1930, he accompanied Father Francis Aupiais in Dahomey. He also works in Europe. In 1931, at the request of Marechal Lyautey, he photographies the Colonial Exhibition. It is one of the last person to leave the "Archives of the Planet" threatened by the Albert Kahn's bankruptcy in 1932. He then worked at the famous french newspaper L'Illustration and carries postcards for Yvon. He died in Paris, unmarried, in 1954.

About the  "Autochrome Lumière" Photos
The autochrome is a photographic reproduction of process colors patented December 17, 1903 by Auguste and Louis Lumière french brothers. This is the first industrial technique of photography colors, it produces positive images on glass plates. It was used between 1907 and 1932 approximately an particularly in many pictures of the World War I. A important number of photographs of mountains and landscapes around the world was made with this technique, particularly in the for  the Project "The archives of the planet" by Albert Kahn.

MOUNT GESSI BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943)

 Mount Gessi (4,578 m -15,018 ft)

Uganda

1. In Mount Gessi Panorama,  photo, 1906, Ruwenzori Expedition

 2.  In Mount Gessi seen from Mount Baker, photo, 1906, Ruwenzori Expedition 

The mountain 
Mount Gessi  (4,578 m -15,018 ft) is among the six mountains that make up the Rwenzori range. Like Mount Emin, it is positioned north of the triangle shaped by Mounts Stanley, Baker and Speke. Mount Gessi  ranks the 5th tallest mountain in Uganda.
Mount Gessi and Emin are on either side of a long slim gorge heading north-southwards. The twin peaks of Gessi are Iolanda (4,715m-15,470 feet) plus Bottego (4,700m-15,418 feet). Mount Gessi is elevated to rocky north-south edge with the upper peak being at the south end. The mountain is characterized with huts and decent tracks from both the DR Congo and Ugandan side. From Mutsori in Congo, local tribesmen are present as to work as porters and guides. There are numerous shanties preserved all through the Rwenzori.

The photographer

Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club.  He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888).
He took part in various expeditions outside Italy:
- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name;
- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897
- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899
- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Ruwenzori
- Recognition at K2  and Mustagh Tower in 1909
- In Morocco in 1925.
During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram (K2-Chogolisa), he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.
Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II.  His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.
His photos mountain are still  considered today to be among the finest ever made.
Jim Curran believes that "Sella remains probably the greatest photographer of the mountain.  His name is synonymous with technical perfection and aesthetic refinement. "
The quality of the pictures of Vittorio Sella is partly explained by the use of a view camera 30 × 40 cm, despite the difficulty of the transportation of such a device, both heavy and fragile in places inaccessible; to be able to transport it safely, he had to make special pieces that can be stored in saddle bags.  His photographs have been widely distributed, either through the press or in the galleries, and were unanimously celebrated; Ansel Adams, who was able to admire thirty-one in an exhibition that was organized at Sella American Sierra Club, said they inspired him "a religious kind of sense of wonder."  Many of his pictures were taken in the mountains for the very first time in the History, which give them a much artistic, historical  but also scientific value ; for example, one could measure the decline in the Rwenzori glaciers in Central Africa.

THABANA NTLENYANA PAINTED BY JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEFF

JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF (1886-1957)

Thabana Ntlenyana (3, 482m - 11, 424ft) 

South Africa, Lesotho 

In Maluti Mountains, oil on canvas, 1929

The mountain 

Thabana Ntlenyana  (3,482m - 11, 424ft)  which literally means "Beautiful little mountain" in Sesotho, is the highest point in Lesotho and the highest mountain in southern Africa. It is situated on the Mohlesi ridge of the Drakensberg/Maloti Mountains, north of Sani Pass.  The peak is usually climbed by groups completing a Grand Traverse of the Drakensberg - even though the peak is technically in the Maloti Mountains.

The Maloti Mountains, also spelled Maluti are a mountain range of the highlands of the Kingdom of Lesotho. They extend for about 100 km into the Free State. The Maloti Range is part of the Drakensberg system that includes ranges across large areas of South Africa. “Maloti” is also the plural for Loti, the currency of the Kingdom of Lesotho. The range forms the northern portion of the boundary between the Butha-Buthe District in Lesotho and South Africa’s Orange Free State.

The painter 
Jacobus Hendrik (Henk) Pierneef (usually referred to as Pierneef)  was a South African landscape artist, generally considered to be one of the best of the old South African masters. His distinctive style is widely recognized and his work was greatly influenced by the South African landscape.
Most of his landscapes were of the South African highveld, which provided a lifelong source of inspiration for him. Pierneef's style was to reduce and simplify the landscape to geometric structures, using flat planes, lines and colour to present the harmony and order in nature. This resulted in formalised, ordered and often-monumental view of the South African landscape, uninhabited and with dramatic light and colour.
Pierneef's work can be seen worldwide in many private, corporate and public collections, including the Africana Museum, Durban Art Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, King George VI Art Gallery, Pierneef Museum and the Pretoria Art Gallery.