LA SNIEJKA (LA NEIGEUSE) PEINTE PAR CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)
La Sniejka (1603m)
Pologne-Tchéquie

In Paysage du Riesengebirge avec brumes, 1820, Musée de l'Ermitage, Saint-Pétersbourg.

 

La montagne
La Sniejka (1603m), « la neigeuse », en tchèque) est la plus haute montagne des monts des Géants (Riesengebirge).  Elle est traversée en son sommet par la frontière entre la Pologne et la Tchéquie. On peut y accéder par un télésiège depuis la ville tchèque de Pec pod Sněžkou. Son point culminant est aussi celui de la Tchéquie. Le sommet a une superficie plane importante, de plus de 120 000 mètres carrés ce qui a permis d'y construire plusieurs bâtiments. La  Sniejka est le point de départ ou le but de nombreux chemin de randonnée pédestre, dont le chemin de l'Amitié tchéco-polonaise, cyclistes et de ski de fond.Le bâtiment le plus ancien est la chapelle Saint-Laurent, haute de 14 mètres et située du côté polonais. Les travaux de construction ont commencé en 1653 mais durent être interrompus à cause d'un litige territorial entre le comte de Schaffgotsch et le comte Czernin, ce dernier revendiquant la propriété du sommet de la montagne. Finalement, la chapelle fut construite entre 1665 et 1681. Depuis quelques années, une messe rassemblant hommes d'église tchèques et polonais y est célébrée le 10 août à l'intention des victimes d'accidents de montagne ainsi que des secouristes. La Sniejka se situe au niveau du jet stream ce qui lui donne son climat perturbé avec des rafales de vent pouvant être très violentes (345,6 km/h le 9 mars 1990). Le climat est polaire alpin proche d'un climat subpolaire (les moyennes de juillet et d'août sont proches des 10 °C).

Le peintre
Caspar David Friedrich, est un  peintre et dessinateur allemand, considéré comme l'artiste le plus important et influent de la peinture romantique allemande du 19e siècle, est particulièrement connu pour deux de ses tableaux: Le Voyageur contemplant une mer de nuages (1818) et La Mer de glace (1823-1824). En 1834, lors de la visite de l'atelier de Friedrich, le sculpteur David d'Angers a un mot célèbre pour définir l'art de Friedrich : « Cet homme a découvert la tragédie du paysage. »
D'après les propres écrits de Friedrich, tous les éléments de la composition ont une signification symbolique. Les montagnes sont des allégories de la foi ; les rayons du soleil couchant symbolisent la fin du monde préchrétien et les sapins représentent l'espoir. Les tonalités souvent froides, l'exposition claire et les contours contrastés des tableaux de Friedrich mettent en relief l'aspect mélancolique, les sentiments de solitude et d'impuissance de l'homme face aux forces de la nature, que le peintre a voulu exprimer tout au long de son œuvre. En 1820, Friedrich reçoit le grand-duc Nicolas (1779-1845), futur empereur de Russie, dans son atelier à Dresde. Celui-ci lui achète quelques tableaux mélancoliques pour sa résidence d'été à Peterhof, et lui commande un tableau devant représenter un paysage nordique dans son « effroyable beauté ». Ce tableau, Le Naufrage de l'Espoir (1820), aujourd'hui disparu, a longtemps été confondu avec un tableau de 1823/24, La Mer de glace. Ce tableau qui dépeint le naufrage d'un bateau écrasé par des blocs de glace renoue avec le thème de la mort et de la Nature toute-puissante.

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2011-2024 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau  

 

LE SOGNEFJORD PEINT PAR JOHAN CHRISTIAN DAHL

Johan Christian Dahl (Norwegian, 1788–1857)
Sognefjord (1000m)
Norvège

In Winter at the Sognefjord (February 1827) Huile sur toile, 75.5 x 61.5 cm. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

Le Fjord
Le Sognefjord (plus de 1000 mètres) Sognefjorden en norvégien, est un fjord situé au nord de Bergen, en Norvège. Le Sognefjord est le fjord le plus long d'Europe et le deuxième plus long du monde après le Scoresby Sund au Groenland ; il s'agit également du fjord le plus large de Norvège. Situé dans le comté de Sogn og Fjordane dans l'ouest de la Norvège, il s'enfonce dans les terres sur 204 kilomètres, jusqu'à la ville de Skjolden. Sa profondeur atteint 1 308 mètres en dessous du niveau de la mer. Les profondeurs maximales sont atteintes un peu à l'intérieur des terres : près de son embouchure, le fond du fjord monte de façon abrupte jusqu'à un plateau situé à 100 m en dessous du niveau de la mer. La largeur moyenne du Sognefjord est d'environ 4,5 km. Des falaises le surplombent jusqu'à des hauteurs supérieures à 1 000 m. Parmi les villes situées sur le fjord et ses bras, on peut citer Balestrand, Gudvangen et Flåm. La beauté du fjord en fait une destination touristique très prisée. De nombreuses croisières sont possibles sur le Sognefjord, été comme hiver. Une ligne touristique de chemin de fer, la ligne de Flåm, longe le Sognefjord.

Le peintre
Johan Christian Dahl (ou J. C. Dahl) est un peintre paysagiste norvégien. issu d'un milieu simple : son père étant un pêcheur modeste de Bergen, en Norvège. Enfant, Dahl étudie à la cathédrale de Bergen pour devenir prêtre, mais ses capacités artistique précoces l'amènent à tenter une carrière dans la peinture. De 1803 à 1809, il étudie avec le peintre Johan Georg Müller , dont l'atelier est alors le plus important de Bergen. Il se met à travailler la peinture pour des décors de théâtre, s'essaie à l'art du portrait et des vues de Bergen et de ses environs. Dahl poursuit ses études à l'Académie de Copenhague, ville dont il peint la campagne environnante. En 1812, il écrit à Lyder Sagen, l'un de ses mentors, que Jacob van Ruisdael et Caesar van Everdingen sont parmi les paysagistes qu'il a le plus imités.
 Dahl participe à des expositions d'art annuelles à Copenhague à partir de 1812, mais sa vraie percée se produit en 1815, quand il expose pas moins de treize tableaux. Le prince danois Christian Frederik veille à ce que ses œuvres soit achetées pour la collection royale ; il devient aussi un ami et un mécène de l'artiste. En 1816, Dahl rencontre C.W. Eckersberg et devient son ami. Après son succès à Copenhague, Dahl devient un artiste indépendant. Toutefois, ses préférences académiques demeurent attachées aux peintures historiques véhiculant des messages moraux, ainsi qu'aux paysages pourtant considérés comme un art bas et, dans certains milieux, même pas comme de l'art du tout mais comme une imitation purement mécanique de la nature. Les seuls paysages pouvant être considérés comme de l'art, selon l'Académie, sont des idéaux, des paysages imaginaires dans les styles pastoral ou héroïque. Conformément à ce goût régnant alors, Dahl tente de donner à ses thèmes danois un certain caractère atmosphérique afin de les élever au-dessus de ce qui est alors considéré comme un niveau artistique purement commercial. En même temps, il conserve intact son désir le plus profond de donner une image plus fidèle de la nature norvégienne. Cette volonté reste en partie motivée par la nostalgie et le patriotisme, mais il s'agit également d'une marque d'adaptation de la sensibilité de l'artiste au goût du public. En septembre 1818, Dahl se rend à Dresde. Il y rencontre Caspar David Friedrich qui l'aide à s'y établir et devient un ami proche. Un critique écrit : « Friedrich produit alors des paysages minutieusement exécutés - exemples d'un art informé par son éducation protestante stricte et d'une recherche de la volonté divine dans la nature - qui ont été à juste titre célèbres au moment où il fait la connaissance de Dahl. De cette période, nous sommes en mesure de voir ses Deux hommes contemplant la lune (1819) ; tout comme le tableau Greifswald au clair de lune (1816-1817) qui dépeint la ville natale de l'artiste, en Poméranie, sur la côte de la Baltique: baignant dans un même clair de lune. » De Dresde, Dahl voyage à la campagne pour rechercher des sujets qui pourraient lui être utiles dans les grands travaux qui seraient peints plus tard dans son atelier. Il écrit au prince Christian Frederik en 1818 que « la plupart du temps, [il] représente la nature dans toute sa liberté et sa sauvagerie ». Dahl a assez de matière dans la région de Dresde pour fournir des motifs pour ses peintures, mais il continue à peindre des paysages imaginaires de forêts, de montagnes et de cascades. Par exemple, une peinture intitulée Norsk fjellandskap med elv (Montagnes du paysage norvégien avec un fleuve), achevée en 1819, suscite une grande attention parmi les jeunes artistes. Une autre peinture, représentant une monumentale chute d'eau, est achevée en 1820. La même année, Dahl est accepté à l'Académie de Dresde. Le prince Christian Frederik écrit à Dahl en 1820 depuis l'Italie et l'invite à le rejoindre sur le golfe de Naples. Il y passe finalement dix mois. Ce séjour devient un facteur décisif de son développement artistique. C'est en Italie, avec sa forte lumière méridionale, que l'art de Dahl atteint véritablement son apogée.
Dahl est à Rome en février 1821. Il passe beaucoup de temps à visiter les musées, rencontre des artistes et peint. Parmi les sujets que lui inspire l'Italie, il peint le site de Rome et le golfe de Naples. En tant que membre de l'académie, Dahl consacre toujours une partie de son temps à la formation de jeunes artistes. En 1824, Caspar David Friedrich le nomme professeur extraordinaire, ce qui lui permet de recevoir un salaire régulier. Parmi ses élèves, figurent Knud Baade, Peder Balke et Thomas Fearnley. Avec son épouse, Dahl vit à Dresde à partir de 1823. En 1827, Emilie Dahl meurt quand elle accouche de leur quatrième enfant. En 1829, leur second enfant meurt de la scarlatine. En janvier 1830, Dahl épouse son élève Amalie von Bassewitz, mais elle aussi meurt en couches en décembre de la même année. Quelques années plus tard, son plus jeune enfant meurt, laissant Dahl avec deux enfants survivants, Caroline et Siegwald. Bien que vivant à Dresde, il multiplie les voyages en Norvège, où il se rend en 1826, 1834, 1839, 1844 et 1850, la plupart du temps pour peindre les montagnes. Lors de son dernier voyage en Norvège en 1850, il se découvre vieillissant et très affaibli, bien qu'il s'astreint à continuer de peindre des paysages dans les montagnes. Ce dernier voyage dans son pays natal est toutefois l'occasion pour lui de réaliser plusieurs de ses œuvres parmi les plus saisissantes.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

 

JABAL UMM QARNAYN PEINT PAR FRANZ-WILHEM JUNGHUHN

 

FRANZ-WILHEM JUNGHUHN (1809-1864)
Jabal Umm Qarnayn (307m)
Yemen

L'artiste
Friedrich Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn est un botaniste néerlandais. Il fait ses études à Halle et à Berlin. Il officie comme chirurgien dans l’armée prussienne puis comme médecin dans l’armée française en Algérie. Il s’installe à Java et y demeure le reste de sa vie à l’exception d’un passage en Hollande de 1849 à 1855. Il fait paraître Topographische und naturwissenschaftliche Reisen durch Java [1845], Java, seine Gestalt, Pflanzendecke, und sein innerer Bau (quatre volumes, 1850-1854), Die Bättalander auf Sumatra (1847). Il étudie la géologie, la géographie et la botanique de Java.Jabal

La montagne
Jabal Umm Qarnayn (307m) est une montagne au Yémen. Elle est située dans le district d'Al Milah et la province de Muḩāfaz̧at Laḩij, dans la partie sud-ouest du pays, à 260 km au sud de Sanaa, la capitale du pays. 307 mètres au-dessus du niveau de la mer est l'emplacement de Jabal Umm Qarnayn,  ou 51 mètres au-dessus du terrain environnant . Le terrain autour de Jabal Umm Qarnayn est principalement plat, mais au nord, il est vallonné. Le point culminant de la région est Jabal al Khulū, à 650 mètres au-dessus du niveau de la mer, à 7,6 km au nord de Jabal Umm Qarnayn. Il n'y a pas de ville aux alentours de Jabal Umm Qarnayn. Le climat est chaud.[ La température moyenne est de 32 °C. Le mois le plus chaud est juin, à 37 °C, et le plus froid est janvier, avec 26 °C. La pluviométrie moyenne est de 96 millimètres par an. Le mois le plus humide est septembre, avec 17 millimètres de pluie, et le plus sec est décembre, avec 1 millimètre.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

 

LE VÉSUVE PEINT PAR JACOB PHILIPP HACKERT

JACOB PHILIPP HACKERT (1727-1807)
Le Vésuve (1,281m)
Italie

In  L'éruption du Vésuve en 1774,  huile sur toile ,  70, 5 x 90, 5 cm, Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel


Le volcan
Le Vésuve ou mont Vésuve (Vesuvius mons en latin) est un Somma-stratovolcan italien d'une altitude de 1 281 mètres, bordant la baie de Naples, à l'est de la ville. Il s'agit du seul volcan d'Europe continentale à être entré en éruption durant les cent dernières années, sa dernière éruption datant de 1944. Entré en éruption à de nombreuses reprises au cours des derniers millénaires, il s'agit de l'un des volcans les plus dangereux du monde en raison de sa tendance explosive et surtout de la population importante qui vit à ses abords. Il est ainsi à l'origine de la destruction des villes de Pompéi, d'Herculanum, d'Oplontis et de Stabies, ensevelies en 79 sous les cendres ou une coulée pyroclastique. Il a inspiré de nombreuses légendes et représentations au cours des siècles. La montagne est classée parc national depuis 1995.

Le peintre

Jacob Philipp Hackert nest un peintre paysagiste prussien néoclassique qui commença sa formation artistique dans l'atelier de son père Philipp. Il se rendit, à partir de 1758, à l'Académie des Beaux-Arts de Berlin et en 1761, pour la première fois, deux de ses paysages retinrent l'attention.
Il fut invité par le baron Adolf Friedrich von Olthof à Stralsund, Rügen et Stockholm, où il réalisa des peintures murales. Au cours des années 1765 à 1768 il se rendit à Paris en compagnie de Balthasar Anton Dunker. Il y découvrit, Claude Joseph Vernet, le peintre avignonnais, déjà célèbre pour ses paysages et ses marines, ainsi que le graveur sur cuivre Johann Georg Wille. En 1767, lors d'un séjour en France, Hackert séjourna plusieurs mois dans la résidence de campagne de l’évêque du Mans, Louis-André de Grimaldi. Cette résidence était située à La Chaussée-d'Ivry, il y peignit une gouache sur papier. Après un voyage en Normandie et Picardie, en 1768, il partit avec son frère Georg en Italie, vers Rome et Naples. Il entra en relation avec Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein  et William Hamilton. Voyageant dans toute l'Italie, il se fit une réputation de talentueux peintre paysagiste. Puis, il fut appelé à la cour de Naples, auprès du roi Ferdinand IV de Bourbon. En 1778, de passage dans le Comtat Venaissin, il va véritablement innover en prenant pour la première fois le massif du Mont Ventoux comme seul thème dans son tableau Vue du mont Ventoux depuis les environs de Carpentras. En 1786, de retour à la Cour napolitaine, il y rencontra Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Dès lors les deux hommes se portèrent une estime réciproque. À la suite de l'insurrection des Lazzaroni de Naples, il s'enfuit à Livourne et à Pise, puis s'établit à Florence. Il décéda à San Piero di Carregio dans la campagne florentine. Après sa mort, en 1811, Goethe rédigea sa première biographie.  Il fut en son temps un artiste fort apprécié et contrairement à ses contemporains italiens, tel François Piranèse, qui peignait des paysages héroïques, il chercha toujours la précision et la fidélité.

 

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
            Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
            Un blog de Francis Rousseau

L 'ACROPOLE D'ATHÊNES PEINT PAR FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH

 

 

FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH (1826-1900)

L'Acropole d'Athènes (156m -512ft)

Grèce

In Acropolis od Athens,  oil on canvas, The MET

La colline
L'Acropole d'Athènes (156m -512ft) (Ακρόπολη Αθηνών) est situé sur un plateau rocheux calcaire dont le sommet plat mesure environ 270 mètres d'est en ouest et 85 mètres du nord au sud, s'élargissant jusqu'à près de 150 mètres grâce au travaux faits au  Ve siècle avant l'ère chrétienne. Le terme d"acropole" (ἀκρόπολις / akrópolis) vient de l'adjectif ἄκρος (ákros "haut") et du nom πόλις (pólis, "ville, ville"), signifiant ainsi  la "ville haute".
Il est accessible du côté ouest par une pente raide menant aux Propylées. Le plateau peut être aussi atteint par deux failles creusées par l'érosion sur la  face nord . Les faces est et sud  sont aussi inaccessibles. C'est même par le côté est, jugé trop escarpé et donc non surveillé, que les Perses pénétrèrent dans la forteresse en 480 avant l'ère chrétienne.
Le sanctuaire de l'Acropole d'Athènes s'organise autour de la statue de la divinité tutélaire de la ville. Cette statue d'Athéna Polias n'est connue que par quelques textes. Ce devait être un Xoanon, une sorte de poutre en bois d'olivier, presque aniconique.   Elle devait être plutôt debout : une poutre est difficile à asseoir et ressemble plus à un personnage debout qu'assis ; il n'y a pas non plus de mention de trône dans les textes ; enfin, Athéna est le plus souvent représentée debout.
Chaque année, la statue était lavée, ses péplos changés et sa parure (bijoux et accessoires) nettoyée. Ses bijoux étaient des boucles d'oreilles, une bordure sur le cou et cinq colliers. Ses accessoires, tout en or, étaient une chouette, une égide, une gorgone et une phiale. Elle n'avait pas d'armes : elle n'était donc pas la déesse guerrière des statues les plus célèbres par la suite (Athéna Parthénos et Athéna Promachos de Phidias). Ces bijoux et accessoires pourraient dater de la "restructuration" de la statue primitive par Endoios. Il aurait fait de la poutre une corée en y fixant un bras (et une main tenant la phiale)

Le peintre
Frederic Edwin Church  est un peintre américain dont l'œuvre constitue l'expression la plus originale et la plus complète du romantisme dans la peinture américaine. Church a le paysage pour domaine. Élève de Thomas Cole entre 1844 et 1846, il commence par recueillir les formules ambiguës de son maître et sa vision d'un immense paysage dramatisé. Mais, tandis que chez la plupart des peintres de l'école de l'Hudson l'exemple de Cole aboutit à un type de paysage composé, tout de poncifs, Church le renouvelle par une étude passionnément objective de la nature. À partir de 1890 environ, il entreprend de grands voyages à travers le continent américain, accumulant des études sur le motif, où l'action de la lumière est notée avec une précision quasi photographique. Ces études s'apparentent à celles d'Asher B. Durand, par exemple, et, comme lui, Church les utilise pour de grands paysages composés. Mais au lieu d'« idéaliser » l'observation initiale suivant les vieux procédés du paysage classique, il rejoint plutôt la jeune tradition « luministe » américaine, son hyperréalisme de la lumière qui donne la même intensité à tous les détails. Les motifs de prédilection de Church, inspirés par les terribles magnificences de la nature — montagnes, forêts vierges, glaciers, chutes d'eau (Le Niagara, 1857, Cocoran Gallery of Art, Washington ; Le Cœur des Andes, 1859, Metropolitan Museum, New York ; Le Cotopaxi, collection Aston, New York) —, rejoignent le répertoire du grand romantisme européen (Caspar David Friedrich, J.M.W. Turner...) et contiennent le même pouvoir de suggestion, le même symbolisme élémentaire et puissant. À un moment où le romantisme ne s'exprime plus guère dans la peinture européenne que sous une forme dérisoire, l'œuvre de Church constitue une réalisation saisissante du rêve exprimé par Baudelaire, qui, dans le Salon de 1859, regrettait que l'imagination doive fuir le paysage et évoquait avec nostalgie « le paysage romantique et même le paysage romanesque ».

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes ....
            Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
            Un blog de Francis Rousseau

PICO DEL TEIDE SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
Pico del Teide (3, 718 m -12, 198 ft)
Tenerife - Canari Islands - Spain

 In  "Intérieur du Cratère du Pic de Teneriffe " Dessin, Alexander von Humboldt

The mountain
Pico del Teide (3,718m - 12,198 ft) (« Teide Peak") is a volcano on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Spain. Before the 1495 Spanish colonization of Tenerife, the native Guanches called the volcano Echeyde, which in their legends referred to a powerful figure leaving the volcano, which could turn into hell. El Pico del Teide is the modern Spanish name.
Its summit is the highest point in Spain and the highest point above sea level in the islands of the Atlantic. If measured from its base on the ocean floor, it is at 7,500 m-24,600 ft the third highest volcano on a volcanic ocean island in the world after Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Its elevation makes Tenerife the tenth highest island in the world. It remains active: its most recent eruption occurred in 1909 from the El Chinyero vent on the northwestern Santiago rift.
Historical volcanic activity on the island is associated with vents on the Santiago or northwest rift (Boca Cangrejo in 1492, Montañas Negras in 1706, Narices del Teide or Chahorra in 1798 and El Chinyero in 1909) and the Cordillera Dorsal or northeast rift (Fasnia in 1704, Siete Fuentes and Arafo in 1705). The 1706 Montañas Negras eruption destroyed the town and principal port of Garachico, as well as several smaller villages.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus reported seeing "a great fire in the Orotava Valley" as he sailed past Tenerife on his voyage to discover the New World. This was interpreted as indicating that he had witnessed an eruption there. Radiometric dating of possible lavas indicates that in 1492 no eruption occurred in the Orotava Valley, but one did occur from the Boca Cangrejo vent.
The last summit eruption from Teide occurred about the year 850 CE, and this eruption produced the "Lavas Negras" that cover much of the flanks of the volcano.
About 150,000 years ago, a much larger explosive eruption occurred, probably of Volcanic Explosivity Index 5.
The United Nations Committee for Disaster Mitigation designated Teide a Decade Volcano because of its history of destructive eruptions and its proximity to several large towns, of which the closest are Garachico, Icod de los Vinos and Puerto de la Cruz. Teide, Pico Viejo and Montaсa Blanca form the Central Volcanic Complex of Tenerife.
In a publication of 1626, Sir Edmund Scory, who probably stayed on the island in the first decades of the 17th century, gives a description of Teide, in which he notes the suitable paths to the top and the effects the considerable height causes to the travellers, indicating that the volcano had been accessed via different routes before the 17th century. In 1715 the English traveler J. Edens and his party made the ascent and reported their observations in the journal of the Royal Society in London.
After the Enlightenment, most of the expeditions that went to East Africa and the Pacific had Teide as one of the most rewarding targets. The expedition of Lord George Macartney, George Staunton and John Barrow in 1792 almost ended in tragedy, as a major snowstorm and rain swept over them and they failed to reach the peak of Teide, just barely getting past Montaña Blanca.
During an expedition to Kilimanjaro, the German adventurer Hans Heinrich Joseph Meyer visited Teide in 1894 to observe ice conditions on the volcano. He described the two mountains as "two kings, one rising in the ocean and the other in the desert and steppes"
The volcano and its surroundings comprise Teide National Park, which has an area of 18,900 hectares (47,000 acres) and was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on June 28, 2007. Teide is the most visited natural wonder of Spain, the most visited national park in Spain and Europe and – by 2015 – the eighth most visited in the world, with some 3 million visitors yearly. A major international astronomical observatory is located on the slopes of the mountain.

The cartographer
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a While. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.

___________________________________________
2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE BASTEI CLIFF PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

 

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)
The Bastei Cliff (194 m - 636 ft)
Germany  / Czech Republic border

 In "Felsenschlucht", oil on canvas , 1822

 

The rock
The Bastei (194 m - 636 ft) is a rock formation rising 194 metres above the Elbe River in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains  (723 m - 2,372 ft) of Germany. Reaching a height of 305 metres above sea level, the jagged rocks of the Bastei were formed by water erosion over one million years ago. They are situated near Rathen, not far from Pirna southeast of the city of Dresden, and are the major landmark of the Saxon Switzerland National Park. They are also part of a climbing and hiking area that extends over the borders into the Bohemian Switzerland (Czech Republic). The Bastei has been a tourist attraction for over 200 years. In 1824, a wooden bridge was constructed to link several rocks for the visitors. This bridge was replaced in 1851 by the present Bastei Bridge made of sandstone. The rock formations and vistas have inspired numerous artists, among them Caspar David Friedrich in "Felsenschlucht" (above)
The spa town of Rathen is the main base for visiting the Bastei; the town can be reached from Dresden by paddle steamer on the river Elbe.
The Bastei is one of the most prominent lookout points in Saxon Switzerland. In 1819 August von Goethe extolled the views: "Here, from where you see right down to the Elbe from the most rugged rocks, where a short distance away the crags of the Lilienstein, Königstein and Pffafenstein stand scenically together and the eye takes in a sweeping view that can never be described in words." Today the Bastei still has the highest number of visitors of all the lookout points in Saxon Switzerland. In addition to the actual vista, there are also other points of interest. At the Jahrhundertturm, a rock pinnacle on the Bastei Bridge, there are tablets commemorating the first mention of the Bastei in travel literature (in 1797) as well as the memory of Wilhelm Lebrecht Götzinger and Carl Heinrich Nicolai. These last two were amongst the pioneers of tourism in Saxon Switzerland, thanks to their descriptions of their journeys and their other works. Another tablet commemorates the Saxon court photographer, Hermann Krone, who took the first landscape photographs in Germany at the Bastei Bridge in 1853. From the Ferdinandstein, part of the Wehltürme rock towers, there is a famous view of the Bastei Bridge. It is reached over a branch from the route to the bridge. Another well-known rock formation in the vicinity of the Bastei is the Wartturm, a large piece of which broke off in 2000. Neurathen Castle, the largest rock castle in Saxon Switzerland, may be reached from the Bastei by crossing the Bastei Bridge. The ruins of the castle, some timber rebates, rooms carved out of the rock, a cistern and stone shot from a medieval catapult or slingshot may be viewed on a self-conducted circular walk. A replica slingshot was put on display in the castle in 1986. The finds from excavations in the area, especially pottery, can also be seen. The climb from Rathen to the Bastei runs past an open-air museum dedicated to Slavic settlement in the region and also past the path leading to the Rathen Open Air Stage. Another famous landmark in the local area is the fortress of Königstein.

The painter
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization"....


_____________________________________
2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE DOM AND THE TÄSCHORN PAINTED BY W. F. BURGER

WILHELM FRIEDRICH BURGER (1882 -1964)
The Dom (4,545 m (14,911 ft)
The Täschhorn (4,491 m -14,734 ft)
Switzerland

In The Dom and Täschhorn above Zermatt, watercolour, 30.5 x 37.5 cm.
Courtesy John Mitchell Fine Arts London

 
The mountains
The Dom (4 ,545 m  -14,911 ft)  is a mountain of the Pennine Alps, located between Randa and Saas-Fee in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It is the seventh highest summit in the Alps, overall.  Based on prominence, it can be regarded as the third highest mountain in the Alps, and the second highest in Switzerland, after Monte Rosa. The Dom is the main summit of the Mischabel group (German: Mischabelhörner), which is the highest massif lying entirely in Switzerland. The Dom is noteworthy for its 'normal route' of ascent having the greatest vertical height gain of all the alpine 4000 metre peaks, and none of that route's 3,100 metres of height can be achieved using mechanical means. Although Dom is a German cognate for 'dome', it can also mean 'cathedral' and the mountain is named after Canon Berchtold of Sitten cathedral, the first person to survey the vicinity. The former name Mischabel comes from an ancient German dialect term for pitchfork, as the highest peaks of the massif stand close to each other.
The Täschhorn (4,491 m - 14,734 ft) is  lying south of the Dom within the Mischabel range.  Täschorn is a little lower than Dom but more difficult to access because there is mandatory rock climbing. Täschorn is a 3 sides pyramid.  East face is above Saas Fee, W face is above Täsch (last village before Zermatt), and huge South face is above Täschalp (Ottavan).  Each side belongs a glacier: on Täsch side is Kingletscher, on Ottavan side is Weingartengletscher, on Saas side is Feegletscher. The first ascent of the mountain was by John Llewelyn Davies and J. W. Hayward with guides Stefan and Johann Zumtaugwald and Peter-Josef Summermatter on 30 July 1862. The normal route is on the SE ridge starting from Mischabeljoch. To join the Mischabel pass, it's possible to come from either Saas Fee side or Täsch side.

 
The painter
Wilhelm, or Willy, Burger is nowadays widely recognized as one of the leading graphic artists of his time. His lithograph posters such as, Jungfraubahn. Station Jungfrau: Joch 3457m. Aletschgletscher, 1914 and St. Moritz, 1912are far better known – and more costly – than his oil paintings. However, he was first and foremost a painter by training who apprenticed in Zurich before leaving for Philadelphia and New York in 1908. He returned to Switzerland in 1913 where he set up a studio in Rüschlikon on the west shore of Lake Zürich from where he would travel throughout the Alps, the Mediterranean and as far afield as Egypt for his commissions. Although Burger cannot be categorized as a Symbolist in the strictest sense, his palette, his penchant for jagged outlines and his ethereal skies owe much to Ferdinand Hodler, the leading Swiss painter of the late nineteenth century. Hovering between Realism and Symbolism in style, this late afternoon view over the Zürichsee from the edge of the lake at Rüschlikon is an overt homage to Hodler who painted nearly 150 pictures of the Swiss lakes, many of them in a similar, panoramic format. Burger went so far as to sign his picture with a more spidery signature than usual – a pastiche of Hodler’s.
From 1901 onwards, Hodler began to concentrate on a series of acclaimed visions of Lac Léman (Geneva) in which he delineated horizontal bands of differing colours and tone. As he developed the theme of receding lines across the lake, or ‘parallelism’, as he called it, Mont Blanc and its surrounding peaks were introduced into the background. Hodler died in 1918 but in these late paintings he sought to express his concept of unité – the idea that there was a fundamental order to the universe and the artist’s role was to reveal it.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LOS FRAILES OR THE ORGANS OF ACTOPAN BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
WILHELM FRIEDRICH ( 1760-1820), engraver
The Organs of Actopan or Los Frailes (1,140 m - 3,740 ft)
Mexico (Hidalgo)

In Vues des Cordillères, et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique from the book  Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent, 1813

About this engraving and the mountain
On May 23 and 24, Humboldt would tour the Actopan Valley, and then leave on May 25 for Mexico City. During the visit, Humboldt drew and studied the Organs of Actopan, also known as Los Frailes,located 17 km southeast of Actopan in the municipality of El Arenal. Humboldt determines their height trigonometrically.In Actopan. The slender part of the rock is a hundred meters high; but the absolute elevation of the summit of the mountain, where the Organos begin to stand out, is 585 toises (1,140 m - 3,740 ft) .  It is on the way from Mexico to the mines of Guanaxuatotjuon distinguishes from very far away, and standing out on Thoiizon, the rock of Mamanchota: it rises in the middle of a forest of oaks, and oflers a very picturesque aspect. 

The artist and explorer
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.
___________________________________________
2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE GRINDELWALD GLACIER PAINTED BY THOMAS FEARNLEY

 

THOMAS FEARNLEY  (1802-1842)
The Grindelwald Glacier  (1, 349 m - 4, 425m)
Switzerland (Bernese Alps)

 In The Grindelwald Glacier, oil on canvas  1838, 194 x 157 cm, Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

About the painting
In The Grindelwaldgletscher, the highlight of Thomas Fearnley’s Swiss landscape paintings, the viewer gazes up from the grassy knoll in the foreground toward the bottom of a valley filled by a glacier. The majestic composition is based on Fearnley’s on-site observations. A sketch in pencil from August 1835 reveals a barren landscape in front of the glacier. The large trees, which form such an essential part of the picture’s overall composition, stem from studies of trees Fearnley made a week later in Scheideck. Fearnley has made the landscape more overpowering than in the original on-site drawing. The mountainsides are steeper and have been accentuated through light and shadow. The contrast to the everlasting ice and snow of the desolate valley is heightened by the lush vegetation in the foreground, where sheep graze under a shepherd’s supervision. Fearnley emphasizes the wild, inaccessible aspects of nature by letting a bird of prey glide above the glacier, even as he playfully includes a visual, English-based pun on his name by adding a tuft of fern next to his signature.
Scholars have noted how the composition and the balancing of the various landscape elements evoke the Düsseldorf painter Johann Wilhelm Schirmer (1807–63), whom Fearnley met during his sojourn in Switzerland. In romanticism, a pronounced contrast between warm and cold tones, as seen here, was also perceived as symbolizing the confrontation between life and death. Before the painting was completed, it was shown at the Paris Salon in 1836. Along with two paintings by J. C. Dahl, this painting and Fearnley’s The Labro Falls at Kongsberg (1837) were the first paintings by Norwegians artists to be acquired by the National Gallery.

The glacier
The Lower Grindelwald Glacier also known as the Lower Grindelwald Glacier is a glacier in the Bernese Alps, located southeast of Grindelwald, in the canton of Bern (Swiss). It originates under the Agassizhorn and the Strahlegghorn and is connected to the Unteraar glacier via the Finsteraarjoch (3,283 m). The Lower Grindelwald Glacier should not be confused with the Upper Grindelwald Glacier, located to the northeast. The Lower Grindelwald Glacier still has a major tributary, the Ischmeer (“sea of ​​ice” in Swiss German, formerly known as the “Grielwald-Fiescher Glacier”, German: Grindelwald-Fieschergletscher3), which is the glacier overlooked by the Eismeer station of the Jungfrau Railway.
The Lower Grindelwald Glacier was 8.3 km long and covered an area of ​​20.8 km2 in 1973. It has shrunk considerably since, being only 6.2 km long in 2015, the 1.9 km retreat being mainly intervened since 2007. In the middle of the 19th century, the glacier reached the valley of Grindelwald as far as Mettenberg, at an altitude of 983 m, near the confluence of the white Lütschine and the black Lütschine. In 1900 it still extended to the Rotenflue (1,200 m) and filled the whole valley from its present end, the glacial lake, with a thickness of about 300 m up to an altitude of 1,700 m, just below the current hiking trail around the Bänisegg. In the early 2000s, it had retreated to the gorge between the Hörnli (Eiger) ridge and the Mättenberg. 

The painter
Thomas Fearnley attended National Cadet Corps from 1814 to 1819. He was a student of the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry (1819–1821), Art Academy in Copenhagen (1821–1823) and the Art Academy (n Stockholm (1823–27) under Carl Johan Fahlcrantz. Fearnley left Copenhagen bound for Stockholm in the autumn of 1823 to complete a painting commissioned by Crown Prince Oscar of Norway and Sweden. He received several orders from the Swedish royal family and from other members of the royal court including Swedish Count Gustaf Trolle-Bonde. He conducted study tours in Norway (1824-1826), at which time he met Johan Christian Dahl in Sogn. After another stay in Copenhagen from 1827 to 1828 and a new Norwegian trip in the autumn of 1828, he went to Germany and was a student of Dahl in Dresden (1829–1830) as well as befriending the German painter Joseph Petzl and the German-Danish painter Friedrich Bernhard Westphal. He lived in Munich (1830–32). Fearnley traveled extensively in the 1830s, visiting Munich, Paris, London, Hull and the English Lake district. During September 1832, he went from Venice to Rome and visited Sicily the following summer. He mostly painted in small towns south of Naples: Castellammare, Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri and in Switzerland: Meiringen, Grindelwald. He went to Paris in the summer of 1835 and visited London the next year. During the summer of 1839 he was on a study tour to the Sognefjord and Hardangerfjord, together with the German painter Andreas Achenbach. Fearnley's paintings alternate between oil sketches and larger, composed landscapes meant for exhibition. His large studio compositions have a cool monumental attitude with a taste for the powerful and wildly romantic in the favorite motifs, wilderness and waterfalls, and with a strong emphasis on the image's architectural structure. The National Gallery in Oslo owns a total of 54 of his smaller pictures and sketches and also a series of drawings. Notable works in this collection include Labrofossen (1837), Grindelwaldgletsjeren (1838) and Slinde Birken (1839). Other notable collections are located in the Bergen Kunstmuseum and the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MILESOVKA PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

 

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)
Milešovka (837m - 2, 746ft)
Czech Republic

In Mountain Landscape with Rainbow ca.1809-1810, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

 
The mountain
Milešovka (837m - 2, 746 ft), an isolated phonolite cone, is the highest mountain of České Středohoří (Czech Central Mountains Range), a picturesque mountain range in northwest Bohemia, in Czech Republic. Situated right in the middle of the European Continent, it has a volcanic origin. The range covers an area of more than 1000 km2 with many hills typically volcano shaped. Their unique appearance were attracting numbers of naturalists, painters, poets and nature-lovers.
Mount Milešovka is located over the village of Milesov about 10km northwestward of Lovosice. The peak is ranked among the most windy mountains in Czech Republic. The very first chalet had been built up in 1825, other buildings soon followed as well as the outlook tower in 1850. The famous traveler Alexander von Humboldt is responsible for their construction, he labeled the view from Milesovka as "the third most beautiful in the world", making it really worth visiting. From there, one can see the scenery view of Ceske Stredohori, the Polabska nizina lowlands and the ridge of the Krusne hory mountains. Milesovka adjoins with a peak called Paskapole which is crossed by the road connecting Prague with Teplice.


The painter
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization"....
- More informations about Caspar David Friedrich life and work 

 _____________________________________
2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

COFRE DE PEROTE / NAUPA-TECVUTÉPTL SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859),
Cofre de Perote/ Naupa-Tecutépetl (4,282 m (14,049 ft)
Mexico

 The mountain
Cofre de Perote, also known by its Nahuatl names Naupa-Tecutépetl ,  meaning something like "Place of Four Mountain" or "Mountain of the Lord of Four Places", is an inactive volcano located in the Mexican state of Veracruz, at the point where the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, home to all of Mexico's highest peaks, joins the Sierra Madre Oriental. Cofre de Perote is Mexico's eighth highest mountain summit.
Cofre de Perote is a shield volcano, shaped very differently from the stratovolcanic Pico de Orizaba, which lies about 50 km (31 mi) to the southeast. A cofre is a coffer, and the name alludes to a volcanic outcropping on the shield which constitutes the peak of the mountain. To the north is the town of Perote, Veracruz, after which the mountain is named. The area surrounding the volcano was protected by the Mexican government as a national park, known as Cofre de Perote National Park (Parque Nacional Cofre de Perote), in 1937.

The artist
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.
___________________________________________
2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

EL CHIMBORAZO SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
Chimborazo (6,263 m-20,549 ft)
Ecuador

In  El Chimborazo vu de la plaine de Tapia, 1810

The mountain
El Chimborazo (6,263 m -20,548 ft) is a currently inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes ans the highest mountain in Ecuador and the Andes north of Peru ; it is higher than any more northerly summit in the Americas. Chimborazo is not the highest mountain by elevation above sea level, but its location along the equatorial bulge makes its summit the farthest point on the Earth's surface from the Earth's center.
Chimborazo is at the main end of the Ecuadorian Volcanic Arc, north west of the town of Riobamba. Chimborazo is in la Avenida de los Volcanes (the Avenue of Volcanoes) west of the Sanancajas mountain chain. Carihuairazo, Tungurahua, Tulabug, and El Altar are all mountains that neighbor Chimborazo. The closest mountain peak, Carihuairazo, is 5.8 mi (9.3 km) from Chimborazo. There are many microclimates near Chimborazo, varying from desert in the Arenal to the humid mountains in the Abraspungo valley.
Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around A.D. 550.
Until the beginning of the 19th century, it was thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth (measured from sea level), and such reputation led to many attempts on its summit during the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1746, the volcano was explored by French academicians from the French Geodesic Mission. Their mission was to determine the sphericity of the Earth. Their work along with another team in Lapland established that the Earth was an oblate spheroid rather than a true sphere. They did not reach the summit of Chimborazo.
In 1802, during his expedition to South America, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montufar, tried to reach the summit. From his description of the mountain, it seems that before he and his companions had to return suffering from altitude sickness they reached a point at 5,875 m, higher than previously attained by any European in recorded history. (Incans had reached much higher altitudes previously). In 1831, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault and Colonel Hall reached a new "highest point", estimated to be 6,006 m.
On 4 January 1880, the English climber Edward Whymper reached the summit of Chimborazo. The route that Whymper took up Chimborazo is now known as the Whymper route. Edward Whymper, and his Italian guides Louis Carrel and Jean-Antoine Carrel, were the first Europeans to summit a mountain higher than 20,000 feet. As there were many critics who doubted that Whymper had reached the summit, later in the same year he climbed to the summit again, choosing a different route (Pogyos) with the Ecuadorians David Beltrбn and Francisco Campaсa.


The cartographer and artist
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a While. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.

___________________________________________ 

2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

EL JORULLO SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
El Jorullo (1,329m- 4,360ft)
Mexico

 In Volcan de Jorullo,  Vue des Coridllères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique, 1816, Paris chez F. Schoell.

About this drawing
Alexander von Humboldt climbed El Jorullo during the Mexican portion of his scientific expedition to Spanish America. When he visited on 19 September 1803, its multiple cones were still smoldering and the air was extremely hot and filled with volcanic gases. He wrote a detailed description of the climb, noting that his face and those of his travel companions were burned. The volcano enriched the local soil and there was considerable vegetation. Humboldt sketched the volcano in the distance (see above), showing multiple smoking cones. Humboldt undertook the climb with his scientific travel partner Aimé Bonpland, as well as a local Basque settler Ramón Epelde, and two local indigenous servants, whose names have not been recorded. Humboldt noted their assistance on site. Humboldt also notes that he consulted a 1782 publication Rusticatio Mexicana, by Rafael Landívar, who calculated the height of the volcano and the temperature of the thermal waters.


The volcano
El Jorullo  (1,329m- 4,360ft) is a cinder cone volcano in Michoacán, central Mexico, on the southwest slope of the central plateau, 33 miles (53 kilometers) southeast of Uruapan in an area known as the Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field.  It is about 6 miles (10 km) east-northeast of La Huacana.  El Jorullo has four smaller cinder cones which have grown from its flanks.  El Jorullo's crater is about 1,300 by 1,640 feet (400 by 500 m) wide and 490 feet (150 m) deep.   El Jorullo is one of two known volcanoes to have developed in Mexico in recent history. The second, born about 183 years later, was named Parícutin after a nearby village that it eventually destroyed. Parícutin is about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of El Jorullo. El Jorullo was first erupted on 29 September 1759. Earthquakes occurred prior to this first day of eruption. Once the volcano started erupting, it continued for 15 years, eventually ending in 1774.
El Jorullo did not develop on a corn field like Parícutin did, but it did destroy what had been a rich agricultural area. It grew approximately 820 feet (250 meters) from the ground in the first six weeks. The eruptions from El Jorullo were primarily phreatic and phreatomagmatic. This 15 year eruption was the longest one El Jorullo has had, and was the longest cinder cone eruption known. Lava flows can still be seen to the north and west of the volcano.  Parícutin and El Jorullo both rose in an area known for its volcanoes. Called the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the region stretches about 700 miles (1,120 km) from east to west across southern Mexico. The eruptive activity deposited a layer of volcanic rock some 6,000 feet thick, creating a high and fertile plateau. During summer months, the heights snag moisture-laden breezes from the Pacific Ocean; rich farmland, in turn, has made this belt the most populous region in Mexico. Though the region already boasted three of the country's four largest cities: Mexico City, Puebla, and Guadalajara (the area around Parícutin, some 200 miles west of the capital), it was still a peaceful backwater inhabited by Purépecha in the early 1940s. The crater and lake can now be reached by car.


The artist
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes and Mountain paintings 
by Francis Rousseau

OPALA VOLCANO BY STEPAN KRASCHENINNIKOW

STEPAN  KRASCHENINNIKOW (1711-1755)
Opala volcano (2,475m-8100 ft)
Russia (Kamchatka)

 In Mountains of Kamtschatka, St Petersbourg 1755

The volcano
Opala (Опала)  (2,475m-8100 ft)  is a large stratovolcano located in South Kamchatka about 50 km west of the Eastern volcanic front.  The volcano sits on the northern rim of a 14x12 km large Late Pleistocene caldera. The summit of the volcano has a nice small crater. The most prominent feature at the foot of the volcano is Baranii Amphitheater - a large Novarupta-type crater filled with extrusive domes. This crater formed about 1500 years BP and produced 9-10 km3 of rhyolitic pumice that is about 4.5 km3 of magma. Later the crater was filled with extrusive domes. There was at least one later eruption within the crater, which formed explosive craters on the surface of the extrusive domes and produced minor pumiceous tephra.  Several hazy reports of Opala's historical eruptions were known, but no real evidence of recent eruptions had been found at the slopes of the volcano.  However,  later studies have allowed to document a significant explosive eruption from the summit crater, which occurred as recently as about 300 years ago and produced rhyolitic tephra (informally known as "Ghost layer"). Earlier eruptions from Opala produced lava flows and pumiceous tephra.  The eruption from Baranii  Amphitheater was one of the most voluminous explosive eruptions in Kamchatka during the Holocene.  Opala is undoubtedly an active volcano posing a serious hazard to the region.  Recent eruptions from Opala produced dominantly rhyolitic material that indicates a presence of living silicic chamber under the volcano. Holocene products of Opala volcano are high potassic andesites-rhyolites. Baranii Amphitheater crater produced uniform rhyolites without any admixture of more mafic varieties.  Opala volcano has been producing andesitic-dacitic lavas and tephras for most of Holocene; the last significant eruption of this kind was ab. 3500 14C yrs BP.  How was it possible to produce, accumulate, store and finally erupt - just in a couple of millenia - about 4.3 km3 of rhyolitic magma from the crater located on the volcano's slope, a mere 5 km from its summit? Was the OP eruptionit a part of the Opala volcano story or any special event? Why is this magma so similar to Chasha crater's one, stored 15 km away? These are genral questions to this volcano.

The artist 
Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (Степа́н Петро́вич Крашени́нников) was a Russian explorer of Siberia, naturalist and geographer who gave the first full description of Kamchatka in the early 18th century. He was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1745. The Krasheninnikov Volcano on Kamchatka is named in his honour. He embarked upon the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1731–42). Krasheninnikov was to study plants, animals and minerals, but in addition he developed a strong interest in Siberian history and geography. During the early part of the expedition, he accompanied professor Gmelin on the travel through the Urals and western Siberia to Yeniseysk. He made numerous observations of natural history, ethnology and linguistics, e.g. records of Evenki (tungus) and Buryat vocabulary. From Bering’s headquarters at Yakutsk, the expedition professors Gmelin and Gerhard Friedrich Müller sent Krasheninnikov ahead to Okhotsk and Kamchatka to build house and make preliminary observations. Thus, he became the member of the expedition with the most extensive knowledge of the peninsula. He published his observations in 1755 (Описание земли Камчатки); English translation by James Grieve (1764) as History of Kamtschatka. However, he drew extensively on the manuscripts of the deceased Georg Wilhelm Steller. Apart from detailed accounts of the plants and animals of the region, there also were reports on the language and culture of the indigenous Itelmen and Koryak peoples, with whom he is said to have got along extremely well. Krasheninnikov spent ten years on the Second Kamchatka Expedition. On his return to St Petersburg, he wrote and defended his doctoral thesis on ichthyology in 1745. He was appointed adjunct at the Academy of Sciences, and later head of the Academy's Botanic Garden and professor of natural history at the university. He was one of only 26 Russians to become Academy members in the 18th century. In 1752, Krasheninnikov went on his last expedition to the tracts of Lake Ladoga and Novgorod to investigate the flora. He died before being able to publish his observations, which instead were published by David de Gorter.

THE DACHSTEIN PAINTED BY KONRAD PETRIDES

KONRAD PETRIDES (1864-1944)
Hoher Dachstein (2, 995m - 9, 826ft)
Austria  

In Dachstein mit Gosausee, 1899,  Private collection

The mountain  

The Dachstein (2, 995m - 9, 826ft) is a strongly karstic Austrian mountain, and the second highest mountain in the Northern Limestone Alps. It is situated at the border of Upper Austria and Styria in central Austria, and is the highest point in each of those states. Parts of the massif also lie in the state of Salzburg, leading to the mountain being referred to as the Drei-Lander-Berg ("three-state mountain"). The Dachstein massif covers an area of around 20x30 km with dozens of peaks above 2,500 m, the highest of which are in the southern and south-western areas. Seen from the north, the Dachstein massif is dominated by the glaciers with the rocky summits rising beyond them. By contrast, to the south, the mountain drops almost vertically to the valley floor.
The summit was first reached in 1832 by Peter Gappmayr, via the Gosau glacier, after an earlier attempt by Erzherzog Karl via the Hallstätter glacier had failed. Within two years of Gappmayr's success a wooden cross had been erected at the summit. The first person to reach the summit in winter was Friedrich Simony, on 14 January 1847. The sheer southern face was first climbed on 22 September 1909 by the brothers Irg and Franz Steiner.
Being the highest point of two different Bundesländer, the summit is a popular goal in both summer and winter. In fine weather as many as 100 climbers may be attempting the ascent, leading to congestion at key sections of the climb.

The artist
Konrad Petrides was a Viennese landscape and stage painter in the studio Hermann Burghart, where the painters Anton Brioschi, Josef Kautsky, Georg Jany and Leopold Rothaug also worked. He also painted many veduras, especially from Lower Austria and East Tyrol. Petrides was a member of the Dürer League, in whose exhibitions he participated and whose silver medal he received in 1919. In 1904 he also received the gold medal at the World's Fair in St. Louis, USA.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

KLOOF CORNER/TABLE MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY NITA SPILHAUS

 

NITA SPILHAUS (1878-1967)
Kloof Corner in Table mountain / Hoerikwaggo (1,085 m - 3,558 ft) 
South Africa


In Klooof Corner, oil on canvas, 1920, Private collection

The mountain
Kloof Corner follows a prominent ridge the forms the right skyline of Table Mountain (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)   when viewed from the north – the iconic and best-known view of Table Mountain. The ridge terminates about 150 meters below the summit at the foot of sheer cliffs, from where you latch onto the India Venster route to gain the summit via a lengthy traverse to the back of the Table. As far as Table Mountain hiking goes, Kloof Corner is one of the more challenging routes. The route contains 3 chains to assist hikers up tricky rock bands; these should not be underestimated. A variation exists along the middle section, known as Kloof Corner Pinnacle and strictly adhering to the crest of the ridge to rejoin the original line further up. Great to do if you have time and want more scrambling and adventure.  A unique feature of the route is that it offers views towards the north (over the city) and the west (Camps Bay / Atlantic coast) at the same time at several points along the way. The ridge, known as Kloof Corner Ridge (a route name consisting of 3 nouns!) forms the great northwestern corner of the mountain, where the north and west sides meet. It’s one of the most conspicuous features on Table Mountain.
Table Mountain (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)  also called Hoerikwaggo is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa and forming part of the Table Mountain National Park. The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) from side to side, edged by impressive cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill, forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.

 The painter
Nita Spilhaus born Pauline Augusta Wilhelmina Spilhaus was a Portuguese-born South African painter, working in oil, watercolour and pastel. She is best known for her landscapes, paintings and etchings of trees, her portrayals of the Cape mountains, and depictions of the Malay Quarter.
Nita was raised by her grandfather in Lübeck, and her first training in drawing and etching took place at the Lübeck School of Art, then in Munich, where she attended a private art school run by Friedrich Fehr, the Dachau art colony just outside Munich under Adolf Hölzel, and copper engraving under Heinrich Wolff.
She moved to South Africa in 1907 because of the death of her grandfather in 1906, joining her brother Karl, and the family of her uncle Arnold Wilhelm Spilhaus.
She joined the 'South African Society of Artists' soon after her arrival. The Cape Times acknowledged her talent as a graphic artist by publishing a modest booklet of 12 etchings portraying scenes in and around Cape Town.
Working from a studio in Keerom Street in Cape Town she gradually became a leading member of Cape Town's art community. When Hugo Naudé visited Munich in 1913 she took over his art classes in Worcester.
Her oil paintings were Impressionist in style, her landscapes rich in atmosphere, while her flower studies are notable for their vivid colours. She had a particular affinity with trees and her striking images of the Stone Pines around Cape Town are a recurring theme in her work.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau