LE MASSIF DU TAILLEFER PEINT PAR PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Le Taillefer (2,857m)
France

In " Le Lac d’Annecy " 1896, Huile sur toile 79 x 64 cm,  Courtauld Institute of Art, London 

 La montagne
Le Taillefer (2,857m) est le point culminant du massif du Taillefer, au sud-est de Grenoble, dans les Alpes françaises.Son plateau sommital arrondi et rocailleux, teinté de rouge lui aussi, contraste avec les pentes raides de son versant Nord, souvent enneigé à la fin du printemps. La situation géographique du Taillefer en fait un magnifique belvédère sur l'Oisans, les Grandes Rousses, la chaîne de Belledonne et le massif du Vercors et offre un panorama très large, du mont Blanc au mont Ventoux. Il existe plusieurs voies d'escalade au Taillefer dont celle du Petit Taillefer surnommée Dudu la Faillite. Le massif est formé de trois chaînons parallèles orientés nord-sud et se succédant d'est en ouest.Le Taollefer est visible de Doingt au bord du Lac d'Annecy.

Le peintre
Paul Cézanne est un peintre français provençal, membre un temps du mouvement impressionniste et considéré comme le précurseur du post-impressionnisme et du cubisme. Par sa volonté de faire « du Poussin sur nature », il apparaît comme un continuateur de l'esprit classique français autant qu'un innovateur radical par l'utilisation de la géométrie dans les portraits, natures mortes et les nombreux paysages qu'il peint, d'Île-de-France et de Provence, particulièrement de la campagne d'Aix-en-Provence. Il a notamment réalisé une série de toiles ayant pour motif la montagne Sainte-Victoire. Il est considéré comme le « père de l'art moderne». Parmi ceux des peintres du XIXe siècle rangés sous l’étiquette « impressionnistes », Cézanne, dont l’œuvre est au-delà de l'impressionnisme — et donc probablement la plus difficile —, est celui qui fut, et reste encore aujourd'hui, le plus mal compris, voire le plus controversé. Dans une interview donnée à Denise Glaser, Salvador Dalí toujours provocateur dit de Cézanne : « Le peintre le plus mauvais de la France s'appelle Paul Cézanne, c'est le plus maladroit, le plus catastrophique, celui qui a plongé l'art moderne dans la merde qui est en train de nous engloutir… » À la mort de Cézanne, certains peintres voulant créer de nouveaux mouvements se réclamèrent de lui. Le cas le plus notoire est celui des cubistes. Malgré tout ce qu’on a pu dire et écrire, il reste douteux que Cézanne eût reconnu cette paternité. Il n’est plus là pour répondre, mais sa correspondance conserve quelques phrases que l’on peut méditer, par exemple, celle-ci : « Il faut se méfier de l’esprit littérateur qui fait si souvent le peintre s’écarter de sa vraie voie — l’étude concrète de la nature — pour se perdre trop longtemps dans des spéculations intangibles. »

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2024 - 13e année de publication -  Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

 

 

LE PILON DU ROI - MASSIF DE L'ÉTOILE PAINTED BY PAUL CÉZANNE

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
The Pilon du Roi - Massif de l'Etoile (710 m - 2,200 ft)
France 

                     La Chaîne de l'Etoile avec le Pilon du Roi, 1885–1886,  Barnes Foundation


The mountain
The Massif de l'Etoile (Range of the Star) is a small mountain range located north of Marseille. Covering an area of ​​10,000 hectares, it culminates at 779 meters at Grand-Puech. Its other highest points are: to the west, the summit of Grande-Étoile (590 metres) and l'Étoile (652 metres, the highest point in the municipality of Marseilles), to the east, besides the Tête du Grand-Puech, the Mont Julien (647 meters), while the center of the massif is dominated by the Pilon du Roi (710 meters) whose name is a deformation of the Provençal Pieloun dóu Roure, or the “peak of the oak”.
With the Garlaban massif, it forms a chain of mountains in coastal limestone Lower Provence in the south of Bouches-du-Rhône. They constitute a vast natural space of approximately 20,000 hectares which emerge at the heart of an urban complex of more than one million inhabitants with the agglomerations of Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Aubagne and Gardanne.
The massif crosses 18 communes of the Bouches-du-Rhône.
On the northern edge of the Marseille agglomeration, this massif offers a beautiful image of the non-coastal hills of limestone Basse-Provence with typical flora, including endemic and rare species, including one from Appendix II of the plant protection system. (Arenaria provincialis), a typical vegetation of coppice, scrubland, lawns and rock habitats belonging to the Meso-Mediterranean level with even, thanks to a clear shade, an outline of a supra-Mediterranean level (coppice - high oak forest pubescent holly and pine forests of Scots pine) and a Mediterranean fauna whose current studies show for the moment typicality and originality.


The Painter
If mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter Paul Cezanne, it is not the only one mountain he painted.
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. In the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

DJEBEL TOUKBAL (4) PAINTED BY SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874-1965)
Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft)
Morocco

In Atlas mountains viewed from Marrakech, oil on canvas, 1949.

The mountain 

Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft)  is the high point of the High Atlas as well as Morocco and North Africa . It is located 63 km south of Marrakech, in the province of Al Haouz, inside the national park that bears its name.
The word Toubkal would be a deformation of French origin of the same Amazigh name Tugg Akal or toug-akal  which means "the one who looks up the earth". The people of this region still use this name.  The Toubkal massif is made up of rocks of various natures. Dark rocks of volcanic origin are found on the summits of andesite and rhyolite. Glaciers have left characteristic marks of their passage in the form of valleys in trough. During the Würm glaciation, the present valley of Assif n'Ait Mizane  was occupied by the longest glacier in the Atlas, about 5 km long.
The climate at Jebel Toubkal  is mountainous. The snow falls in winter and covers the summit.
In the nineteenth century, the interior of Morocco was still terra incognita for the Europeans and for a long time the Jebel Ayachi (3,747 m -12,293ft) ) passed for the highest summit of the High Atlas. In fact, the Toubkal was officially climbed for the first time only on 12 June 1923 by the Marquis de Segonzac, accompanied by Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau. The cairns which they found on the summit had been built by the Berbers of the environs for whom the Toubkal is a holy place dedicated to Sidi Chamarouch (or Chamharouch). A sanctuary is dedicated to him on the way from Imlil to Toubkal.
The ascent of the roof of North Africa attracts a large number of followers of the trekking. This ascent attracts the crowd as much as it does not present great technical difficulties and that the assistance of the muleteers and their mules reduces the physical efforts. The altitude is relatively high (3,200 meters at the shelter and 4,167 meters at the summit).

The artist
Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was forty before he discovered the pleasures of painting. The compositional challenge of depicting a landscape gave the heroic rebel in him temporary repose. He possessed the heightened perception of the genuine artist to whom no scene is commonplace. Over a period of forty-eight years his creativity yielded more than 500 pictures. His art quickly became half passion, half philosophy. He enjoyed holding forth in speech and print on the aesthetic rewards for amateur devotees. To him it was the greatest of hobbies. He had found his other world -- a respite from crowding events and pulsating politics.
Encouragement to persevere with his hobby stemmed from an amateur prize (his first) which he won for "Winter Sunshine, Chartwell" a bright reflection of his Kentish home. He sent five paintings to be exhibited in Paris in the 1920s.
Modesty shone through that self-estimate. Modesty - and warm sympathy --were undeniably evident in what Churchill told a fellow painter, Sergeant Edmund Murray, his bodyguard from 1950 to 1965. Murray had been in the Foreign Legion and the London Metropolitan Police. Interviewing him to gauge his suitability, Churchill said: "You have had a most interesting life. And I hear you even paint in oils." After Murray had his work rejected by the Royal Academy, Churchill told him: "You know, your paintings are so much better than mine, but yours are judged on their merit."
Churchill's progressive workmanship demonstrates that a pseudonym employed at a crucial stage shrewdly enabled him to find out where he stood before moving on to fine-tool his talent.Churchill again favoured a pseudonym (Mr. Winter) in 1947 when offering works to the Royal Academy, so his fame in other spheres was not exploited. Two pictures were accepted and eventually the title of Honorary Academician Extraordinary was conferred on him. He earned it. That is borne out by the conclusion of the renowned painter Sir Oswald Birley: "If Churchill had given the time to art that he has given to politics, he would have been by all odds the world's greatest painter." Connoisseurs of Sir Winston's art stoutly defend their individual preference, but there are convincing arguments for bestowing highest praise on "The Blue Sitting Room, Trent Park" which was sold in 1949 to aid charity.
Despite outward flippancy, Churchill had a true craftsman's dedication when he took up a paint brush. He consulted teachers admired for their professionalism. He was fond of citing Ruskin's Elements of Drawing and readily accepted Sir William Orpen's suggestion that he should visit Avignon, where the light can verge on a miracle. He recalled an encounter on the Côte d'Azur with artists who worshipped at the throne of Cezanne and gratefully acknowledged the inspiration he derived from their exchange. Marrakech, Morocco -- irresistible and productive -- always brought out the best in him.
Churchill sought and found tranquillity in his art. His much quoted words, summing up expectations of celestial bliss, retain their lustre: "When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject..."
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau  

MOUNT HERDUBREID PAINTED BY SVEINN THÓRARINSSON

 

SVEINN THÓRARINSSON (1899 -1977) 

Herðubreið  / Mount Herdubreid (1,682 m - 5518ft) 

Iceland

 In Herðubreið, oil on canvas, 1926

Biography of the painter  
Sveinn Thórarinsson (in our alphabet Thorarinsson) and his wife Karen Agnete thórarinsson were both painters. Sveinn's parents were farmers in Kílakot (Iceland) but the family has maintained a strong tradition of artistic activities for several generations. Born in this very small and sparsely populated island that is Iceland, Sveinn Thórarinsson grew up, without knowing it, in a family that had a strong artistic reputation among its neighbors! His parents therefore brought him up naturally as an artist and in particular by making him play the violin like his father. Child, very puny, unable to compete with other adolescents in the work in the fields, he was sent to study music in the city. The music could therefore have occupied his mind completely, but it was not.
After successful studies in Reykjavik, he returned home and decided to paint while continuing to make music. He was suddently so active as a painter that people came to see his works from all the farms around! As his paintings were popular, he quickly became a renowned painter in Iceland, which was hardly surprising given the family he came from. For a long time he continued to play the violin and paint, at the same time, including frescoes in chapels drowned in snow. For several years, he painted and sold his works regularly, thus amassing a certain amount of money, which allowed him to face the wide world.
In the fall of 1925, he left to study at the Academy of Fine Arts.
Then his career as a painter, carried out mainly within his island, will carry him peacefully until his death.
Since then his price in the auction rooms has continued to rise and he appears as one of the great Icelandic painters of the twentieth century painting in a style which is very much inspired by that of Cezanne and the French impressions, which he knew mainly from books ...

 
The mountain
Herðubreið (1,682 m - 5,518 ft) meaning broad-shouldered is a tuya in northern part of Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland. It is situated in the Highlands of Iceland at the east side of the Ódáðahraun desert and close to Askja volcano. The desert is a large lava field originating from eruptions of Trölladyngja and other shield volcanoes in the area. Herðubreið was formed beneath the icesheet that covered Iceland during the last glacial period. The mountain is often referred to as "The Queen of Icelandic Mountains" by Icelanders due to its beautiful shape. Near the mountain lies an oasis called Herðubreiðarlindir with a campground and hiking trails. In former times, outcasts who had been excluded from Icelandic society because of crimes they had committed lived at the oasis. One such outlaw was Fjalla-Eyvindur, who lived there during the winter of 1774–1775. In 2019 Herðubreið became a part of Vatnajökull National Park.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LA TETE D'AUGUSTE PAINTED BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)

La Tête d'Auguste (278m
 - 912ft)
France (Bouche du Rhône)


In Au fond du ravin, L’Estaque, 1882 Huile sur toile, 73 x 54 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

 

The Hill
The Tête d'Auguste (278m - ) is the highest point of the Chaîne de l'Estaque or the Nerthe chain, a massif of white limestone hills around 28 kilometers long which extends from L'Estaque to Martigues. The Estaque chain is part of the Pyrenean-Provençal chain, a former massif which stretched continuously before the Oligocene, from the Pyrenees to the Estaque massif, in place of the current Gulf of Lion. Nowadays, it forms a sort of isthmus about 8 kilometers wide between the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Etang de Berre to the north.
The coastline of the Estaque range forms the Côte Bleue with its steep shores cut into deep creeks. The railway line from Miramas to Estaque runs along the coast clinging to the side of the massif. The Estaque range is also home to several gray limestone quarries, two of which are exploited for the manufacture of lime, the others for the general and aggregates and other quarry products (Lafarge).



The painter

The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter (Paul Cézanne). He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings ! but he diddn't painted only the Sainte Victoire... others landscape and mountains of Provence were in his mind too... 
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion. 
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York. 
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene.


 
__________________________________________
2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT SAINTE VICTOIRE BY PAUL CEZANNE

 

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)
France (Provences-Alpes-Côte d'Azur)

In Le Mont Sainte-Victoire, c. 1897. watercolor  on paper, Prvate collection

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft) also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m).
The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1,011 m) near the eastern end of the chain, and not at the Croix de Provence (946 m) near the west end and visible from Aix. The Pic des Mouches is one of the highest peaks of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, behind the peak Bertagne which reached an altitude of 1,042 mètres and which is located on the massif of Sainte-Baume.
Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).
Indeed, from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, appeared 15 million years BCE.
Sainte-Victoire, whose calcareous sediments date back to the Jurassic, thus consists of both a Pyrenean-Provencal vestige and of an alpine geology.
The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.
The massive hosts several world-famous dinosaur eggs deposits including the Roques-Hautes / Les Grands-Creux on the town Beaurecueil.

The painter
The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter (Paul Cézanne). He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings !
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. IN the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.
A true love story…
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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MOUNT SAINTE-VICTOIRE PAINTED BY PAUL CÉZANNE

 PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)

Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur) 

 In Plaine près de la Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c. 1882-85   oil on canvas, 58 x 72 cm. Musée Pushkin, Moscou

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft) also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it.
It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.
The Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).
Indeed, from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, it remains today only the fold Bimont, said Chaînon des Costes Chaudes, the last vestige resulting from tectonic movements and characteristics of the stacks of Pyreneo-Provençal phase during the Eocene. Later during the Oligocene, breaking of the anticlinal fold of Sainte-Victoire, which resulted from the uplift of the first great Alpine reliefs, is causing a surge that help explain the current form of the mountain, which appeared 15 million years BCE.
According to a recent study, the Sainte-Victoire is still growing ! The company ME2i has indeed conducted a satellite survey between 1993 and 2003 providing evidence that during this period the western end of the Sainte-Victoire was uplift of 7 mm per year.
The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.

The painter
The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter Paul Cezanne. He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings!
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. In the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.

_______________________________
2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

SUGAR LOAF MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY FRANCIS CROPSEY

 

JASPER FRANCIS CROPSEY (1823-1900)

Sugar Loaf mountain (347 meters - 1,138 ft)

United States of America  (New York State)

 In Autumn Landscape, Sugar Loaf Mountain, Orange County, New York,  ca. 1870–75,

 oil on canvas  90,2x72,4 cm)  The MET Museum (not on view)

About this painting and the mountain Extract from an article by  Kenneth W. Maddox, Art Historian, The Newington-Cropsey Foundation
Jasper F. Cropsey's paintings of Sugar Loaf Mountain are among the most problematic of his
works. The subject of many of these paintings has often been incorrectly identified because the geographic area is unfamiliar to both art historians and dealers; only three paintings with "Sugar Loaf' in the title are documented through exhibition or auction records.'An even more important factor, however, is that the artist took great liberties with his subject. Cropsey's portrayals of the mountain appear much more similar to one another than to the actual topography of the site: certainly, in terms of scale and contour, the prominent peak in his works does not closely resemble the one that rises in the Warwick Valley, Orange County, New York. Small wonder, then, that the title and subject of Cropsey's fall scene in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, known as Autumn Landscape, Mount Chocorua, New Hampshire, has not been challenged since the Museum acquired he painting in 1961(...)
In his paintings of Sugar Loaf (above), Cropsey transformed a mountain of fairly modest proportions and shape into a monumental form, which, like Mount Chocorua, majestically rises above the surrounding errain. It is a profound transformation-one that does not occur to this degree in any of the painter's other works-from the physical realities of the landscape to the mental creation of the artist. One may well ask, as with Cezanne's views of Mont Sainte-Victoire, what personal meaning the peak might have had for the artist. Although it is not mentioned in any of Cropsey's extant writings, this was a motif to which he was repeatedly drawn. Ironically, because of the liberties
Cropsey took in his portrayals of the mountain, Sugar Loaf has gone unrecognized-until now-as
the subject of numerous paintings.

 The painter
Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School. Trained as an architect, he set up his own office in 1843. Cropsey studied watercolor and life drawing at the National Academy of Design under the instruction of Edward Maury and first exhibited there in 1844. A year later he was elected an associate member and turned exclusively to landscape painting; shortly after he was featured in an exhibition entitled "Italian Compositions".
Cropsey traveled in Europe from 1847–1849, visiting England, France, Switzerland, and Italy. He was elected a full member of the Academy in 1851. Cropsey was a personal friend of Henry Tappan, the president of the University of Michigan from 1852 to 1863. At Tappan's invitation, he traveled to Ann Arbor in 1855 and produced two paintings, one of the Detroit Observatory, and a landscape of the campus.  He went abroad again in 1856, and resided seven years in London, sending his pictures to the Royal Academy and to the International exhibition of 1862.
Returning home, he opened a studio in New York and specialized in autumnal landscape paintings of the northeastern United States, often idealized and with vivid colors. Cropsey co-founded, with ten fellow artists, the American Society of Painters in Water Colors in 1866.
Cropsey's interest in architecture continued throughout his life and was a strong influence in his painting, most evident in his precise arrangement and outline of forms. But Cropsey was best known for his lavish use of color and, as a first-generation member from the Hudson River School, painted autumn landscapes that startled viewers with their boldness and brilliance. As an artist, he believed landscapes were the highest art form and that nature was a direct manifestation of God. He also felt a patriotic affiliation with nature and saw his paintings as depicting the rugged and unspoiled qualities of America.

______________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MONTAGNE SAINTE VICTOIRE PAINTED BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906) 

Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provences-Alpes-Côte d'Azur)

In  Sainte-Victoire vue à travers l’allée des marronniers du Jas de Bouffan,  oil on canvas, 1885

 Minneapolis Museum of Fine Arts 

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft) also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m).
The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1,011 m) near the eastern end of the chain, and not at the Croix de Provence (946 m) near the west end and visible from Aix. The Pic des Mouches is one of the highest peaks of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, behind the peak Bertagne which reached an altitude of 1,042 mètres and which is located on the massif of Sainte-Baume.
Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).
Indeed, from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, appeared 15 million years BCE.
Sainte-Victoire, whose calcareous sediments date back to the Jurassic, thus consists of both a Pyrenean-Provencal vestige and of an alpine geology.
The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.
The massive hosts several world-famous dinosaur eggs deposits including the Roques-Hautes / Les Grands-Creux on the town Beaurecueil.

The painter
The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter (Paul Cézanne). He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings !
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. IN the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.
A true love story…

_____________________________________________
2019- Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

JEBEL TOUBKAL (2) BY SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL  (1874-1965)

Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft) 

Morocco

In a View of Marrakech and Jebel Toubkal, oil on canvas, private owner

The mountain 

Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft)  is the high point of the High Atlas as well as Morocco and North Africa . It is located 63 km south of Marrakech, in the province of Al Haouz, inside the national park that bears its name.
The word Toubkal would be a deformation of French origin of the same Amazigh name Tugg Akal or toug-akal  which means "the one who looks up the earth". The people of this region still use this name.  The Toubkal massif is made up of rocks of various natures. Dark rocks of volcanic origin are found on the summits of andesite and rhyolite. Glaciers have left characteristic marks of their passage in the form of valleys in trough. During the Würm glaciation, the present valley of Assif n'Ait Mizane  was occupied by the longest glacier in the Atlas, about 5 km long.
The climate at Jebel Toubkal  is mountainous. The snow falls in winter and covers the summit.
In the nineteenth century, the interior of Morocco was still terra incognita for the Europeans and for a long time the Jebel Ayachi (3,747 m -12,293ft) ) passed for the highest summit of the High Atlas. In fact, the Toubkal was officially climbed for the first time only on 12 June 1923 by the Marquis de Segonzac, accompanied by Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau. The cairns which they found on the summit had been built by the Berbers of the environs for whom the Toubkal is a holy place dedicated to Sidi Chamarouch (or Chamharouch). A sanctuary is dedicated to him on the way from Imlil to Toubkal.
The ascent of the roof of North Africa attracts a large number of followers of the trekking. This ascent attracts the crowd as much as it does not present great technical difficulties and that the assistance of the muleteers and their mules reduces the physical efforts. The altitude is relatively high (3,200 meters at the shelter and 4,167 meters at the summit).

The artist
 Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was forty before he discovered the pleasures of painting. The compositional challenge of depicting a landscape gave the heroic rebel in him temporary repose. He possessed the heightened perception of the genuine artist to whom no scene is commonplace. Over a period of forty-eight years his creativity yielded more than 500 pictures. His art quickly became half passion, half philosophy. He enjoyed holding forth in speech and print on the aesthetic rewards for amateur devotees. To him it was the greatest of hobbies. He had found his other world -- a respite from crowding events and pulsating politics.
Encouragement to persevere with his hobby stemmed from an amateur prize (his first) which he won for "Winter Sunshine, Chartwell" a bright reflection of his Kentish home. He sent five paintings to be exhibited in Paris in the 1920s.
Modesty shone through that self-estimate. Modesty - and warm sympathy --were undeniably evident in what Churchill told a fellow painter, Sergeant Edmund Murray, his bodyguard from 1950 to 1965. Murray had been in the Foreign Legion and the London Metropolitan Police. Interviewing him to gauge his suitability, Churchill said: "You have had a most interesting life. And I hear you even paint in oils." After Murray had his work rejected by the Royal Academy, Churchill told him: "You know, your paintings are so much better than mine, but yours are judged on their merit."
Churchill's progressive workmanship demonstrates that a pseudonym employed at a crucial stage shrewdly enabled him to find out where he stood before moving on to fine-tool his talent.Churchill again favoured a pseudonym (Mr. Winter) in 1947 when offering works to the Royal Academy, so his fame in other spheres was not exploited. Two pictures were accepted and eventually the title of Honorary Academician Extraordinary was conferred on him. He earned it. That is borne out by the conclusion of the renowned painter Sir Oswald Birley: "If Churchill had given the time to art that he has given to politics, he would have been by all odds the world's greatest painter." Connoisseurs of Sir Winston's art stoutly defend their individual preference, but there are convincing arguments for bestowing highest praise on "The Blue Sitting Room, Trent Park" which was sold in 1949 to aid charity.
Despite outward flippancy, Churchill had a true craftsman's dedication when he took up a paint brush. He consulted teachers admired for their professionalism. He was fond of citing Ruskin's Elements of Drawing and readily accepted Sir William Orpen's suggestion that he should visit Avignon, where the light can verge on a miracle. He recalled an encounter on the Côte d'Azur with artists who worshipped at the throne of Cezanne and gratefully acknowledged the inspiration he derived from their exchange. Marrakech, Morocco -- irresistible and productive -- always brought out the best in him.
Churchill sought and found tranquillity in his art. His much quoted words, summing up expectations of celestial bliss, retain their lustre: "When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject..."

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY AUGUSTE RENOIR

PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)

Mount Vesuvius (1, 281m - 4,203 ft current)

Italy

In The Bay of Naples (1881), Oil on canvas, 59.7 x 81.3 cm. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The mountain
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 meters- 4,203 ft current) is one of those legendary and mythic mountains the Earth paid regularly tribute. Monte Vesuvio in Italian modern langage or Mons Vesuvius in antique Latin langage is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples (Italy) about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore.
It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure.
Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman antique cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and several other settlements. That eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ash, and fumes to a height of 33 km (20.5 mi), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing. At least 1,000 people died in the eruption. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.
Vesuvius has erupted many times since and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions (said Plinian eruptions). It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.

The painter
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commonly known as Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. Renoir's paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated color, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions. The female nude was one of his primary subjects. In characteristic Impressionist style, Renoir suggested the details of a scene through freely brushed touches of color, so that his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings.
His initial paintings show the influence of the colorism of Eugène Delacroix and the luminosity of Camille Corot. He also admired the realism of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet, and his early work resembles theirs in his use of black as a color. Renoir admired Edgar Degas' sense of movement. Another painter Renoir greatly admired was the 18th-century master François Boucher.
In the late 1860s, through the practice of painting light and water en plein air (outdoors), he and his friend Claude Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them, an effect known today as diffuse reflection. Several pairs of paintings exist in which Renoir and Monet worked side-by-side, depicting the same scenes (La Grenouillère, 1869).

 He very rarely painted mountains landscapes like the Mount Sainte Victoire ( a tribute to Cezanne) or the Mount Vesuvius (above).
The works of his early maturity were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling color and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women. It was a trip to Italy in 1881 when he saw works by Raphael and other Renaissance masters, that convinced him that he was on the wrong path, and for the next several years he painted in a more severe style in an attempt to return to classicism.
After 1890 he changed direction again. To dissolve outlines, as in his earlier work, he returned to thinly brushed color. From this period onward he concentrated on monumental nudes and domestic scenes, fine examples of which are Girls at the Piano, 1892, and Grandes Baigneuses, 1887. The latter painting is the most typical and successful of Renoir's late, abundantly fleshed nudes.
A prolific artist, he created several thousand paintings. The warm sensuality of Renoir's style made his paintings some of the most well-known and frequently reproduced works in the history of art. The single largest collection of his works—181 paintings in all—is at the Barnes Foundation, in Philadelphia.
He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894–1979) and ceramic artist Claude Renoir (1901–1969). He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir (1913–1993), son of Pierre.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE SAINTE VICTOIRE (4) BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
The Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur) 

In La Tranchée avec la montagne Sainte-Victoire, ca. 1870, 

Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen / Die Pinakotheken, Munchen

The mountain

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.

The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians....

Full wanderingvertexes entry 

The Painter  

The mount Sainte-Victoire (1011 m) appears to have been the subject of a true love story with  the  painter (Paul Cezanne).  He painted  this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings!...

Full wanderingvertexes entry 

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

JEBEL TOUBKAL (3) BY SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL  (1874-1965)

Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft) 

Morocco 

 In The Tower of Katubia Mosque, 1943,  oil on canvas,  The Brad Pitt collection 

About the painting 
The Tower of Katoubia Mosque, is  the only painting that Churchill painted during the war; he ultimately sent the painting to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  In this painting, mount Toubkal, the highest summit of Moroccan Atlas, can be seen  afar the city of Marrakech., on the left side of the composition.

The mountain 
Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft)  is the high point of the High Atlas as well as Morocco and North Africa . It is located 63 km south of Marrakech, in the province of Al Haouz, inside the national park that bears its name.
The Toubkal massif is made up of rocks of various natures. Dark rocks of volcanic origin are found on the summits of andesite and rhyolite. Glaciers have left characteristic marks of their passage in the form of valleys in trough. During the Würm glaciation, the present valley of Assif n'Ait Mizane  was occupied by the longest glacier in the Atlas, about 5 km long.
The climate at Jebel Toubkal is mountainous. The snow falls in winter and covers the summit.
In the nineteenth century, the interior of Morocco was still terra incognita for the Europeans and for a long time the Jebel Ayachi (3,747 m -12,293ft) ) passed for the highest summit of the High Atlas. In fact, the Toubkal was officially climbed for the first time only on 12 June 1923 by the Marquis de Segonzac, accompanied by Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau. The cairns which they found on the summit had been built by the Berbers of the environs for whom the Toubkal is a holy place dedicated to Sidi Chamarouch (or Chamharouch). A sanctuary is dedicated to him on the way from Imlil to Toubkal.
The ascent of the roof of North Africa attracts a large number of followers of the trekking. This ascent attracts the crowd as much as it does not present great technical difficulties and that the assistance of the muleteers and their mules reduces the physical efforts. The altitude is relatively high (3,200 meters at the shelter and 4,167 meters at the summit).

The painter
Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was 40 before he discovered the pleasures of painting. The compositional challenge of depicting a landscape gave the heroic rebel in him temporary repose. He possessed the heightened perception of the genuine artist to whom no scene is commonplace. Over a period of forty-eight years his creativity yielded more than 500 pictures. His art quickly became half passion, half philosophy. He enjoyed holding forth in speech and print on the aesthetic rewards for amateur devotees. To him it was the greatest of hobbies. He had found his other world -- a respite from crowding events and pulsating politics.
Encouragement to persevere with his hobby stemmed from an amateur prize (his first) which he won for "Winter Sunshine, Chartwell" a bright reflection of his Kentish home. He sent five paintings to be exhibited in Paris in the 1920s.
Modesty shone through that self-estimate. Modesty - and warm sympathy --were undeniably evident in what Churchill told a fellow painter, Sergeant Edmund Murray, his bodyguard from 1950 to 1965. Murray had been in the Foreign Legion and the London Metropolitan Police. Interviewing him to gauge his suitability, Churchill said: "You have had a most interesting life. And I hear you even paint in oils." After Murray had his work rejected by the Royal Academy, Churchill told him: "You know, your paintings are so much better than mine, but yours are judged on their merit."
Churchill's progressive workmanship demonstrates that a pseudonym employed at a crucial stage shrewdly enabled him to find out where he stood before moving on to fine-tool his talent.Churchill again favoured a pseudonym (Mr. Winter) in 1947 when offering works to the Royal Academy, so his fame in other spheres was not exploited. Two pictures were accepted and eventually the title of Honorary Academician Extraordinary was conferred on him. He earned it. That is borne out by the conclusion of the renowned painter Sir Oswald Birley: "If Churchill had given the time to art that he has given to politics, he would have been by all odds the world's greatest painter." Connoisseurs of Sir Winston's art stoutly defend their individual preference, but there are convincing arguments for bestowing highest praise on "The Blue Sitting Room, Trent Park" which was sold in 1949 to aid charity.
Despite outward flippancy, Churchill had a true craftsman's dedication when he took up a paint brush. He consulted teachers admired for their professionalism. He was fond of citing Ruskin's Elements of Drawing and readily accepted Sir William Orpen's suggestion that he should visit Avignon, where the light can verge on a miracle. He recalled an encounter on the Côte d'Azur with artists who worshipped at the throne of Cezanne and gratefully acknowledged the inspiration he derived from their exchange. Marrakech, Morocco -- irresistible and productive -- always brought out the best in him.
Churchill sought and found tranquillity in his art. His much quoted words, summing up expectations of celestial bliss, retain their lustre: "When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject..."

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE SAINTE VICTOIRE BY PAUL CÉZANNE

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906) 

Montagne Sainte-Victoire   (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provences-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) 

In La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c. 1900. watercolor and graphite on wove paper,
Barnes Foundation

The mountain

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.

The range of the Sainte-Victoire is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.  On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m).

The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1,011 m) near the eastern end of the chain, and not at the Croix de Provence (946 m) near the west end and visible from Aix. The Pic des Mouches is one of the highest peaks of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, behind the peak Bertagne which reached an altitude of 1,042 mètres and which is located on the massif of Sainte-Baume.

Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).

Indeed,  from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, appeared 15 million years BCE.

Sainte-Victoire, whose calcareous sediments date back to the Jurassic, thus consists of both a Pyrenean-Provencal vestige and of an alpine geology.

The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.

The massive hosts several world-famous dinosaur eggs deposits including the Roques-Hautes / Les Grands-Creux on the town Beaurecueil.

The painter  

The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with  the  painter (Paul Cézanne).  He painted  this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings !

Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other.  But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History  says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.

Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.

The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.

It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s)  he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors.  IN the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view  from Les Lauves,  between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.

A true love story…

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE SAINTE VICTOIRE (3) BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)

The Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur) 

 In La Sainte-Victoire vue de la colline des Lauves, 1902-1906,  watercolour, Private collection 

The mountain

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. 

It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.

The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.

 The Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).

Indeed,  from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, it remains today  only the fold Bimont, said Chaînon des Costes Chaudes, the last vestige resulting from tectonic movements and characteristics of the stacks of  Pyreneo-Provençal phase during the Eocene. Later during the Oligocene, breaking  of the anticlinal fold of Sainte-Victoire, which resulted from the uplift of the first great Alpine reliefs, is causing a surge that help explain the current form of the mountain, which appeared 15 million years BCE.

According to a recent study, the Sainte-Victoire is still growing ! The company ME2i  has indeed conducted a satellite survey between 1993 and 2003 providing evidence that during this period the western end of the Sainte-Victoire was uplift of 7 mm per year.

The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.

The Painter  

The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with  the  painter Paul Cezanne. He painted  this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings!

Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other.  But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History  says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.

Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.

The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.

It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s)  he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors.  In the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view  from Les Lauves,  between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

JEBEL TOUBKAL BY SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL  (1874-1965)

Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft) 

Morocco 

 In Jebel Toubkal at sunset, oil on canvas

The mountain 

Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft)  is the high point of the High Atlas as well as Morocco and North Africa . It is located 63 km south of Marrakech, in the province of Al Haouz, inside the national park that bears its name.
The word Toubkal would be a deformation of French origin of the same Amazigh name Tugg Akal or toug-akal  which means "the one who looks up the earth". The people of this region still use this name.  The Toubkal massif is made up of rocks of various natures. Dark rocks of volcanic origin are found on the summits of andesite and rhyolite. Glaciers have left characteristic marks of their passage in the form of valleys in trough. During the Würm glaciation, the present valley of Assif n'Ait Mizane  was occupied by the longest glacier in the Atlas, about 5 km long.
The climate at Jebel Toubkal  is mountainous. The snow falls in winter and covers the summit.
In the nineteenth century, the interior of Morocco was still terra incognita for the Europeans and for a long time the Jebel Ayachi (3,747 m -12,293ft) ) passed for the highest summit of the High Atlas. In fact, the Toubkal was officially climbed for the first time only on 12 June 1923 by the Marquis de Segonzac, accompanied by Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau. The cairns which they found on the summit had been built by the Berbers of the environs for whom the Toubkal is a holy place dedicated to Sidi Chamarouch (or Chamharouch). A sanctuary is dedicated to him on the way from Imlil to Toubkal.
The ascent of the roof of North Africa attracts a large number of followers of the trekking. This ascent attracts the crowd as much as it does not present great technical difficulties and that the assistance of the muleteers and their mules reduces the physical efforts. The altitude is relatively high (3,200 meters at the shelter and 4,167 meters at the summit).


The artist
 Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was forty before he discovered the pleasures of painting. The compositional challenge of depicting a landscape gave the heroic rebel in him temporary repose. He possessed the heightened perception of the genuine artist to whom no scene is commonplace. Over a period of forty-eight years his creativity yielded more than 500 pictures. His art quickly became half passion, half philosophy. He enjoyed holding forth in speech and print on the aesthetic rewards for amateur devotees. To him it was the greatest of hobbies. He had found his other world -- a respite from crowding events and pulsating politics.
Encouragement to persevere with his hobby stemmed from an amateur prize (his first) which he won for "Winter Sunshine, Chartwell" a bright reflection of his Kentish home. He sent five paintings to be exhibited in Paris in the 1920s.
Modesty shone through that self-estimate. Modesty - and warm sympathy --were undeniably evident in what Churchill told a fellow painter, Sergeant Edmund Murray, his bodyguard from 1950 to 1965. Murray had been in the Foreign Legion and the London Metropolitan Police. Interviewing him to gauge his suitability, Churchill said: "You have had a most interesting life. And I hear you even paint in oils." After Murray had his work rejected by the Royal Academy, Churchill told him: "You know, your paintings are so much better than mine, but yours are judged on their merit."
Churchill's progressive workmanship demonstrates that a pseudonym employed at a crucial stage shrewdly enabled him to find out where he stood before moving on to fine-tool his talent.Churchill again favoured a pseudonym (Mr. Winter) in 1947 when offering works to the Royal Academy, so his fame in other spheres was not exploited. Two pictures were accepted and eventually the title of Honorary Academician Extraordinary was conferred on him. He earned it. That is borne out by the conclusion of the renowned painter Sir Oswald Birley: "If Churchill had given the time to art that he has given to politics, he would have been by all odds the world's greatest painter." Connoisseurs of Sir Winston's art stoutly defend their individual preference, but there are convincing arguments for bestowing highest praise on "The Blue Sitting Room, Trent Park" which was sold in 1949 to aid charity.
Despite outward flippancy, Churchill had a true craftsman's dedication when he took up a paint brush. He consulted teachers admired for their professionalism. He was fond of citing Ruskin's Elements of Drawing and readily accepted Sir William Orpen's suggestion that he should visit Avignon, where the light can verge on a miracle. He recalled an encounter on the Côte d'Azur with artists who worshipped at the throne of Cezanne and gratefully acknowledged the inspiration he derived from their exchange. Marrakech, Morocco -- irresistible and productive -- always brought out the best in him.
Churchill sought and found tranquillity in his art. His much quoted words, summing up expectations of celestial bliss, retain their lustre: "When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject..."
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau