LES OPIES PEINTS PAR VINCENT VAN GOGH

 

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)
Les Opies (496m)
France (Provence)

In La nuit étoilée, 1889, huile sur toile, 74 x 92cm, The MoMA, NewYork

A propos de cette composition
La Nuit étoilée est sans doute la peinture la plus célèbre du peintre Vincent van Gogh. Le tableau représente ce que Van Gogh pouvait voir ou plutôt extrapoler de la chambre qu'il occupait dans l'asile de  Saint-Paul-de-Mausole à Saint-Rémy-de-Provence en mai 1889.  Le ciel représenté dans le tableau correspondrait à la configuration céleste visible à Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, le 25 mai 1889, à 4:40 précisément.
Le ciel occupe la majorité du tableau ; il est composé de volutes et de tourbillons rappelant des galaxies en spirales. Les étoiles et la Lune sont entourées par des touches de peinture créant ainsi un halo. La Lune est visible en haut à droite, Vénus étant représentée à droite du cyprès. La partie centrale du tableau représente le village de Saint-Rémy-de-Provence vu depuis la chambre de Van Gogh en direction du nord. A ceci près que le clocher de l'église est de style hollandais et ne ressemble pas du tout à  celui de l'église de Saint-Rémy. Une partie du Massif Alpilles apparait au loin à droite du cadre. Les collines intermédiaires ne correspondent pas à la vue réelle depuis l'asile et semblent avoir été rapportées d'un autre point de vue, en direction du sud, avec leur point culminant, les Oppies, surgissant à l'extrémité droite de la composition. Le faux et le vrai se mêlent et et rien n'est à sa place.

 L'artiste
Le 8 mai 1889, Vincent van Gogh quitte Arles où il avait emmenagé l'année précédetne, ayant décidé d'entrer dans l'asile d'aliénés Saint-Paul-de-Mausole que dirige le médecin Théophile Peyron, à Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Il y reste un an, au cours duquel il a trois crises importantes : à la mi-juillet, en décembre et la dernière entre février et mars 1890. Malgré ce mauvais état de santé, Van Gogh est très productif et peindra un nombre impressionnant de paysages des Alpilles, juste en face de l'asile, vues à peu près sous tous les angles. Ce n'est que pendant ses crises de démence qu'il ne peint pas. Dans l'asile, une pièce au rez-de-chaussée lui est laissée en guise d'atelier. Il continue à envoyer ses tableaux à Theo. Deux de ses œuvres font partie de la 5e exposition annuelle de la Société des artistes indépendants de Paris. Un des premiers tableaux de cette époque est l’Iris. Les peintures de cette période sont souvent caractérisées par des remous et des spirales. À diverses périodes de sa vie, Van Gogh a également peint ce qu'il voyait de sa fenêtre, notamment à la fin de sa vie avec une grande série de peintures de champs de blé qu'il pouvait admirer de la chambre qu'il occupait à l'asile. Il quitte l'asile le 19 mai 1890, après avoir rencontré le docteur Gachet dont il fera le portrait.
C'est l 'époque où Van Gogh commence à être vaguement connu. En janvier 1890, un article d’Albert Aurier dans le Mercure de France souligne pour la première fois l’importance de ses recherches. Un mois plus tard, la peintre Anna Boch acquiert l’un de ses tableaux, La Vigne rouge pour la somme de 400 francs.

La montagne
Les Opies (496m)  sont le point culminant du massif des Alpilles, dans la partie orientale du massif, sur le territoire de la commune d'Eyguières (Bouches-du-Rhône). Ce sommet doit son nom à la mauvaise transcription du nom provençal Aupiho ou Alpilles (« petites Alpes »).
La tour des Opies est un petit bâtiment construit au point le plus élevé de la chaîne des Opies, une tour carrée, à la manière des actuelles vigies qui se dressent au sommet de plusieurs massifs provençaux pour prévenir les risques d'incendie. On peut encore apercevoir les vestiges d'une ligne téléphonique qui reliait la tour au village d'Aureille.
Trois sentiers de randonnée permettent d'accéder aux Opies : un au départ de l'est depuis un point sur la route D25 proche de Roquemartine ;
- un au départ de la D25a allant à Aureille ;
- un au départ du village d'Aureille au pied du château.
- Les deux derniers sentiers se rejoignent en un même sentier ouest. La première partie du sentier, peu difficile, s'effectue dans un maquis particulièrement luisant par temps ensoleillé. Une partie du sentier ouest traverse des arbres brûlés par des incendies de forêt dont le dernier en septembre 2003. Les sentiers est et ouest se rejoignent à un grand cairn. À partir de là, un petit sentier permet d'effectuer une courte ascension finale.
En raison des réglementations en vigueur concernant la prévention des incendies de forêt, l'accès à ce site est interdit en saison estivale les jours où le mistral souffle fort.

______________________________________

2023 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MONT GAUSSIER PAINTED BY VINCENT VAN GOGH

VINCENT VAN GOGH  (1853-1890) 

Le Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft)  

France

In Le mas St Paul à Saint-Rémy de Provence, 1889, Kroller-Muller Museum, Netherlands

The mountain 
The Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft) is a summit of the Alpilles located south of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Today, the place of passage of many hikers who cross it by the GR6, Mount Gaussier was very early used as habitat by protohistoric populations, before having at its summit a medieval castle, nowadays disappeared. Mount Gaussier is made of crystalline limestone, white and hard. One finds in the soil the trace of many fossils. This type of summit is characteristic of the Alpilles range of mountains, especially on the north face.
The first traces of habitation on Mount Gaussier are ancient. In 1996,  three sites dating from Protohistory and Late Antiquity were discovered at the summit and on the slopes. This is what emerges from the study of stones, tiles, ceramics and shards of amphora found on the premises. Moreover, the foundation of a wall was identified at the top during the same prospecting.
Most of the human activity of antiquity at Mount Gaussier nevertheless concentrated at the foot of it, since it was there that was built the Salyan city of Glanum (today Saint-Remy de Provence). Research carried out in 1996 and 1997 revealed that the well-preserved remains of a protohistoric rampart with towers have been cleared in several places, particularly on the ridges which dominate to the north-east and south-west the Saint- Clerg and at the foot of Mount Gaussier. The system of rampart which encircled the city in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. J.-C. leaned on the cliffs of the mount Gaussier which border it on a hundred meters. It is also believed that Mount Gaussier, by its situation, could be used as an acropolis because of its plateau surrounded by cliffs and that its access from Glanum was made possible by a narrow corridor.
If, according to the archaeologist Henri Rolland, some families occupied the Alpilles range, on the slopes of Mount Gaussier, between the first Iron Age and the end of Antiquity, but also in the High Middle Ages, only the foot and the summit of the mountain were occupied in the following centuries, especially in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was here that a part of the inhabitants of Glanum took up residence after the ruin of the ancient city in the alluvial deposits of the mountain.
Mount Gaussier, like Glanum, then in ruins, and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, became property of the church of Avignon at the end of the 9th century in a county of Provence powered by Count Thibert.
It is possible to reach the Mount Gaussier from the ruins of Glanum or from La Caume by the GR6 climbing previously metal ladders.

 The  painter 
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He died by suicide at 37, following years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He took up painting in 1881 having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
Van Gogh's early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, contain few signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. In 1886 he moved to Paris where me met members of the avant-garde, including Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. His paintings grew brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888. He lived there in the Yellow House and, with Gauguin, developed a concept of colour that symbolised inner emotion. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include olive trees, cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and, though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, not eating properly and drinking heavily. His friendship with Gauguin came to an end after he threatened the Frenchman with a razor, and in a rage, cut off part of his own left ear. His stay in a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy led to one of the more productive periods of his life. He discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris under the care of the homeopathic doctor and artist, Paul Gachet. On 27 July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died from his injuries two days later.
He sold only one painting during his lifetime, and was considered a madman and a failure. He became famous after his suicide. Van Gogh exists in the public imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius, the artist "where discourses on madness and creativity converge". His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his painting style came to be incorporated by the Fauves and German Expressionists. He attained widespread critical, commercial and popular success over the ensuing decades, and is remembered as an important but tragic painter, whose troubled personality typifies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.
Van Gogh and Saint Remy de Provence
Van Gogh entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole  asylum  in Saint-Rémy de Provence on 8 May 1889, accompanied by his carer, Frédéric Salles, a Protestant clergyman. Saint-Paul was a former monastery in Saint-Rémy, less than 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Arles, and was run by a former naval doctor, Théophile Peyron. Van Gogh had two cells with barred windows, one of which was to be used as a studio. During his stay, the clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings. He made several studies of the hospital's interiors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Rémy (September 1889). Some of his works from this time are characterised by swirls, such as The Starry Night. He was allowed short supervised walks, which led to paintings of cypresses and olive trees, including Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889, Cypresses 1889, Cornfield with Cypresses (1889),  Mont Gaussier  and Mas St Paul (1889), Country road in Provence by Night (1890). In September 1889 he produced two further versions of Bedroom in Arles.
Limited access to life outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter. Van Gogh was left to work on interpretations of other artist's paintings, such as Millet's The Sower and Noon – Rest from Work (after Millet), as well as variations on his own earlier work. Van Gogh was an admirer of the Realism of Jules Breton, Gustave Courbet and Millet, and he compared his copies to a musician's interpreting Beethoven.
Albert Aurier praised his work in the Mercure de France in January 1890, and described him as "a genius". In February Van Gogh painted five versions of L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux), based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had produced when she sat for both artists in November 1888. Also in February, Van Gogh was invited by Les XX, a society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, to participate in their annual exhibition. At the opening dinner a Les XX member, Henry de Groux, insulted Van Gogh's work. Toulouse-Lautrec demanded satisfaction, and Signac declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh's honour if Lautrec surrendered. De Groux apologised for the slight and left the group. Later, while Van Gogh's exhibit was on display with the Artistes Indйpendants in Paris, Claude Monet said that his work was the best in the show.  After the birth of his nephew, Van Gogh wrote "I started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom, branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky."

LE ROCHER DES DEUX TROUS PAINTED BY VINCENT VAN GOGH

 

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)
Le Rocher des Deux Trous (348m - 1,141 ft)
France (Provence)

The hill
The Rocher des Deux Trous (348m) in the Alpilles massif is one of the most popular hikes for walkers, satrting from Saint-Remy de Provence. It offers a 360° panorama over the two slopes of the Alpilles and over the entire surrounding region, from Mont Ventoux to the north and as far as the Mediterranean Sea to the south, on a clear day. This picturesque rock eroded and sculpted by the North wind (the Mistral) was painted by Van Gogh during his stay in Saint-Paul de Mausole from May 1889 to May 1890.

The painter
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He died by suicide at 37, following years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He took up painting in 1881 having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
More about Vincent Van Gogh

_______________________________

2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LES OPIES PEINT PAR VINCENT VAN GOGH

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)
Les Opies (496m)
France (Provence)

In Les Alpilles à Saint-Rémy de Provence, 1889, huile sur toile 59 x 72 cm Krollermuller Museum 

La montagne
Les Opies (496m) sont le point culminant du massif des Alpilles, dans sa partie orientale sur le territoire de la commune d'Eyguières (Bouches-du-Rhône). Ce sommet doit son nom à la mauvaise transcription du nom provençal Aupiho (« petites Alpes ») du massif. La tour des Opies est un petit bâtiment construit au point le plus élevé de la chaîne des Opies, une tour carrée, à la manière des actuelles vigies qui se dressent au sommet de plusieurs massifs provençaux pour prévenir les risques d'incendie. On peut encore
apercevoir les vestiges d'une ligne téléphonique qui reliait la tour au village d'Aureille.
Trois sentiers de randonnée permettent d'accéder aux Opies :un au départ de l'est depuis un point sur la route D25 proche de Roquemartine ;
- un au départ de la D25a allant à Aureille ;
- un au départ du village d'Aureille au pied du château.
Les deux derniers sentiers se rejoignent en un même sentier ouest. La première partie du sentier, peu difficile, s'effectue dans un maquis particulièrement luisant par temps ensoleillé. Une partie du sentier ouest traverse des arbres brûlés par des incendies de forêt dont le dernier en septembre 2003. Les sentiers est et ouest se rejoignent à un grand cairn. À partir de là, un petit sentier permet d'effectuer une courte ascension finale. En raison des réglementations en vigueur concernant la prévention des incendies de forêt, l'accès à ce site est interdit en saison estivale les jours où le mistral souffle fort.

 L'artiste
Le 8 mai 1889, Vincent van Gogh quitte Arles où il avait emmenagé l'année précédetne, ayant décidé d'entrer dans l'asile d'aliénés Saint-Paul-de-Mausole que dirige le médecin Théophile Peyron, à Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Il y reste un an, au cours duquel il a trois crises importantes : à la mi-juillet, en décembre et la dernière entre février et mars 1890. Malgré ce mauvais état de santé, Van Gogh est très productif et peindra un nombre impressionnant de paysages des Alpilles, juste en face de l'asile, vues à peu près sous tous les angles. Ce n'est que pendant ses crises de démence qu'il ne peint pas. Dans l'asile, une pièce au rez-de-chaussée lui est laissée en guise d'atelier. Il continue à envoyer ses tableaux à Theo. Deux de ses œuvres font partie de la 5e exposition annuelle de la Société des artistes indépendants de Paris. Un des premiers tableaux de cette époque est l’Iris. Les peintures de cette période sont souvent caractérisées par des remous et des spirales. À diverses périodes de sa vie, Van Gogh a également peint ce qu'il voyait de sa fenêtre, notamment à la fin de sa vie avec une grande série de peintures de champs de blé qu'il pouvait admirer de la chambre qu'il occupait à l'asile. Il quitte l'asile le 19 mai 1890, après avoir rencontré le docteur Gachet dont il fera le portrait.
C'est l 'époque où Van Gogh commence à être vaguement connu. En janvier 1890, un article d’Albert Aurier dans le Mercure de France souligne pour la première fois l’importance de ses recherches. Un mois plus tard, la peintre Anna Boch acquiert l’un de ses tableaux, La Vigne rouge pour la somme de 400 francs.

______________________________________

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

MONT GAUSSIER (4) AND THE ALPILLES BY VINCENT VAN GOGH

 

 

 

 

 

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)

Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft)
France

In Mas au milieu des oliviers dans les Alpilles, St Rémy de Provence, oil on canvas, 1889, 

Private collection

About the painting
During his internment in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Van Gogh seized the surroundings to nourish his artistic geography. He tirelessly paints and draws new Provencal motifs: cypress trees, olive groves and hills. With the Alpilles chain and the Mont Gaussier rising behind the asylum buildings, the painter has the opportunity to represent this mountain range as well as the farms (Mas in french) nearby.  I this one the Mont Gaussier is in the background of the farm, probably situated on theVia Aurelia, the antique roman road going from St Rémy de Provence to Arles...  

The mountain
The Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft) is a summit of the Alpilles located south of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Today, the place of passage of many hikers who cross it by the GR6, Mount Gaussier was very early used as habitat by protohistoric populations, before having at its summit a medieval castle, nowadays disappeared. Mount Gaussier is made of crystalline limestone, white and hard. One finds in the soil the trace of many fossils. This type of summit is characteristic of the Alpilles range of mountains, especially on the north face.
The first traces of habitation on Mount Gaussier are ancient. In 1996, three sites dating from Protohistory were discovered at the summit and on the slopes. This is what emerges from the study of stones, tiles, ceramics and shards of amphora found on the premises. Moreover, the foundation of a wall was identified at the top during the same prospecting.
Most of the human activity of antiquity at Mount Gaussier nevertheless concentrated at the foot of it, since it was there that was built the Salyan city of Glanum (today Saint-Remy de Provence). Research carried out in 1996 and 1997 revealed that the well-preserved remains of a protohistoric rampart with towers have been cleared in several places, particularly on the ridges which dominate to the north-east and south-west the Saint-Clerg and at the foot of Mount Gaussier. The system of rampart which encircled the city in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. J.-C. leaned on the cliffs of the mount Gaussier which border it on a hundred meters. It is also believed that Mount Gaussier, by its situation, could be used as an acropolis because of its plateau surrounded by cliffs and that its access from Glanum was made possible by a narrow corridor.
If, according to the archaeologist Henri Rolland, some families occupied the Alpilles range, on the slopes of Mount Gaussier, between the first Iron Age and the end of Antiquity, but also in the High Middle Ages, only the foot and the summit of the mountain were occupied in the following centuries, especially in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was here that a part of the inhabitants of Glanum took up residence after the ruin of the ancient city in the alluvial deposits of the mountain.
Mount Gaussier, like Glanum, then in ruins, and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, became property of the church of Avignon at the end of the 9th century in a county of Provence powered by Count Thibert.
It is possible to reach the Mount Gaussier from the ruins of Glanum or from La Caume by the GR6 climbing previously metal ladders.

The painter
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He died by suicide at 37, following years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He took up painting in 1881 having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
More about Vincent Van Gogh

_______________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONT GAUSSIER (3) PAINTED BY VINCENT VAN GOGH

VINCENT VAN GOGH  (1853-1890) 

  Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft)  

France

In  Entrée de la carrière près de Saint-Rémy (et Mont Gaussier), 1889,  

Oil on canvas 52.0 x 64.0 cm. Private collection 

 

About the painting
During his internment in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Van Gogh seized the surroundings to nourish his artistic geography. He tirelessly paints and draws new Provencal motifs: cypress trees, olive groves and hills. With the Alpilles chain and the Mont Gaussier rising behind the asylum buildings, the painter has the opportunity to represent this mountain range as well as the quarry which is nearby. Of the latter, he gave two performances: one painted in mid-July - shortly after he suffered a new seizure - the other (the one above) in October in which  Mount Gaussier, the highest moutain of Les Alpilles appears on right. 

The mountain
The Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft) is a summit of the Alpilles located south of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Today, the place of passage of many hikers who cross it by the GR6, Mount Gaussier was very early used as habitat by protohistoric populations, before having at its summit a medieval castle, nowadays disappeared. Mount Gaussier is made of crystalline limestone, white and hard. One finds in the soil the trace of many fossils. This type of summit is characteristic of the Alpilles range of mountains, especially on the north face.
The first traces of habitation on Mount Gaussier are ancient. In 1996, three sites dating from Protohistory were discovered at the summit and on the slopes. This is what emerges from the study of stones, tiles, ceramics and shards of amphora found on the premises. Moreover, the foundation of a wall was identified at the top during the same prospecting.
Most of the human activity of antiquity at Mount Gaussier nevertheless concentrated at the foot of it, since it was there that was built the Salyan city of Glanum (today Saint-Remy de Provence). Research carried out in 1996 and 1997 revealed that the well-preserved remains of a protohistoric rampart with towers have been cleared in several places, particularly on the ridges which dominate to the north-east and south-west the Saint-Clerg and at the foot of Mount Gaussier. The system of rampart which encircled the city in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. J.-C. leaned on the cliffs of the mount Gaussier which border it on a hundred meters. It is also believed that Mount Gaussier, by its situation, could be used as an acropolis because of its plateau surrounded by cliffs and that its access from Glanum was made possible by a narrow corridor.
If, according to the archaeologist Henri Rolland, some families occupied the Alpilles range, on the slopes of Mount Gaussier, between the first Iron Age and the end of Antiquity, but also in the High Middle Ages, only the foot and the summit of the mountain were occupied in the following centuries, especially in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was here that a part of the inhabitants of Glanum took up residence after the ruin of the ancient city in the alluvial deposits of the mountain.
Mount Gaussier, like Glanum, then in ruins, and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, became property of the church of Avignon at the end of the 9th century in a county of Provence powered by Count Thibert.
It is possible to reach the Mount Gaussier from the ruins of Glanum or from La Caume by the GR6 climbing previously metal ladders.

The painter
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He died by suicide at 37, following years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He took up painting in 1881 having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
More about Vincent Van Gogh

_______________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONT GAUSSIER (5) AND LES ALPILLES ¨PAINTED BY VINCENT VAN GOGH

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)
Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft)
France

In   Les Alpilles vers le plateau de la Caume, 1889, oil on canvas, 73x83cm,  Guggenheim Museum NYC, Justin K. Thannhauser Collection

About the painting
During his internment in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Van Gogh seized the surroundings to nourish his artistic geography. He tirelessly paints and draws new Provencal motifs: cypress trees, olive groves and hills. With the Alpilles chain and the Mont Gaussier rising behind the asylum buildings, the painter has the opportunity to represent this mountain range as well as the farms (Mas in french) nearby. I this one the Mont Gaussier is in the background of the farm, probably situated on theVia Aurelia, the antique roman road going from St Rémy de Provence to Arles...


The mountain
The Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft) is a summit of the Alpilles located south of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Today, the place of passage of many hikers who cross it by the GR6, Mount Gaussier was very early used as habitat by protohistoric populations, before having at its summit a medieval castle, nowadays disappeared. Mount Gaussier is made of crystalline limestone, white and hard. One finds in the soil the trace of many fossils. This type of summit is characteristic of the Alpilles range of mountains, especially on the north face.
The first traces of habitation on Mount Gaussier are ancient. In 1996, three sites dating from Protohistory were discovered at the summit and on the slopes. This is what emerges from the study of stones, tiles, ceramics and shards of amphora found on the premises. Moreover, the foundation of a wall was identified at the top during the same prospecting.
Most of the human activity of antiquity at Mount Gaussier nevertheless concentrated at the foot of it, since it was there that was built the Salyan city of Glanum (today Saint-Remy de Provence). Research carried out in 1996 and 1997 revealed that the well-preserved remains of a protohistoric rampart with towers have been cleared in several places, particularly on the ridges which dominate to the north-east and south-west the Saint-Clerg and at the foot of Mount Gaussier. The system of rampart which encircled the city in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. J.-C. leaned on the cliffs of the mount Gaussier which border it on a hundred meters. It is also believed that Mount Gaussier, by its situation, could be used as an acropolis because of its plateau surrounded by cliffs and that its access from Glanum was made possible by a narrow corridor.
If, according to the archaeologist Henri Rolland, some families occupied the Alpilles range, on the slopes of Mount Gaussier, between the first Iron Age and the end of Antiquity, but also in the High Middle Ages, only the foot and the summit of the mountain were occupied in the following centuries, especially in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was here that a part of the inhabitants of Glanum took up residence after the ruin of the ancient city in the alluvial deposits of the mountain.
Mount Gaussier, like Glanum, then in ruins, and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, became property of the church of Avignon at the end of the 9th century in a county of Provence powered by Count Thibert.
It is possible to reach the Mount Gaussier from the ruins of Glanum or from La Caume by the GR6 climbing previously metal ladders.

The painter
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He died by suicide at 37, following years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He took up painting in 1881 having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONT GAUSSIER (2) PAINTED BY VINCENT VAN GOGH

 

VINCENT VAN GOGH  (1853-1890) 

  Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft)  

France

  In Paysage à Saint-Rémy (Champs Clos avec Paysan), huile sur toile 1889
Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The mountain
The Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft) is a summit of the Alpilles located south of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Today, the place of passage of many hikers who cross it by the GR6, Mount Gaussier was very early used as habitat by protohistoric populations, before having at its summit a medieval castle, nowadays disappeared. Mount Gaussier is made of crystalline limestone, white and hard. One finds in the soil the trace of many fossils. This type of summit is characteristic of the Alpilles range of mountains, especially on the north face.
The first traces of habitation on Mount Gaussier are ancient. In 1996, three sites dating from Protohistory and Late Antiquity were discovered at the summit and on the slopes. This is what emerges from the study of stones, tiles, ceramics and shards of amphora found on the premises. Moreover, the foundation of a wall was identified at the top during the same prospecting.
Most of the human activity of antiquity at Mount Gaussier nevertheless concentrated at the foot of it, since it was there that was built the Salyan city of Glanum (today Saint-Remy de Provence). Research carried out in 1996 and 1997 revealed that the well-preserved remains of a protohistoric rampart with towers have been cleared in several places, particularly on the ridges which dominate to the north-east and south-west the Saint- Clerg and at the foot of Mount Gaussier. The system of rampart which encircled the city in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. J.-C. leaned on the cliffs of the mount Gaussier which border it on a hundred meters. It is also believed that Mount Gaussier, by its situation, could be used as an acropolis because of its plateau surrounded by cliffs and that its access from Glanum was made possible by a narrow corridor.
If, according to the archaeologist Henri Rolland, some families occupied the Alpilles range, on the slopes of Mount Gaussier, between the first Iron Age and the end of Antiquity, but also in the High Middle Ages, only the foot and the summit of the mountain were occupied in the following centuries, especially in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was here that a part of the inhabitants of Glanum took up residence after the ruin of the ancient city in the alluvial deposits of the mountain.
Mount Gaussier, like Glanum, then in ruins, and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, became property of the church of Avignon at the end of the 9th century in a county of Provence powered by Count Thibert.
It is possible to reach the Mount Gaussier from the ruins of Glanum or from La Caume by the GR6 climbing previously metal ladders.

The painter
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He died by suicide at 37, following years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He took up painting in 1881 having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
More about Vincent Van Gogh 

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes... 

by Francis Rousseau

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE / 歌川 広重

 

UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE  / 歌川 広重 (1797-1858)

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft) 

Japan

 In One Hundred Famous Views of Edo #8/ Suruga-cho (9th month of 1856) 

Color woodblock print, 34.3 x 21.9 cm, 1856,  The Brooklyn Museum, New York

The mountain 

Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山) is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). Several names are attributed to it: "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san". The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji, have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳／富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

The artist
Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川 広重), also know as Andō Hiroshige (安藤 広重), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his landscapes, such as the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō  and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō; and for his depictions of birds and flowers. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints.
Hiroshige produced over 8,000 works
He dominated landscape printmaking with his unique brand of intimate, almost small-scale works compared against the older traditions of landscape painting descended from Chinese landscape painters such as Sesshu. The travel prints generally depict travelers along famous routes experiencing the special attractions of various stops along the way. They travel in the rain, in snow, and during all of the seasons. In 1856, working with the publisher Uoya Eikichi, he created a series of luxury edition prints, made with the finest printing techniques including true gradation of color, the addition of mica to lend a unique iridescent effect, embossing, fabric printing, blind printing, and the use of glue printing (wherein ink is mixed with glue for a glittery effect).
For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists closely studied Hiroshige's compositions, and some, such as Vincent van Gogh or Claude Monet, painted copies of Hiroshige's prints.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LE FUJIYAMA / 富士山 (N°16) PEINT PAR HOKUSAÏ / 葛飾 北斎

 

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAÏ / 葛飾 北斎 (1760-1849)
Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)
Japan

 In Tsukada Island in the Musashi province, tiré deTrente-six vues du mont Fuji,  n° 16, 1830

La montagne
Le mont Fuji /-富士山, (3, 776 m -12,389 ft) est une montagne sacrée du centre du Japon qui se trouve sur la côte sud de l'île de Honshū, au sud-ouest de l'agglomération de Tokyo. Il est le point culminant du Japon. Situé dans une région où se rejoignent les plaques tectoniques pacifique, eurasienne et philippine, la montagne est un stratovolcan toujours considéré comme actif, sa dernière éruption certaine s'étant produite fin 1707, bien que le risque éruptif soit actuellement considéré comme faible. À son sommet a été construit un observatoire météorologique et malgré les conditions climatiques rigoureuses, la montagne est une destination extrêmement populaire en particulier pour les Japonais, qu'ils soient shintoïstes ou bouddhistes, en raison de sa forme caractéristique et du symbolisme religieux traditionnel dont il est porteur. Il a ainsi été le sujet principal ou le cadre de nombreuses œuvres artistiques, notamment picturales au cours des siècles. Pourtant, cette fréquentation fragilise l'environnement. Aussi, le 22 juin 2013, il est inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO sous le titre « Fujisan, lieu sacré et source d'inspiration artistique

Le peintre
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) est un peintre, dessinateur et graveur japonais du 18e siècle, spécialiste de l’ukiyo-e, ainsi que l'auteur d'écrits populaires, surtout connu sous le nom de Hokusai(北斎?), ou son surnom de Gakyōjin, littéralement « Vieux Fou de dessin ». Au cours de ses soixante-dix ans de carrière, il a réalisé une œuvre considérable de quelque 3 000 tirages couleur, des illustrations pour plus de 200 livres, des centaines de dessins et plus de 1 000 peintures. Il a rapidement abandonné le sujet étroit traditionnellement associé à l'école du « monde flottant » (ukiyo-e) dont il faisait partie, comme les images d'acteurs populaires et de courtisanes. Les Trente-six vues du mont Fuji (1831 – 1833) comptant en réalité 46 estampes dont La Grande Vague de Kanagawa (1831) sont ses œuvres les plus connues. Son œuvre influença de nombreux artistes européens, en particulier Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet et Alfred Sisley, et plus largement le mouvement artistique appelé japonisme. Sur son lit de mort, il prononce ces dernières paroles : « Si le ciel m'avait accordé encore dix ans de vie, ou même cinq, j'aurais pu devenir un véritable peintre ». Sur sa pierre tombale il laisse cette épitaphe : « Oh ! La liberté, la belle liberté, quand on va aux champs d'été pour y laisser son corps périssable ! »

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2023 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE JUNGFRAU, MÖNCH AND EIGER SEEN BY EMIL NOLDE

EMIL NOLDE  (1867-1956)

The Jungfrau (4,158 m - 13, 642 ft)  

 The Mönch (4,107 m - 13,474 ft)

The Eiger (3,970 m -13,020 ft)

Switzerland

In Jungfrau, Mönch et Eiger, 1910

The mountains 

The Jungfrau (4,158 m - 13,642 ft) ("The virgin" in german) is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps, located between the northern canton of Bern and the southern canton of Valais, halfway between Interlaken and Fiesch. Together with the Eiger and Mönch, the Jungfrau forms a massive wall overlooking the Bernese Oberland and the Swiss Plateau, one of the most distinctive sights of the Swiss Alps. It is one of the most represented by artists summits with the Matterhorn and the Mont Blanc.
- More about the Jungfrau 

The Mönch  (4,107 m - 13,474 ft) is a mountain in the Bernese Alps, in Switzerland.  The Mönch lies on the border between the cantons of Valais and Bern, and forms part of a mountain ridge between the Jungfrau and Jungfraujoch to the west, and the Eiger to the east. It is west of Mцnchsjoch, a pass at 3,650 metres (11,980 ft), Mцnchsjoch Hut, and north of the Jungfraufirn and Ewigschneefдld, two affluents of the Great Aletsch Glacier. The north side of the Mцnch forms a step wall above the Lauterbrunnen valley. The Jungfrau railway tunnel runs right under the summit, at an elevation of approximately 3,300 metres (10,830 ft). The peak was first climbed 159 years ago in 1857 on August 15, ascended by Christian Almer, Christian Kaufmann, Ulrich Kaufmann and Sigismund Porges.

The Eiger (3,970 m- 13,020 ft) is located in the  Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mцnch to the Jungfrau, constituting one of the most emblematic sights of the Swiss Alps. While the northern side of the mountain rises more than 3,000m -10,000 ft above the two valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, the southern side faces the large glaciers of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, the most glaciated region in the Alps. The most notable feature of the Eiger is its 1,800-metre-high - 5,900 ft north face of rock and ice, named Eigerwand or Nordwand, which is the biggest north face in the Alps. This huge face towers over the resort of Kleine Scheidegg at its base, on the homonymous pass connecting the two valleys.
- More about the Eiger 


The painter 
Emil Nolde (born Emil Hansen) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke (The Bridge) of Dresden in 1906, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the early 20th century to explore color. He is known for his brushwork and expressive choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding storm-scapes and brilliant florals.
Nolde's intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers reflects his continuing interest in the art of Vincent van Gogh.
From the early 1920s,  Nolde was a supporter of the Nazi party, having become a member of its Danish section. He expressed anti-semitic, negative opinions about Jewish artists, and considered "Expressionism to be a distinctively Germanic style". This view was shared by some other members of the Nazi party, notably Joseph Goebbels and Fritz Hippler.
However Hitler rejected all forms of modernism as "degenerate art", and the Nazi regime officially condemned Nolde's work. Until that time he had been held in great prestige in Germany. A total of 1,052 of his works were removed from museums, more than those of any other artist.  Some were included in the Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937, despite his protests, including (later) a personal appeal to Nazi gauleiter Baldur von Schirach in Vienna. He was not allowed to paint—even in private—after 1941. Nevertheless, during this period he created hundreds of watercolors, which he hid. He called them the "Unpainted Pictures".
In 1942 Nolde wrote: "There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every color holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colors are colors, tones tones...and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit, which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed."
After World War II, Nolde was once again honored, receiving the German Order of Merit, He died in Seebüll (now part of Neukirchen). The Schiefler Catalogue raisonné of his prints describes 231 etchings, 197 woodcuts, 83 lithographs, and 4 hectographs.

About this work 
The postcards series date from  pre-expressionist phase of Nolde’s career (though he was around 30 when he created them). After hiking in the Swiss Alps, Nolde did a painting, Mountain Giants, presenting the mountains in human form. Nolde wrote : “The picture went to the annual exhibition in Munich in 1896. [Ferdinand] Hodler’s picture “Night”  which established his fame, was also there. But my “Mountain Giants" was soon returned, rejected… In those days there was a general and stormy derision and ridicule about each of Hodler’s pictures. ‘And his colors are as ugly as can be possible!’ What help was my contradiction and my firm conviction that his sinuous, pushing, wry bodies are part of the character of the mountain folk, just as the firs on the mountain slopes are gnarled and grown oddly.” From then, he painted practically every Swiss Alps Summit in human form: the Cervin / Matterhorn, the Zugspitze, the Waxenstein, the Eiger, the Monch, the Jungfrau, the Grand Saint- Gothard, Piz Bernina, the Morteratch, the Ortler, the Finsteraarhorn... they will be posted one by one in this blog.

LA GUMMFLUH PEINTE PAR CUNO AMIET

 

CUNO AMIET (1868-1961)
La Gummfluh 2,457m)
Suisse

La montagne
La Gummfluh (2,457m) est un sommet des Préalpes vaudoises rattachées aux Alpes bernoises. Il s'agit du point culminant de la chaîne montagneuse située au sud du Pays-d’Enhaut. Le sommet se trouve à la frontière entre le canton de Vaud et le canton de Berne. Sa face Nord est très abrupte avec un massif essentiellement composé de roches calcaires. Au pied de la Gummfluh se trouve la réserve naturelle de la Pierreuse où vivent de nombreux bouquetins et chamois. Le nom de la montagne viendrait de Gumm (la « vallée ») et fluh (le « pic »).

Le peintre
Cuno Amiet est un peintre suisse qui manifeste un talent pour la peinture dès le collège. Il reçoit une première formation artistique auprès de Frank Buchser, à Feldbrunnen (canton de Soleure), qui lui donne occasionnellement des cours de peinture. En 1886, il part étudier à l'Académie de Munich où il rencontre Giovanni Giacometti. En 1888, il se rend à Paris avec ce dernier. Les deux amis s'inscrivent à l'Académie Julian. S'inspirant de la vie de Paul Gauguin, Cuno Amiet passe une année à Pont-Aven en 1892, où il rencontre les disciples du maître et découvre également les œuvres de Vincent van Gogh. ll y rencontre également Armand Seguin qui l’initie à la gravure. Durant son séjour en Bretagne, il pose les bases de son art de coloriste. En 1893, Cuno Amiet retourne en Suisse. En 1897, il fait la connaissance de Ferdinand Hodler, avec qui il a été l’un des plus illustres représentants du courant symboliste en Suisse. L'année suivante, il se marie avec la fille d'un riche aubergiste, Anna Luder. En 1898, il s'installe avec elle dans une maison à Oschwand (canton de Berne). Ce village bernois d'Oschwand devient un centre de création et de villégiature artistique dès 1908. Il entretient des contacts étroits avec l'étranger, participant notamment avec Ferdinand Hodler à la Sécession de Vienne en 1904. Il expose à Dresde en mai 1905. Il y connaît les jeunes peintres expressionnistes qui fondent la même année le groupe artistique d'avant-garde Die Brücke. En septembre 1906, il est formellement invité à rejoindre Die Brücke, ce qu'il accepte. Cela a permis à Cuno Amiet de participer à des expositions collectives à l'étranger.  Lors de l'incendie du Palais de verre à Munich en 1931, Cuno Amiet perd une partie de son œuvre. Depuis les années 1920 jusqu'à sa mort en 1961, survenue à Oschwand alors qu'il est très âgé, Amiet se voue en priorité à des paysages joyeux et idylliques.En plus des œuvres de chevalet, Amiet a aussi exécuté des peintures murales et des gravures. Par sa maîtrise de la couleur, il a imprimé, après Ferdinand Hodler, une nouvelle impulsion à la peinture suisse. Cuno Amiet fut membre de la Commission fédérale des beaux-arts (1911-1915 et 1931-1932) et du Moderner Bund (1912). En 1919, il fut nommé docteur honoris causa de l'université de Berne. Il siégea également à la commission de la Fondation Gottfried Keller (1934-1948) et à la commission du musée des beaux-arts de Berne (1935-1948).

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2023 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

LA MONTAGNE PELÉE PEINTE PAR PAUL GAUGUIN

PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)
La montagne Pelée (1,395m)
France (Martinique)

In Paysage de la Martinique côtière, Huile sur toile, 1887, Musée des Beaux-Arts André Malraux,
Le Havre, France

Le volcan
La montagne Pelée (1,395m) est un volcan gris actif situé dans le Nord de la Martinique, île française des petites Antilles dont elle est le point culminant.
La montagne, un stratovolcan gris calco-alcalin, est notamment connue pour son éruption de 1902 qui a entraîné la destruction de la ville de Saint-Pierre située à ses pieds et au cours de laquelle près de 30 000 personnes sont mortes. Cette éruption, la plus meurtrière du 20e siècle, a servi à caractériser le type éruptif péléen tirant son nom du volcan. Le volcan est surveillé et étudié par l'Observatoire volcanologique et sismologique de Martinique depuis 1903.
Le volcan fait partie du parc naturel régional de la Martinique créé en 1976, et est inscrit avec certains pitons du nord au patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco depuis 2023. Le dynamisme volcanique péléen se caractérise par des éruptions explosives, éruptions rares mais violentes : l'andésite contenue dans les profondeurs du volcan est une lave à forte teneur en silice, très visqueuse formant difficilement des coulées de lave. Cette lave, presque solide, forme un dôme en couvercle ou plus rarement en une aiguille de lave dans la bouche éruptive (cratère volcanique) et lorsque la pression ne peut plus être contenue, l'éjection brutale des gaz détruit le couvercle et provoque des nuées ardentes : un nuage de gaz sous pression, de cendres brûlantes et de blocs de lave, déferle sur les pentes du volcan accompagné d'un panache volcanique pouvant s'élever à des dizaines de kilomètres en altitude.
La dernière éruption en date est celle de 1929-1932. Elle n'a pas fait de victimes grâce aux évacuations de populations. C'est à la suite de cette éruption que la montagne Pelée a acquis sa forme actuelle avec une caldeira bien dessinée. Les dernières fumerolles, localisées entre les deux dômes, disparaissent en 1970.
Depuis novembre 2019, l'activité sismique interne au volcan s'intensifie, atteignant 51 secousses (non ressenties par la population) en un mois, en septembre 2020. Des remontées de gaz ont aussi été enregistrées (8 et 9 novembre 2020), ainsi que des séismes sous-marins et des fumerolles, mais selon l’Institut de physique du globe de Paris (IPGP), « ce ne sont pas les signes précurseurs d’une éruption ».

Le peintre
Paul Gauguin, est un peintre postimpressionniste français. Chef de file de l'École de Pont-Aven et inspirateur des nabis, il est considéré comme l'un des peintres français majeurs du 19e siècle, et l'un des plus importants précurseurs de l'art moderne. En1871, il devient agent de change à la Bourse à Paris et connaît un certain succès dans les affaires. Son tuteur, Gustave Arosa, homme d'affaires et grand amateur d'art, introduit Gauguin auprès des impressionnistes. En 1874, il fait la connaissance du peintre Camille Pissarro et voit la première exposition du courant impressionniste. Comme son tuteur, il devient amateur d'art et s'essaye alors à la peinture. Il participe, de 1879 à 1886, aux cinq dernières expositions du groupe des impressionnistes.
En 1882, il abandonne son emploi de courtier en bourse pour se consacrer à sa nouvelle passion, la peinture.  En 1886, sur les conseils de Félix Armand Marie Jobbé-Duval, Gauguin effectue un premier séjour à Pont-Aven en Bretagne, où il rencontre Émile Bernard, le tenant du cloisonnisme. De retour à Paris, il rencontre pour la première fois Vincent van Gogh, en novembre de la même année.
En avril 1887, il s'embarque avec le peintre Charles Laval pour le Panama où ils vont travailler au percement du canal. Ils y rencontrent des conditions de vie particulièrement difficiles et décident de partir dès qu'ils auront réuni suffisamment d'argent pour la Martinique, que Gauguin avait découverte lors d'une escale. Après un séjour à l'île de Taboga, il rejoint la Martinique où il reste dans des conditions précaires, de juin à octobre 1887, à l'Anse Turin au Carbet à deux kilomètres de Saint-Pierre, où se trouve, toujours aujourd'hui, un Centre d’Interprétation qui lui est consacré. Enthousiasmé par la lumière et les paysages, il peint dix-sept toiles lors de son séjour.
« L’expérience que j’ai faite à la Martinique est décisive. Là seulement je me suis senti vraiment moi-même, et c’est dans ce que j’ai rapporté qu’il faut me chercher si on veut savoir qui je suis, plus encore que dans mes œuvres de Bretagne. » (Paul Gauguin à Charles Morice, 1891)Malade de dysenterie et du paludisme, et sans ressources pour vivre, Gauguin regagne la métropole en novembre 1887. Laval prolonge son séjour jusqu'en 1888.
De nombreuses toiles de Paul Gauguin sont peintes des deux côtés. Comme beaucoup de peintres du 19e siècle désargentés, Paul Gauguin retournait certaines toiles qu'il possédait de peintres de son époque pour y composer ses propres œuvres. C'est le cas, par exemple, du nu de la collection Slomovic comportant au verso la vue d'une chambre. Un autre cas est la nature morte Villa Julia de l'ancienne collection Lefort des Ylouses montrant un nu (inachevé et non identifié) de l'autre côté.
Georges Wildenstein a établi un catalogue raisonné et dénombré 638 peintures (numérotées W1 à W638),
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2023 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

 

CAP CANAILLE (2) PEINT PAR PAUL SIGNAC

 

 

PAUL SIGNAC (1863-1935)
Cap Canaille (368 m)
France

 In Cassis, Cap Lombard, Opus 196, 1889,  Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

A propos de cette toile
Paul Signac, très enthousiasmé par Cassis et ses environs, y a réalisé cinq tableaux (voir l'un des cinq). Signac a décrit ce tableau dans une lettre à Vincent van Gogh : « Blanc, bleu, orange, harmonieusement dispersés dans de jolies ondulations. Tout autour des montagnes aux courbes rythmées. » En réalité ce Cap Lombard n'existe plus sous cette appellation et c'est du Cap Canaille qu'il s'agit.

Le relief
Le cap Canaille (368 m) est situé dans les Bouches-du-Rhône,  département de la région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur en France. Il est inséré dans le Parc national des Calanques. Il se situe sur la commune de Cassis, au nord-ouest de celle de La Ciotat. Sa roche qui tire vers le rouge est composée de calcaires détritiques. S'avançant dans la mer Méditerranée, il est constitué de rivages rocheux et escarpés dominés par l'extrémité occidentale des falaises Soubeyranes. Ces dernières constituent les plus hautes falaises maritimes de France (avant celles d'Étretat et du cap Blanc-Nez avec une altitude maximale de 394 mètres1, ainsi que les quatrièmes plus hautes d'Europe. Une route, la D141 dite « route des Crêtes », relie Cassis à la Ciotat en s'approchant du bord de la falaise ; plusieurs belvédères y sont aménagés.
Son nom est dû à une déformation du provençal Cap Naio, « Cap Naille » en français, mal compris par les topographes français ; à rapprocher de Aïl qui est lié à la notion de sommet (Cap d'Ail, dans les Alpes-Maritimes, à l'ouest de Monaco).

Le peintre
Paul Signac, travaille avec Seurat et Pissarro, avec qui il va former le groupe des « impressionnistes dits scientifiques ». Il se convertit très vite à la pratique de la division scientifique du ton. La technique empirique du pointillisme consiste à diviser les tons en de toutes petites taches de couleurs pures, serrées les unes contre les autres, afin que l’œil du spectateur, en les recomposant, perçoive une unité de ton. Signac et les néo-impressionnistes pensent que cette division des tons assure d'abord tous les bénéfices de la coloration : le mélange optique des pigments uniquement purs permet de retrouver toutes les teintes du prisme et tous leurs tons. La séparation des divers éléments (couleur locale, couleur d'éclairage et leurs réactions) est aussi assurée, ainsi que l'équilibre de ces éléments et leur proportion, selon les lois du contraste, de la dégradation et de l'irisation. Enfin, le peintre devra choisir une touche proportionnée à la dimension du tableau7. En 1885, son intérêt pour « la science de la couleur »le pousse à se rendre aux Gobelins où il assiste à des expériences sur la réflexion de la lumière blanche.
Il fait son premier tableau divisionniste en 1886

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

LE GRAND CAPELET (MERCANTOUR) PEINT PAR NICOLAS DE STAËL

 

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955)
Le Grand Capelet (2.935m)
France (Alpes Maritimes)

In "Paysage, Antibes", Huile sur toile 1955, MuMa, Le Havre

 
La montagne
Le Grand Capelet (2 935 mètres) est un sommet du massif du Mercantour-Argentera situé sur la ligne de partage des eaux, entre les vallées de la Gordolasque et de la Roya. Il est situé à la frontière des territoires des communes de Belvédère et de Tende, dans le département des Alpes-Maritimes, en France et nettement visible depuis la Riviera et notamment depuis la villle d'Antibes.  Il se situe à l'est du mont Bégo. Au nord, à proximité immédiate, se trouve la cime de Muffié. D'un point de vue géologique, ce sommet est constitué de schistes, à l'exception des arêtes nord, qui sont formées d'anatexites. Ce sommet fait partie du parc national du Mercantour. La première ascension a été effectuée par J. Proust, en 1885, par le versant sud-est4. La première ascension hivernale a été réalisée par Victor de Cessole, Variot, M. Fassi et J. Plent, le 27 février 1908, par l'arête est du versant est4. L'itinéraire démarre du refuge des Merveilles et suit d'abord la direction du Pas de l'Arpette, puis bifurque vers le sommet nord du Caïre des Conques, avant de redescendre vers le Pas des Conques. On gravit ensuite la pente d'éboulis jusqu'au sommet du Grand Capelet.

Le Peintre
Nicolas de Staël ; baron Nikolaï Vladimirovitch Staël von Holstein de son nom complet (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн), est un peintre français originaire de Russie, issu d'une branche cadette de la famille Staël von Holstein. La carrière de Nicolas de Staël s'étale sur quinze ans, de 1940 à sa mort. Artiste prolifique, il réalise au cours de sa carrière 1120 tableaux aux influences diverses — Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Braque, Soutine et les Fauves, mais aussi les maîtres néerlandais Rembrandt, Vermeer et Seghers. Sa peinture est en constante évolution. Des couleurs sombres de ses débuts (Porte sans porte, 1946 ou Ressentiment, 1947), elle aboutit à l'exaltation de la couleur comme dans le Grand Nu orange (1953). Ses toiles se caractérisent par d'épaisses couches de peinture superposées et un important jeu de matières, passant des empâtements au couteau (Compositions, 1945-1949) à une peinture plus fluide (Agrigente, 1954, Chemin de fer au bord de la mer, soleil couchant, 1955). Refusant les étiquettes et les courants, tout comme Georges Braque qu'il admire, il travaille avec acharnement, détruisant autant d’œuvres qu'il en réalise.  Nicolas de Staël meurt à 41 ans en se jetant de la terrasse de la maison où il avait son atelier à Antibes. Cette maison fut classée monument historique en mars 2014. Il est enterré au cimetière de Montrouge. Par son style évolutif, qu'il a lui-même qualifié d'« évolution continue », il reste une énigme pour les historiens d'art qui le classent aussi bien dans la catégorie de l'École de Paris, que dans les abstraits ayant inspiré les jeunes peintres à partir des années 1970, ou encore dans la catégorie de l'art informel. Il a maintes fois créé la surprise notamment avec la série Les Footballeurs, entraînant derrière lui des artistes d'un nouveau mouvement d'abstraction et les artistes du néo-formalisme new-yorkais, ou de l'expressionnisme abstrait de l'École de New York, parmi lesquels se trouve notamment Joan Mitchell.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Gravir les montagnes en peinture...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

CERVIN / MATTERHORN BY EMIL NOLDE

EMIL NOLDE  (1867-1956) 

Cervin / Matterhorn  (4,478m -14,691ft)

Switzerland - Italy 

In Das Matterhorn Ladrelt (Smiling Watterhorn), 1897, gouache-poscard, 

Seebüll Nolde Foundation (Germany) 

The mountain 

The  Mont Cervin (4,478m -14,691ft) also known as the Matterhorn is an alpine summit located on the Swiss-Italian border between the canton of Valais and the Aosta Valley in Switzerland. It has several other names: Cervino in Italian, Grand'Bèca in Arpitan, Matterhorn in German. The Cervin / Matterhorn is the most famous mountain in Switzerland, including the pyramidal shape that it offers from the village of Zermatt, in the German-speaking part of the canton of Valais.

Its four sides are joined about 400 meters below the summit in a summit pyramid, called "roof." Its summit is a broad ridge about two meters, on which stand actually two summits: one called "Swiss summit," the farther east, and the "Italian summit" slightly lower (4,476 meters), on the west side of the ridge. The two are separated by a notch in the hollow of which a cross was laid in September 1901.

- More about Mont Cervin / Matterhorn

The painter 
Emil Nolde (born Emil Hansen) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke (The Bridge) of Dresden in 1906, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the early 20th century to explore color. He is known for his brushwork and expressive choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding storm-scapes and brilliant florals.
Nolde's intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers reflects his continuing interest in the art of Vincent van Gogh.
From the early 1920s,  Nolde was a supporter of the Nazi party, having become a member of its Danish section. He expressed anti-semitic, negative opinions about Jewish artists, and considered "Expressionism to be a distinctively Germanic style". This view was shared by some other members of the Nazi party, notably Joseph Goebbels and Fritz Hippler.
However Hitler rejected all forms of modernism as "degenerate art", and the Nazi regime officially condemned Nolde's work. Until that time he had been held in great prestige in Germany. A total of 1,052 of his works were removed from museums, more than those of any other artist.  Some were included in the Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937, despite his protests, including (later) a personal appeal to Nazi gauleiter Baldur von Schirach in Vienna. He was not allowed to paint—even in private—after 1941. Nevertheless, during this period he created hundreds of watercolors, which he hid. He called them the "Unpainted Pictures".
In 1942 Nolde wrote: "There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every color holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colors are colors, tones tones...and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit, which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed."
After World War II, Nolde was once again honored, receiving the German Order of Merit, He died in Seebüll (now part of Neukirchen). The Schiefler Catalogue raisonné of his prints describes 231 etchings, 197 woodcuts, 83 lithographs, and 4 hectographs.

About this work 
The postcards series date from  pre-expressionist phase of Nolde’s career (though he was around 30 when he created them). After hiking in the Swiss Alps, Nolde did a painting, Mountain Giants, presenting the mountains in human form. Nolde wrote : “The picture went to the annual exhibition in Munich in 1896. [Ferdinand] Hodler’s picture “Night”  which established his fame, was also there. But my “Mountain Giants" was soon returned, rejected… In those days there was a general and stormy derision and ridicule about each of Hodler’s pictures. ‘And his colors are as ugly as can be possible!’ What help was my contradiction and my firm conviction that his sinuous, pushing, wry bodies are part of the character of the mountain folk, just as the firs on the mountain slopes are gnarled and grown oddly.” From then, he painted practically every Swissw Alps Summit in human form: the Zugspitze, the Waxenstein, the Eiger, the Monch, the Jungfrau, the Grand Saint- Gothard, Piz Bernina, the Morteratch, the Ortler, the Finsteraarhorn... they will be posted one after one in this blog, the Cervin / Matterhorn being the first one.

HIRA MOUNTAINS /唐崎夜雨 BY UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE / 歌川 広重

  
 

UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE / 歌川 広重 (1797-1858)
Hira Mountains / 比良暮雪 (1,214 m- 3,984 ft)
Japan

In Omi Hirai from the series Eight Views of Ōmi, ca. 1835, Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 22.2 × 34.6 cm

About the series
The Eight Views of Ōmi (近江八景 ) are traditional scenic views of Ōmi Province which is now Shiga Prefecture in Japan. They were inspired by the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang in China which were first painted in the 11th century and then brought to Japan as a popular theme in the 14–15th centuries. The theme was then used to describe Ōmi province in poetry by Prince Konoe Masaie and his son, Prince Hisamichi, in the 15–16th centuries. The Eight Views of Ōmi then became a popular subject for artists such as Suzuki Harunobu and Utagawa Hiroshige. The theme continued to develop, being transposed to other locations and settings in a process which the Japanese called mitate, such as in Harunobu's Zashiki Hakkei series

The artist
Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川 広重), also know as Andō Hiroshige (安藤 広重), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his landscapes, such as the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō  and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō for his depictions of birds and flowers. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints.  Hiroshige produced over 8,000 works
He dominated landscape printmaking with his unique brand of intimate, almost small-scale works compared against the older traditions of landscape painting descended from Chinese landscape painters such as Sesshu. The travel prints generally depict travelers along famous routes experiencing the special attractions of various stops along the way. They travel in the rain, in snow, and during all of the seasons. In 1856, working with the publisher Uoya Eikichi, he created a series of luxury edition prints, made with the finest printing techniques including true gradation of color, the addition of mica to lend a unique iridescent effect, embossing, fabric printing, blind printing, and the use of glue printing (wherein ink is mixed with glue for a glittery effect).
For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists closely studied Hiroshige's compositions, and some, such as Vincent van Gogh or Claude Monet, painted copies of Hiroshige's prints.

The mountains
The three main peaks of the Hira Mountains are Mount Bunagatake (1,214 m- 3,984 ft) ; Hōraisan, (1,174 m- 3,852 ft),and Mount Uchimi (1,103 m - 3,619 ft).
The Hira Mountains (比良山地 Hira-sanchi) are a mountain range to the west of Lake Biwa on the border of Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The range runs 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north to south. It is narrowest in the southern part of the range, running 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east to west, and broadest at the northern part of the range, running 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) km east to west. The eastern side of the Hira Mountains looks steeply over Lake Biwa, while the western side of the range forms a gentler valley in Kyoto.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau