LE FITZ ROY /CERRO CHALTEN PEINT PAR JAMES HART DYKE

 

 

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966),
Le Fitz Roy / Cerro Chalten (3,405 m- 11, 171 ft)
Chilie - Argentine

In FitzRoy study last light, 2018, Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London

Le peintre
Le travail de James Hart Dyke est centré sur la peinture de paysages, allant du caractère aimable de la campagne anglaise jusqu’aux peintures issues d'expéditions physiquement exigeantes dans des montagnes isolées et lointaines. James Hart Dyke a été également conduit à mener à bien une série de projets aussi différent que celui d'accompagner SAR le prince de Galles (l'actuel roi Charles III) en tant qu'artiste officiel lors de tournées royales, de travailler comme « artiste en résidence » pour les services secrets britanniques, ou encore comme peintre de guerre intégré aux forces britanniques dans les zones de combat, mais aussi pour les producteurs des films de James Bond et enfin comme « artiste en résidence » pour Aston Martin. Ces projets  lui ont permis d'expérimenter des formes de peinture plus graphiques influencées par ses études d'architecte au Royal College of Art. Ses portraits sont exposés à la National Portrait Gallery et à la Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

La montagne
Le  Fitz Roy (3,405 m- 11, 171 ft), également connu sous le nom de cerro Chaltén, est une montagne située près du village d'El Chaltén, en Patagonie, à la frontière entre l'Argentine et le Chili. Le Fitz Roy se trouve dans la province de Santa Cruz (Argentine) et dans la région de Magallanes et de l'Antarctique chilien (Chili). Il a donné son nom au massif du Fitz Roy et s'élève à seulement cinq kilomètres au nord-est du cerro Torre. Son altitude est de 3 405 mètres. Il a été gravi pour la première fois par les alpinistes français Lionel Terray et Guido Magnone en 1952.
Le Fitz Roy est situé à la fois dans le parc national Los Glaciares (Argentine) et dans le parc national Bernardo O'Higgins (Chili).

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

AMA DABLAM PEINT PAR JAMES HART DYKE

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966),
Ama Dablam (6,812 m)
Népal

In Ama Dablam, Himalaya, watercolour and pencil on paper, John Mitchell Gallery courtesy

La montagne
L'Ama Dablam (6,812 m) est un sommet népalais de l'Himalaya dans la région du Khumbu. Il fait face au Taweshe. Il est situé dans le parc national de Sagarmatha, dans le massif du Khumbu Himal, au pied de deux 8 000 : l'Everest et le Lhotse.
Son camp de base - situé quasiment en fond de vallée de l'Imja Khola - est accessible en deux jours de marche depuis la capitale du pays sherpa, Namche Bazar. L'esthétique, la difficulté raisonnable et l'altitude de ce presque 7 000 en font un objectif prisé des expéditions commerciales.
Ama Dablam signifie « reliquaire de la mère » en référence au pendentif en forme d'étoile que portent les Sherpanis (femmes de l'ethnie sherpa).

Le peintre
Le travail de James Hart Dyke est centré sur la peinture de paysages, allant du caractère aimable de la campagne anglaise jusqu’aux peintures issues d'expéditions physiquement exigeantes dans des montagnes isolées et lointaines. James Hart Dyke a été également conduit à mener à bien une série de projets aussi différent que celui d'accompagner SAR le prince de Galles (l'actuel roi Charles III) en tant qu'artiste officiel lors de tournées royales, de travailler comme « artiste en résidence » pour les services secrets britanniques, ou encore comme peintre de guerre intégré aux forces britanniques dans les zones de combat, mais aussi pour les producteurs des films de James Bond et enfin comme « artiste en résidence » pour Aston Martin. Ces projets  lui ont permis d'expérimenter des formes de peinture plus graphiques influencées par ses études d'architecte au Royal College of Art. Ses portraits sont exposés à la National Portrait Gallery et à la Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

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

BLACKHEAD PAINTED BY EDWARD HOPPER

 

EDWARD HOPPER (1882-1967)

Blackhead (50 m-150 ft) 

United States of America (Maine)

1. In Blackhead, Monhegan, 1916-19,oil on canvas,  Whitney Museum of American Art, 

The mountain 

Blackhead (50m-150 ft) are northside cliffs situated on Monhegan, Manana Island, that have drawn the interest of  many artists.  The beginnings of the art colony on Monhegan date to the mid-19th century; by 1890, it was firmly established. Two of the early artists in residence from the 1890s, William Henry Singer (1868–1943) and Martin Borgord (1869–1935), left Monhegan to study at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1901. Among many early members who found inspiration on the island were summer visitors from the New York School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, such as Robert Henri, Frederick Waugh, George Bellows, Edward Hopper and Rockwell Kent. The Monhegan Museum celebrated more the continuing draw of the island for artists in a 2014 exhibit entitled, “The Famous and the Forgotten: Revisiting Monhegan’s Celebrated 1914 Art Exhibition.

Monhegan is a plantation in Lincoln County, Maine, United States, about 12 nautical miles (22 km) off the mainland. The population was 75 at the 2000 census. The plantation comprises its namesake island and the uninhabited neighboring island of Manana. The island is accessible by scheduled boat service from Boothbay Harbor, New Harbor and Port Clyde. It was designated a National Natural Landmark for its coastal and island flora in 1966.[

The name Monhegan derives from Monchiggon, Algonquian for "out-to-sea island." European explorers Martin Pring visited in 1603, Samuel de Champlain in 1604, George Weymouth in 1605 and Captain John Smith in 1614. The island got its start as a British fishing camp prior to settlement of the Plymouth Colony. Cod was harvested from the rich fishing grounds of the Gulf of Maine, then dried on fish flakes before shipment to Europe. A trading post was built to conduct business with the Indians, particularly in the lucrative fur trade.  It was Monhegan traders who taught English to Samoset, the sagamore who in 1621 startled the Pilgrims by boldly walking into their new village at Plymouth and saying: "Welcome, Englishmen." 

The painter
Edward Hopper was a American realist painter and printmaker.

Conservative in politics and social matters (Hopper asserted for example that "artists' lives should be written by people very close to them"), he accepted things as they were and displayed a lack of idealism. Cultured and sophisticated, he was well-read, and many of his paintings show figures reading. He was generally good company and unperturbed by silences, though sometimes taciturn, grumpy, or detached. He was always serious about his art and the art of others, and when asked would return frank opinions.

Hopper's most systematic declaration of his philosophy as an artist was given in a handwritten note, entitled "Statement", submitted in 1953 to the journal, Reality:

"Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the human intellect for a private imaginative conception.

The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone with stimulating arrangements of color, form and design.

The term life used in art is something not to be held in contempt, for it implies all of existence and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it.

Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature's phenomena before it can again become great."

 
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

NUPTSE PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE  (bn 1966)
Nuptse  (7,861 m - 25,791 ft)
Nepal

In Nuptse Himalaya ,2011, Acrylic on paper,  Courtesy John Mitchell  Gallery, London

The mountain
Nuptse or Nubtse is a mountain in the Khumbu region of the Mahalangur Himal, in the Nepalese Himalayas. It lies two kilometres WSW of Mount Everest. Nubtse is Tibetan for "west peak", as it is the western segment of the Lhotse-Nubtse massif.
The main peak, Nubtse I, was first climbed on May 16, 1961 by Dennis Davis and Sherpa Tashi and the following day by Chris Bonington, Les Brown, James Swallow and Pemba Sherpa, members of a British expedition led by Joe Walmsley. After a long hiatus, Nubtse again became the objective of high-standard mountaineers in the 1990s and 2000s, with important routes being put up on its west, south, and north faces. While Nubtse is a dramatic peak when viewed from the south or west, and it towers above the base camp for the standard south col route on Everest, it is not a particularly independent peak: its topographic prominence is only 319 m (1,047 ft). Hence it is not ranked on the list of highest mountains.

The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE TORRIDON HILLS SKETCHED BY WILLIAM TURNER OF OXFORD

 

WILLIAM TURNER OF OXFORD (1789-1862)
The Torridon Hills:
Beinn Alligin (986 m -3,235 ft)
Liathach (1, 055 m- 3,461 ft)
Beinn Eighe (1,010m -3,310 ft)
United Kingdom (Scotland)

In Before Sunrise, Loch Torridon, Rossshire,watercolor, 44,5 x 89 cm, 1856,
Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London

About this watercolor
At nearly three feet across this is one of William Turner’s largest known paintings, and belongs to the series of Scottish views which formed the major part of his output after his tour of Scotland undertaken in 1838. His expedition that year took him north from Inverness as far as Loch Inver, and then via Loch Torridon to Skye, whose hills and coast he explored thoroughly. The dramatic effect of the sun’s rays at dawn and the noble stag in the foreground combine with the grandiose scenery to conjure up all the appeal of Scotland which so captivated the popular spirit of the time; indeed, in studying this fresh and imposing watercolour, it is hard to escape the romantic overtones of Sir Walter Scott’s vision of the Highlands.
(From John Mitchell Gallery notice)

The painter
William Turner (1789-1862) was sent to London at the age of fifteen to take up an apprenticeship under John Varley, and was elected a full member of the Old Watercolour Society in 1808. It was in this period that J.M.W.Turner rose to fame, and as a result the younger artist became known as ‘Turner of Oxford’. His own reputation firmly established, he returned to his uncle’s estate at Shipton-under-Cherwell in 1812 and began to build up his practice as a drawing master in Oxford. His range of subject matter was vast, and he travelled throughout the British Isles in search of subjects – from the Wye Valley to the Lake District, from Wales and the Hebrides to the Isle of Wight, and he was a loyal exhibitor at the Society of Painters in Watercolour, submitting a total of 455 pictures, including this one. Turner of Oxford was described as follows: ‘Worthy and dignified, looking like a parson of the old school, dressed in black and wearing a white tie, he lived a hum-drum life at his house, 16 John Street, near Worcester College, where he resided from 1833 till his death on 7th August 1862’ (quoted in Martin Hardie, ‘William Turner of Oxford’, Old Watercolour Society’s Club, Vol. IX (1931-32). It is worth noting that in signing this present painting on the reverse, Turner includes his Oxford address.
(From John Mitchell Gallery notice)

The mountains
The Torridon Hills. The loch Torridon is surrounded by various mountains to the north, including Liathach, Beinn Alligin and Beinn Eighe, all of which are over 3,000 feet (910 m) in height. The Torridon Hills exhibit dramatic mountain scenery. The rocks of which they are made are known as Torridonian sandstone, some of which are crowned by white Cambrian quartzite. They are amongst the oldest rocks in Britain, and sit on yet older rocks, Lewisian gneiss.

Beinn Alligin (986 m -3,235 ft) on left , is one of the classic mountains of the Torridon region of Scotland, lying to the north of LochTorridon, in the Highlands. The name Beinn Alligin is from the Scottish Gaelic, meaning Jewelled Hill. The mountain has two peaks of Munro status: Tom na Gruagaich (922 metres -3,025 ft)) to the south, and Sgùrr Mhòr at 986 metres -3,235 ft) to the north. One of the most prominent features of Beinn Alligin is a great cleft known as Eag Dhubh na h-Eigheachd (black gash of the wailing) or Leum na Caillich, which cuts into the ridge south of the summit. It is the scar of the most spectacular rockslide or rock avalanche in Britain, which runs out into the corrie of Toll a' Mhadaidh Mor. It occurred around 3750 years ago and is around 3.5 million cubic metres in volume. According to local folklore shepherds on the mountain would hear cries from the gash; those who investigated the source of these cries would inevitably fall to their deaths. Beinn Alligin lies on the National Trust for Scotland's Torridon Estate, which has been owned by the charity since 1967, and forms part of both a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC). 

Liathach  (1,055 m- 3,461 ft) in the center of the waterolor is a mountain in the Torridon Hills. It lies to the north of the A896 road, in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, and has two peaks of Munro status: Spidean a' Choire Lèith at the east of the main ridge, and Mullach an Rathain at the western end of the mountain. The name Liathach is pronounced in Scottish Gaelic, and means 'The grey one'. When seen from the roadside below, its slopes appear to rise up in a series of near vertical rocky terraces. 

Beinn Eighe (1,010m -3,310 ft)  on right is a complex mountain massif in the Torridon area of Wester Ross in the Highlands of Scotland. Lying to the south of Loch Maree, it forms a long ridge with many spurs and summits, two of which are classified as Munros. The name Beinn Eighe comes from the Scottish Gaelic meaning file mountain.[ Unlike most other hills in the area it has a cap of Cambrian basal quartzite which gives the peaks of Beinn Eighe a distinctive light colour. Its complex topography has made it popular with both hillwalkers and climbers and the national nature reserve on its northern side makes it an accessible mountain for all visitors.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

TORRES DEL PAINE (4) PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)

Torres del Paine (2,500 m - 8,200 ft) 

Chile

In Torres del Paine first lights, study 2017, Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery London  

The mountains
The Torres del Paine (2,500 metres - 8,200 ft) are the distinctive three granite peaks of the Paine mountain range or Paine Massif. They are known as Torres d'Agostini, Torres Central and Torres Monzino. They are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. The area also boasts valleys, rivers such as the Paine, lakes, and glaciers. The well-known lakes include Grey, Pehoé, Nordenskiöld, and Sarmiento. The glaciers, including Grey, Pingo and Tyndall, belong to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.
he landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the spectacular granite spires and mountains of the massif. These are: Valle del Francés (French Valley), Valle Bader, Valle Ascencio, and Valle del Silencio (Silence Valley).The Southern Patagonian Ice Field mantles a great portion of the park.


The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

___________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

TORRES DEL PAINE (2) PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)
Torres del Paine (2,500 m - 8,200 ft)
Chile

In Los Cuernos del Paine last light, oil on vanvas 2018, courtesy John Mitchell Gallery 

The mountains
The Torres del Paine (2,500 metres - 8,200 ft) are the distinctive three granite peaks of the Paine mountain range or Paine Massif. They are known as Torres d'Agostini, Torres Central and Torres Monzino. They are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. The area also boasts valleys, rivers such as the Paine, lakes, and glaciers. The well-known lakes include Grey, Pehoé, Nordenskiöld, and Sarmiento. The glaciers, including Grey, Pingo and Tyndall, belong to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.
he landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the spectacular granite spires and mountains of the massif. These are: Valle del Francés (French Valley), Valle Bader, Valle Ascencio, and Valle del Silencio (Silence Valley).
The Southern Patagonian Ice Field mantles a great portion of the park.

The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

___________________________________________
2021 - Wandering Vertexes and Mountain paintings
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY JOHN MARTIN

JOHN MARTIN (1789-1854)
Mount Vesuvius (1,281m - 4,203ft)
Italy

In The destruction of Pompei in 79. c.1821, Tate Britain, London

The painter
John Martin was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator. He was celebrated for his typically vast and melodramatic paintings of religious subjects and fantastic compositions, populated with minute figures placed in imposing landscapes. Martin's paintings, and the prints made from them, enjoyed great success with the general public—in 1821 Thomas Lawrence referred to him as "the most popular painter of his day"—but were lambasted by John Ruskin and other critics. Martin's large paintings were closely connected with contemporary dioramas or panoramas, popular entertainments in which large painted cloths were displayed, and animated by the skilful use of artificial light. Martin has often been claimed as a forerunner of the epic cinema, and there is no doubt that the pioneer director D. W. Griffith was aware of his work." In turn, the diorama makers borrowed Martin's work, to the point of plagiarism. A 2,000-square-foot (190 m2) version of Belshazzar's Feast was mounted at a facility called the British Diorama in 1833; Martin tried, but failed, to shut down the display with a court order. Another diorama of the same picture was staged in New York City in 1835. These dioramas were tremendous successes with their audiences, but wounded Martin's reputation in the serious art world.

The volcano
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 m- 4,203 ft at present) 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.
Vesuvius was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the oceanic African plate were pushed to hotter depths in the earth, the water boiled off and caused the melting point of the upper mantle to drop enough to create partial melting of the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak place at the Earth's surface it broke through, producing the volcano.
he area around Vesuvius was officially declared a national park on June 5, 1995. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors and there is a small network of paths around the mountain that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends.
There is access by road to within 200 metres (660 ft) of the summit (measured vertically), but thereafter access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the mountain from the road to the crater.
The first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius opened in 1880. It was later destroyed by the 1944 eruption. "Funiculì, Funiculà", a famous Neapolitan song with lyrics by journalist Peppino Turco set to music by composer Luigi Denza, commemorates its opening.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

TOIRRES DEL PAINE PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)

Torres del Paine (2,500 m - 8,200 ft) 

Chile 

In Torres del paine and single cloud, oil on vanvas 2018, courtesy John Mitchell Gallery

The mountains
The Torres del Paine  (2,500 metres - 8,200 ft)  are the distinctive three granite peaks of the Paine mountain range or Paine Massif. They are known as Torres d'Agostini, Torres Central and Torres Monzino. They  are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. The area also boasts valleys, rivers such as the Paine, lakes, and glaciers. The well-known lakes include Grey, Pehoé, Nordenskiöld, and Sarmiento. The glaciers, including Grey, Pingo and Tyndall, belong to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.
he landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the spectacular granite spires and mountains of the massif. These are: Valle del Francés (French Valley), Valle Bader, Valle Ascencio, and Valle del Silencio (Silence Valley).
The Southern Patagonian Ice Field mantles a great portion of the park.

The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

___________________________
2020 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

CERRO TORRE (3) PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)

Cerro Torre (3,128 m - 10,262 ft)

Argentina, Chile border

In Cerro Torre, 2018, oil on canvas, Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery London

The mountain
Cerro Torre (3,128 m - 10,262 ft) is one of the mountains of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in South America. It is located in the border between Argentina and Chile, west of Cerro Chalten /Fitz Roy. The peak is the highest in a four mountain chain: the other peaks are Torre Egger (2,685 m), Punta Herron, and Cerro Standhardt. The top of the mountain often has a mushroom of rime ice, formed by the constant strong winds, increasing the difficulty of reaching the actual summit.
Cesare Maestri claimed in 1959 that he and Toni Egger had reached the summit and that Egger had been swept to his death by an avalanche while they were descending. Maestri declared that Egger had the camera with the pictures of the summit, but this camera was never found. Inconsistencies in Maestri's account, and the lack of bolts, pitons or fixed ropes on the route, have led most mountaineers to doubt Maestri's claim.
More about the mountain =>

The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

___________________________
2020 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

CERRO TORRE PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)
Cerro Torre (3,128 m - 10,262 ft)
Argentina, Chile border

In  Cerro Torre, 2018, oil on canvas, Courtesy Gallery John Mitchell, London

The mountain
 Cerro Torre (3,128 m - 10,262 ft) is one of the mountains of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in South America. It is located in the border between Argentina and Chile, west of Cerro Chalten /Fitz Roy. The peak is the highest in a four mountain chain: the other peaks are Torre Egger (2,685 m), Punta Herron, and Cerro Standhardt. The top of the mountain often has a mushroom of rime ice, formed by the constant strong winds, increasing the difficulty of reaching the actual summit.
Cesare Maestri claimed in 1959 that he and Toni Egger had reached the summit and that Egger had been swept to his death by an avalanche while they were descending. Maestri declared that Egger had the camera with the pictures of the summit, but this camera was never found. Inconsistencies in Maestri's account, and the lack of bolts, pitons or fixed ropes on the route, have led most mountaineers to doubt Maestri's claim.
In 2005, Ermanno Salvaterra, Rolando Garibotti and Alessandro Beltrami, after many attempts by world-class alpinists, put up a confirmed route on the face that Maestri claimed to have climbed. They did not find any evidence of previous climbing on the route described by Maestri and found the route significantly different from Maestri's description. In 2015 Rolando Garibotti published evidence that the information provided by Maestri do not agree with respect to the alleged summit ascent. Instead he and Egger were on the western flank of Perfil de Indio.
Maestri went back to Cerro Torre in 1970 with Ezio Alimonta, Daniele Angeli, Claudio Baldessarri, Carlo Claus and Pietro Vidi, trying a new route on the southeast face. With the aid of a gas-powered compressor drill, Maestri equipped 350 m of rock with bolts and got to the end of the rocky part of the mountain, just below the ice mushroom. Maestri claimed that "the mushroom is not part of the mountain" and did not continue to the summit. The compressor was left, tied to the last bolts, 100 m below the top. Maestri was heavily criticised for the "unfair" methods he used to climb the mountain.
The route Maestri followed is now known as the Compressor route and was climbed to the summit in 1979 by Jim Bridwell and Steve Brewer. Most parties consider the ascent complete only if they summit the often-difficult ice-rime mushroom.
The first undisputed ascent was made in 1974 by the "Ragni di Lecco" climbers Daniele Chiappa, Mario Conti, Casimiro Ferrari, and Pino Negri.

The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

 ___________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE FITZ ROY / CERRO CHALTEN PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)

The Fitz Roy / Cerro Chalten (3,405 m- 11, 171 ft)

Chile - Argentina border

In Fitz Roy and Laguna Sucia, sunlight on glacier, 2018, 

Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London, oil on gesso on panel, 57 x 57 cm.

The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

The mountain 
Fitz Roy / Cerro Chalten (3,405m- 11, 171 ft) is a mountain located near El Chaltèn village, in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in Patagonia, on the border between Argentina and Chile. First climbed in 1952 by French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, " The Fitz Roy " remains among the most technically challenging mountains for mountaineers on Earth. Mount Fitz Roy is the basis for the Patagonia clothing logo following Yvon Chouinard's ascent and subsequent film in 1968.
Argentine explorer Francisco Moreno first saw the mountain on 2 March 1877. He named it Fitz Roy, in honour of Robert FitzRoy, who, as captain of the HMS Beagle had travelled up the Santa Cruz River in 1834 and charted large parts of the Patagonian coast.
Cerro is a Spanish word meaning mountain, while Chaltèn comes from a Tehuelche (Aonikenk) word meaning "smoking mountain", due to a cloud that usually forms around the mountain's peak. Fitz Roy, however, was only one of a number of peaks the Tehuelche called Chaltèn.
It has been agreed by Argentina and Chile that their international border detours eastwards to pass over the main summit, but a large part of the border to the south of the summit, as far as Cerro Murallуn, remains undefined.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

SCHNEEKOPPE (3) PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)

Schneekoppe or Sněћka or Śnieżka (1,603m - 2,259ft) 

Poland - Czech Republic border   

 In Ruine im Riesengebirge, oil on canvas, Pommersches Landesmuseum

The mountain 

Schneekoppe (1,603m  - 2,259ft) in German or Sněћka in Czech or Śnieżka in Polish, is a mountain on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland, the most prominent point of the Silesian Ridge in the Krkonoše mountains. Its summit is the highest point in the Czech Republic, in the Krkonoše and in the entire Sudetes range system.

The first historical account of an ascent to the peak is in 1456, by an unknown Venetian merchant searching for precious stones. The first settlements on the mountain soon appeared, being primarily mining communities, tapping into its deposits of copper, iron and arsenic. The mining shafts, totalling 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) in length, remain to this day.

The first recorded German name was Riseberg ("giant mountain"), mentioned by Georg Agricola in 1546. Fifteen years later the name Riesenberg appears on Martin Helwig's map of Silesia. The German name later changed to Riesenkoppe ("giant top") and finally to Schneekoppe ("snow top", "snowy head").

In Czech, the mountain was initially called Pahrbek Sněžný. Later Sněžka, with the eventual name Sněžovka, meaning "snowy" or "snow-covered", which was adopted in 1823. 

An older Polish name for the mountain was Góra Olbrzymia, meaning "giant mountain".

The first building on the mountaintop was the Chapel of Saint Lawrence (Laurentiuskapelle), built ca. 1665–1681 by the Silesian Schaffgotsch family to mark their dominion, serving also as an inn for a brief period of time. The territory including the mines were the property of the Schaffgotsch family until 1945. The so-called Prussian hut was built on the Silesian (now Polish) side in 1850, followed by the Bohemian hut on the Bohemian (now Czech) side in 1868, both built with the purpose of providing lodging. The Prussian hut was rebuilt twice after fires (1857 and 1862), and the (after 1945) "Polish hut" was finally demolished in 1967. The Bohemian hut fell into disrepair after 1990 and was demolished in 2004.

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 Friedrich, 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".
Friedrich's work brought him renown early in his career, and contemporaries such as the French sculptor David d'Angers (1788–1856) spoke of him as a man who had discovered "the tragedy of landscape". Nevertheless, his work fell from favour during his later years, and he died in obscurity, and in the words of the art historian Philip B. Miller, "half mad". As Germany moved towards modernisation in the late 19th century, a new sense of urgency characterized its art, and Friedrich's contemplative depictions of stillness came to be seen as the products of a bygone age. The early 20th century brought a renewed appreciation of his work, beginning in 1906 with an exhibition of thirty-two of his paintings and sculptures in Berlin. By the 1920s his paintings had been discovered by the Expressionists, and in the 1930s and early 1940s Surrealists and Existentialists frequently drew ideas from his work. The rise of Nazism in the early 1930s again saw a resurgence in Friedrich's popularity, but this was followed by a sharp decline as his paintings were, by association with the Nazi movement, interpreted as having a nationalistic aspect.  It was not until the late 1970s that Friedrich regained his reputation as an icon of the German Romantic movement and a painter of international importance.
Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. In line with the Romantic ideals of his time, he intended his paintings to function as pure aesthetic statements, so he was cautious that the titles given to his work were not overly descriptive or evocative. It is likely that some of today's more literal titles, such as The Stages of Life, were not given by the artist himself, but were instead adopted during one of the revivals of interest in Friedrich. Complications arise when dating Friedrich's work, in part because he often did not directly name or date his canvases. He kept a carefully detailed notebook on his output, however, which has been used by scholars to tie paintings to their completion dates.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE MONT BLANC BY JOHN RUSKIN

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m - 15,776 ft)

 France- Italy border  

In The Mont Blanc from Saint Martin sur Arve, watercolour, 

Ashmoleum Museum- Oxford University.

The mountain 

 The Mont Blanc  4,808.73 m (15,777 ft)  or Monte Bianco, both meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe after the Caucasus peaks. It is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence.  The Mont Blanc is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass.  The 7 highest summits, (which are obviously 8 with 2 in Europe !) are :  

Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m),  Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Mount Vinson (4,892m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.

The mountain lies in a range called the Graian Alps, between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France. The location of the summit is on the watershed line between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy and the valleys of Montjoie, and Arve in France. The Mont Blanc massif is popular for mountaineering, hiking, skiing, and snowboarding.

The three towns and their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valley, Italy, and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and Chamonix in Haute-Savoie, France.  A cable car ascends and crosses the mountain range from Courmayeur to Chamonix, through the Col du Géant. Constructed beginning in 1957 and completed in 1965, the 11.6 km (7¼ mi) Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two countries and is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes.

Since the French Revolution, the issue of the ownership of the summit has been debated. 

From 1416 to 1792, the entire mountain was within the Duchy of Savoy. In 1723 the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, acquired the Kingdom of Sardinia. The resulting state of Sardinia was to become preeminent in the Italian unification.[ In September 1792, the French revolutionary Army of the Alps under Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou-Fézensac seized Savoy without much resistance and created a department of the Mont-Blanc. In a treaty of 15 May 1796, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France.  A Sardinian Atlas map of 1869 showing the summit lying two thirds in Italy and one third in France.

Although the Franco-Italian border was redefined in both 1947 and 1963, the commission made up of both Italians and French ignored the Mont Blanc issue. In the early 21st century, administration of the mountain is shared between the Italian town of Courmayeur and the French town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, although the larger part of the mountain lies within the commune of the latter.

The painter 

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
He was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century, and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature".  From the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.
About mountains he painted quite a lot of times, Ruskin wrote: "They are the great cathedrals of the earth, with their portals of rock, the mosaics of clouds, the choirs of  torrents, and the altars of snow, sometimes with purple sparkling stars." and  "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery."

GROSSGLOCKNER BY HEINRICH. C. BERANN

HEINRICH C. BERANN  (1915-1999) 

Grossglockner or Glokner (3,798 m - 12,460ft)

Austria 

 In  Grossglockner poster, 1932

The mountain  

The Grossglockner (or just Glockner) (3,798 m - 12,460 ft) is above the Adriatic, the highest mountain of Austria and the highest mountain in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. It is part of the larger Glockner Group of the Hohe Tauern range, situated along the main ridge of the Central Eastern Alps and the Alpine divide. The Pasterze, Austria's most extended glacier, lies on the Grossglockner's eastern slope. The characteristically pyramid-shaped peak actually consists of two pinnacles, the Grossglockner and the Kleinglockner (3,770 m -12,370 ft), from German: klein, "small"), separated by a saddle-like formation known as the Glocknerscharte.

The history of the climbs started with French-born natural scientist Belsazar Hacquet, from 1773 professor of anatomy at the Academy of Ljubljana. He travelled the Eastern Alps from 1779 to 1781 and published an itinerary in 1783, describing the Glokner mountain and stating that it had not been climbed yet. He estimated the mountain's height with converted (3,793 m -12,444 ft) and left an engraving illustrating Grossglockner and Pasterze, the first known depiction of the mountain.

Inspired by Hacquet's book and the first ascent of the Mont Blanc in 1786, the Gurk prince-bishop Count Franz Xaver of Salm (1749–1822) together with his vicar general Sigismund Ernst Hohenwart  (1745–1825) and Baron Franz Xaver von Wulfen (1728–1805) started efforts for a Grossglockner expedition. They engaged two peasants from Heiligenblut as mountain guides to do the first explorations for an ascent through the Leitertal valley, which is the side of Grossglockner with the least ice (people feared glaciers in these times). These valiant men, called "Glockners" in the records, did more than they were ordered to do - and probably reached the Kleinglockner summit on 23 July 1799.

One month later the bishop's expedition started: a mountain hut (the first Salm Hut) had been built and the path in the Leitertal valley was prepared so that the bishop could use a horse to reach it. 30 people, among them Salm, Hohenwart and Wulfen, were part of the expedition. They suffered with bad weather and a first effort failed, but on 25 August 1799 Hohenwart and at least four other people, including the two "Glockners", reached - again - the Kleinglockner, where they installed one of the first summit crosses (one of the main goals of the church expedition). Hohenwart's reports did not tell clearly that they had not touched the highest point but Bishop Salm (who had reached the Adlersruhe rock at 3,454 m (11,332 ft)) was informed. Dissatisfied, he invited another, even bigger expedition the next year.

On 28 July 1800, 62 people, among them the pedagogue Franz Michael Vierthaler and the botanist David Heinrich Hoppe, started again into the Leitertal valley. Four peasants and carpenters (the "Glockners" and two others who are not known) did a track in the snow, had installed fixed ropes at some steeper sections up to the end of the Glocknerleitl, and even built a second refuge, called Hohenwarte Hut. The vanguard reached the Kleinglockner peak, however, according to the expedition records by the Dellach priest Franz Joseph Horasch (Orasch), only the four guides and Mathias Hautzendorfer, the local priest of the Rangersdorf parish, were able to cross the Obere Glocknerscharte and climb the Grossglockner summit. Hautzendorfer had to be persuaded to venture the step and administered the last rites in advance.

The two "Glockners" are usually identified as the brothers Joseph (Sepp) and Martin Klotz, however, this surname is not listed in the Heiligenblut parish register. A local peasant named Sepp Hoysen is documented as a member of the second Grossglockner expedition in 1802, and the surveyor Ulrich Schiegg mentioned one Martin Reicher as "Glockner" guide. The peasants and several other members of the expedition (among them Schiegg and his young apprentice Valentin Stanič, who climbed Mt. Watzmann for the first time some weeks later) did the ascent again the next day and finally installed the summit cross and a barometer on the Grossglockner summit.

Bishop Salm undertook two more ascents in 1802 (with Hohenwart reaching the summit) and in 1806, however, he himself never climbed beyond the Adlersruhe rock. The climbing of the Grossglockner was also described by the botanist Josef August Schultes, who explored the massif together with Count Apponyi in 1802. No further ascents were made during the Napoleonic Wars, the huts decayed and were plundered by locals. In the following Vormärz era, however, the mountain became a popular venue for Alpinists like Hermann and Adolf Schlagintweit, who all followed the route of the first ascent.

By the mid 19th century, the developing Alpine tourism began to alter the traditional agriculture economy in the Heiligenblut area. Therefore, the people of Kals tried to lay out a straight ascent from the western side, which however was not reached until Julius von Payer explored the ridge between Glöcknerleitl and Ködnitzkees in 1863. Johann Stüdl had a via ferrata erected along the southwestern ridge the next year and the Stüdlhütte erected at its foot in 1868. Already in 1869, most expeditions to the summit started in Kals. The first winter ascent of the Grossglockner was made on January 2, 1875 by William Adolf Baillie Grohman, a member of the Alpine Club. In 1876 Count Pallavicini and his guide Hans Tribusser undertook the first expedition up the steep glaciated Northeast Face, chopping 2,500 steps into the Pallavicinirinne in an ice climbing master stroke not repeated for 23 years.

In 1879, Count Pallavicini dedicated a new iron summit cross on the occasion of the silver wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and Empress Elisabeth; both had visited Heiligenblut and walked to the present-day Franz-Josefs-Höhe viewpoint in 1865. The cross was installed on 2 October 1880. Pallavicini also had the Archduke John Hut erected at the former Adlersruhe resting place of Bishop Salm, today the highest situated mountain hut in Austria. The Austrian Alpine Club built the new Salmhütte and the Glocknerhaus along the alpine route from Heiligenblut.

A first ascent by skiing was made in 1909 and the circumnavigation of the massif soon became a popular ski mountaineering tour. The Grossglockner became Austria's highest mountain, when the South Tyrolean Ortler region had to be ceded to the Kingdom of Italy according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, which promoted its reputation as a tourist attraction.

The artist

Heinrich C. Berann, (1915–1999) the father of the modern panorama map, was born into a family of painters and sculptors in Innsbruck, Austria. He taught himself by trial and error. In the years 1930-1933 he attended the arts and design school "Bundeslehranstalt für Malerei" in Innsbruck.

Winning of first prize at a competition for a panorama map created great enthusiasm in him. Using his artistic heritage and new self-discovered techniques he invented a new way of painting landscapes for tourist purposes. The further development of both these panorama maps and his artistic style was influenced by lasting impressions he received during his military service in German Army in Norway and Northern Finland in 1942.

In 1962 he painted Mount Everest for the National Geographic Society, one of his most famous panoramic maps. He worked with Marie Tharp and Bruce C. Heezen to produce maps of the entire ocean floor in 1977.

He later created four panoramas for the United States National Park Service: Yellowstone National Park, North Cascades National Park, Yosemite National Park and finally Mt. McKinley National Park (now Denali). He was very sick when he painted Denali (above) - but he finished it in the age of 81.

In 2000, Tom Patterson of the National Park Service explored ways of digitally creating panoramas like Berann did for the Park Service.

THE GROSSGLOCKNER BY NIKOLAI ASTUDIN

NIKOLAI ASTUDIN (1847-1925)   

Grossglockner or Glokner (3,798 m - 12,460ft)

Austria 

In Alpine landscape with the the Grossglockner,  1879, oil on canvas 

The mountain  

The Grossglockner (or just Glockner) (3,798 m - 12,460 ft) is above the Adriatic, the highest mountain of Austria and the highest mountain in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. It is part of the larger Glockner Group of the Hohe Tauern range, situated along the main ridge of the Central Eastern Alps and the Alpine divide. The Pasterze, Austria's most extended glacier, lies on the Grossglockner's eastern slope. The characteristically pyramid-shaped peak actually consists of two pinnacles, the Grossglockner and the Kleinglockner (3,770 m -12,370 ft), from German: klein, "small"), separated by a saddle-like formation known as the Glocknerscharte.

The history of the climbs started with French-born natural scientist Belsazar Hacquet, from 1773 professor of anatomy at the Academy of Ljubljana. He travelled the Eastern Alps from 1779 to 1781 and published an itinerary in 1783, describing the Glokner mountain and stating that it had not been climbed yet. He estimated the mountain's height with converted (3,793 m -12,444 ft) and left an engraving illustrating Grossglockner and Pasterze, the first known depiction of the mountain.

Inspired by Hacquet's book and the first ascent of the Mont Blanc in 1786, the Gurk prince-bishop Count Franz Xaver of Salm (1749–1822) together with his vicar general Sigismund Ernst Hohenwart  (1745–1825) and Baron Franz Xaver von Wulfen (1728–1805) started efforts for a Grossglockner expedition. They engaged two peasants from Heiligenblut as mountain guides to do the first explorations for an ascent through the Leitertal valley, which is the side of Grossglockner with the least ice (people feared glaciers in these times). These valiant men, called "Glockners" in the records, did more than they were ordered to do - and probably reached the Kleinglockner summit on 23 July 1799.

One month later the bishop's expedition started: a mountain hut (the first Salm Hut) had been built and the path in the Leitertal valley was prepared so that the bishop could use a horse to reach it. 30 people, among them Salm, Hohenwart and Wulfen, were part of the expedition. They suffered with bad weather and a first effort failed, but on 25 August 1799 Hohenwart and at least four other people, including the two "Glockners", reached - again - the Kleinglockner, where they installed one of the first summit crosses (one of the main goals of the church expedition). Hohenwart's reports did not tell clearly that they had not touched the highest point but Bishop Salm (who had reached the Adlersruhe rock at 3,454 m (11,332 ft)) was informed. Dissatisfied, he invited another, even bigger expedition the next year.

On 28 July 1800, 62 people, among them the pedagogue Franz Michael Vierthaler and the botanist David Heinrich Hoppe, started again into the Leitertal valley. Four peasants and carpenters (the "Glockners" and two others who are not known) did a track in the snow, had installed fixed ropes at some steeper sections up to the end of the Glocknerleitl, and even built a second refuge, called Hohenwarte Hut. The vanguard reached the Kleinglockner peak, however, according to the expedition records by the Dellach priest Franz Joseph Horasch (Orasch), only the four guides and Mathias Hautzendorfer, the local priest of the Rangersdorf parish, were able to cross the Obere Glocknerscharte and climb the Grossglockner summit. Hautzendorfer had to be persuaded to venture the step and administered the last rites in advance.

The two "Glockners" are usually identified as the brothers Joseph (Sepp) and Martin Klotz, however, this surname is not listed in the Heiligenblut parish register. A local peasant named Sepp Hoysen is documented as a member of the second Grossglockner expedition in 1802, and the surveyor Ulrich Schiegg mentioned one Martin Reicher as "Glockner" guide. The peasants and several other members of the expedition (among them Schiegg and his young apprentice Valentin Stanič, who climbed Mt. Watzmann for the first time some weeks later) did the ascent again the next day and finally installed the summit cross and a barometer on the Grossglockner summit.

Bishop Salm undertook two more ascents in 1802 (with Hohenwart reaching the summit) and in 1806, however, he himself never climbed beyond the Adlersruhe rock. The climbing of the Grossglockner was also described by the botanist Josef August Schultes, who explored the massif together with Count Apponyi in 1802. No further ascents were made during the Napoleonic Wars, the huts decayed and were plundered by locals. In the following Vormärz era, however, the mountain became a popular venue for Alpinists like Hermann and Adolf Schlagintweit, who all followed the route of the first ascent.

By the mid 19th century, the developing Alpine tourism began to alter the traditional agriculture economy in the Heiligenblut area. Therefore, the people of Kals tried to lay out a straight ascent from the western side, which however was not reached until Julius von Payer explored the ridge between Glöcknerleitl and Ködnitzkees in 1863. Johann Stüdl had a via ferrata erected along the southwestern ridge the next year and the Stüdlhütte erected at its foot in 1868. Already in 1869, most expeditions to the summit started in Kals. The first winter ascent of the Grossglockner was made on January 2, 1875 by William Adolf Baillie Grohman, a member of the Alpine Club. In 1876 Count Pallavicini and his guide Hans Tribusser undertook the first expedition up the steep glaciated Northeast Face, chopping 2,500 steps into the Pallavicinirinne in an ice climbing master stroke not repeated for 23 years.

In 1879, Count Pallavicini dedicated a new iron summit cross on the occasion of the silver wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and Empress Elisabeth; both had visited Heiligenblut and walked to the present-day Franz-Josefs-Höhe viewpoint in 1865. The cross was installed on 2 October 1880. Pallavicini also had the Archduke John Hut erected at the former Adlersruhe resting place of Bishop Salm, today the highest situated mountain hut in Austria. The Austrian Alpine Club built the new Salmhütte and the Glocknerhaus along the alpine route from Heiligenblut.

A first ascent by skiing was made in 1909 and the circumnavigation of the massif soon became a popular ski mountaineering tour. The Grossglockner became Austria's highest mountain, when the South Tyrolean Ortler region had to be ceded to the Kingdom of Italy according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, which promoted its reputation as a tourist attraction.

The painter 

Nikolai Lvovoch Astudin ( Николай Львович Астудин)  was a Russian landscape painter.

Astudin was the son of an officer and completed his school education in Saint Petersburg. He then became a student of the landscape painter Armand-Théophile Cassagne (1823-1907) in Paris. Study trips lead him to Finland, to the Alpine countries and to Italy. As early as 1876 and 1877 Astudin had exhibitions in Berlin,  and in 1885 in Zurich.  Among his Bonner motifs are the Rhine Bridge (1898) and the Godesburg. In 1912, he moved to Oberlahnstein, where he lived until his death. In this late phase, he mainly painted the Rhine motifs and repeatedly painted Lahneck Castle and The Lorelei (above).  Astudin was widely known for his Rhine paintings and the numerous reproductions of his Rhine views. His work is an expression of the Rhine and Eifelromantik of the early 20th century.
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SCHNEEKOPPE (2) PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)

Schneekoppe or Sněћka or Śnieżka (1,603m - 2,259ft) 

Poland - Czech Republic border   

 In Das Riesengebirge, The Giant Mountains, oil on canvas, Hermitage Museum, St Petersbourg 

The mountain 

Schneekoppe (1,603m  - 2,259ft) in German or Sněћka in Czech or Śnieżka in Polish, is a mountain on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland, the most prominent point of the Silesian Ridge in the Krkonoše mountains. Its summit is the highest point in the Czech Republic, in the Krkonoše and in the entire Sudetes range system.

The first historical account of an ascent to the peak is in 1456, by an unknown Venetian merchant searching for precious stones. The first settlements on the mountain soon appeared, being primarily mining communities, tapping into its deposits of copper, iron and arsenic. The mining shafts, totalling 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) in length, remain to this day.

The first recorded German name was Riseberg ("giant mountain"), mentioned by Georg Agricola in 1546. Fifteen years later the name Riesenberg appears on Martin Helwig's map of Silesia. The German name later changed to Riesenkoppe ("giant top") and finally to Schneekoppe ("snow top", "snowy head").

In Czech, the mountain was initially called Pahrbek Sněžný. Later Sněžka, with the eventual name Sněžovka, meaning "snowy" or "snow-covered", which was adopted in 1823. 

An older Polish name for the mountain was Góra Olbrzymia, meaning "giant mountain".

The first building on the mountaintop was the Chapel of Saint Lawrence (Laurentiuskapelle), built ca. 1665–1681 by the Silesian Schaffgotsch family to mark their dominion, serving also as an inn for a brief period of time. The territory including the mines were the property of the Schaffgotsch family until 1945. The so-called Prussian hut was built on the Silesian (now Polish) side in 1850, followed by the Bohemian hut on the Bohemian (now Czech) side in 1868, both built with the purpose of providing lodging. The Prussian hut was rebuilt twice after fires (1857 and 1862), and the (after 1945) "Polish hut" was finally demolished in 1967. The Bohemian hut fell into disrepair after 1990 and was demolished in 2004.

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 Friedrich, 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".
Friedrich's work brought him renown early in his career, and contemporaries such as the French sculptor David d'Angers (1788–1856) spoke of him as a man who had discovered "the tragedy of landscape". Nevertheless, his work fell from favour during his later years, and he died in obscurity, and in the words of the art historian Philip B. Miller, "half mad". As Germany moved towards modernisation in the late 19th century, a new sense of urgency characterized its art, and Friedrich's contemplative depictions of stillness came to be seen as the products of a bygone age. The early 20th century brought a renewed appreciation of his work, beginning in 1906 with an exhibition of thirty-two of his paintings and sculptures in Berlin. By the 1920s his paintings had been discovered by the Expressionists, and in the 1930s and early 1940s Surrealists and Existentialists frequently drew ideas from his work. The rise of Nazism in the early 1930s again saw a resurgence in Friedrich's popularity, but this was followed by a sharp decline as his paintings were, by association with the Nazi movement, interpreted as having a nationalistic aspect.  It was not until the late 1970s that Friedrich regained his reputation as an icon of the German Romantic movement and a painter of international importance.
Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. In line with the Romantic ideals of his time, he intended his paintings to function as pure aesthetic statements, so he was cautious that the titles given to his work were not overly descriptive or evocative. It is likely that some of today's more literal titles, such as The Stages of Life, were not given by the artist himself, but were instead adopted during one of the revivals of interest in Friedrich. Complications arise when dating Friedrich's work, in part because he often did not directly name or date his canvases. He kept a carefully detailed notebook on his output, however, which has been used by scholars to tie paintings to their completion dates.

LES PETITES DALLES PAINTED BY CAMILLE PISSARO

CAMILLE PISSARO  (1830-1903) 

Les Petites Dalles (30 to 50 m - 98 to164 ft)
France 

In Les falaises des Petites Dalles, oil on canvas, 1883, Private collection USA 

The painting 

A lot of impressionist painters choose those cliffs as a item. The most famous was Claude Monet who made at least 10 paintings of those cliffs.  

The mountain 
Les Petites Dalles (30 to 50m - 98 to 164ft) (the Small Slabs) are cliffs located in a hamlet between Sassetot-le-Mauconduit and Saint-Martin-aux-Buneaux, in Haute-Normandie,  France.
Seaside resort south of Dieppe in Normandy, on the coast of the Channel and the country of Caux, the Petites Dalles cliffs are famous mainly because they inspired the impressionist painters like Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot. it is also famous for its numerous seaside villas built at the end of the nineteenth century and preserved (Les Catelets, Les Lampottes, Les Mouettes...)
The old name for Les Petites Dalles appears in the Latinized form Daletis in a charter of 1252.  It is the diminutive of Dalis which appears in the same charter.  Dalis became Les Grandes-Dalles and Daletis, Les Petites Dalles.
The place became definitely up to date in 187,5 when  the Empress of Austria,  Elisabeth, known as Sissi, spent the months of August and September at the castle of Sassetot-le-Mauconduit and regularly bathes on the beach of  Les Petites Dalles. The painter Paul Valantin realizes a painting of the scene. On August 25, 2016, a landslide over a hundred meters of the cliff felt down. Nearly 50,000 m3 of rocks collapsed on the beach in  Saint-Martin-aux-Buneaux at the place known as Les Petites Dalles, according to the Seine-Maritime Fire and Rescue Service.

The Painter
 Camille Pissarro was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.
Pissarro studied from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.
In 1873 he helped establish a collective society of fifteen aspiring artists, becoming the "pivotal" figure in holding the group together and encouraging the other members. Art historian John Rewald called Pissarro the "dean of the Impressionist painters", not only because he was the oldest of the group, but also "by virtue of his wisdom and his balanced, kind, and warmhearted personality". Cézanne said "he was a father for me. A man to consult and a little like the good Lord," and he was also one of Gauguin's masters. Renoir referred to his work as "revolutionary", through his artistic portrayals of the "common man", as Pissarro insisted on painting individuals in natural settings without "artifice or grandeur".
Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886. He "acted as a father figure not only to the Impressionists" but to all four of the major Post-Impressionists, including Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.