BEN NEVIS BY CECIL ARTHUR HUNT

CECIL ARTHUR HUNT (1873-1965)

Ben Nevis (1,344 m - 4, 118 ft)

Great Britain - Scotland




The mountain 

Ben Nevis  (1,344 m - 4, 118 ft)  in Scottish Gaelic: Beinn Nibheis is the highest mountain in the British Isles, located in Scotland, at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Lochaber area of the Scottish Highlands, close to the town of Fort William.

The mountain is a popular destination, attracting an estimated 100,000 ascents a year, around three-quarters of which use the Pony Track from Glen Nevis. The 700m  (2,300 ft) cliffs of the north face are among the highest in Scotland, providing classic scrambles and rock climbs of all difficulties for climbers and mountaineers. They are also the principal locations in Scotland for ice climbing.

The summit, which is the collapsed dome of an ancient volcano, features the ruins of an observatory which was continuously staffed between 1883 and 1904. The meteorological data collected during this period are still important for understanding Scottish mountain weather. C. T. R. Wilson was inspired to invent the cloud chamber after a period spent working at the observatory.

The first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis was made on 17 August 1771 by James Robertson, an Edinburgh botanist, who was in the region to collect botanical specimens. Another early ascent was in 1774 by John Williams, who provided the first account of the mountain's geological structure. John Keats climbed the mountain in 1818, comparing the ascent to "mounting ten St. Pauls without the convenience of a staircase".  The following year William MacGillivray, who was later to become a distinguished naturalist, reached the summit only to find "fragments of earthen and glass ware, chicken bones, corks, and bits of paper". 

It was not until 1847 that Ben Nevis was confirmed by the Ordnance Survey as the highest mountain in Britain and Ireland, ahead of its rival Ben Macdhui.

In 2000, the Ben Nevis Estate, comprising all of the south side of the mountain including the summit, was bought by the Scottish conservation charity the John Muir Trust.

The painter 
Cecil Arthur Hunt 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.

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 

MOUNT SNOWDON BY RICHARD WILSON

RICHARD WILSON  (1714-1782)
Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft) 

United Kingdom (Wales)

In Mount Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle, oil on canvas, 1765-66,Walker Art Gallery

The mountain 
Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft),Yr Wyddfa in welsh, is the highest mountain in Wales and the highest point in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. A 1682 survey estimated that the summit of Snowdon was at a height of 1,130 m - 3,720 feet ; in 1773, Thomas Pennant quoted a later estimate of 1,088 m- 3,568 ft above sea level at Caernarfon. Recent surveys give the height of the summit as 1,085 m -3,560 ft. The name Snowdon is from the Old English for "snow hill", while the Welsh name – Yr Wyddfa – means "the tumulus" or "the barrow", which may refer to the cairn thrown over the legendary giant Rhitta Gawr after his defeat by King Arthur. As well as other figures from Arthurian legend, the mountain is linked to a legendary Afanc (water monster) and the Tylwyth Teg (fairies). Mount Snowdon is located in Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri) in Gwynedd. It has been described as "probably the busiest mountain in Britain", with approximately 444,000 people having walked up the mountain in 2016.  It is designated as a national nature reserve for its rare flora and fauna. The rocks that form Snowdon were produced by volcanoes in the Ordovician period, and the massif has been extensively sculpted by glaciation, forming the pyramidal peak of Snowdon and the Arêtes of Crib Goch and Y Lliwedd. The cliff faces on Snowdon, including Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, are significant for rock climbing, and the mountain was used by Edmund Hillary in training for the 1953 ascent of Mount Everest.
The summit can be reached by a number of well-known paths, and by the Snowdon Mountain Railway, a rack and pinion railway opened in 1896 which carries passengers the 4.7 miles (7.6 km) from Llanberis to the summit station.

The Painter 
Richard Wilson RA was an influential Welsh landscape painter, who worked in Britain and Italy. With George Lambert he is recognised as a pioneer in British art of landscape for its own sake and was described in the Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales as the "most distinguished painter Wales has ever produced and the first to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of his country".  In December 1768 Wilson became one of the founder-members of the Royal Academy. A catalogue raisonné of the artist's work is published by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
From 1750 to 1757 Wilson was in Italy, and became a landscape painter on the advice of Francesco Zuccarelli. Painting in Italy and afterwards in Britain, he was the first major British painter to concentrate on landscape. He composed well, but saw and rendered only the general effects of nature, thereby creating a personal, ideal style influenced by Claude Lorrain and the Dutch landscape tradition. John Ruskin wrote that Wilson "paints in a manly way, and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of colour".  He concentrated on painting idealised Italianate landscapes and landscapes based upon classical literature, but when his painting, The Destruction of the Children of Niobe (c.1759–60), won acclaim, he gained many commissions from landowners seeking classical portrayals of their estates. Among Wilson's pupils was the painter Thomas Jones. His landscapes were acknowledged as an influence by Constable, John Crome and Turner.

BEN LEDI BY DAVID YOUNG CAMERON

DAVID YOUNG CAMERON (1865-1945) 

Ben Ledi  (879 m - 2,884 ft)

United Kingdom (Scotland)

1. In Ben Ledi - Late Autumn, oil on canvas, 1908, National Galleries Scotland

2. In Ben Ledi, pencil, National Galleries Scotland

The mountain 

Ben Ledi  (879 m - 2,884 ft), in Scottish Gaelic Beinn Leitir is a mountain in Perthshire, Scotland, classified as a Corbett. It lies about 6.4 kilometres (4 miles) north-west of Callander, near the village of Kilmahog. It is situated in the Trossachs, an area often regarded as having some of the most romantic scenery in the Highlands.

Ben Ledi is particularly well known through Walter Scott's poem Lady of the Lake. Supposedly in ancient times, Beltane rites were observed on the summit.  There are what is thought to be possible references to these Beltane rights in some of the Gaelic names on the mountain: Creag Ghorn; 'Rock of Embers' and Creag Loisgte; 'Burned Rock'. In 1791 the Rev Doctor James Robertson being minister of the parish at the time, was required to write a description of the parish for the First Statistical Account of Scotland. In his report he mistakenly took the name Ben Ledi to mean 'hill of god' which suited the purposes of the kirk of the day. The name is in fact a corruption of Beinn Leitir which translates to 'the Hill of the Slope', which is a very suitable description of the long south shoulder used to access the summit. A cairn was built on the top in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria's jubilee.

A small lochan, Lochan nan Corp, lies at 655 m above sea level about 1.5 km to the north of the summit. The name means "the little loch of the dead", and was thought to be named for an accident to a funeral party at which 200 lives were lost.  In truth the lochan is on the old coffin road from Glen Finlas to St Bride's chapel close to Loch Lubnaig. The pass is therefore named the Bealach nan Corp - Pass of the Dead - and the lochan is named after the pass. The lochan is not deep enough to reach past your waist nor of sufficient area to accommodate any large funeral party.

The painter 

Sir David Young Cameron RA  was a Scottish painter and etcher. He was educated at The Glasgow Academy. From around 1881 he studied at the Glasgow School of Art and in 1885 enrolled at the Edinburgh Schools of Art. Cameron became a skilled etcher making a name for himself in this medium and gaining international recognition by the 1890s. He was elected associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers (RE) in 1889. In 1895 he was elected Fellow of the RE. He exhibited regularly from 1889 to 1902, before resigning his membership in 1903.

His subjects included architectural studies, of which he produced a number of popular 'sets' and landscapes. He received various medals and awards for his etchings. It was during this time that he published a number of sets of etchings (such as "The Clyde Set", "The North Holland Set" and "The North Italian Set"). In general his prints feature areas of great darkness, offset by highlights. 

He became highly sought after by collectors, until the Great Crash of 1929 brought a collapse in prices for prints in general. He exploited his popularity by producing an unprecedented number of states of his prints, and is believed to hold the record at twenty-eight states in one case.

As well as becoming well known as an etcher the artist also produced a great many oil paintings and watercolour sketches of landscapes and architectural subjects. Cameron's earliest known oil painting dates to 1883. His work was influenced by the Glasgow Boys and the Hague School. 

After 1907 Cameron's work showed a greater focus on Scottish landscape subjects and from 1908 to 1917 he moved from etching to painting. Around this time he largely stopped including figures in his compositions, apart from in his architectural studies. By this time his works were receiving wide critical acclaim and he was well known both in the UK and abroad. Around 1908 his work began to lighten in colour, prior to this Cameron's work had been criticised for being too dark with a heavy use of brown tones. Visits to France and Italy in the 1920s seemed to have a further influence on his works and brought about a much brighter palette. His painting can be characterised by an interest in tone and design over colour and detail. At the same time there was a shift in influence away from the Glasgow Boys and their decorative style and he became known for his atmospheric highland landscapes.

In 1917-18 Cameron was commissioned by the Canadian Government to paint the war in France. Cameron was knighted in 1924 and was a Trustee of the Tate Gallery from 1921 to 1927 and the Scottish National Gallery, and was the King's Painter and Limner in Scotland 1933

THORPE CLOUD BY FRANÇOIS VIVARES

FRANÇOIS VIVARES (1708-1780) 

Thorpe Cloud (287 m - 942 ft)  

United Kingdom (England)

The Hill 

Thorpe Cloud  (287m - 942ft)  is an isolated limestone hill (a reef knoll) lying between the villages of Thorpe and Ilam on the Derbyshire/Staffordshire border at the southern end of Dovedale. It is a popular hill amongst the many day-trippers who visit the area, and provides a fine viewpoint north up the dale and south across the Midland plain.

Like much of the dale, including Bunster Hill on the opposite bank, it is in the ownership of the National Trust, and is part of their South Peak Estate. These Dovedale properties were acquired by the Trust in 1934. In 1997, the writer Jeff Kent discovered that a double sunset could be seen against Thorpe Cloud from the top of nearby Lin Dale and, two years later, the phenomenon was first captured on film by the photographer Chris Doherty. The occurrence is visible in good weather on and around the summer solstice and perhaps beyond, when the sun sets on the summit of the hill, partially reappears from its steep northern slope and sets for a second and final time shortly afterwards. The precise event and its location are described in Kent's book The Mysterious Double Sunset. Thorpe Cloud and Dovedale were used as locations in the 2010 film of Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe. Thorpe Cloud can be clearly made out in several scenes towards the end of the film.

Thorpe Cloud also has a rifle range which local and national shooting clubs use.

The artist

François Vivares was a French landscape-engraver, active in England. He was born in France at Saint-Jean-du-Bruel, near Montpellier, and brought up in Geneva. At the age of 18 he moved permanently to London. He took on Peter Paul Benazech as apprentice in 1746. Vivares exhibited engravings with the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1766 and 1768. During the last thirty years of his life he resided in Great Newport Street, central London, where he kept a print-shop. There he died on 28 November 1780, and was buried in Paddington churchyard. He was three times married, and had 31 children. His son Thomas Vivares also worked as an engraver.

His plates number about 160, and were largely published by John Boydell. Many were from the old masters: Claude, Poussin, Il Bolognese, Vanderneer and Cuyp; but a large proportion of them are views of English scenery after Thomas Gainsborough, Wootton, Thomas Smith of Derby, the Smiths of Chichester, and others. Claude's Enchanted Castle he left unfinished at his death, and it was completed by William Woollett.

ARENIG FAWR BY JAMES DICKSON INNES

JAMES DICKSON INNES (1887-1914) 

Arenig Fawr  (854m - 2, 892ft) 

United Kingdom (Wales) 

1.   In Arenig Fawr, North Wales, 1911, oil on canvas, The Fitzwilliam Museum.

2.  In Arenig, 1911-1912,  oil on canvas, National Museum Wales, National Museum Cardiff

 3. In Arenig North Wales, 1913  oil on canvas, TATE 

4. In Arenig Mountain, 1911, watercolor,  Arts Council Collection UK 

The mountain 

Arenig Fawr  (854m - 2, 892ft)  which means  Great High Ground is a mountain in Snowdonia, North Wales, located close to Llyn Celyn reservoir alongside the A4212 between Trawsfynydd and Bala. Arenig Fawr is the highest member of the Arenig range with Arenig Fach (Small High Ground), a smaller neighbouring mountain, lying to the north. It is surrounded by Moel Llyfnant to the west, Rhobell Fawr to the south and Mynydd Nodol to the east.

The summit, which is also known as Moel yr Eglwys (Bare hill of the church), has a trig point and a memorial to eight American aircrew who died when their Flying Fortress bomber B-17F #42-3124 crashed on 4 August 1943. Some of the crash wreckage is still scattered across the hillside 300 m (330 yds) from the memorial location. From the summit, with good weather conditions, it is possible to see several notable Welsh mountain ranges: the Rhinogs in the west, Mount Snowdon to the northwest, Clwydian Hills in the northeast, east to the Berwyns, south east to the Arans, and southward to Cadair Idris. It is one of the finest panoramas in Wales.

Artists James Dickson Innes (above) and Augustus John used the mountain as a backdrop during their two years of painting in the Arenig valley between 1911-12. In 2011 their work was the subject of a BBC documentary entitled The Mountain That Had to Be Painted.

In The Faerie Queene, an incomplete English epic poem, by Sir Edmund Spenser, the home of 'old Timon', Prince Arthur’s sage foster-father "is low in a valley greene, Under the foot of Rauran mossy hore". Renowned Welsh historian Sir John Edward Lloyd wrote that Rauran "comes from Saxton's map of Merionethshire (1578), which places ‘Rarau uaure Hill’ (Yr Aran Fawr) where Arenig should be". A boulder at a crossroads in the hamlet of Bell Heath, near to Belbroughton, Worcestershire, in England, has a brass plaque attached to it stating "Boulder from Arenig Mountain in N. Wales, Brought here by the Welsh Ice-sheet in the Glacial Period".

Source: 

-Wikipedia

The painter 

 James Dickson Innes  was a British painter, mainly of mountain landscapes but occasionally of figure subjects. He worked in both oils and watercolours. Of his style, art historian David Fraser Jenkins wrote: "Like that of the fauves in France and the expressionists in Germany, the style of his work is primitive: it is child-like in technique and is associated with the landscape of remote places."

It has been argued his unusual style led the way for British artists such as David Hockney.

He studied at the Carmarthen School of Art (1904–05), from where he won a scholarship to the Slade School of Art in London (1905–08). His teachers at the Slade included P. Wilson Steer.
From 1907 he exhibited with the New English Art Club; and in 1911 he became a member of the Camden Town Group.  The Camden Town Group included Walter Sickert who was an influence on Innes's art, and Augustus John with whom Innes became friends.
In 1911 he had a two-man exhibition with Eric Gill at the Chenil Gallery, London: "Sculptures by Mr Eric Gill and Landscapes by Mr J. D. Innes".
The Welsh politician and philanthropist Winifred Coombe Tennant (1874–1956) was an important patron of his work. In 1913 Innes exhibited in the influential Armory Show in New York City, Chicago and Boston.[3]
In 1911 and 1912 he spent some time painting with Augustus John around Arenig Fawr in the Arenig valley in North Wales(see above); but much of his work was done overseas, mainly in France (1908–1913), notably at Collioure, but also in Spain (1913) and Morocco (1913) – foreign travel having been prescribed after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Eventually, on 22 August 1914, at the age of twenty-seven, he died of the disease at a nursing home in Swanley, Kent.
In 2014 an exhibition of Innes' works was staged at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.
Source: 
- National Museum Cardiff

PENYCADAIR PAINTED BY RICHARD WILSON

RICHARD WILSON (1714-1782)

Penygadair - Cader Idris (892m-2,927ft)

United Kingdom (Wales)

1.   In Llyn-y-Cau, Cader Idris, oil on canvas, Tate Britain 

2. In The Mawddach Valley and Cader Idris, 1774, oil on canvas, Walker Art Gallery 

The mountain 

 Penygadair or Pen-y-Gader (892m-2,927 ft ) which means Top of the Chair, is the summit of Cader  Idris mountain and offers a superb panorama of mountain scenery.  Cader Idris  (or Cadair Idris) means 'Chair of Idris', the giant warrior poet of Welsh legend.  The mountain consists of a long ridge (11km), the 19th highest mountain in Wales and the second most popular mountain in the country after Mount Snowdon.  Pen-y-Gader northern face is craggy and precipitous, in contrast to the south face which slopes more gently into the broad expanse of the Dyfi estuary. There are a number of paths which lead to the summit, the Fox's Path leads directly up the mountains north face. To the north of the summit lies the very steep and craggy north face, where the cliffs drop around 200 metres (656ft).  The other peaks of the ridge are Mynyyd Moel (855m- 2805ft) and Mynydd Pencoed (798m-2618ft). North of Cadair Idris lies the town of Dolgellau, a convenient base, which offers cafes, restaurants and shops. The mountain is notorious for its low cloud but on a clear day it is possible to see the mountains of the Snowdon massif and the Rhinog mountain range as well as the Lleyn Peninsula and the hills of Shropshire, the Long Mynd, the Wrekin and occasionally Ireland.

There are numerous legends about Cader Idris. Some nearby lakes are supposed to be bottomless, and anyone who sleeps on its slopes alone will supposedly awaken either a madman or a poet. The tradition of sleeping on the summit of the Mountain apparently stems from bardic traditions, where bards would sleep on the mountain in hope of inspiration.
 Source:
 -Snowdonia official  Guide 

The painter
Richard Wilson was an influential Welsh landscape painter, who worked in Britain and Italy. With George Lambert he is recognized as a pioneer in British art of landscape for its own sake and was described in the Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales as the "most distinguished painter Wales has ever produced and the first to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of his country".  From 1750 to 1757 Wilson was in Italy, and became a landscape painter on the advice of Francesco Zuccarelli. Painting in Italy and afterwards in Britain, he was the first major British painter to concentrate on landscape. He composed well, but saw and rendered only the general effects of nature, thereby creating a personal, ideal style influenced by Claude Lorrain and the Dutch landscape tradition. John Ruskin wrote that Wilson "paints in a manly way, and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of colour". Among Wilson's pupils was the painter Thomas Jones. His landscapes were acknowledged as an influence by Constable, John Crome and Turner.
In December 1768 Wilson became one of the founder-members of the Royal Academy. A catalogue raisonné of the artist's work is published by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
Source: 
- Tate Britain 

MOUNT SNOWDON BY SIDNEY RICHARD PERCY

SIDNEY RICHARD PERCY (1821-1886)

Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft) 

United Kingdom (Wales)

In View of Mount Snowdon In Snowdania, 1853 - Tate

The mountain 
Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft),Yr Wyddfa in welsh, is the highest mountain in Wales and the highest point in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. A 1682 survey estimated that the summit of Snowdon was at a height of 1,130 m - 3,720 feet ; in 1773, Thomas Pennant quoted a later estimate of 1,088 m- 3,568 ft above sea level at Caernarfon. Recent surveys give the height of the summit as 1,085 m -3,560 ft. The name Snowdon is from the Old English for "snow hill", while the Welsh name – Yr Wyddfa – means "the tumulus" or "the barrow", which may refer to the cairn thrown over the legendary giant Rhitta Gawr after his defeat by King Arthur. As well as other figures from Arthurian legend, the mountain is linked to a legendary Afanc (water monster) and the Tylwyth Teg (fairies). Mount Snowdon is located in Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri) in Gwynedd. It has been described as "probably the busiest mountain in Britain", with approximately 444,000 people having walked up the mountain in 2016.  It is designated as a national nature reserve for its rare flora and fauna. The rocks that form Snowdon were produced by volcanoes in the Ordovician period, and the massif has been extensively sculpted by glaciation, forming the pyramidal peak of Snowdon and the Arêtes of Crib Goch and Y Lliwedd. The cliff faces on Snowdon, including Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, are significant for rock climbing, and the mountain was used by Edmund Hillary in training for the 1953 ascent of Mount Everest.
The summit can be reached by a number of well-known paths, and by the Snowdon Mountain Railway, a rack and pinion railway opened in 1896 which carries passengers the 4.7 miles (7.6 km) from Llanberis to the summit station.

The painter 
Sidney Richard Percy had his greatest success painting landscapes of grazing cattle, typically set against backgrounds of distant mountains and cloudy skies. The prevailing hues of his landscapes are earth tones and soft greens, accentuated by a variety of pastel hues. The detail in his work is part of its appeal, and "it was remarked that his rocks and stones were sufficiently accurate to have served as illustrations to the writings of Sir Roderick Murchison, the popular 19th-century geologist." Llyn-y-Ddinas, North Wales, one of his more popular works on the internet, displays these qualities. He also painted landscapes of farm fields, wheel-rutted country roads, and the occasional boat scene on a lake. Although he generally painted in oils, a number of small watercolors on cardboard exist, typically unsigned, that are his work. The family, and his son the painter Herbert Sidney Percy in particular, referred to these as "potboilers", meaning that they were quickly, and often crudely executed, yet easily and cheaply sold "to put food on the table" when working on larger, more time-consuming oils for exhibition, or commissions. Many of these watercolor "potboilers" were done in the field, and then brought back to the studio to refer to when executing a more formal oil on canvas.
Sidney Richard Percy was extremely popular during the early part of his career, which for a short time brought him a fair amount of income. Among his patrons during this time was Prince Albert the Royal consort who in 1854 gave Percy's landscape of A view of Llyn Dulyn, North Wales, which had just been exhibited at the Royal Academy, as a gift to his wife Queen Victoria. This painting still hangs today in the Royal Collection. Unfortunately Sidney Richard Percy outlived his popularity, and the art world was more excited about impressionism and other styles than landscapes when he died. Today though, his work is much sought after, and his better paintings bring much higher prices in auction than any of those of his brethren in the Williams family.
When the Athenaeum in 1886 (i. 592) ran an obituary for Sidney Richard Percy they called him, "the well-known and popular painter, founder of the so-called School of Barnes . . ." Although depending on the context of what is meant by the so-called Barnes School, this is a bit of an injustice to his father Edward Williams, whom it might be argued is the founder of the Barnes School of painters, but it illustrates the popularity that Sidney Richard Percy held with the art-buying public of his day.

BEN NEVIS PAINTED BY SIDNEY RICHARD PERCY

 SIDNEY RICHARD PERCY (1821-1886) 

Ben Nevis (1,344 m - 4, 118 ft)

Great Britain - Scotland

In Carn Dearg and Ben Nevis from Achintee 

The mountain 

Ben Nevis  (1,344 m - 4, 118 ft)  in Scottish Gaelic: Beinn Nibheis is the highest mountain in the British Isles, located in Scotland, at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Lochaber area of the Scottish Highlands, close to the town of Fort William.
The mountain is a popular destination, attracting an estimated 100,000 ascents a year, around three-quarters of which use the Pony Track from Glen Nevis. The 700 metre - 2,300 ft cliffs of the north face are among the highest in Scotland, providing classic scrambles and rock climbs of all difficulties for climbers and mountaineers. They are also the principal locations in Scotland for ice climbing.
The summit, which is the collapsed dome of an ancient volcano, features the ruins of an observatory which was continuously staffed between 1883 and 1904. The meteorological data collected during this period are still important for understanding Scottish mountain weather. C. T. R. Wilson was inspired to invent the cloud chamber after a period spent working at the observatory.
The first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis was made on 17 August 1771 by James Robertson, an Edinburgh botanist, who was in the region to collect botanical specimens. Another early ascent was in 1774 by John Williams, who provided the first account of the mountain's geological structure. John Keats climbed the mountain in 1818, comparing the ascent to "mounting ten St. Pauls without the convenience of a staircase".  The following year William MacGillivray, who was later to become a distinguished naturalist, reached the summit only to find "fragments of earthen and glass ware, chicken bones, corks, and bits of paper". It was not until 1847 that Ben Nevis was confirmed by the Ordnance Survey as the highest mountain in Britain and Ireland, ahead of its rival Ben Macdhui.
The summit observatory was built in the summer of 1883, and would remain in operation for 21 years. The first path to the summit was built at the same time as the observatory and was designed to allow ponies to carry up supplies, with a maximum gradient of one in five.  The opening of the path and the observatory made the ascent of the Ben increasingly popular, all the more so after the arrival of the West Highland Railway in Fort William in 1894.  Around this time the first of several proposals was made for a rack railway to the summit, none of which came to fruition.
In 2000, the Ben Nevis Estate, comprising all of the south side of the mountain including the summit, was bought by the Scottish conservation charity the John Muir Trust.

The painter 
Sidney Richard Percy had his greatest success painting landscapes of grazing cattle, typically set against backgrounds of distant mountains and cloudy skies. The prevailing hues of his landscapes are earth tones and soft greens, accentuated by a variety of pastel hues. The detail in his work is part of its appeal, and "it was remarked that his rocks and stones were sufficiently accurate to have served as illustrations to the writings of Sir Roderick Murchison, the popular 19th-century geologist." Llyn-y-Ddinas, North Wales, one of his more popular works on the internet, displays these qualities. He also painted landscapes of farm fields, wheel-rutted country roads, and the occasional boat scene on a lake. Although he generally painted in oils, a number of small watercolors on cardboard exist, typically unsigned, that are his work. The family, and his son the painter Herbert Sidney Percy in particular, referred to these as "potboilers", meaning that they were quickly, and often crudely executed, yet easily and cheaply sold "to put food on the table" when working on larger, more time-consuming oils for exhibition, or commissions. Many of these watercolor "potboilers" were done in the field, and then brought back to the studio to refer to when executing a more formal oil on canvas.
Sidney Richard Percy was extremely popular during the early part of his career, which for a short time brought him a fair amount of income. Among his patrons during this time was Prince Albert the Royal consort who in 1854 gave Percy's landscape of A view of Llyn Dulyn, North Wales, which had just been exhibited at the Royal Academy, as a gift to his wife Queen Victoria. This painting still hangs today in the Royal Collection. Unfortunately Sidney Richard Percy outlived his popularity, and the art world was more excited about impressionism and other styles than landscapes when he died. Today though, his work is much sought after, and his better paintings bring much higher prices in auction than any of those of his brethren in the Williams family.
When the Athenaeum in 1886 (i. 592) ran an obituary for Sidney Richard Percy they called him, "the well-known and popular painter, founder of the so-called School of Barnes . . ." Although depending on the context of what is meant by the so-called Barnes School, this is a bit of an injustice to his father Edward Williams, whom it might be argued is the founder of the Barnes School of painters, but it illustrates the popularity that Sidney Richard Percy held with the art-buying public of his day.

BEN AVON PAINTED BY A. G. CARRICK / H.M KING CHARLES III

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

Ben Avon (1,171m - 3,842ft) near Braemar

  United Kingdom (Scotland)

The mountain  
Ben Avon (1,171m - 3,842ft), named in Scottish Gaelic -  Beinn Athfhinn -  which means Hill of the bright one is a mountain in the Cairngorm mountains range of Scotland Eastern Highlands.  The highest point of the massif, known as Leabaidh an Dаimh Bhuidhe (bed of the yellow stag) is classified as both a Munro and a Marilyn. Ben Avon is a very large and complex mountain sprawling over more than 30 km2. The summit plateau is dominated by granite tors, one of which forms the summit. From the broad summit plateau ridges lead in almost every direction, allowing access from Glen Avon to the north, from Beinn a' Bhщird to the west and from Gleann an t-Slugain in the south. To the west of the summit lies the massive corrie, Slochd Mтr, with its rocky cliffs, and the approaches from the south and west take you close to the corrie rim.
The most common ascent route is via the path in the deep glen that separates Ben Avon and Beinn a' Bhщird, or from Beinn a' Bhщird itself. The summit tor itself must be climbed in order to "bag" the mountain, though it is an easy scramble.

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  

 
_______________________________
2016 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR BY FRANCIS FRITH

FRANCIS FRITH  (1822-1898) 

 Rock of Gibraltar  (426 m -1,398 ft)
United Kingdom - Spain border

1.  In Rock of Gibraltar, photo Collodion  process, 1850 

2.  In Rock of Gibraltar by an anonymous painter, oil on canvas,  1810  

The mountain

The Rock of Gibraltar  (426 m -1,398 ft) in spanish : El Peсуn de Gibraltar, sometimes called by its original Latin name, Calpe, is a monolithic limestone promontory located in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, off the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. It is 426 m (1,398 ft) high. The Rock is Crown property of the United Kingdom, and borders Spain. Most of the Rock's upper area is covered by a nature reserve, which is home to around 300 Barbary macaques. These macaques, as well as a labyrinthine network of tunnels, attract a large number of tourists each year.  The Rock of Gibraltar was one of the Pillars of Hercules and was known to the Romans as Mons Calpe, the other pillar being Mons Abyla or Jebel Musa on the African side of the Strait. In ancient times, the two points marked the limit to the known world, a myth originally fostered by the Greeks and the Phoenicians.

Gibraltar is not the southernmost point of Europe, which is the Punta de Tarifa, at 25 km southwest of Gibraltar, as the crow flies.  Gibraltar is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and has no contact with the Atlantic Ocean.

The photographer

Francis Frith  was an English photographer of the Middle East and many towns in the United Kingdom. After attending a Quaker school, he started in the cutlery business and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1843.  In 1850 he started a photographic studio in Liverpool, known as Frith & Hayward.  A successful grocer, and later, printer, Frith fostered an interest in photography, becoming a founding member of the Liverpool Photographic Society in 1853.  Frith sold his companies in 1855 in order to dedicate himself entirely to photography. He journeyed to the Middle East on three occasions, the first of which was a trip to Egypt in 1856 with very large cameras (16" x 20"). He used the collodion process, a major technical achievement in hot and dusty conditions.

During his travels he noted that tourists were the main consumers of the views of Italy, but armchair travellers bought scenes from other parts of the world in the hope of obtaining a true record, "far beyond anything that is in the power of the most accomplished artist to transfer to his canvas." These words express the ambitious goal that Frith set for himself when he departed on his first trip to the Nile Valley in 1856. He also made two other trips before 1860, extending his photo-taking to Palestine and Syria.  In addition to photography, he also kept a journal during his travels elaborating on the difficulties of the trip, commenting on the "smothering little tent" and the collodion fizzing - boiling up over the glass. Frith also noticed the compositional problems regarding the point of view from the camera. According to Frith, "the difficulty of getting a view satisfactorily in the camera: foregrounds are especially perverse; distance too near or too far; the falling away of the ground; the intervention of some brick wall or other common object... Oh what pictures we would make if we could command our point of views." An image he took known as the "Approach to Philae" is just one example which elaborates his ability to find refreshing photographic solutions to these problems. (cited from "A World History of Photography")

Reference: 

- Francis Frith official website 

GLARAMARA PAINTED BY JOHN CONSTABLE

JOHN CONSTABLE (1776-1837) 

Glaramara (783m - 2,569 ft)   

United Kingdom

 In  View toward Glaramara, 1806- V & A museum. London 

The mountain 

Glaramara is a fell in the English Lake District in Cumbria. It is a substantial fell that is part of a long ridge that stretches for over six kilometres from Stonethwaite in Borrowdale up to the important mountain pass of Esk Hause. The summit of Glaramara at 783 m (2,569 ft) is the central point of this ridge, which separates the valleys of Langstrath and Grains Gill. However, the ridge has two additional fells, numerous subsidiary tops and several small tarns making its traverse an appealing and challenging walk.
The fell's unusual and pleasant-sounding name, previously only applied to the summit rocks, has now been accepted as the name for the whole fell. Like many fells of the district the name comes from a series of Old Norse words which in this case is translated as “Hill with the mountain hut by a chasm”.
The direct ascent of the fell is usually started from the Borrowdale road midway between Rosthwaite and Seatoller. From here it is possible to ascend on either of the ridges to the east or west of Combe Gill, the east ridge being the best because it allows for the climbing of Rosthwaite Fell and its subsidiary summit of Dovenest Top (632 m). On this route two other tops of Glaramara, Combe Door Top (676 m) and Combe Head (735 m), are passed over. Both of these are Nuttalls. Combe Head gives fine views down into Combe Gill and from here it is short climb to the twin summits of Glaramara.
Reference :
 - Wikipedia  

The painter

John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"— which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
His most famous paintings include Wivenhoe Park of 1816, Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of 1821. Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, Constable was never financially successful. He did not become a member of the establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52. His work was embraced in France, where he sold more works than in his native England and inspired the Barbizon school.
Constable quietly rebelled against the artistic culture that taught artists to use their imagination to compose their pictures rather than nature itself. He told Leslie, "When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture".
Constable was never satisfied with following a formula. "The world is wide", he wrote, "no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of all the world; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from each other."  Constable painted many full-scale preliminary sketches of his landscapes to test the composition in advance of finished pictures. These large sketches, with their free and vigorous brushwork, were revolutionary at the time, and they continue to interest artists, scholars and the general public. The oil sketches of The Leaping Horse and The Hay Wain, for example, convey a vigour and expressiveness missing from Constable's finished paintings of the same subjects. Possibly more than any other aspect of Constable's work, the oil sketches reveal him in retrospect to have been an avant-garde painter, one who demonstrated that landscape painting could be taken in a totally new direction.
Constable's watercolours were also remarkably free for their time: the almost mystical Stonehenge, 1835, with its double rainbow, is often considered to be one of the greatest watercolours ever painted.[21] When he exhibited it in 1836, Constable appended a text to the title: "The mysterious monument of Stonehenge, standing remote on a bare and boundless heath, as much unconnected with the events of past ages as it is with the uses of the present, carries you back beyond all historical records into the obscurity of a totally unknown period."
The sketches themselves were the first ever done in oils directly from the subject in the open air. To convey the effects of light and movement, Constable used broken brushstrokes, often in small touches, which he scumbled over lighter passages, creating an impression of sparkling light enveloping the entire landscape.
Reference 
 - John Constable website