CIRQUE DE BARROSA SKETCHED BY FRANZ SCHRADER

FRANZ SCHRADER (1844-1924),
The Cirque de Barrosa (1,745m - 5,725 ft)
France- Spain border (Pyrénées)

In "Le Cirque de Barrosa", watercolor

The painter
Jean-Daniel-François Schrader, better known as Franz Schrader, was a French mountaineer, geographer, cartographer and landscape painter. He made an important contribution to the mapping of the Pyrenees and was highly considered among the pyreneists.
He is the son of Prussian Ferdinand Schrader from Magdeburg, who emigrated to Bordeaux, and of Marie-Louise Ducos, cousin of geographers Élisée and Onésime Reclus. He shows a talent for drawing from an early age. In 1866, while staying with his friend Léonce Lourde-Rocheblave in Pau, he has a sort of revelation at the "spectacle grandiose de la barrière montagneuse des Pyrenées ".
His vocation strengthens when reading stories by Ramond de Carbonnières (1755-1827) (Les Voyages au Mont-Perdu) and by Henry Russell (1834-1909) (Les Grandes Ascensions des Pyrénées, guide d'une mer à l'autre).
While devoting the main part of his leisure to long hikes in the mountains, during which he gathers thousands of observations for his topographical records, he still finds time to paint numerous panoramas of the Pyrenees as well as the Alps which he also studies, and to acquire a solid formation in topography.
To facilitate topographical work in rugged terrain, he develops the orograph in 1873. His first great cartographic work, in 1874, is the map of the massif of Gavarnie-Mont-Perdu at a scale of 1:40 000, for which he collects the measurements with the participation of Lourde-Rocheblave from nearby Pau. That map triggers such a sensation that it is included in the annual Mémoires of the Société des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles de Bordeaux with an explanatory text the following year. The Club alpin français directory follows with the publication of an enthusiastic review, describing Schrader as qualified for "first rank topographer in a glorious master stroke". In 1876 he takes part in the creation of the Bordeaux section of the Club Alpin Français, becoming its first president.
In 1877 he travels to Paris with a recommendation from his cousins Élisée and Onésime Reclus. There, having met Émile Templier, nephew and collaborator of Louis Hachette, and Adolphe Joanne, president of the Parisian section of the Club Alpin Français, he is employed as a geographer by Librairie Hachette and is now able to practice his passion in the scope of his profession. He also gives geography lessons at the School of Anthropology and also becomes editor of the French Alpine Club directory
In 1927, three years after his death, his remains are transferred to a tomb on a slope of the Circus of Gavarnie (French Pyrenees). 

The mountain
The Cirque de Barrosa (1745m - (Circo de Barrosa in Spanish) is a glacial cirque located in the center of the Pyrenees chain, in Spain, in the comarca of Sobrarbe (province of Huesca, autonomous community of Aragon). Part of its ridge line forms the border with France.
It is a beautiful mountain circus, attractive for mountaineers, but it is distinguished by its geological structure in two floors, the upper floor being part of an overlap, and by the remains of an old mule track which crosses it from side to side. However, these two singularities are intimately linked since this path has been laid out on a natural cornice which runs, in the cliffs, at the limit between the two floors, which gives its route a great interest from a geological point of view.
In addition, the Cirque de Barrosa provides the opportunity to take an interest in several stories: those of mining in the region of the cirque, to which this path is linked; that of human relations between France and the Bielsa valley, via this path or neighboring passes; that of an episode of the Spanish Civil War, of which the Bielsa Valley was the scene; and that of Pyreneism, whose pioneers discovered the circus at the end of the 19th century.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONTE PERDIDO PAINTED BY FRANZ SCHRADER

FRANZ SCHRADER (1844-1924) 

Monte Perdido ou Mont Perdu  (3,355 m -11,007ft)

Spain

The mountain

Monte Perdido (3,355 m -11,007ft), Mont Perdu in French, located in Spain, near the French-Spanish border, is the highest summit above sea level on the ridge separating the canyons of Ordesa and Pineta  in the Pyrénées. This is the central peak of  Tres Hermanas (Spanish) consist of the cylinder Marboré, the Soum de Ramond, and Monte Perdido itself.

Observable from the peaks popular at the time (including the Pic du Midi de Bigorre), Mount Perdido is no longer visible from the French valleys, as located behind the watershed line between France and Spain.

The limestone, rich in fossils are marine sedimentary origin. These sediments occupying a shallow sea were raised during the formation of the Pyrenees there are 40 million years (see article Geology of the Pyrénées).The summit a form of typical pyramidal peak of erosion by glaciers time of glaciation, he is still on the northeast side of the mountain the Monte Perdido glacier.

Ramond Carbonnières, is the firstpersonn to have discover Mount Perdu. Since his first stay in Barèges, in 1787, he was fascinated by the "massive limestone" of Marboré.  In 1796, convinced that the nature of the limestone Marboré is "ordinary" Ramond  determines an access route to the summit: the Estaubé Valley.

August 11, 1797, he organized a real strong expedition of fourteen participants to the summit: The hard glacial corridor Tuquerouye. His guides, Laurens and Mouré, and a Spanish smuggler to lead the Frozen lake at the foot of the north face of the peak. A second expedition, September 7, follows the same route: very tricky climb through the corridor Tuquerouye in hard ice late in the season, return by parets of Pinewood and port. Ramond finds confirmation of his thesis: limestone, rich in fossils are marine sedimentary origin. His observations during these "expeditions" are the subject of his masterpiece: Travel to Monte Perdido and in the adjacent part of the Pyrénées appeared in the An IX of the French Revolution (1801). It was only in 1802 that Ramond decided to reach the summit of Mont Perdu.

On 6 August 1802 first known ascent to the summit of Mont Perdu by two Barèges guys, Rondo and Laurens led at the top by an Aragonese shepherd. Rondo and Laurens had been sent scouts to recognize the ascent route by Ramond Carbonnières that, with the same guides, realized the second ascent of Mont Perdu, 10 August 1802. The route followed was long and complicated: Valley Estaubé, port Pine, crossing parets from Pinewood to the col de Niscle east of Monte Perdido, glacier climbing and the southern slope terraces.

The painter 

Jean-Daniel-François Schrader, better known as Franz Schrader, was a French mountaineer, geographer, cartographer and landscape painter. He made an important contribution to the mapping of the Pyrenees and was highly considered among the pyreneists.

He is the son of Prussian Ferdinand Schrader from Magdeburg, who emigrated to Bordeaux, and of Marie-Louise Ducos, cousin of geographers Élisée and Onésime Reclus. He shows a talent for drawing from an early age.  In 1866, while staying with his friend Léonce Lourde-Rocheblave in Pau, he has a sort of revelation at the "spectacle grandiose de la barrière montagneuse des Pyrenées ".

His vocation strengthens when reading stories by Ramond de Carbonnières (1755-1827) (Les Voyages au Mont-Perdu) and by Henry Russell (1834-1909) (Les Grandes Ascensions des Pyrénées, guide d'une mer à l'autre).

While devoting the main part of his leisure to long hikes in the mountains, during which he gathers thousands of observations for his topographical records, he still finds time to paint numerous panoramas of the Pyrenees as well as the Alps which he also studies, and to acquire a solid formation in topography.

To facilitate topographical work in rugged terrain, he develops the orograph in 1873. His first great cartographic work, in 1874, is the map of the massif of Gavarnie-Mont-Perdu at a scale of 1:40 000, for which he collects the measurements with the participation of Lourde-Rocheblave from nearby Pau. That map triggers such a sensation that it is included in the annual Mémoires of the Société des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles de Bordeaux with an explanatory text the following year. The Club alpin français directory follows with the publication of an enthusiastic review, describing Schrader as qualified for "first rank topographer in a glorious master stroke". In 1876 he takes part in the creation of the Bordeaux section of the Club Alpin Français, becoming its first president.

In 1877 he travels to Paris with a recommendation from his cousins Élisée and Onésime Reclus. There, having met Émile Templier, nephew and collaborator of Louis Hachette, and Adolphe Joanne, president of the Parisian section of the Club Alpin Français, he is employed as a geographer by Librairie Hachette and is now able to practice his passion in the scope of his profession. He also gives geography lessons at the School of Anthropology and also becomes editor of the French Alpine Club directory

In 1927, three years after his death, his remains are transferred to a tomb on a slope of the Circus of Gavarnie (French Pyrenees).

_______________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE VIGNEMALE PAINTED BY FRANZ SCHRADER

FRANZ SCHRADER  (1844-1924)

Pique-Longue Vignemale (3,928m - 10, 820ft)

France - Spain border 

In Le Pic de Vignemale, 1900, oil on canvas. Private collection. 

The mountain 

The  Pic de Vignemale (3,928m - 10, 820ft)  also called in Occitan  Vinhamala and in Aragonese Comachibosa is the highest of the French Pyrenean summits, on the border with Spain (the highest in the whole of the range is Pic Aneto).
The Vignemale is the name given to the mountain massif, which also straddles into Spain. It consists of several distinct summits, the predominant ones being Grand Vignemale or Pique-Longue (3,298 m), Pointe Chausenque (3,204 m) and Petit Vignemale (3,032 m). The Vignemale is also the site of the second largest of the Pyrenean glaciers (after Aneto's one), the Ossoue (with around 0.6 kmІ), across which the "voie normale", or standard route to the summit travels.
One of its most dramatic aspects is the North Face upon which lie a number of serious ascent routes requiring skill and commitment. Below the North Face is the impressively situated mountain refuge - the Refuge des Oulettes de Gaube. The approach from the north entails a delightful walk up to and around the picturesque Lac de Gaube giving increasingly dramatic views of the mountain.
Almost synonymous with the Vignemale is the name of Count Henry Russell, an eccentric of the Victorian era who developed a lifelong passion for the mountain.

The painter 
Jean-Daniel-François Schrader, better known as Franz Schrader, was a French mountaineer, geographer, cartographer and landscape painter. He made an important contribution to the mapping of the Pyrenees and was highly considered among the pyreneists.
He is the son of Prussian Ferdinand Schrader from Magdeburg, who emigrated to Bordeaux, and of Marie-Louise Ducos, cousin of geographers Élisée and Onésime Reclus. He shows a talent for drawing from an early age.  In 1866, while staying with his friend Léonce Lourde-Rocheblave in Pau, he has a sort of revelation at the "spectacle grandiose de la barrière montagneuse des Pyrenées ".
His vocation strengthens when reading stories by Ramond de Carbonnières (1755-1827) (Les Voyages au Mont-Perdu) and by Henry Russell (1834-1909) (Les Grandes Ascensions des Pyrénées, guide d'une mer à l'autre).
While devoting the main part of his leisure to long hikes in the mountains, during which he gathers thousands of observations for his topographical records, he still finds time to paint numerous panoramas of the Pyrenees as well as the Alps which he also studies, and to acquire a solid formation in topography.
To facilitate topographical work in rugged terrain, he develops the orograph in 1873. His first great cartographic work, in 1874, is the map of the massif of Gavarnie-Mont-Perdu at a scale of 1:40 000, for which he collects the measurements with the participation of Lourde-Rocheblave from nearby Pau. That map triggers such a sensation that it is included in the annual Mémoires of the Société des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles de Bordeaux with an explanatory text the following year. The Club alpin français directory follows with the publication of an enthusiastic review, describing Schrader as qualified for "first rank topographer in a glorious master stroke". In 1876 he takes part in the creation of the Bordeaux section of the Club Alpin Français, becoming its first president.
In 1877 he travels to Paris with a recommendation from his cousins Élisée and Onésime Reclus. There, having met Émile Templier, nephew and collaborator of Louis Hachette, and Adolphe Joanne, president of the Parisian section of the Club Alpin Français, he is employed as a geographer by Librairie Hachette and is now able to practice his passion in the scope of his profession. He also gives geography lessons at the School of Anthropology and also becomes editor of the French Alpine Club directory.
On August 11, 1878, accompanied by high-mountain guide Henri Passet, he carries out the first known ascension of the Grand Batchimale (3,176 m), consequently renamed Pic Schrader.
In 1880, he is promoted director of cartography for Hachette and aims at surpassing in quality the Stieler Atlas, by German Adolf Stieler. On November 25, 1897, as vice-president of the C.A.F. he holds a conference at the Club Alpin which constitutes his true esthetic credo of the mountain and in which he announces the imminent foundation of a French school of mountain painting. The conference text title is : À quoi tient la beauté des montagnes (What makes the beauty of mountains); this speech is considered as the birth bulletin of La Société des peintres de montagne (Paris) and its text is reproduced in 1898 in the Club Alpin Français directory.
From 1901 to 1904, he  actively contributes to the Guides Joanne of the Librairie Hachette, which in 1919 became the  famous Guides bleus.
The scientific commission created by Franz Schrader in the Club Alpin Français still exists today, as well as the Société des Peintres de Montagne.
In 1927, three years after his death, his remains are transferred to a tomb on a slope of the Circus of Gavarnie (French Pyrenees).