ORTLES/ORTLER PEINT PAR JOHN MARIN

JOHN MARIN (1870-1953)
Ortles /Ortler (3,905 m)
Italie (Sud Tyrol)

In The Tyrol (1910), aquarelle sur papier , 17 3/4 x 15 1/8 in. Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville ME (Donation John Marin, Jr. & Norma B. Marin)

 
La montagne
Ortles (en italien) ou Ortler (en allemand) est un sommet des Alpes, à 3 905 m, point culminant du massif de l'Ortles, en Italie (Trentin-Haut-Adige). C'était également, jusqu'en 1919, le point le plus élevé de l'Autriche-Hongrie. Pendant la Première Guerre mondiale, l'armée austro-hongroise installe la position la plus élevée de la guerre sur la montagne, équipée de plusieurs pièces d'artillerie. Tous les itinéraires vers le sommet sont des circuits de haute altitude exigeants. Il est recouvert sur la face nord-ouest par un glacier. La face nord de la montagne est considérée comme la plus grande paroi de glace des Alpes orientales, bien que de plus en plus de roches émergent à cause de la fonte des glaciers. La légende de la "chasse fantastique", connue sous le nom de "Wilde Fahr " dont le point de départ était sur l'Ortles, vient de la religion germanique. Dans ce mythe l'Ortles est associé au royaume des morts. Une légende postérieure est plus connue, dans laquelle l'Ortles apparaît comme un géant. Celui-ci est vaincu par le nain Stelvio et moqué dans un poème (« Oh, géant Ortler, comme tu es petit ») puis se fige dans la glace et la neige32. Selon une autre légende, un ours se serait échappé de ses chasseurs par le Hintergrat jusqu'à Trafoi en 1881. Le Bärenloch, un bassin glaciaire sous le Tschierfeck, est également associé à un ours dans l'Ortles : on dit qu'il doit son nom à la découverte d'un squelette d'ours à cet endroit.

Le peintre
John Marin est un peintre aquarelliste, dessinateur et graveur. Il est particulièrement connu pour ses aquarelles expressionnistes de paysages marins du Maine et ses vues de Manhattan. Il est considéré comme un pionnier de l'art moderne américain. Marin, qui était ambidextre, a commencé à dessiner à sept ans et à peindre à seize ans. Il étudie d'abord l'ingénierie mécanique pendant dix-huit mois à partir de 1886 à l' Institut de technologie Stevens et commence sa carrière professionnelle dans le domaine de l'architecture1. De 1890 à 1892, il travaille comme dessinateur pour quatre architectes et de 1892 à 1897, il dirige sa propre entreprise et conçoit six résidences à Union City (New Jersey).
Puis, à vingt huit ans, décidant de faire carrière dans les beaux-arts, il étudie de 1899 à 1901 à la Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts et à l'Art Students League of New York. Parmi ses professeurs se trouvaient  William Merritt Chase. En 1905, il se rend en Europe, sa famille étant originaire de France, il vit à Paris de 1905 à 1909, fréquentant les académies et rencontrant des artistes. Pendant cette période, il voyage en Hollande, en Belgique, en Italie, en Autriche et en Angleterre. Il travaille principalement comme graveur, eaux-fortes inspirées de Paris4dans la tradition de James Abbott McNeill Whistler, mais exécute également un certain nombre d'aquarelles et de pastels. En 1907, il expose au Salon d'Automne. Il retourne à New York en 1909 pour sa première exposition personnelle à la Galerie 291 d'Alfred Stieglitz, rencontré grace au photographe Edward Steichen. Puis il s'installe définitivement aux États-Unis et participe en 1913, à l'Armory Show, et expose dans toutes les manifestations artistiques importantes organisées par la jeune école américaine, et régulièrement à la Fondation Carnegie à Pittsburgh. John Marin assimile les tendances du moment : impressionnisme, cubisme, fauvisme, expressionnisme, ainsi que des notions propres à l'art du paysage en Extrême-Orient, mais il reste indépendant et développe son propre style dans une forme d'expressionnisme personnelle, avec des explosions semi-abstraites de lignes, de formes et de couleurs animant des scènes avec une énergie unique. En laissant toutes les questions financières entre les mains de Stieglitz, Marin jouit d'une liberté absolue pour poursuivre son travail. Au cours des années suivantes, Marin peint quelques-unes des œuvres les plus importantes de sa carrière, inspirées par la ville de New York. Ses sujets sont les monuments architecturaux de la ville et les forces structurelles de base qui semblaient s'y trouver. Cependant, en 1914, il prit une nouvelle direction, s'éloignant de la ville et se tournant vers la nature, c'est l'année où il découvre le Maine1. Ainsi, il vit à Brooklyn, puis à Cliffside, dans le New Jersey, de 1916 à 1953, passant les étés dans les Berkshires, les Adirondacks, le Delaware, mais surtout sur la côte du Maine, à Small Point ou Deer Island dans la Baie de Penobscot et de 1933 à 1953 au cap Split. À l'exception des étés 1929 et 1930, qu'il passe à Taos, invité par Mabel Dodge Luhan, où il réalise une centaine d'aquarelles du Nouveau-Mexique. En 1936, une rétrospective est organisée par le Museum of Modern Art et en 1950 à la Biennale de Venise.

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2024 - Wandering Vertexes / Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

GRAN ZEBRU PAINTED BY FRANZ JOSEPH BLASCHKE

 

FRANZ JOSEPH BLASCHKE (1916-1984)
Gran Zebru or Königspitze (3,851m- 12,635 ft)
Italy

In Königspitze (or Gran Zebru) South Tyrol, watercolor, Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London, 

The mountain
The Gran Zebru (3,851m- 12,635 ft) or Königspitze (in german ) is a mountain of the Ortler Alps on the border between South Tyrol and the Province of Sondrio, Italy. After Ortler, it is the second highest peak in the Ortler Alps, know to have been a important strategic place during World War I. The Gran Zebru forms the southeast end of this Dolomit Range. The Italian name Gran Zebru (Big Zebra) derives from Val Zebru and is etymologically unclear. It is thought an origin of the pre-Roman name Gimberu.
The mountain was first climbed (the date is controversial) on August 3, 1854, by Stephan Steinberger or 3 August 2864 by Tuckett, Buxton and the Biner Brothers. The mountain can be dangerous in warm weather, when the snow and ice can become unstable and particularly nowadays with the global warning melt of the permafrost. The worst day for climbing fatalities on the mountain occurred on August 5, 1997, when seven people were killed in two separate incidents. On June 23, 2013, six were killed, also in two separate incidents.

The painter
Son of a drawing teacher and an architect, Franz Josef Blaschke is in Bad Salzungen. After a successful training as a wood sculptor in Eslohe, he received a scholarship for a student at the State Sculpture School with Dell Antonio in 1937.
During the Second World War, the artist moved to France, then to Russia and Poland. 

After the war, he continued his art studies at the Düsseldorf Academy with Fritz Reusing (portrait) and Hermann Baptist Hundt (landscape painting) and became a pupil of Friedrich Vordemberge at the Cologne school after 1948.
Blaschke is today mostly known for his  landscapes, in which he explored the limits of form, often approaching abstraction. Its panoramas with striking graphic elements as well as its very colorful views have posed it among the successors of Oskar Kokoschka.
He produced sculptures in public space for the University Dental Clinic in Bonn, for the Gerling Group in Cologne and for an Insurance Company in Düsseldorf.
The artist has made himself known through commissions for portraits of famous German personalities such as Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Otto Wolff von Amerongen, Willy Millowitsch, Claudia Doren and others .... Franz Josef Blaschke has always been attached to paint the psychiology of the characters rather than making a physical description similar or detailed.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE ORTLER BY EDWARD T. COMPTON

EDWARD T. COMPTON (1849-1921)

Ortler (3,905 m -12,812 ft)

Italy (South Tyrol) 

In The Ortler South Tyrol, watercolour on paper,  26 x 37cm, John Mitchell Gallery 

The mountain 
The Ortler (3,905 m -12,812 ft) is the highest mountain in the Eastern Alps outside the Bernina Range. It is the main peak of the Ortler Range. It is the highest point of the Southern Limestone Alps, of the Italian province of South Tyrol, of Tyrol overall, and, until 1919, of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. In German the mountain is commonly referred to as "König Ortler" (King Ortler), like in the unofficial hymn of South Tyrol, the Bozner Bergsteigerlied.
The Ortler Alps were one of the main battlegrounds between Austrian and Italian troops in the First World War, being on the border of Italy and the Austrian Empire. The advantage of owning the highest point was very important. The Austrian troops had quickly occupied the highest peaks, and the Italian troops' main goal, for four years, was to dislodge them from the positions. In the mid-1990s, a mountain guide discovered two guns that had been stationed very near the top of the Ortler but had been hidden by snow ever since. The discovery was kept secret until the 200th anniversary of the first ascent in 2004. The cannons are now on display in a museum in Trafoi.

The painter 
Edward Theodore Compton, usually referred to as E. T. Compton, (1849 – 1921) was an English-born, German artist, illustrator and mountain climber, not to be confused with his son Edward Harrison Compton, also a mountain painter. He is well known for his paintings and drawings of alpine scenery, and as a mountaineer made 300 major ascents including no fewer than 27 first ascents.
Initially painting in the English romantic tradition, Compton later developed a more realistic representation of nature, being guided by his true artistic ideas while retaining topographical accuracy. Even his early watercolors show the great importance of brightness and light and his work is also remarkable for its portrayal of the elements such as water and air, including ascending mist and fog. He can be regarded as an impressionist.
He attended various art schools, including, for a time, the Royal Academy in London, but otherwise he was mainly self-taught in art.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

GRAN ZEBRU PAINTED BY EDWARD H. COMPTON

EDWARD H. COMPTON  (1861-1960)

 Gran Zebru or Königspitze  (3,851m- 12,635 ft)

Italy

Oil on canvas, 1905

The mountain 

The Gran Zebru (3,851m- 12,635 ft) or  Königspitze (in german ) is a mountain of the Ortler Alps on the border between South Tyrol and the Province of Sondrio, Italy. After Ortler, it is the second highest peak in the Ortler Alps, know to have been a important strategic place during World War I.  The Gran Zebru forms the southeast end of this Dolomit Range. The  Italian name Gran Zebru (Big Zebra) derives from Val Zebru and is etymologically unclear. It is thought an origin of the pre-Roman name  Gimberu.

The mountain was first climbed (the date is controversial) on August 3, 1854, by Stephan Steinberger or 3 August 2864 by Tuckett, Buxton and the Biner Brothers. 

The mountain can be dangerous in warm weather, when the snow and ice can become unstable and particularly nowadays with the global warning melt of the permafrost.  The worst day for climbing fatalities on the mountain occurred on August 5, 1997, when seven people were killed in two separate incidents. On June 23, 2013, six were killed, also in two separate incidents.

The Painter
Edward Harrison Compton (1881–1960) not to be confused with his father Edward Theodore Compton (1849-1921) was a German landscape painter and illustrator of English descent. Compton was born in Feldafing in Upper Bavaria, Germany, the second son of notable landscape painter Edward Theodore Compton. He received his early art training from his father, and after a period of study in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts settled back in Bavaria. Like his father he was inspired by the Alps to become a mountain painter ("bergmaller") working in both oils and watercolour. However, an attack of Polio at the age of 28 meant that he had to find more accessible landscapes to paint in Germany, England northern Italy and Sicily. He also provided illustrations for several travel books published by A & C Black. Compton exhibited at galleries in Munich and Berlin, and also in England at the Royal Academy in London and in Bradford. He died in Feldafing in 1960.
He had two sisters, both of whom were artists: Marion Compton, the flowers and still-life painter, and Dora Keel-Compton, flower and mountain painter
Source: 
- Wikipedia