L 'ACROPOLE D'ATHÊNES PEINT PAR FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH

 

 

FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH (1826-1900)

L'Acropole d'Athènes (156m -512ft)

Grèce

In Acropolis od Athens,  oil on canvas, The MET

La colline
L'Acropole d'Athènes (156m -512ft) (Ακρόπολη Αθηνών) est situé sur un plateau rocheux calcaire dont le sommet plat mesure environ 270 mètres d'est en ouest et 85 mètres du nord au sud, s'élargissant jusqu'à près de 150 mètres grâce au travaux faits au  Ve siècle avant l'ère chrétienne. Le terme d"acropole" (ἀκρόπολις / akrópolis) vient de l'adjectif ἄκρος (ákros "haut") et du nom πόλις (pólis, "ville, ville"), signifiant ainsi  la "ville haute".
Il est accessible du côté ouest par une pente raide menant aux Propylées. Le plateau peut être aussi atteint par deux failles creusées par l'érosion sur la  face nord . Les faces est et sud  sont aussi inaccessibles. C'est même par le côté est, jugé trop escarpé et donc non surveillé, que les Perses pénétrèrent dans la forteresse en 480 avant l'ère chrétienne.
Le sanctuaire de l'Acropole d'Athènes s'organise autour de la statue de la divinité tutélaire de la ville. Cette statue d'Athéna Polias n'est connue que par quelques textes. Ce devait être un Xoanon, une sorte de poutre en bois d'olivier, presque aniconique.   Elle devait être plutôt debout : une poutre est difficile à asseoir et ressemble plus à un personnage debout qu'assis ; il n'y a pas non plus de mention de trône dans les textes ; enfin, Athéna est le plus souvent représentée debout.
Chaque année, la statue était lavée, ses péplos changés et sa parure (bijoux et accessoires) nettoyée. Ses bijoux étaient des boucles d'oreilles, une bordure sur le cou et cinq colliers. Ses accessoires, tout en or, étaient une chouette, une égide, une gorgone et une phiale. Elle n'avait pas d'armes : elle n'était donc pas la déesse guerrière des statues les plus célèbres par la suite (Athéna Parthénos et Athéna Promachos de Phidias). Ces bijoux et accessoires pourraient dater de la "restructuration" de la statue primitive par Endoios. Il aurait fait de la poutre une corée en y fixant un bras (et une main tenant la phiale)

Le peintre
Frederic Edwin Church  est un peintre américain dont l'œuvre constitue l'expression la plus originale et la plus complète du romantisme dans la peinture américaine. Church a le paysage pour domaine. Élève de Thomas Cole entre 1844 et 1846, il commence par recueillir les formules ambiguës de son maître et sa vision d'un immense paysage dramatisé. Mais, tandis que chez la plupart des peintres de l'école de l'Hudson l'exemple de Cole aboutit à un type de paysage composé, tout de poncifs, Church le renouvelle par une étude passionnément objective de la nature. À partir de 1890 environ, il entreprend de grands voyages à travers le continent américain, accumulant des études sur le motif, où l'action de la lumière est notée avec une précision quasi photographique. Ces études s'apparentent à celles d'Asher B. Durand, par exemple, et, comme lui, Church les utilise pour de grands paysages composés. Mais au lieu d'« idéaliser » l'observation initiale suivant les vieux procédés du paysage classique, il rejoint plutôt la jeune tradition « luministe » américaine, son hyperréalisme de la lumière qui donne la même intensité à tous les détails. Les motifs de prédilection de Church, inspirés par les terribles magnificences de la nature — montagnes, forêts vierges, glaciers, chutes d'eau (Le Niagara, 1857, Cocoran Gallery of Art, Washington ; Le Cœur des Andes, 1859, Metropolitan Museum, New York ; Le Cotopaxi, collection Aston, New York) —, rejoignent le répertoire du grand romantisme européen (Caspar David Friedrich, J.M.W. Turner...) et contiennent le même pouvoir de suggestion, le même symbolisme élémentaire et puissant. À un moment où le romantisme ne s'exprime plus guère dans la peinture européenne que sous une forme dérisoire, l'œuvre de Church constitue une réalisation saisissante du rêve exprimé par Baudelaire, qui, dans le Salon de 1859, regrettait que l'imagination doive fuir le paysage et évoquait avec nostalgie « le paysage romantique et même le paysage romanesque ».

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

BLACK MESA (3) PAINTED BY GEORGIA O' KEEFFE

 

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887–1986)
Black Mesa (1,739 m - 5,705 feet)
United States of America (Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma)

In Near Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1931 Oil on canvas, 0.6 x 91.4 cm, Georgia O' Keeffe Museum

 

The painter
Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.
Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction. O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.
In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.
In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.
Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”
Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art. In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.
Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

The mountain 
Black Mesa  (1,739 m - 5,705 feet) is a mesa in the U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. It extends from Mesa de Maya, Colorado southeasterly 28 miles (45 km) along the north bank of the Cimarron River, crossing the northeast corner of New Mexico to end at the confluence of the Cimarron River and Carrizo Creek near Kenton in the Oklahoma panhandle. Its highest elevation is  in Colorado. The highest point of Black Mesa within New Mexico is 1,597 m -  5,239 feet.  The plateau that formed at the top of the mesa has been known as a "geological wonder" of North America. There is abundant wildlife in this shortgrass prairie environment, including mountain lions, butterflies, and the Texas horned lizard.
The plateau has been home to Plains Indians.
In the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century the area was a hideout for outlaws such as William Coe and Black Jack Ketchum. The outlaws built a fort known as the Robbers' Roost. The stone fort housed a blacksmith shop, gun ports, and a piano. The present-day Oklahoma Panhandle area, which was then considered a no man's land, lacked law enforcement agencies and hence the outlaws found it safe to hide in the region. However, as new settlers arrived in the area for copper and coal mining and also for cattle ranching activities by grazing cattle in the mesa region, law enforcement became more effective, and the outlaws were brought under control.
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT GILES PAINTED BY ALBERT NAMATJIRA

ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902-1959)
Mount Giles (1, 389 m - 4, 557 ft)
Australia (Northern territory) 

In Yuendumu, watercolor, 1948

The mountain
Mount Giles (1, 389 m - 4, 557 ft) is one of the highest mountains in the Northern Territory, Australia. It lies along the MacDonnell Ranges, dominating Ormiston Pound, in the West MacDonnell National Park, approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Alice Springs. It can be visited via the celebrated Larapinta Trail and has views of Mount Sonder, Ormiston Gorge and Pound, and the surrounding range. Climbing the mountain requires a hard two- or three-day hike. The MacDonnell Ranges is located in the Northern Territory, comprising 3,929,444 hectares (9,709,870 acres). The range is a 644 km (400 mi) long series of mountains located in the centre of Australia, and consist of parallel ridges running to the east and west of Alice Springs. The mountain range contains many spectacular gaps and gorges as well as areas of Aboriginal significance.
The ranges were named after Sir Richard MacDonnell (the Governor of South Australia at the time) by John McDouall Stuart, whose 1860 expedition reached them in April of that year. The Horn Expedition investigated the ranges as part of the scientific expedition into central Australia. Other explorers of the range included David Lindsay and John Ross.
The MacDonnell Ranges are famous to have been often depicted in the paintings by Albert Namatjira.

The painter
Albert Namatjira born Elea Namatjira, was a Western Arrernte-speaking Aboriginal artist from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. As a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was the most famous Indigenous Australian of his generation.
Born and raised at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, Namatjira showed interest in art from an early age, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32), under the tutelage of Rex Battarbee, that he began to paint seriously. Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting. He became a household name in Australia—indeed, reproductions of his works hung in many homes throughout the nation—and he was publicly regarded as a model Aborigine who had succeeded in mainstream society.
Although not the first Aboriginal artist to work in a European style, Albert Namatjira is certainly the most famous. Ghost gums with luminous white trunks, palm-filled gorges and red mountain ranges turning purple at dusk are the hallmarks of the Hermannsburg school. Hermannsburg Mission was established by Lutheran missionaries in 1877 on the banks of the Finke River, west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Namatjira learnt watercolour technique from the artist, Rex Battarbee.
Initially thought of as having succumbed to European pictorial idioms – and for that reason, to ideas of European privilege over the land – Namatjira’s landscapes have since been re-evaluated as coded expressions on traditional sites and sacred knowledge. Ownership of country is hereditary, but detailed knowledge of what it ‘contains’ is learnt in successive stages through ceremony, song, anecdote and contact. Namatjira’s father’s country lay towards Mount Sonder and Glen Helen Gorge, in the MacDonnell Ranges, and his mother’s country was in the region of Palm Valley in Central Australia. In Namatjira’s paintings, the totemic connections to his country are so indelible that, for example, Palm Valley the place and Palm Valley, c.1940s, the painting seem to intersect, detailing Namatjira’s artistic, cultural and proprietorial claim on the land.
One of his first landscapes from 1936, Central Australian Landscape, shows a land of rolling green hills. Another early work, Ajantzi Waterhole (1937), shows a close up view of a small waterhole, with Namatjira capturing the reflection in the water. The landscape becomes one of contrasting colours, a device that is often used by Western painters, with red hills and green trees in Red Bluff (1938). Central Australian Gorge (1940) shows detailed rendering of rocks and reflections in the water. In Flowering Shrubs Namatjira contrasts the blossoming flowers in the foreground with the more barren desert and cliffs in the background. Namatjira's love of trees was often described so that his paintings of trees were more portraits than landscapes, which is shown in the portrait of the often depicted ghost gum in Ghost Gum Glen Helen (c.1945-49). Namatjira's skills at colouring trees can be clearly seen in this portrait. Namatjira was fully aware of his own talent, as was shown when he was describing another landscape painter to William Dargie: "He does not know how to make the side of a tree which is in the light look the same colour as the side of the tree in shadow...I know how to do better."
Namatjira's skills kept increasing with experience as is shown in the highly photographic quality of Mt Hermannsburg (1957), painted only two years before he died.
In 1957, Namatjira became the first Aboriginal person to be granted conditional Australian citizenship. This entitled him to limited social freedoms and to live in Mparntwe, although he was prohibited from purchasing land. His relations, including his children, were not permitted the same privileges.
After an incident in 1958 that didn’t directly involve the artist, Namatjira was charged with supplying alcohol to members of the Aboriginal community – at the time, it was illegal for all Aboriginal people, except Namatjira, to possess and consume alcohol. Namatjira was sentenced to six months labour at Papunya and this, exacerbated by the authorities’ refusal to allow him to purchase the land of his ancestors, caused him profound despair. He served only two months, and died shortly after.
The more recent, dramatic success of the nearby Papunya Tula movement must be read against the history of its predecessor, the Hermannsburg school, which has endured for over half a century. In 2002, the centenary of Namatjira’s birth was celebrated with a major retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

BLACK MESA ( 2) PAINTED BY GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

 

 

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Black Mesa (1,739 m - 5,705 ft)
United States of America (Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma)

In Mesa and Road East, oil on canvas, 1952, Private collection

The mountain
Black Mesa (1,739 m - 5,705 feet) is a mesa in the U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. It extends from Mesa de Maya, Colorado southeasterly 28 miles (45 km) along the north bank of the Cimarron River, crossing the northeast corner of New Mexico to end at the confluence of the Cimarron River and Carrizo Creek near Kenton in the Oklahoma panhandle. Its highest elevation is in Colorado. The highest point of Black Mesa within New Mexico is 1,597 m - 5,239 feet. The plateau that formed at the top of the mesa has been known as a "geological wonder" of North America. There is abundant wildlife in this shortgrass prairie environment, including mountain lions, butterflies, and the Texas horned lizard. The plateau has been home to Plains Indians. In the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century the area was a hideout for outlaws such as William Coe and Black Jack Ketchum. The outlaws built a fort known as the Robbers' Roost. The stone fort housed a blacksmith shop, gun ports, and a piano. The present-day Oklahoma Panhandle area, which was then considered a no man's land, lacked law enforcement agencies and hence the outlaws found it safe to hide in the region. However, as new settlers arrived in the area for copper and coal mining and also for cattle ranching activities by grazing cattle in the mesa region, law enforcement became more effective, and the outlaws were brought under control.


The painter
Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.
Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.
O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.
In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.
In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.
Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”
Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art. In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.
Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

___________________________________________
2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

KLOOF CORNER/TABLE MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY NITA SPILHAUS

 

NITA SPILHAUS (1878-1967)
Kloof Corner in Table mountain / Hoerikwaggo (1,085 m - 3,558 ft) 
South Africa


In Klooof Corner, oil on canvas, 1920, Private collection

The mountain
Kloof Corner follows a prominent ridge the forms the right skyline of Table Mountain (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)   when viewed from the north – the iconic and best-known view of Table Mountain. The ridge terminates about 150 meters below the summit at the foot of sheer cliffs, from where you latch onto the India Venster route to gain the summit via a lengthy traverse to the back of the Table. As far as Table Mountain hiking goes, Kloof Corner is one of the more challenging routes. The route contains 3 chains to assist hikers up tricky rock bands; these should not be underestimated. A variation exists along the middle section, known as Kloof Corner Pinnacle and strictly adhering to the crest of the ridge to rejoin the original line further up. Great to do if you have time and want more scrambling and adventure.  A unique feature of the route is that it offers views towards the north (over the city) and the west (Camps Bay / Atlantic coast) at the same time at several points along the way. The ridge, known as Kloof Corner Ridge (a route name consisting of 3 nouns!) forms the great northwestern corner of the mountain, where the north and west sides meet. It’s one of the most conspicuous features on Table Mountain.
Table Mountain (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)  also called Hoerikwaggo is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa and forming part of the Table Mountain National Park. The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) from side to side, edged by impressive cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill, forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.

 The painter
Nita Spilhaus born Pauline Augusta Wilhelmina Spilhaus was a Portuguese-born South African painter, working in oil, watercolour and pastel. She is best known for her landscapes, paintings and etchings of trees, her portrayals of the Cape mountains, and depictions of the Malay Quarter.
Nita was raised by her grandfather in Lübeck, and her first training in drawing and etching took place at the Lübeck School of Art, then in Munich, where she attended a private art school run by Friedrich Fehr, the Dachau art colony just outside Munich under Adolf Hölzel, and copper engraving under Heinrich Wolff.
She moved to South Africa in 1907 because of the death of her grandfather in 1906, joining her brother Karl, and the family of her uncle Arnold Wilhelm Spilhaus.
She joined the 'South African Society of Artists' soon after her arrival. The Cape Times acknowledged her talent as a graphic artist by publishing a modest booklet of 12 etchings portraying scenes in and around Cape Town.
Working from a studio in Keerom Street in Cape Town she gradually became a leading member of Cape Town's art community. When Hugo Naudé visited Munich in 1913 she took over his art classes in Worcester.
Her oil paintings were Impressionist in style, her landscapes rich in atmosphere, while her flower studies are notable for their vivid colours. She had a particular affinity with trees and her striking images of the Stone Pines around Cape Town are a recurring theme in her work.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS BY DAVID ROBERTS

 

DAVID ROBERTS  (1796-1864)

The Acropolis of Athens (156m -512ft)

Greece

In The Acroplis, from the lower end of the Valley, litograph prints,  Private collection

The hill
The Acropolis of Athens  (156m ) is located on a rocky limestone plateau, the flat top of which measures around 270 meters from east to west and, in its natural state 85 meters from north to south, widened up to almost 150 meters by the works of the fifth century BC. AD, approximately 23,000 m22.
The term "acropolis" (ἀκρόπολις / akrópolis) comes from the adjective ἄκρος (ákros "high, high") and the noun πόλις (pólis, "city, town"), thus meaning "upper town".
It is accessible by a steep slope on the west side which leads to the Propylaea. However, the plateau can be reached on its north face by two faults dug by erosion. The east and south faces themselves are not inaccessible. It was even from the east side, deemed too steep and therefore unsupervised, that the Persian forces entered the fortress in 480 BC. J.-C.
The sanctuary of the Acropolis of Athens is organized around the statue of the tutelary deity of the city. This statue of Athena Polias is only known by a few texts.  It must have been a xoanon, a kind of olive wood beam, almost aniconic.  Athena is most often represented standing.
Every year, the statue was washed, its peplos changed and its adornment (jewelry and accessories) cleaned. Her jewels were earrings, a border on the neck and five necklaces. His accessories, all in gold, were an owl, an aegis, a Gorgonion and a phiale. She had no weapons: she was therefore not the warrior goddess of the most famous statues afterwards (Athena Parthenos and Athena Promachos of Phidias). These jewels and accessories could date from the "restructuring" of the primitive statue by Endoios. He would have made the beam a korea by fixing an arm to it (and a hand holding the phiale)

The artist
David Roberts  was a Scottish painter. He is especially known for The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia, a prolific series of detailed lithograph prints of Egypt and the Near East that he produced from sketches he made during long tours of the region (1838–1840). These and his large oil paintings of similar subjects made him a prominent Orientalist painter. He was elected as a Royal Academician in 1841.
J. M. W. Turner persuaded Roberts to abandon scene painting and devote himself to becoming a full-time artist. Roberts set sail for Egypt on 31 August 1838, a few years after Owen Jones. His intent was to produce drawings that he could later use as the basis for the paintings and lithographs to sell to the public. Egypt was much in vogue at this time, and travellers, collectors and lovers of antiquities were keen to buy works inspired by the East or depicting the great monuments of ancient Egypt.
Roberts made a long tour in Egypt, Nubia, the Sinai, the Holy Land, Jordan and Lebanon. Throughout, he produced a vast collection of drawings and watercolour sketches.
Muhammad Ali Pasha received Roberts in Alexandria on 16 May 1839, shortly before his return to the UK. He later reproduced this scene, apparently from memory, in Volume 3 of Egypt & Nubia.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

BEN LOMOND / TURBUNNA PAINTED BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

 

EUGENE VON GUERARD  (1811-1901)
Ben Lomond / Turbunna (1,572m - 5,157ft)
Australia (Tasmania)

In Ben Lomond, Epping Forest, Tasmania, 1867, colour lithograph,28.4 × 48.8 cm - National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

The mountain
 Ben Lomond /Turbunna (1,572m - 5,157ft) or Turbunna or Tudema Tura in Tasmanian Aboriginal Palawa langage, not to be confused with Ben Lomond eponymus name of the mountain in Scotland, is a mountain in the north of Tasmania, Australia. The mountain is composed of a central massif with an extensive plateau high outlier peaks projecting from the mountain. The highest feature on the plateau is the unimposing summit of Legges Tor, at 1572 m, on the northern aspect of the plateau. The southern end of the plateau is dominated by Stacks Bluff, which is an imposing feature that drops away above the surrounding foothills. The prominent outlier peaks of Ragged Jack, Mensa Moor and Tower Hill surround the plateau. Ben Lomond is east of Launceston in the Ben Lomond National Park. Tasmania's premier Alpine skiing operations are located at Ben Lomond with downhill skiing facilities in the State. Its accessibility from Launceston, together with the existence of a ski village on the plateau make Ben Lomond an all year round favourite for tourists and hikers. Access to the village and summit can be made via several walking tracks or via a zig-zag road known as "Jacobs Ladder".
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Palawa name for Ben Lomond was usually recorded as Turbunna, Toorbunna or Toorerpunner. It is said to mean 'Rain Tail'. Modern etymological researchers of the Palawa lexicon assert that, in addition to turbunna, there were several names for Ben Lomond: Parndoke, Parndokenne, Loonder, Tritterer, Tudema tura (a name for Ben Lomond recorded by John Glover).

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.
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.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

TABLE MOUNTAIN / HOERIKWAGGO BY NITA SPILHAUS

 

 NITA SPILHAUS (1878-1967) 

Table mountain / Hoerikwaggo (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)  

South Africa

In Table Mountain from Rondebosch, watercolor, Private collection

The mountain
Table Mountain (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)  also called Hoerikwaggo is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa and forming part of the Table Mountain National Park. The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) from side to side, edged by impressive cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill, forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.
The cliffs of the main plateau are split by Platteklip Gorge ("Flat Stone Gorge"), which provides an easy and direct ascent to the summit and was the route taken by Antуnio de Saldanha on the first recorded ascent of the mountain in 1503.
The flat top of the mountain is often covered by orographic clouds, formed when a south-easterly wind is directed up the mountain's slopes into colder air, where the moisture condenses to form the so-called "table cloth" of cloud. Legend attributes this phenomenon to a smoking contest between the Devil and a local pirate called Van Hunks. When the table cloth is seen, it symbolizes the contest.
Table Mountain is at the northern end of a sandstone mountain range that forms the spine of the Cape Peninsula. To the south of the main plateau is a lower part of the range called the Back Table. On the Atlantic coast of the peninsula, the range is known as the Twelve Apostles. The range continues southwards to Cape Point. Table Mountain is featured in the Flag of Cape Town and other local government insignia. It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top.

The painter
Nita Spilhaus born Pauline Augusta Wilhelmina Spilhaus was a Portuguese-born South African painter, working in oil, watercolour and pastel. She is best known for her landscapes, paintings and etchings of trees, her portrayals of the Cape mountains, and depictions of the Malay Quarter.
Nita was raised by her grandfather in Lübeck, and her first training in drawing and etching took place at the Lübeck School of Art, then in Munich, where she attended a private art school run by Friedrich Fehr, the Dachau art colony just outside Munich under Adolf Hölzel, and copper engraving under Heinrich Wolff.
She moved to South Africa in 1907 because of the death of her grandfather in 1906, joining her brother Karl, and the family of her uncle Arnold Wilhelm Spilhaus.
She joined the 'South African Society of Artists' soon after her arrival. The Cape Times acknowledged her talent as a graphic artist by publishing a modest booklet of 12 etchings portraying scenes in and around Cape Town.
Working from a studio in Keerom Street in Cape Town she gradually became a leading member of Cape Town's art community. When Hugo Naudé visited Munich in 1913 she took over his art classes in Worcester.
Her oil paintings were Impressionist in style, her landscapes rich in atmosphere, while her flower studies are notable for their vivid colours. She had a particular affinity with trees and her striking images of the Stone Pines around Cape Town are a recurring theme in her work.

___________________________________________ 

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

DEVIL'S PEAK PAINTED BY JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF

JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF (1886-1957)

Devil's Peak (1,000 m - 3,300 ft) 

South Africa

In  Cape Farmland, 1930, casein, 55.9 x 50.8 cm, Private collection 

The mountain
Devil's Peak (1,000 m - 3,300 ft) less high than Table Mountain (1,087 m- 3,566 ft) is part of the mountainous backdrop to Cape Town, South Africa. When looking at Table Mountain from the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, or when looking at the standard picture postcard view of the mountain, the skyline is from left to right: the spire of Devil's Peak, the flat mesa of Table Mountain, the dome of Lion's Head and Signal Hill.
Forty years before Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape in 1497, the Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro created a map of the world for King Alfonso V of Portugal, based on knowledge drawn from the Arabians. On this map, which became the definitive view of the world for the early Portuguese explorers, he named the southernmost tip of Africa, Cabo di Diab – the Devil’s Cape. It’s very likely the association with the Devil simply migrated from the Cape to the mountain that flanks it. After all, sailors are a superstitious lot and Devil’s Peak remains the path through which the Cape Southeaster howls, churning up the waves in the Cape of Storms.
The upper, rocky parts of Devil's Peak, Table Mountain and Lion's Head consist of a hard, uniform and resistant sandstone commonly known as the Table Mountain sandstone or TMS. The tough sandstone rests conformably upon a basal shale that in turn lies unconformably upon a basement of older (Late Precambrian) rocks (Malmesbury shale/slate and the Cape Granite). Millions of years of erosion have stripped all of the TMS from Signal Hill and that is why it looks very rounded compared to its sister peaks. There is a road that runs almost on the contour from the lower cable station on Table Mountain along the mountain to Devil's Peak. As it turns east around the bulk of Devil's Peak the road cuttings expose a few famous geological unconformities, which illustrate very clearly that the Malmesbury rocks were folded, baked, intruded by granite and planed down by millions of years of erosion before the area sank below the ocean and a new sequence of sediments, including the TMS, began to accumulate.

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.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT GILES BY ALBERT NAMAJIRA

A

ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902-1959)

Mount Giles (1, 389 m - 4, 557 ft)

Australia (Northern territory)

1. In Mount Giles, 1947, watercolor

The mountain 

Mount Giles (1, 389 m - 4, 557 ft) is one of the highest mountains in the Northern Territory, Australia. It lies along the MacDonnell Ranges, dominating Ormiston Pound, in the West MacDonnell National Park, approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Alice Springs. It can be visited via the celebrated Larapinta Trail and has views of Mount Sonder, Ormiston Gorge and Pound, and the surrounding range. Climbing the mountain requires a hard two- or three-day hike.

The MacDonnell Ranges is located in the Northern Territory, comprising 3,929,444 hectares (9,709,870 acres). The range is a 644 km (400 mi) long series of mountains located in the centre of Australia, and consist of parallel ridges running to the east and west of Alice Springs. The mountain range contains many spectacular gaps and gorges as well as areas of Aboriginal significance.
The ranges were named after Sir Richard MacDonnell (the Governor of South Australia at the time) by John McDouall Stuart, whose 1860 expedition reached them in April of that year. The Horn Expedition investigated the ranges as part of the scientific expedition into central Australia. Other explorers of the range included David Lindsay and John Ross.
The MacDonnell Ranges are famous to have been often depicted in the paintings by Albert Namatjira.

The  painter 

Albert Namatjira  born Elea Namatjira, was a Western Arrernte-speaking Aboriginal artist from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. As a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was the most famous Indigenous Australian of his generation.
Born and raised at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, Namatjira showed interest in art from an early age, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32), under the tutelage of Rex Battarbee, that he began to paint seriously. Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting. He became a household name in Australia—indeed, reproductions of his works hung in many homes throughout the nation—and he was publicly regarded as a model Aborigine who had succeeded in mainstream society.
Although not the first Aboriginal artist to work in a European style, Albert Namatjira is certainly the most famous. Ghost gums with luminous white trunks, palm-filled gorges and red mountain ranges turning purple at dusk are the hallmarks of the Hermannsburg school. Hermannsburg Mission was established by Lutheran missionaries in 1877 on the banks of the Finke River, west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Namatjira learnt watercolour technique from the artist, Rex Battarbee.
Initially thought of as having succumbed to European pictorial idioms – and for that reason, to ideas of European privilege over the land – Namatjira’s landscapes have since been re-evaluated as coded expressions on traditional sites and sacred knowledge. Ownership of country is hereditary, but detailed knowledge of what it ‘contains’ is learnt in successive stages through ceremony, song, anecdote and contact. Namatjira’s father’s country lay towards Mount Sonder and Glen Helen Gorge, in the MacDonnell Ranges, and his mother’s country was in the region of Palm Valley in Central Australia. In Namatjira’s paintings, the totemic connections to his country are so indelible that, for example, Palm Valley the place and Palm Valley, c.1940s, the painting seem to intersect, detailing Namatjira’s artistic, cultural and proprietorial claim on the land.
 One of his first landscapes from 1936, Central Australian Landscape, shows a land of rolling green hills. Another early work, Ajantzi Waterhole (1937), shows a close up view of a small waterhole, with Namatjira capturing the reflection in the water. The landscape becomes one of contrasting colours, a device that is often used by Western painters, with red hills and green trees in Red Bluff (1938). Central Australian Gorge (1940) shows detailed rendering of rocks and reflections in the water. In Flowering Shrubs Namatjira contrasts the blossoming flowers in the foreground with the more barren desert and cliffs in the background. Namatjira's love of trees was often described so that his paintings of trees were more portraits than landscapes, which is shown in the portrait of the often depicted ghost gum in Ghost Gum Glen Helen (c.1945-49). Namatjira's skills at colouring trees can be clearly seen in this portrait. Namatjira was fully aware of his own talent, as was shown when he was describing another landscape painter to William Dargie: "He does not know how to make the side of a tree which is in the light look the same colour as the side of the tree in shadow...I know how to do better."
Namatjira's skills kept increasing with experience as is shown in the highly photographic quality of Mt Hermannsburg (1957), painted only two years before he died.
 In 1957, Namatjira became the first Aboriginal person to be granted conditional Australian citizenship. This entitled him to limited social freedoms and to live in Mparntwe, although he was prohibited from purchasing land. His relations, including his children, were not permitted the same privileges.
After an incident in 1958 that didn’t directly involve the artist, Namatjira was charged with supplying alcohol to members of the Aboriginal community – at the time, it was illegal for all Aboriginal people, except Namatjira, to possess and consume alcohol. Namatjira was sentenced to six months labour at Papunya and this, exacerbated by the authorities’ refusal to allow him to purchase the land of his ancestors, caused him profound despair. He served only two months, and died shortly after.
The more recent, dramatic success of the nearby Papunya Tula movement must be read against the history of its predecessor, the Hermannsburg school, which has endured for over half a century. In 2002, the centenary of Namatjira’s birth was celebrated with a major retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

CERRO PEDERNAL (3) BY GEORGIA O' KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887-1986)

Cerro Pedernal (3,006 m - 9,862 ft)

United State of America (New Mexico) 

In Red Mesa, watercolor, 22,9 x30,5 cm, Private collection 

About thos watercolor 

Georgia O'Keeffe used to live for a time in this area (Ghost Ranch) and painted Cerro Pedernal more than 20 times. She referred to Pedernal as her "favorite mountain." Her ashes were scattered on its top.

The mountain
Cerro Pedernal (3,006 m - 9,862 ft) locally known as just "Pedernal", is a narrow mesa in northern New Mexico (U.S.A). The name is Spanish for "flint hill". The mesa lies on the north flank of the Jemez Mountains, south of Abiquiu Lake, in the Coyote Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest. Cerro Pedernal is essentially a high, long butte created by a volcanic process. Viewed along its East-West line, it appears as a tall point rising out of the New Mexico desert, but viewed along its North-South vantage, its true shape is more apparent as a long ridge.
Pedernal is the source of a chert used by the prehistoric Gallina people. The native peoples of the area used the rock around this mountain for arrowheads and other tools.
Its cliffs are popular with rock climbers. Despite Cerro Pedernal's history and beauty, she is seldom climbed. The high butte is ringed by a long, sheer cliff band that seems impossible to climb unroped. Perhaps this is why few see her summit. However, there is a weakness in the cliffs that offers a short Class 4 scramble to the top. From the summit of Cerro Pedernal, you are afforded uncommon views. The Sangre de Cristo range is visible from Colorado to New Mexico. The Colorado 14er Culebra Peak is easily visible, as well as New Mexico's highest point, Wheeler Peak. On a clear day, the southern San Juan range in Colorado is visible, and even the La Platas around Durango. Ringing Cerro Pedernal is the Jemez range, which are mostly rolling mountains with lush greens. To the West is high desert landscape of deep red sandstone, blue rivers, and the tans and browns of the high desert. The summit of Cerro Pedernal is quite a spectacular spot.

The painter
Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.
Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.
O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.
In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.
In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.
Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”
Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art. In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.
Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

CERRO RORAIMA BY CHARLES BENTLEY

CHARLES BENTLEY (1805-1854) 

 Cerro Roraima (2,810 m - 9,220 ft)

Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana border 

In Roraima (on right)  from  Views in the Interior of Guiana, Tepuy Roraima, lithograph, 1870,  British Library 

The mountain 
 Cerro Roraima (2,810m- 9,220ft) or  Tepuy Roraima  is the highest of the Pakaraima chain of Tepui plateaus in South America. First described by the English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh during his 1595 expedition, its 31-square-kilometre (12-square-mile) summit area is bounded on all sides by cliffs rising 400 metres (1,300 ft). The mountain also serves as the tripoint of Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. Mount Roraima lies on the Guiana Shield in the southeastern corner of Venezuela's 30,000-square-kilometre (12,000-square-mile) Canaima National Park forming the highest peak of Guyana's Highland Range.
The highest point in Guyana and the highest point of the Brazilian state of Roraima lie on the plateau, but Venezuela and Brazil have higher mountains elsewhere. The triple border point is at 5°12′08″N 60°44′07″W,[6] but the mountain's highest point is Maverick Rock or Maverick Stone, at the southern end of the plateau and wholly within Venezuela.

The artist
Charles Bentley was an English watercolour painter of coastal and river scenery. Bentley was born in 1805 or 1806, the son of a master-carpenter and builder living in Tottenham Court Road, London. He was sent to work colouring prints for Theodore Fielding to whom he was eventually apprenticed in order to learn aquatinting. During his apprenticeship he was sent to Paris, probably to assist work on the plates for Excursion sur les Cotes et dans les Ports de Normandie' (Paris, 1823-5), most of which were after watercolours by Richard Bonington.
Bentley painted scenes all over Britain, in Jersey, the north of Ireland, and in Normandy, which he visited several times with Callow between 1836 and 1841. He also exhibited views of Venice, Holland and Düsseldorf, but it is not certain that he actually went to these places, as he is known to have painted works after sketches by other people, such as his paintings of Trebizond and Abydos, shown in 1841 and 1849, based on drawings by Coke Smyth. He also worked up the illustrations for 12 Views in the Interior of Guiana (above) , published by Rudolf Ackermann in 1841, from studies done on an expedition to South America by John Morison.
Bentley was not financially successful: Samuel Redgrave described him as "uncertain in his transactions, and always poor". He died of cholera on 4 September 1854, leaving a widow.
_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

CERRO RORAIMA BY CHARLES BARRINGTON BROWN

 

CHARLES BARRINGTON BROWN (1839 -1917)

 Cerro Roraima (2,810 m- 9,220 ft)

Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana border 

In Tepuy Roraima, lithograph, 1870,  British Library 

The mountain 
 Cerro Roraima (2,810m- 9,220ft) or  Tepuy Roraima  is the highest of the Pakaraima chain of Tepui plateaus in South America. First described by the English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh during his 1595 expedition, its 31-square-kilometre (12-square-mile) summit area is bounded on all sides by cliffs rising 400 metres (1,300 ft). The mountain also serves as the tripoint of Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. Mount Roraima lies on the Guiana Shield in the southeastern corner of Venezuela's 30,000-square-kilometre (12,000-square-mile) Canaima National Park forming the highest peak of Guyana's Highland Range.
The highest point in Guyana and the highest point of the Brazilian state of Roraima lie on the plateau, but Venezuela and Brazil have higher mountains elsewhere. The triple border point is at 5°12′08″N 60°44′07″W,[6] but the mountain's highest point is Maverick Rock or Maverick Stone, at the southern end of the plateau and wholly within Venezuela.

The artist 
Charles Barrington Brown (1839 -1917) is a Canadian geologist and explorer. He studied at Harvard University and the Royal School of Mines. In 1869 and 1872, it took up to 17 days from British Guiana to reach Mount Roraima on the border with Brazil and Venezuela. He is the first to describe the Tök-Wasen, a monolith located at the southern end of the mountain, and to suggest the ascent by a balloon. He is also the discoverer of Kaieteur Falls on the Potaro, a tributary of Essequibo, on April 24, 1870, and New River Springs in 1871.
_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

CERRO PEDERNAL (2) BY GEORGIA O' KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887–1986)

Cerro Pedernal (3,006 m - 9,862 ft)

United State of America (New Mexico) 




 In Cerro Pedernal, 1941, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fé




The mountain 

Cerro Pedernal  (3,006 m - 9,862 ft) locally known as just "Pedernal", is a narrow mesa in northern New Mexico (U.S.A). The name is Spanish for "flint hill". The mesa lies on the north flank of the Jemez Mountains, south of Abiquiu Lake, in the Coyote Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest.  Cerro Pedernal is essentially a high, long butte created by a volcanic process. Viewed along its East-West line, it appears as a tall point rising out of the New Mexico desert, but viewed along its North-South vantage, its true shape is more apparent as a long ridge.

Pedernal is the source of a chert used by the prehistoric Gallina people. The native peoples of the area used the rock around this mountain for arrowheads and other tools. 

Its cliffs are popular with rock climbers. Despite Cerro Pedernal's history and beauty, she is seldom climbed. The high butte is ringed by a long, sheer cliff band that seems impossible to climb unroped. Perhaps this is why few see her summit. However, there is a weakness in the cliffs that offers a short Class 4 scramble to the top. From the summit of Cerro Pedernal, you are afforded uncommon views. The Sangre de Cristo range is visible from Colorado to New Mexico. The Colorado 14er Culebra Peak is easily visible, as well as New Mexico's highest point, Wheeler Peak. On a clear day, the southern San Juan range in Colorado is visible, and even the La Platas around Durango. Ringing Cerro Pedernal is the Jemez range, which are mostly rolling mountains with lush greens. To the West is high desert landscape of deep red sandstone, blue rivers, and the tans and browns of the high desert. The summit of Cerro Pedernal is quite a spectacular spot. 

The famous artist Georgia O'Keeffe used to live for a time in this area (Ghost Ranch) and painted Cerro Pedernal several times (more than 20 paintings). She referred to Pedernal as her "favorite mountain."   Her ashes were scattered on its top.




The painter 

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.

Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.

O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.

In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.

In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.

Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”

Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art.  In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.

Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

MOUNT CONNER BY ALBERT NAMATJIRA

ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902-1959) 

Mount Conner  (859 m - 2,818 ft)

Australia  (Northern Territory)

In Mount Connor, watercolor on paper, 1950

The mountain 

Mount Conner (859 m - 2,818 ft) also known as Attila and Artilla, and occasionally found as Mount Connor, is an Australian mountain located in the southwest corner of the Northern Territory, 75 kilometres (47 mi) southeast of Lake Amadeus at the border of the vast Curtin Springs cattle station in Pitjantjatjara country.

Mount Conner is a flat-topped and horseshoe-shaped inselberg/mesa, part of the same vast rocky substrate thought to be beneath Uluru/Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta/Olgas. It can easily be confused with Uluru, since it can be seen from the road to Uluru and Kata Tjuta, when approaching from Alice Springs. It was named Mount Conner by William Gosse in 1873 after South Australian politician M. L. Conner.

Attila is close to the site of Kungkarangkalpa, the Seven Sisters Dreaming.

The summit of Mt Conner, along with the summits of low domes in the Kata Tjuta complex and summit levels of Uluru, is an erosional remnant of a Cretaceous geomorphic surface. It is considered to a classic example of an inselberg created by erosion of surrounding strata.

The  painter 

Albert Namatjira  born Elea Namatjira, was a Western Arrernte-speaking Aboriginal artist from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. As a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was the most famous Indigenous Australian of his generation.
Born and raised at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, Namatjira showed interest in art from an early age, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32), under the tutelage of Rex Battarbee, that he began to paint seriously. Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting. He became a household name in Australia—indeed, reproductions of his works hung in many homes throughout the nation—and he was publicly regarded as a model Aborigine who had succeeded in mainstream society.
Although not the first Aboriginal artist to work in a European style, Albert Namatjira is certainly the most famous. Ghost gums with luminous white trunks, palm-filled gorges and red mountain ranges turning purple at dusk are the hallmarks of the Hermannsburg school. Hermannsburg Mission was established by Lutheran missionaries in 1877 on the banks of the Finke River, west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Namatjira learnt watercolour technique from the artist, Rex Battarbee.
Initially thought of as having succumbed to European pictorial idioms – and for that reason, to ideas of European privilege over the land – Namatjira’s landscapes have since been re-evaluated as coded expressions on traditional sites and sacred knowledge. Ownership of country is hereditary, but detailed knowledge of what it ‘contains’ is learnt in successive stages through ceremony, song, anecdote and contact. Namatjira’s father’s country lay towards Mount Sonder and Glen Helen Gorge, in the MacDonnell Ranges, and his mother’s country was in the region of Palm Valley in Central Australia. In Namatjira’s paintings, the totemic connections to his country are so indelible that, for example, Palm Valley the place and Palm Valley, c.1940s, the painting seem to intersect, detailing Namatjira’s artistic, cultural and proprietorial claim on the land.
 One of his first landscapes from 1936, Central Australian Landscape, shows a land of rolling green hills. Another early work, Ajantzi Waterhole (1937), shows a close up view of a small waterhole, with Namatjira capturing the reflection in the water. The landscape becomes one of contrasting colours, a device that is often used by Western painters, with red hills and green trees in Red Bluff (1938). Central Australian Gorge (1940) shows detailed rendering of rocks and reflections in the water. In Flowering Shrubs Namatjira contrasts the blossoming flowers in the foreground with the more barren desert and cliffs in the background. Namatjira's love of trees was often described so that his paintings of trees were more portraits than landscapes, which is shown in the portrait of the often depicted ghost gum in Ghost Gum Glen Helen (c.1945-49). Namatjira's skills at colouring trees can be clearly seen in this portrait. Namatjira was fully aware of his own talent, as was shown when he was describing another landscape painter to William Dargie: "He does not know how to make the side of a tree which is in the light look the same colour as the side of the tree in shadow...I know how to do better."
Namatjira's skills kept increasing with experience as is shown in the highly photographic quality of Mt Hermannsburg (1957), painted only two years before he died.
 In 1957, Namatjira became the first Aboriginal person to be granted conditional Australian citizenship. This entitled him to limited social freedoms and to live in Mparntwe, although he was prohibited from purchasing land. His relations, including his children, were not permitted the same privileges.
After an incident in 1958 that didn’t directly involve the artist, Namatjira was charged with supplying alcohol to members of the Aboriginal community – at the time, it was illegal for all Aboriginal people, except Namatjira, to possess and consume alcohol. Namatjira was sentenced to six months labour at Papunya and this, exacerbated by the authorities’ refusal to allow him to purchase the land of his ancestors, caused him profound despair. He served only two months, and died shortly after.
The more recent, dramatic success of the nearby Papunya Tula movement must be read against the history of its predecessor, the Hermannsburg school, which has endured for over half a century. In 2002, the centenary of Namatjira’s birth was celebrated with a major retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

BEINN A' BHUIRD PAINTED BY A. G. CARRICK / H.M KING CHARLES III

A. G. CARRICK / H.M KING CHARLES III former PRINCE OF WALES (bn.1948)

Beinn a' Bhùird (1,197m - 3,927ft) 

United Kingdom (Scotland) 

 In  Beinn a' Bhùird, watercolour on paper, 2005 

The mountain 

Beinn a' Bhщird  (1,197m - 3,927ft), meaning mountain of the table in Galic, is a Munro in the Cairngorm mountain range of Scotland. In Watson (1975) the author suggests the mountain should be named Beinn Bтrd - table hill, saying that local Scottish Gaelic speakers pronounced the mountain Paing Bтrd, with some of the older local folk still using Painna Bтrd. The closest village to Beinn a' Bhщird is Braemar, Aberdeenshire and the most common approach by car is through this village. To reach Beinn a' Bhщird by car, the most common approach is by the Linn of Dee road along the south side of the River Dee to the Linn of Dee, looping back along the north-bank to the car park at Allanaquoich where camping is permitted. The distance between Braemar and Allanaquoich by this route is about 10 miles.

In the early 1960s there was an attempt to develop a large ski area on Beinn a' Bhùird. The development was financed by the Panchaud brothers (Gerald and Jhon) of Switzerland who had purchased the estate when skiing in Scotland was booming.  The area was to be called Mar Lodge and opened in 1963 after a series of record snowfalls. At the time of opening there were two T-bars on site, one 620 ft long and one 2050 ft long. These offered a total uphill capacity of 1,400 people per hour. Unfortunately, the seasons of 1963-64 and 1964-65 offered very little snow to the area, meaning that the ski lifts were rarely used, with the resort becoming abandoned in 1965.  When the resort closed both T-bars were moved to Glenshee to become the Cairnwell T-Bar and Trainer Tow.

In 2006 a glider pilot from Deeside Gliding Club crashed on the hillside, spending 24 hours trapped in his plane before he was located by the RAF.

The painter
Arthur George Carrick is actually H.M. the King Charles III, former Prince of Wales.
When he began showing his paintings, he was too nervous to display his name so displayed under a pseudonym. Arthur George are two of his names (Charles Phillip Arthur George) and one of his titles is Earl of Carrick. King Charles III is an experienced watercolourist.  He has been painting for most of his adult life, during holidays or when his official diary allows. King Charles' interest began during the 1970s and 1980s when he was inspired by Robert Waddell, who had been his art master at Gordonstoun in Scotland. In time, King Charles met leading artists such as Edward Seago, with whom he discussed watercolour technique, and received further tuition from John Ward, Bryan Organ and Derek Hill.
The Royal Family has a tradition of drawing and painting, and King Charles’ work first came to public notice at a 1977 exhibition at Windsor Castle at which other Royal artists included Queen Victoria, The Duke of Edinburgh and The Duke of York.
King Charles paints in the open air, often finishing a picture in one go and his favourite locations include The Queen's estate at Balmoral in Scotland and Sandringham House in Norfolk, England. Sometimes King Charles  III paints during his skiing holidays, and during overseas tours when possible.
The copyright of King Charles' watercolours belongs to A. G. Carrick Ltd, a trading arm of The King's Charities Foundation. Over the years King Charles III has agreed to exhibitions of his watercolours and of lithographs made from them, on the understanding that any income they generate goes to The Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation.
Money from the sale of the lithographs also goes to the Foundation but the paintings themselves are never for sale.
In the 1980s King Charles III, then Prince of Wales,  began inviting young British artists to accompany him on official tours overseas and record their impressions, a tradition that has continued to this day.
Reference :
- The prince of Wales paintings 

_______________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

TABLE MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY CECIL ARTHUR HUNT

CECIL ARTHUR HUNT (1873-1965)  

Table mountain or Hoerikwaggo (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)  

  South Africa

In Table mountain from Kool Neak, water-colour on paper, 1920 

The mountain 

Table Mountain also called Hoerikwaggo  (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)  is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa and  forming part of the Table Mountain National Park.  The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) from side to side, edged by impressive cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill, forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.

The cliffs of the main plateau are split by Platteklip Gorge ("Flat Stone Gorge"), which provides an easy and direct ascent to the summit and was the route taken by Antуnio de Saldanha on the first recorded ascent of the mountain in 1503.

The flat top of the mountain is often covered by orographic clouds, formed when a south-easterly wind is directed up the mountain's slopes into colder air, where the moisture condenses to form the so-called "table cloth" of cloud. Legend attributes this phenomenon to a smoking contest between the Devil and a local pirate called Van Hunks. When the table cloth is seen, it symbolizes the contest.

Table Mountain is at the northern end of a sandstone mountain range that forms the spine of the Cape Peninsula. To the south of the main plateau is a lower part of the range called the Back Table. On the Atlantic coast of the peninsula, the range is known as the Twelve Apostles. The range continues southwards to Cape Point. Table Mountain is featured in the Flag of Cape Town and other local government insignia. It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top. 

The painter 

Cecil Arthur Hunt was born in Torquay on 8 March 1873, the son of the highly regarded writer and geologist, Arthur Roope Hunt. He was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, studying Classics and Law, and being called to the Bar in 1899. He treated painting and writing as serious pastimes until 1925, when he was elected to the full membership of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He then relinquished his legal career to become a professional painter.

Hunt had first exhibited in 1900, at the Alpine Club Galleries, and had held his first major show a year later, alongside E Home Bruce at the Ryder Gallery. From the first, he established himself as an atmospheric painter of mountains, especially of the Alps and Dolomites. However, he was soon accepted as a master of a great variety of topographies, for he exhibited the products of his wide travels frequently and extensively. Favourite destinations included the West Country, the West Coast of Scotland, the Rhone Valley, Northern Italy, Rome and Taormina. From 1911, until his death, Hunt lived at Mallord House in Chelsea, especially designed for him by Sir Ralph Knott to include a large studio on the ground floor. During the summer months he and his family retreated to the farm estate of Foxworthy, on the edge of Dartmoor.
Hunt showed work regularly at the Royal Academy (from 1912), the Royal Society of British Artists (from 1914) and the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours (from 1918). He was elected a member of the RBA in 1914, an associate of the RWS in 1919, and a full member six years later. He acted as the Vice-President of the RWS for a three-year period from 1930. His many substantial solo shows included six at the Fine Art Society (1919-34) and one at Colnaghi’s (1945). Following his death, in 1965,  he was the subject of a large memorial show at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours.
Chris Beetles has done much to revive interest in the work of Cecil Arthur Hunt. He mounted a large scale retrospective exhibition in 1996 at his London gallery, on the exact site of the artist’s first substantial show in 1901. The retrospective was accompanied by a definitive catalogue.