MOUNT WASHINGTON BY JOHN MARIN

JOHN MARIN  (1870-1953)

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft)

United States of America (New Hampshire) 

The mountain 

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft) is the highest point in the northeastern United States. It is located in the White Mountains in the county of Coos. Most of the mountain is located in the White Mountain National Forest and Mount Washington State Park.
The mountain is called Agiocochook, the "abode of the great spirit," by the Amerindians. A scientific expedition led by geologist Dr. Cutler named Mount Washington in 1784.
While the western slope, which climbs the Cog Railway, is regular from its base, the other slopes are more complex. To the north, Great Gulf, the largest glacial circus in the mountains, is surrounded by the Northern Presidentials, namely Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison Mountains. These peaks reach far beyond the alpine zone beyond the tree line. The imposing Chandler Ridge extends northeast from the top of Mount Washington to form the southern wall of the amphitheater. It is paced by a motorway to the summit.
The first European to mention the mountain is Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, who sees it from the Atlantic Ocean and describes it as a "high mountain of the interior". Irishman Darby Field says he made his first ascent in 1642.

More about Mount Washington 

The painter
John Marin was a seminal American modernist painter. He was one of the first Americans to employ techniques of abstraction in his calligraphic depictions of landscapes and city streets. Along with Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O’Keeffe, Marin helped introduce a new aesthetic model for American painters. “I must for myself insist that when finished, that is when all the parts are in place and are working, that now it has become an object and will therefore have its boundaries as definite as the prow, the stern, the sides, and bottom bound as a boat” he once reflected.
Marin started his career in art later in life, graduating from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1901 at the age of 30. In 1905, he travelled to Europe, lived in Paris (1905-1909) where he developed his signature watercolor technique and met the artist Edward Steichen. It was Steichen that introduced his work to the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who mounted Marin’s first solo show in 1909, and financially supported the artist over the remainder of his career.
Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.
He developed a more dynamic, fractured style from 1912 to depict the interaction of conflicting forces, and gradually evolved summary ways of rendering his vivid impressions of sea, sky, mountains or the skyscrapers of Manhattan. In the 1920s worked almost exclusively in watercolour; after 1930 painted largely in oils.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT WEBSTER PAINTED BY BENJAMIN CHAMPNEY

BENJAMIN CHAMPNEY (1817-1907)

Mount Webster  (1,192 m -3,911 ft)

United States of America

The mountain 
Mount Webster is (1,192 m -3,911 ft) is located on the border between Coos County and Carroll County, New Hampshire.  Mount Webster is on the western boundary of the Presidential Range - Dry River Wilderness. The Appalachian Trail, a 2,170-mile (3,500-km) National Scenic Trail from Georgia to Maine, runs along the ridge of the Presidentials, across the summit of Webster.

The mountain, formerly called Notch Mountain, is named after Daniel Webster (1782–1852), and is the southwesternmost of the Presidential Range of the White Mountains. Mount Webster is flanked to the northeast by Mount Jackson; to the southwest it faces Mount Willey across Crawford Notch.
The west face of Mount Webster drains directly into the Saco River, thence into the Gulf of Maine at Saco, Maine. The north and southeast faces drain into the Saco via Silver Cascade and Webster Brook respectively.

The Painter 

Benjamin Champney was a painter whose name has become synonymous with White Mountain art of the 19th century. He began his training as a lithographer under celebrated marine artist Fitz Henry Lane at Pendleton's Lithography shop in Boston. Most art historians consider him the founder of the "North Conway Colony" of painters who came to North Conway, New Hampshire and the surrounding area during the second half of the 19th century. His paintings were often used to make chromolithographs that were subsequently sold to tourists who could not afford Champney's originals. He exhibited regularly at the Boston Athenæum and was a founder of the Boston Art Club. 

On August 4, 1888, The White Mountain Echo reported: "Champney's studio is as much visited as ever this summer, and there are many new pictures to see. Of the landscapes, there is a view from the new carriage road up Humphrey's Ledge that is beautiful, and another a scene in Crawford Notch, and still another, a picture of Mount Chocorua from Tamworth; there are some lovely new flower pieces ... But perhaps the very prettiest is the old-fashioned pitcher in the kitchen window ..." 
In 1900, he published an autobiography, Sixty Years' Memories of Art and Artists. 
Examples of his paintings can be viewed today at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord, New Hampshire; the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire; and the Museum of the White Mountains at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT LAFAYETTE PAINTED BY WILLIAM TROST RICHARDS

WILLIAM TROST RICHARDS (1833-1905)
Mount Lafayette (1,600m - 5,249 ft) 

United State of America  (New Hampshire)

In Moonlight on Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire, 1873, 

Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on gray-green wove paper, 21.6 x 36 cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

About this painting
This watercolor is one of scores that Richards painted for the Reverend Elias Magoon, a collector and writer on American scenery. In 1880, Magoon donated many of them to the Metropolitan Museum to create a Richards Gallery on the model of the Turner Gallery in London. Richards, a native of Philadelphia and a disciple of the American Pre-Raphaelite movement in the 1860s, painted the watercolor equivalents of Hudson River School oil landscapes of scenery ranging from the English and Irish coasts to the Atlantic shoreline from Massachusetts to New Jersey, and from the hills of southern Pennsylvania to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Magoon's home state. The artist, the cleric, and their wives vacationed together in the White Mountains in the summer before this watercolor was painted.

The mountain
Mount Lafayette (1,600m - 5,249 ft) is a mountain at the northern end of the Franconia Range in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, United States. It is located in the town of Franconia in Grafton County. It is on the New England Fifty Finest list of the most topographically prominent peaks in New England. The upper portion of the mountain is located in the alpine zone, an area where only small vegetation exists due to the harsh climate.
The mountain is named to honor General Lafayette, the famous  French military hero of the 18th century who fought with and significantly aided the Continental Army and was loved and adopted by George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. Lafayette re-visited New Hampshire and all the other states in an extremely popular, triumphal tour during 1824-1825, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Mount Lafayette is the highest point in the Franconia Range, a line of peaks along the east side of Franconia Notch. It is the sixth highest peak in New Hampshire and the highest outside of the Presidential Range. It is the second most prominent peak in the state. On the western side, its lower slopes lie inside Franconia Notch State Park. The remainder of the mountain lies within the White Mountain National Forest. The summit marks the western border of the Pemigewasset Wilderness Area within the WMNF.

The painter
William Trost Richards was born on 14 November 1833 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1846 and 1847 he attended the local Central High School. Between 1850 and 1855 he studied part-time with the German artist Paul Weber while working as designer and illustrator of ornamental metalwork. Richards first public exhibit was part of an exhibition in New Bedford, Massachusetts, organized by artist Albert Bierstadt in 1858.
In 1862 he was elected honorary member of the National Academy of Design, and was elected as an Academician in 1871. In 1863, he became a member of the Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art. In 1866, he departed for Europe for one year. Upon his return and for the following six years he spent the summers on the East Coast.
In the 1870s, he produced many acclaimed watercolor views of the White Mountains, several of which are now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Richards exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1861 to 1899, and at the Brooklyn Art Association from 1863 to 1885. He was elected a full member of the National Academy in 1871.
In 1881 he built a house in Jamestown, Rhode Island, where he lived and worked the remainder of his life. He died on April 17, 1905 in Newport, Rhode Island.
Richards rejected the romanticized and stylized approach of other Hudson River painters and instead insisted on meticulous factual renderings. His views of the White Mountains are almost photographic in their realism. In later years, Richards painted almost exclusively marine watercolors.
His works are featured today in many important American museums, including the National Gallery, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fogg Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Berkshire Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT WASHINGTON PAINTED BY AARON DRAPER SHATTUCK

AARON DRAPER SHATTUCK (1832-1928)

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft)

United States of America  (New Hampshire)

The mountain 
Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft) is the highest point in the northeastern United States. It is located in the White Mountains in the county of Coos. Most of the mountain is located in the White Mountain National Forest and Mount Washington State Park.
The mountain is called Agiocochook, the "abode of the great spirit" by the Amerindians. A scientific expedition led by geologist Dr. Cutler named Mount Washington in 1784.
While the western slope, which climbs the Cog Railway, is regular from its base, the other slopes are more complex. To the north, Great Gulf, the largest glacial circus in the mountains, is surrounded by the Northern Presidentials, namely Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison Mountains. These peaks reach far beyond the alpine zone beyond the tree line. The imposing Chandler Ridge extends northeast from the top of Mount Washington to form the southern wall of the amphitheater. It is paced by a motorway to the summit.
The first European to mention the mountain is Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, who sees it from the Atlantic Ocean and describes it as a "high mountain of the interior". Irishman Darby Field says he made his first ascent in 1642.
The Crawford Path, the oldest hiking trail in the United States, was established in 1819 as a mule track from the Crawford Notch Gorge to the summit and has been in use since that time. Ethan Allen Crawford built a lodge at the summit in 1821 that resisted a storm five years later.  In the middle of the nineteenth century, the mountain became a major tourist destination of the country, with the construction of new trails and two hotels. The Summit House, a 20-meter-long stone building with a roof attached to four heavy chains, was opened in 1852. The following year, the Tip-Top House was erected to compete with it. Rebuilt in wood with 91 rooms in 1872-1873, the Summit House burned in 1908 and was replaced by a granite building in 1915. Only the Tip-Top House resists fire; it is now classified in the National Register of Historic Places and has recently been renovated to house exhibitions. Among the attractions of the Victorian era is also a coach road built in 1861, now the Mount Washington Auto Road, and the Mount Washington Cog Railway, a cog railway established in 1869, in service.

The artist 
Aaron Draper Shattuck was an American painter of the White Mountain School. He was born in Francestown, New Hampshire. A second-generation artist affiliated with the Hudson River School, Shattuck differed from most of his contemporaries in that he never studied abroad, and appears to have spent his entire life in New England.
Shattuck studied portrait painting with Alexander Ransom in Boston in 1851, and in 1852 was a student at the National Academy of Design in New York City. In 1854 he first painted in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  The following year he exhibited for the first time at both the National Academy and the Boston Athenaeum. In 1856 he was elected an associate of the National Academy, and was made a full Academician in 1861.
From 1856 to 1870 Shattuck worked at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City.  In 1883 he invented a canvas stretcher bar key which was used by artists of the era, and which contributed to Shattuck's considerable wealth.
In 1888 Shattuck suffered the effects of a serious illness, after which he ceased to paint. After recovering he followed other agrarian and creative pursuits, raising sheep, experimenting with apple tree grafts, and making violins.  Prior to his death in 1928 at the age of 96 he was the oldest living member of the National Academy of Design.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau,  #wandering-silent-vertexes

MOUNT WASHINGTON BY ALBERT BIERSTADT

ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902),

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft)

United States of America  (New Hampshire)

In Autumn in the Conway Meadows Looking Towards Mount Washington, oil on canvas,
 Private collection 

The mountain 

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft) is the highest point in the northeastern United States. It is located in the White Mountains in the county of Coos. Most of the mountain is located in the White Mountain National Forest and Mount Washington State Park.
The mountain is called Agiocochook, the "abode of the great spirit," by the Amerindians. A scientific expedition led by geologist Dr. Cutler named Mount Washington in 1784.
While the western slope, which climbs the Cog Railway, is regular from its base, the other slopes are more complex. To the north, Great Gulf, the largest glacial circus in the mountains, is surrounded by the Northern Presidentials, namely Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison Mountains. These peaks reach far beyond the alpine zone beyond the tree line. The imposing Chandler Ridge extends northeast from the top of Mount Washington to form the southern wall of the amphitheater. It is paced by a motorway to the summit.
The first European to mention the mountain is Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, who sees it from the Atlantic Ocean and describes it as a "high mountain of the interior". Irishman Darby Field says he made his first ascent in 1642.
The Crawford Path, the oldest hiking trail in the United States, was established in 1819 as a mule track from the Crawford Notch Gorge to the summit and has been in use since that time. Ethan Allen Crawford built a lodge at the summit in 1821 that resisted a storm five years later.  In the middle of the nineteenth century, the mountain became a major tourist destination of the country, with the construction of new trails and two hotels. The Summit House, a 20-meter-long stone building with a roof attached to four heavy chains, was opened in 1852. The following year, the Tip-Top House was erected to compete with it. Rebuilt in wood with 91 rooms in 1872-1873, the Summit House burned in 1908 and was replaced by a granite building in 1915. Only the Tip-Top House resists fire; it is now classified in the National Register of Historic Places and has recently been renovated to house exhibitions. Among the attractions of the Victorian era is also a coach road built in 1861, now the Mount Washington Auto Road, and the Mount Washington Cog Railway, a cog railway established in 1869, in service.

The painter 

Albert Bierstadt  was a German-born American painter. He was brought to the United States at the age of one by his parents. He later returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. At an early age Bierstadt developed a taste for art and made clever crayon sketches in his youth. 

In 1851, he began to paint in oils. He became part of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along this scenic river. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

In 1858 he exhibited a large painting of a Swiss landscape at the National Academy of Design, which gained him positive critical reception and honorary membership in the Academy.  At this time Bierstadt began painting scenes in New England and upstate New York, including in the Hudson River valley. A group of artists known as the Hudson River School portrayed its majestic landscapes and craggy areas, as well as the light affected by the changing waters.

In 1859, Bierstadt traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government, to see those landscapes.  He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.

During the American Civil War, Bierstadt paid for a substitute to serve in his place when he was drafted in 1863. He completed one Civil War painting Guerrilla Warfare, Civil War in 1862, based on his brief experiences with soldiers stationed at Camp Cameron in 1861.

Bierstadt's painting was based on a stereoscopic photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt, who operated a photography studio at Langley's Tavern in Virginia. Bierstadt's painting received a positive review when it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1861. Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey observes that Bierstadt's painting, created from photographs, "is quintessentially that of a voyeur, privy to the stories and unblemished by the violence and brutality of first-hand combat experience."

In 1860, he was elected a member of the National Academy; he received medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany.[ In 1867 he traveled to London, where he exhibited two landscape paintings in a private reception with Queen Victoria. He traveled through Europe for two years, cultivating social and business contacts to sustain the market for his work overseas.

As a result of the publicity generated by his Yosemite paintings, Bierstadt's presence was requested by every explorer considering a westward expedition, and he was commissioned by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to visit the Grand Canyon for further subject matter.

Bierstadt's technical proficiency, earned through his study of European landscape, was crucial to his success as a painter of the American West. It accounted for his popularity in disseminating views of the Rockies to those who had not seen them. The immense canvases he produced after his trips with Lander and Ludlow established him as the preeminent painter of the western American landscape. Financial recognition confirmed his status: The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, completed in 1863, was purchased for $25,000 in 1865.

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the romanticism evident in his choices of subject and his use of light was felt to be excessive. 

In 1882 Bierstadt's studio at Irvington, New York, was destroyed by fire, resulting in the loss of many of his paintings. By the time of his death on February 18, 1902, the taste for epic landscape painting had long since subsided. Bierstadt was then largely forgotten. He was buried at the Rural Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Interest in his work was renewed in the 1960s, with the exhibition of his small oil studies. The subsequent reassessment of Bierstadt's work has placed it in a favorable context.

Bierstadt's theatrical art, fervent sociability, international outlook, and unquenchable personal energy reflected the epic expansion in every facet of western civilization during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Bierstadt was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 paintings during his lifetime. Many of these are held by museums across the United States.

MT WASHINGTON BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft)

United States of America  (New Hampshire) 

1.  In Mount Washington from the Saco River'  oil on canvas High Museum.

2.  In Mount Washington from the Saco River, a sketch, c. 1858, oil on paper mounted into board, Chazen Museum of Art

The mountain 

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft) is the highest point in the northeastern United States. It is located in the White Mountains in the county of Coos. Most of the mountain is located in the White Mountain National Forest and Mount Washington State Park.
The mountain is called Agiocochook, the "abode of the great spirit," by the Amerindians. A scientific expedition led by geologist Dr. Cutler named Mount Washington in 1784.
While the western slope, which climbs the Cog Railway, is regular from its base, the other slopes are more complex. To the north, Great Gulf, the largest glacial circus in the mountains, is surrounded by the Northern Presidentials, namely Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison Mountains. These peaks reach far beyond the alpine zone beyond the tree line. The imposing Chandler Ridge extends northeast from the top of Mount Washington to form the southern wall of the amphitheater. It is paced by a motorway to the summit.
The first European to mention the mountain is Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, who sees it from the Atlantic Ocean and describes it as a "high mountain of the interior". Irishman Darby Field says he made his first ascent in 1642.
The Crawford Path, the oldest hiking trail in the United States, was established in 1819 as a mule track from the Crawford Notch Gorge to the summit and has been in use since that time. Ethan Allen Crawford built a lodge at the summit in 1821 that resisted a storm five years later.  In the middle of the nineteenth century, the mountain became a major tourist destination of the country, with the construction of new trails and two hotels. The Summit House, a 20-meter-long stone building with a roof attached to four heavy chains, was opened in 1852. The following year, the Tip-Top House was erected to compete with it. Rebuilt in wood with 91 rooms in 1872-1873, the Summit House burned in 1908 and was replaced by a granite building in 1915. Only the Tip-Top House resists fire; it is now classified in the National Register of Historic Places and has recently been renovated to house exhibitions. Among the attractions of the Victorian era is also a coach road built in 1861, now the Mount Washington Auto Road, and the Mount Washington Cog Railway, a cog railway established in 1869, in service.
Forty years, an aperiodic journal called Among The Clouds, is published by Henry M. Burt at the summit every summer until 1917. The prints are distributed by rail and then to hotels and other outlets around.
In November 2010, Mount Washington became a trademark and actions were taken by the custodians to restrict their legal use.
Mount Washington offers endless opportunities for hiking, climbing and skiing at all levels of difficulty. It is one of the most frequented mountains in America (250,000 people go to the summit every year).

The painter 

Sanford Robinson Gifford was born in Greenfield, New York and spent his childhood in Hudson, New York, the son of an iron foundry owner. He attended Brown University 1842-44, before leaving to study art in New York City in 1845. He studied drawing, perspective and anatomy under the direction of the British watercolorist and drawing-master, John Rubens Smith.  He also studied the human figure in anatomy classes at the Crosby Street Medical college and took drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.  By 1847 he was sufficiently skilled at painting to exhibit his first landscape at the National Academy and was elected an associate in 1851, an academician in 1854. Thereafter Gifford devoted himself to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the early Hudson River School.

Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.

In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.

Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.

During the summer of 1867, Gifford spent most of his time painting on the New Jersey coast, specifically at Sandy Hook and Long Branch, according to an auction Web site.

Another journey, this time with Jervis McEntee and his wife, took him across Europe in 1868. Leaving the McEntees behind, Gifford traveled to the Middle East, including Egypt in 1869. Then in the summer of 1870 Gifford ventured to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States, this time with Worthington Whittredge and John Frederick Kensett. At least part of the 1870 travels were as part of a Hayden Expedition, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden.

Returning to his studio in New York City, Gifford painted numerous major landscapes from scenes he recorded on his travels. Gifford's method of creating a work of art was similar to other Hudson River School artists. He would first sketch rough, small works in oil paint from his sketchbook pencil drawings. Those scenes he most favored he then developed into small, finished paintings, then into larger, finished paintings.

Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. Examples of Gifford's "chief pictures" in museum collections today include: Lake Nemi (1856–57), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ; The Wilderness (1861), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ;  A Passing Storm (1866), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut ;  Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

On August 29, 1880, Gifford died in New York City, having been diagnosed with malarial fever. The MET in New York City celebrated his life that autumn with a memorial exhibition of 160 paintings. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

MOUNT LAFAYETTE PAINTED BY ALBERT BIERSTADT

ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902) 

Mount Lafayette (1,600m - 5,249 ft) 

United State of America 

The Mountain 

Mount Lafayette (1,600m - 5,249 ft)  is a mountain at the northern end of the Franconia Range in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, United States. It is located in the town of Franconia in Grafton County. It is on the New England Fifty Finest list of the most topographically prominent peaks in New England. The upper portion of the mountain is located in the alpine zone, an area where only small vegetation exists due to the harsh climate.

The mountain is named to honor General Lafayette, a French military hero of the 18th century who fought with and significantly aided the Continental Army and was loved and adopted by George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. Lafayette re-visited New Hampshire and all the other states in an extremely popular, triumphal tour during 1824-1825, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Mount Lafayette is the highest point in the Franconia Range, a line of peaks along the east side of Franconia Notch. It is the sixth highest peak in New Hampshire and the highest outside of the Presidential Range. It is the second most prominent peak in the state. On the western side, its lower slopes lie inside Franconia Notch State Park. The remainder of the mountain lies within the White Mountain National Forest. The summit marks the western border of the Pemigewasset Wilderness Area within the WMNF.

The painter 

Albert Bierstadt was a German-born American painter. He was brought to the United States at the age of one by his parents. He later returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. At an early age Bierstadt developed a taste for art and made clever crayon sketches in his youth. 

In 1851, he began to paint in oils. He became part of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along this scenic river. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

In 1858 he exhibited a large painting of a Swiss landscape at the National Academy of Design, which gained him positive critical reception and honorary membership in the Academy.  At this time Bierstadt began painting scenes in New England and upstate New York, including in the Hudson River valley. A group of artists known as the Hudson River School portrayed its majestic landscapes and craggy areas, as well as the light affected by the changing waters.

In 1859, Bierstadt traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government, to see those landscapes.  He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.

During the American Civil War, Bierstadt paid for a substitute to serve in his place when he was drafted in 1863. He completed one Civil War painting Guerrilla Warfare, Civil War in 1862, based on his brief experiences with soldiers stationed at Camp Cameron in 1861.

Bierstadt's painting was based on a stereoscopic photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt, who operated a photography studio at Langley's Tavern in Virginia. Bierstadt's painting received a positive review when it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1861. Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey observes that Bierstadt's painting, created from photographs, "is quintessentially that of a voyeur, privy to the stories and unblemished by the violence and brutality of first-hand combat experience."

In 1860, he was elected a member of the National Academy; he received medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany.[ In 1867 he traveled to London, where he exhibited two landscape paintings in a private reception with Queen Victoria. He traveled through Europe for two years, cultivating social and business contacts to sustain the market for his work overseas.

As a result of the publicity generated by his Yosemite paintings, Bierstadt's presence was requested by every explorer considering a westward expedition, and he was commissioned by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to visit the Grand Canyon for further subject matter.

Bierstadt's technical proficiency, earned through his study of European landscape, was crucial to his success as a painter of the American West. It accounted for his popularity in disseminating views of the Rockies to those who had not seen them. The immense canvases he produced after his trips with Lander and Ludlow established him as the preeminent painter of the western American landscape. 

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the romanticism evident in his choices of subject and his use of light was felt to be excessive. 

In 1882 Bierstadt's studio at Irvington, New York, was destroyed by fire, resulting in the loss of many of his paintings. By the time of his death on February 18, 1902, the taste for epic landscape painting had long since subsided. Bierstadt was then largely forgotten. He was buried at the Rural Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Interest in his work was renewed in the 1960s, with the exhibition of his small oil studies. The subsequent reassessment of Bierstadt's work has placed it in a favorable context.

Bierstadt's theatrical art, fervent sociability, international outlook, and unquenchable personal energy reflected the epic expansion in every facet of western civilization during the second half of the nineteenth century. Bierstadt was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 paintings during his lifetime. Many of these are held by museums across the United States.

Several mountain paintings by Bierstadt are published in this blog.  To find them, go to his name in the column on the right and just click on his name.

Sources: 

- Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Bierstadt, Albert". Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

- Reynolds, Francis J., ed. (1921). "Bierstadt, Albert". Collier's New Encyclopedia. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Company

MOUNT JEFFERSON (NH) PAINTED BY HIPPOLYTE GARNIER

HIPPOLYTE GARNIER  (1802-1855)

 Mount Jefferson  (1,741m- 5,712ft) 

 United States of America (New Hampshire)

 1. Seen from Mount Washington  after William Bartlett engraving, 1838

The mountain 

There are 13 mountains in USA called Mont Jefferson or Jefferson Mountain !  This a way to pay tribute to Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), american Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Third President elected (1801-1809).  

Two Mount Jefferson are located in Virginia, and others all over the country: in South Carolina, North Carolina, Oregon, New York, Nevada, Montana, Maine, Massachusetts, Idaho, Arkansas and New Hampshire. 

The mount Jefferson (1,741 m- 5,712 ft) shown here is located in New Hampshire (Coos County) and is the third highest mountain  in the state. It is is part of the Presidential Range of the White Mountains. Mount Jefferson is flanked by Mount Adams (to the northeast) and Mount Clay (to the south).

The mountain has several interesting features, making it a popular hike. Two distinct ridges lead to its summit: Ridge of the Caps and Castle Ridge. The mountain is surrounded by the three dramatic glacial cirques of Jefferson Ravine, Castle Ravine, and the Great Gulf. Finally, Monticello Lawn is a large expanse of alpine sedge and rush near the otherwise talus-covered summit cone. When viewed from the Mount Washington Auto Road, Jefferson features an arrow-shaped bald patch pointing to its summit.

Mount Jefferson has a direct ascent along the Caps Ridge Trail, whose base, Jefferson Notch, is the highest point of any public road in New Hampshire at 3,009 feet (917 m). This route, gaining only 2,700 feet (823 m) vertically to the summit, results in it having the least distance of ascent of any Presidential mountain (about 2.5 miles). However, climbing over the "caps" involves some exposed scrambling and can be steep and challenging at times.

References : 

Mount Jefferson in PeakBagger 

AMC Hiking Mount Jefferson 

The painter 

Hippolyte-Louis Garnier is a french painter and most famous engraver in his country. He is the co-founder with his brother Auguste, of the "Editions Garnier Frères" (sometimes  "Garnier et Frères", or simply  'Editions Garnier ", later  "Garnier Flammarion"), a company which lasted from 1833 to 1983. Hu opened as well a famous bookstore in Paris.

As a well known engraver, Hippolyte Garnier - who had never been to America - came into contact in 1838 with Victor Grailly (1804-1889) who made many copies of American landscapes by William Bartlett "in the manner of" masters Dutch as Ruysdael. Thus he engraved this view of Mount Jefferson, selected primarily for his journalistic interest and aesthetic qualities of materials exploration of the planet.

In 1847-48, The  Editions Garnier begins editing the  "Dictionnaire national" (of the french langage) Louis-Nicolas Bescherelle, first with Simon Editor, then alone. In 1893, The Garnier brothers launched their famous  "Classiques jaunes Garnier", the first works with critical apparatus at low price that will experience a huge success. Nearly a century later, in 1983, the publishing house Editions Garnier closes, the fund being taken by the Presses de la Cité.