LES FALAISES D'ÉTRETAT PEINTES PAR EUGÈNE DELACROIX

EUGENE DELACROIX (1798-1863)
Les Falaises d'Etretat (70 à 90 m)
France (Normandie)


In Vue de la plage et des falaises d'Etretat, aquarelle sur traits à la mine de plomb, 15x19 cm,           Musée Fabre, Montpellier

A propos de cette œuvre
Delacroix découvrit les beautés de la côte normande grâce à ses nombreux passages chez son cousin Bataille à Valmont, près de Fécamp. "Séjour de paix et d'oubli du monde entier", cette retraite offrait à l'artiste un lieu idéal pour se reposer de Paris et élaborer ses grandes commandes officielles. Au cours de cette villégiature, il eut à maintes occasions l’opportunité d'admirer le paysage des falaises d'Etretat ; sans doute séduit par cette âpre et grandiose architecture de craie, il devait en donner plusieurs études et aquarelles. Cette vue prise de la porte d'Amont, à marée basse, ne peut être datée avec certitude mais un passage du Journal de l’artiste du 18 octobre 1849 relate une excursion en mer au large de Fécamp et situe, si ce n'est la chronologie de cette œuvre, du moins l'état d'esprit et les sentiments de l'artiste devant ce paysage : « Le sol sous cette arche étonnante, semblait sillonné par les roues des chars et semblait les ruines d'une ville antique. Ce sol est ce blanc calcaire dont les falaises sont entièrement faites. Il y a des parties sur les rocs qui sont d'un brun de terre d'ombre, des parties très vertes et quelques-unes ocreuses. » Explorant la décomposition chromatique du paysage, Delacroix donne ici une aquarelle où palpite la densité de l’air et de l’eau et, avec cette manière très libre d’un dessin pris sur le vif, il témoigne de sa sensibilité pour ces vues de la nature qui annoncent déjà la peinture impressionniste. Ami de l’artiste, le critique Théophile Sylvestre conseilla en 1874 à Alfred Bruyas l’acquisition de cette oeuvre qui lui inspira ces réflexions : « Dans le ciel solitaire, d’une pureté absolue et d’une légèreté sans fonds, on entendrait non seulement l’aile d’une mouette mais le bourdonnement d’un insecte [...]. L’effusion lumineuse n’a même pas de soubresauts tout le long de cette falaise abrupte, dont la croûte terrestre et le gazon rôti semblent à la fois un chaume de cabane et une peau de bête fauve. »

 

Les falaises
Les Falaises d'Etretat  sont constituées d'une stratigraphie complexe de craies du Turonien et du Coniacien. Certaines falaises atteignent 90 mètres. Etretat est surtout connue pour ses falaises de craie, dont trois arches naturelles et une formation pointue appelée L'Aiguille (l'Aiguille), qui s'élève à 70 m au-dessus de la mer et L'Arche. Une rivière souterraine, puis l'érosion marine ont formé une arche naturelle et une aiguille d'une hauteur estimée de 55 mètres à 70 mètres, relique de la falaise. Ses falaises de craie blanche et ses plages de galets grisâtres en ont fait un des lieux du tourisme international avec plus de trois millions de visiteurs par an1, exposé aux même risques que d'autres grands sites mondiaux, avec trois chutes mortelles en 2022. Le tourisme de masse dégradant le site. Des peintres comme Albert Marquet, Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin ou encore Claude Monet ont contribué alors à sa publicité, tout en en immortalisant la spécificité. Des écrivains normands comme Maupassant et Gustave Flaubert furent des fidèles du lieu. Maurice Leblanc, qui y vécut, contribua au mythe entourant le site entretenu dans une aventure d'Arsène Lupin intitulée L'Aiguille creuse(1909). Il les décrit en ces termes : « Un énorme gardon, haut de plus de quatre-vingts mètres, obélisque colossal, d'aplomb sur son socle de granit. » A son époque, le site attirait déjà de nombreux touristes parmi eu xdes "lupinophiles" admirateurs d'Arsène Lupin des  étudiants américains venaient chercher la clé de la grotte, où le "gentleman cambrioleur" avait trouvé le trésor des rois de France.

Le peintre
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix était un artiste romantique français considéré dès le début de sa carrière comme le chef de file de l'école romantique française. L'utilisation par Delacroix de coups de pinceau expressifs et ses études sur les effets optiques de la couleur ont profondément façonné le travail des impressionnistes, alrors que sa passion pour l'exotisme a inspiré les artistes du mouvement symboliste. Fin lithographe, Delacroix a illustré diverses œuvres (William Shakespeare, Walter Scott et  Goethe notamment).
Contrairement au perfectionnisme néoclassique de son principal rival Ingres, Delacroix s'est inspiré de l'art de Rubens et des peintres de la Renaissance vénitienne, en mettant l'accent sur la couleur et le mouvement plutôt que sur la clarté des contours et la forme soigneusement modelée. Le contenu dramatique et romantique caractérise les thèmes centraux de sa maturité et le conduit non pas vers les modèles classiques de l'art grec et romain, mais plutôt vers les voyages en Afrique du Nord à la recherche de l'exotisme. Ami et héritier spirituel de Théodore Géricault, Delacroix s'inspire également de Lord Byron, avec qui il partage une forte identification aux « forces du sublime », et aux actions de la nature, souvent violente.
Cependant, Delacroix n'était enclin ni à la sentimentalité ni à l'emphase, et son romantisme était celui d'un individualiste. Selon les mots de Baudelaire : « Delacroix était passionnément amoureux de la passion, mais froidement déterminé à exprimer sa passion le plus clairement possible ».
En 1832, Delacroix se rend en Espagne et en Afrique du Nord, dans le cadre d'une mission diplomatique au Maroc peu après la conquête de l'Algérie par la France. Il n'y est pas allé pour étudier l'art, mais pour échapper au parisianisme dans l'espoir d'approcher une culture plus primitive. Il a produit plus de 100 peintures et dessins de scènes tirées ou basées sur la vie des peuples d'Afrique du Nord, et a ajouté un nouveau chapitre très personnel à l'intérêt général porté alors à l'orientalisme. Delacroix était fasciné par les gens et les costumes, et le voyage allait éclairer le sujet d'un grand nombre de ses futurs tableaux. Il pensait que les Nord-Africains, dans leurs vêtements et leurs attitudes, fournissaient un équivalent visuel aux peuples de la Rome et de la Grèce classiques : « Les Grecs et les Romains sont ici à ma porte, chez les Arabes qui s'enveloppent dans une couverture blanche et regardent comme Caton ou Brutus..."
Il réussit à dessiner secrètement quelques femmes à Alger, comme dans le tableau Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement (1834), mais il rencontra généralement des difficultés à trouver des femmes musulmanes prêtes à poser pour lui en raison des règles musulmanes exigeant que les femmes soient couvertes. La peinture des femmes juives d’Afrique du Nord, comme sujets du Mariage juif au Maroc (1837-1841), pose moins de problèmes.
À Tanger, Delacroix réalise de nombreux croquis des gens et de la ville, sujets sur lesquels il reviendra jusqu'à la fin de sa vie. Les animaux, incarnation de la passion romantique, ont été incorporés dans des peintures telles que Chevaux arabes se battant dans une écurie (1860), La Chasse au lion (dont il existe de nombreuses versions, peintes entre 1856 et 1861) et Arabe sellant son cheval (1855). .

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

LE DONNAMANNEN PEINT PAR ALBERT MARQUET

ALBERT MARQUET
Dønnamannen (856 mètres)
Norvège 

 In Sandnoesoen, Norvège , 1925, aquarelle

La montagne
Dønnmannen (856 mètres) tire son nom du fait que le sommet de la montagne a un profil qui peut ressembler au profil d'un homme allongé sur le dos. Il se dresse à l’ouest de Sandnoesoen. dont l’architecture moderne et élégante du pont de l’Helgeland impressionne aujorud'hui les visiteurs. La commune compte 7 500 habitants qui vivent comme lorsque Marquet a peint cette aquarelle, dela  pêche, et de l’agriculture. La ville est toujours très animée en raison des allées et venues incessantes des ferries.
Le sommet est également le point culminant de la municipalité de Dønna. L'Association touristique norvégienne a déjà balisé les chemins menant au sommet depuis Breivika, Einvika et Teigstad. Les chemins de Breivika et Einvika ont un itinéraire commun vers la montagne depuis Hagen et sont considérés comme les plus sûrs, mais en 2018, un accident mortel s'est produit sur cet itinéraire.  La route depuis Teigstad a été fermée en 2016 en raison du risque de glissements de terrain.


L'artiste
Maître du paysage au regard aiguisé, le peintre français Albert Marquet a gardé de sa période fauve un certain sens de la couleur et de la lumière. . En 1890, Marquet s'installe à Paris pour fréquenter l'Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, où il rencontre Henri Matisse. Ils ont été colocataires pendant un certain temps et se sont influencés mutuellement. Marquet a commencé des études en 1892 à l'École des Beaux-Arts de Paris sous Gustave Moreau. En 1905, il expose au Salon d'Automne. Consternés par la coloration intense de ces peintures, les critiques réagissent en nommant les artistes les "Fauves", c'est-à-dire les bêtes sauvages. Bien que Marquet ait peint avec les fauves pendant des années, il a utilisé des couleurs moins vives et moins violentes que les autres, et a mis l'accent sur des tons moins intenses faits en mélangeant des complémentaires, donc toujours comme des couleurs et jamais comme des gris.
Marquet peint ensuite dans un style plus naturaliste, principalement des paysages, mais aussi plusieurs portraits et, entre 1910 et 1914, plusieurs tableaux de nus féminins.
De 1907 à sa mort, Marquet alterne entre le travail dans son atelier à Paris (ville qu'il peint beaucoup de fois) et de nombreuses régions de la côte européenne et en Afrique du Nord. Il a été le plus impliqué avec l'Algérie et Alger et avec la Tunisie. Il resta également impressionné notamment par Naples et Venise où il peignit la mer et les bateaux, accentuant la lumière au-dessus de l'eau. Au cours de ses voyages en Allemagne et en Suède et en Norvège, il peint les sujets qu'il préfère habituellement : vues sur le fleuve et la mer, ports et navires, mais aussi paysages urbains. Marquet était particulièrement vénéré par les peintres américains Leland Bell et sa femme Louisa Matthiasdottir. Il était également vénéré par les contemporains de Bell, Al Kresch et Gabriel Laderman. Étant donné que Bell et Laderman ont tous deux enseigné dans plusieurs écoles d'art américaines, ils ont eu une influence sur les jeunes artistes figuratifs américains et leur appréciation de Marquet.
Matisse a dit ; "Quand je regarde Hokusai, je pense à Marquet - et vice versa ... Je ne veux pas dire imitation d'Hokusai, je veux dire similitude avec lui".

 __________________________________________

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

DJEBEL BOUKORNINE (2) PAINTED BY ALBERT MARQUET

 

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947)
DJebel Boukornine (546 m -1791 ft)
Tunisia

In Sidi Bou Saïd-palmier, oil on canvas, private collection

The mountain
DJebel Boukornine (جبل بوقرنين‎), also spelled Jebel Bou Kornine or Mount Bou Kornine, is a 576-meter mountain in northern Tunisia, overlooking the Gulf of Tunis and Hammam Lif city.
It consists of folded and faulted outcrops of Jurassic limestone. Its name "bou kornine" comes from Tunisian Arabic meaning "the one with two horns", originally from the punic language as "ba'al kornine", meaning "lord with two horns". It owes its name to the two highlights of altitude 576 and 493 meters at the top. During the times of ancient Carthage, the mountain was considered sacred and religious rituals were conducted there.
The massif is part of Boukornine National Park, covering area of 1939 ha and protecting many species of plants and animals. The mountain slopes are covered Aleppo pine and cedar. Djebel Ressas about 30 km to the southwest is a taller peak at 795 m.

The painter
Albert Marquet  was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water. During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
Matisse said : "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him". 

__________________________________
2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY ALBERT MARQUET (3)

 

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947),
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 m- 4,203 ft at present)
Italy 

                     

                              In La Baie de Naples et le Vésuve, 1909, oil on canvas,  Tate London

About this painting

During his jounrey to Italy in 1909, Albert Marquet has painted Vesuvius several times, at different moment of the day  and, each time with the same title, which doen'st make their identificationn very easy ! Here are too others examples already pusblished in this blog : 

- La baie de Naples et le Vésuve, 1909, Pushkin museum, Moscow
- La baie de Naples et le Vésuve, 1909, Ermitage Museum, Sankt-Petersburg, Russia


The mountain
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.
The 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.


The painter
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water. During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
Matisse said : "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

___________________________________________
2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

VESUVIUS PAINTED BY ALBERT MARQUET

 

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947)

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

Italy

 In La baie de  Naples et le Vésuve, 1909, Oil on canvas, 62x 80 cm  

Ermitage Museum, Sankt-Petersburg, Russia

The mountain
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 meters- 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.
More about Vesuvius ...


The painter
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturalistic style, primarily landscapes, but also several portraits and, between 1910 and 1914, several female nude paintings.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and with Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples (see above) and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water. During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
Marquet was particularly revered by the American painters Leland Bell and his wife Louisa Matthiasdottir. He was also revered by Bell's contemporaries Al Kresch and Gabriel Laderman. Since both Bell and Laderman were teachers in several American art schools, they have had an influence on younger American figurative artists and their appreciation of Marquet.
Matisse said ; "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

_____________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

JEBEL BOUKORNINE BY ALBERT MARQUET

 ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947)

Jebel Boukornine (546 m -1791 ft) 

Tunisia

In  Le canal de Tunis, oil on canvas, private collection 

The mountain
Jebel Boukornine (جبل بوقرنين‎), also spelled Djebel Bou Kornine or Mount Bou Kornine, is a 576-meter mountain in northern Tunisia, overlooking the Gulf of Tunis and Hammam Lif city.
It consists of folded and faulted outcrops of Jurassic limestone.  Its name "bou kornine" comes from Tunisian Arabic meaning "the one with two horns", originally from the punic language as "ba'al kornine", meaning "lord with two horns". It owes its name to the two highlights of altitude 576 and 493 meters at the top. During the times of ancient Carthage, the mountain was considered sacred and religious rituals were conducted there.
The massif is part of Boukornine National Park, covering area of 1939 ha and protecting many species of plants and animals. The mountain slopes are covered Aleppo pine and cedar. Djebel Ressas about 30 km to the southwest is a taller peak at 795 m.

The painter
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work.  Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water. During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
Matisse said : "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

__________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY ALBERT MARQUET

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947), 

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

 Italy

In La baie de  Naples et le Vésuve, 81 x 69 cm, oil on canvas 1909,   Pushkin museum, Moscow

The mountain 

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.

The 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.

The painter 
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water.  During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.

Matisse said ; "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

CAPE BON / RAS EL DAR BY ALBERT MARQUET

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947)

Cape Bon  / Ras El Dar (637m -2,089ft) 

Tunisia 

1. In Vue de  la Falaise rouge de Sidi Bou Said, Cap Bon et le golfe de Tunis, watercolour, 

2. In Vue de  la Falaise rouge de Sidi Bou Said, , watercolour

3. In Cap Bon vu de  la VIlla Erlanger  watercolour 

The mountains
Cape Bon  (637m -2,089ft)  ("Good Cape" in french)  refers to either a peninsula in far northeastern Tunisia, also known as Watan el-Kibli (الرأس الطيب‎), administered as the country's Nabeul Governorate, or the northernmost point on the peninsula, also known as Ras ed-Dar.
Settlements on the peninsula include Nabeul, El Haouaria, Kelibia, Menzel Temime, Korba, and Beni Khalled.  Mountains include Kef Bou Krim (237 m -778 ft), Kef er-Rend (637 m - 2,090 ft), Jebel Sidi Abd er-Rahmane (602 m-1,975 ft), Jebel Hofra (421 m -1,381 ft), and Jebel Reba el-Aine (328 m -1,076 ft). Besides Cape Bon, other headlands on the peninsula are Ras Dourdas and Ras el-Fortass on the northern shore, Ras el-Melah on the short eastern shore, and Ras Mostefa and Ras Maamoura on the southern shore. The ruins of the Punic town Kerkouane are also located here. Djebel Mlezza ("Mt Mlessa") has tombs from the time of Agathocles, which were excavated just before the First World War. Cape Bon  and the Gulf of Tunis are visible from the little town of Sidi Bou Saïd, like  the painter Albert  Marqet painted it  (see above)

The painter 
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water.  During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.

Matisse said ; "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CAP CANAILLE PAINTED BY HENRI MANGUIN

HENRI MANGUIN  (1874-1949)
Cap Canaille (394 m -1292, 65 ft)

France

 In  Aloés en fleurs, Cassis, oil on panel, 1912, Private owner

The mountain

Cap Canaille (394m) is a cape in France located in the the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region with a culminating point called " La Grande Tête"  (The great Head). It is located near the city of Cassis, north-west of La Ciotat. Its red rock is composed of detritic limestones. Going into the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of rocky and steep banks dominated by the western extremity of the Soubeyranes cliffs. The latter are, after the Slieve League in Ireland, one of the highest maritime cliffs in Europe and constitute, in La Ciotat, the highest cliffs in France with a maximum altitude of 394 meters. A road, the D141 called "Route des Crêtes", connects Cassis to La Ciotat by approaching the edge of the cliff.  Several gazebos are set up there with a spectacular view on the French Riviera and the sea. Cap Canaille is well known for having inspired a lot of painters of the end of 19th century and beginning of 20th. Its name is due to a distortion of the Provençal langage  Cap Naio  "Cap Naille" in French, meaning "Swimming mountain " or a distorsion of the roman latin name Mons Canalis meaning " Mountain  of Aqueducts".

The painter 

The French painter Henri-Charles Manguin although often considered a precursor of  Fauvism in 1905, is not very well konwn. Studying at  Gustave Moreau's studio at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he befriends Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. In 1902, he participated for the first time in the Salon des Independants. In 1904, he discovered the small fishing port of Saint-Tropez in the south of France and got in touch with Paul Signac. He exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, in the United States and at the Venice Biennale. 

Ambroise Vollard buys him 150 paintings.

 In 1924, he participated in the project of the future Annonciade Museum in Saint-Tropez. In 1938, the Druet Gallery closed, his son bought the unsold ones: Manguin destroyed eight paintings, then exhibited all over the world.  In 1942, he rented a workshop in Avignon. Henri Manguin dies in his house of Oustalet in Saint-Tropez on September 25, 1949. The Salon organizes a posthumous retrospective of his works in 1950.

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

JEBEL BOU KORBOUS BY ALBERT MARQUET

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947)

Jebel Bou Korbous (401 m - 1314 ft)

Tunisia

 In Paysage de Sidi Bou Said, watercolour, 1923, Private collection 

The hill
Jebel Bou Korbous  (401 m - 1314 ft) is a mountain located in the Korbous massif, east of Jebel Douela and west of El Bredj, in the Gulf of Tunis in Tunisia. It can be seen from the hill of Sidi Bou Saïd (like in thus painting). From Tunis, in good weather conditions, one can easily see  these mountains that flow into the sea on the other side of the Gulf of Tunis, home to several hot springs.
Many activities are possible: hiking, swimming, diving, hydrotherapy ... Particularity of the massif: tiny caves formed in the sandstone blocks. Under the effect of wind and rain, some blocks partially disintegrated, forming these small natural shelters.

The painter 
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water.  During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.

Matisse said ; "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MONT BLANC BY ALBERT MARQUET

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947)

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m - 15,776 ft)

  France - Italy  border

 In Le Lac Léman, Le mont Blanc, oil on canvas 

The mountain 

Mont Blanc (in French) or Monte Bianco (in Italian), both meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe after the Caucasus peaks. It rises 4,808.73 m (15,777 ft) above sea level and 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 summit, (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. In article 4 of this treaty it says: "The border between the Sardinian kingdom and the departments of the French Republic will be established on a line determined by the most advanced points on the Piedmont side, of the summits, peaks of mountains and other locations subsequently mentioned, as well as the intermediary peaks, knowing: starting from the point where the borders of Faucigny, the Duchy of Aoust and the Valais, to the extremity of the glaciers or Monts-Maudits: first the peaks or plateaus of the Alps, to the rising edge of the Col-Mayor". This act further states that the border should be visible from the town of Chamonix and Courmayeur. However, neither the peak of the Mont Blanc is visible from Courmayeur nor the peak of the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur is visible from Chamonix because part of the mountains lower down obscure them. A Sardinian Atlas map of 1869 showing the summit lying two thirds in Italy and one third in France.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna restored the King of Sardinia in Savoy, Nice and Piedmont, his traditional territories, overruling the 1796 Treaty of Paris. Forty-five years later, after the Second Italian War of Independence, it was replaced by a new legal act. This act was signed in Turin on 24 March 1860 by Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, and deals with the annexation of Savoy (following the French neutrality for the plebiscites held in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, against the Pope's will). A demarcation agreement, signed on 7 March 1861, defines the new border. With the formation of Italy, for the first time Mont Blanc is located on the border of France and Italy.

The 1860 act and attached maps are still legally valid for both the French and Italian governments. One of the prints from the 1823 Sarde Atlas  positions the border exactly on the summit edge of the mountain (and measures it to be 4,804 m (15,761 ft) high). The convention of 7 March 1861 recognises this through an attached map, taking into consideration the limits of the massif, and drawing the border on the icecap of Mont Blanc, making it both French and Italian.Watershed analysis of modern topographic mapping not only places the main summit on the border, but also suggests that the border should follow a line northwards from the main summit towards Mont Maudit, leaving the southeast ridge to Mont Blanc de Courmayeur wholly within Italy.

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 
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturalistic style, primarily landscapes, but also several portraits and, between 1910 and 1914, several female nude paintings.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and with Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water.  During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
The watercolor of Pyrenees (above) is a rare example of Marquet painting mountains, which was not his favorite subject.
Marquet was particularly revered by the American painters Leland Bell and his wife Louisa Matthiasdottir. He was also revered by Bell's contemporaries Al Kresch and Gabriel Laderman. Since both Bell and Laderman were teachers in several American art schools, they have had an influence on younger American figurative artists and their appreciation of Marquet. Matisse said ; "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".
___________________________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE JAIZKIBEL BY ALBERT MARQUET

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947)

 The Jaizkibel (547m -1, 795ft) 

Spain / France border

1.  In  Fontarabie vue d'Hendaye, oil on canvas, 1899

2.   In Vue d'Hendaye, watercolour, 1900 

The mountain 

The Jaizkibel is mountain range of the Basque Country located east of Pasaia, north of Lezo and west of Hondarribia, in Spain, with 547 m at the highest point (peak Alleru). The range stretches south-west to north-east, where it plunges into the sea at the Cape Higuer (spelled Higher too). To the north-west, the mountain dips its slopes in the sea with beautiful cliffs all along, overlooking on the east the marshes of Txingudi, the river Bidasoa and its mouth (tracing the state borderline between France and Spain) as well as the towns of Irun, Hendaia (Hendaye in french) and Hondarribia on the river banks. The nearest relevant mountains are La Rhune, Aiako Harria and Ulia closing the view east to west from the south. Some people consider Jaizkibel to be the first westernmost mountain of the Pyrenees.
The area is a relevant landmark on the grounds of its strategic position close to the border with France, with the range standing as the easternmost Spanish rise by the seaside and affording an unmatched view miles away, both over the sea and inland. As a result, the military has always showed an interest in the place since the 16th century when the Spanish-French border started to be drafted, taking to building defence facilities, such as the towers dotting the ridge (dating from the Carlist Wars) or the Fortress of Guadalupe going back to 1890, nowadays out of use. The northern slopes have borne witness to frequent military manoeuvres from the decade of the 50s through the early 90s, when the road to the booster station was sometimes cut off to avoid disruption and damage.

The painter 
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturalistic style, primarily landscapes, but also several portraits and, between 1910 and 1914, several female nude paintings.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and with Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water.  During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
Marquet was particularly revered by the American painters Leland Bell and his wife Louisa Matthiasdottir. He was also revered by Bell's contemporaries Al Kresch and Gabriel Laderman. Since both Bell and Laderman were teachers in several American art schools, they have had an influence on younger American figurative artists and their appreciation of Marquet.
Matisse said ; "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

AÏDOUR / SANTA CRUZ PAINTED BY AUGUSTIN FERRANDO

AUGUSTIN FERRANDO  (1880-1957)

Aïdour / Santa Cruz (589m - 1932 ft) 

Algeria

In La baie d 'Oran et l'Aïdour, 1922, oil on cardboard, Private collection   

The Mountain 

The Aïdour (589m - 1932 ft)  also known under the name of Santa Cruz is a mountain  which dominates the city of Oran in Algeria. Several buildings are built at the top of the mountain, including a fortress and the well known christian chapel of Santa Cruz. 

This mountain is known by a number of toponyms, and especially its eastern end which dominates the city of Oran by a plateau and a steep hill separated by a small pass. This small coastal chain located to the west of the city of Oran, develops for a distance of about 25 km in a direction west-south-west, east-northeast. It ends at the sea in its eastern end by the Djebel Santon and the hill of Santa Cruz which enclose the bay of Mers el-Kebir. It dominates in the north the small coastal plain going from the Andalusians to the jebel Santon, and to the south the plain bordering the great Sebkha of Oran (salt lake) from Boutlelis to Oran.

From the 12th century this mountain is known as Aïdour, a name reported by Arab chroniclers. An even more ancient name is reported by other chroniclers: Mount Guedera or Guedara. Later the Turks called him Mourdjadjo. The Spaniards name the hill "La Silla" (the saddle). The name of concurrent use of the Aïdour is then Santa Cruz for the hill, and Murdjadjo for the plateau.

The Phoenicians had chosen Madagh Creek in the west to set up their trading posts, but the Romans preferred to develop the site of Portus Magnus 40 kilometers to the east on the present town of Bethioua. In the 15th century, during the Islamic period, a mausoleum (gubba) was erected on the eastern end of the plateau which dominates Oran, and dedicated to Abdelkader al-Jilani, prefessor and  eminent imam buried in Baghdad. The story goes that in 1425, one of the disciples of Abou Madyane, Tlemcen's famous saint, died suddenly before reaching the wadi and his disciples then installed small mausoleums in memory of his teacher Abdelkader al-Jilani. It is therefore not a tomb but a cenotaph.

In 1805, when Spain occupied Oran, the Marquis de Santa Cruz, governor of the city, decided in 1563 to build the fort of Santa Cruz on the rocky spur of Aïdour. His position was strategic for the defense of Oran and Mers El Kebir.
The chapel of Santa Cruz was built in 1850, after the terrible cholera epidemic of 1849, which had caused several hundred victims a day. It is dedicated to Our Lady of Salvation. In 1950, during the french colonisation, the construction project of the architect Lesaint was opened, with a cloister and a small Romane basilica with a slightly crushed dome, in the presence of Bishop Roncalli, apostolic nuncio, and future Pope John XXIII. The old chapel at the foot of the bell tower was demolished in 1951 at the beginning of the construction of the cloister, which ended in 1956.

 Source : 

 ©wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com

The Painter 

Augustin Jean Ferrando is a French orientalist painter born in Algeria in 1880 then French department. A student of the school of fine arts of Algiers in 1898, then of the Academy Druet and Rochegrosse, formerly of the school of the fine arts of Paris, with Fernand Cormon (1845-1924), he meets in Paris Derain, Matisse, Leger, Vlaminck, Utrillo. Ferrando, considered the only fawn painter from Algeria, and the representative of the Algiers School, obtained several vermilion medals (at the exhibitions of the Orientalist artists' society). It was mobilized in 1914 among the Zouaves of Algiers until 1918. He was appointed director of the Oran School of Fine Arts, founder of the Association of African Artists, and became curator of the Demaeght Museum in 1935. He worked in Oued Taria, where his second wife was born.
He has made numerous exhibitions in Algiers (Galerie Charlet), Oran (Galerie Pozzalo and Galerie Pasteur), Paris (Palais de New York),  The Biennale de Menton, Musée Rolin d'Autun in 1977, Boulogne-Billancourt in 1990, Versailles and Paris in 1992, and in the exhibition  Albert Marquet and his friends, July 2008,  at the Cultural center of Saint-Raphaël (France).
Source : 
 ©wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com

THE MONT BLANC PAINTED BY ALBERT MARQUET

ALBERT MARQUET  (1875–1947) 

The Mont Blanc (4,808.13 m - 15,776.7 ft)

  France - Italy  border

In  Le Léman vu de Montreux, le Mont Blanc, 1937, oil on canvas, Private collection  

The mountain 

Mont Blanc (in French) or Monte Bianco (in Italian), both meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe after the Caucasus peaks. It rises 4,808.73 m (15,777 ft) above sea level and 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 summit, (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.... 

More about Mont Blanc 

The painter 
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturalistic style, primarily landscapes, but also several portraits and, between 1910 and 1914, several female nude paintings.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and with Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water.  During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
Marquet was particularly revered by the American painters Leland Bell and his wife Louisa Matthiasdottir. He was also revered by Bell's contemporaries Al Kresch and Gabriel Laderman. Since both Bell and Laderman were teachers in several American art schools, they have had an influence on younger American figurative artists and their appreciation of Marquet.
Matisse said ; "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

THE CANIGOU BY ALBERT MARQUET

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947) 

Canigou (2,784 m- 9,137 ft)

France (Pyrenees) 

 In Le Canigou vu de Vernet-les-Bains, 1940, watercolor on paper, Private collection 

The mountain 

The Canigou (2,784m - 9,137 ft.) is a mountain located in the Pyrenees-Orientales (southern France), south of Prades and north of Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste. Its summit is a quadripoint between the territories of Casteil, Taurinya, Valmanya and Vernet-les-Bains. Its location makes it visible from the plains of Roussillon and from Conflent in France, and as well from Empordà in Spain. Due to its sharp flanks and its dramatic location near the coast, until the 18th century the Canigou was believed to be the highest mountain in the Pyrenees.
Twice a year, in early February and at the end of October, with good weather, the Canigou can be seen at sunset from as far as Marseille, 250 km away, by refraction of light. This phenomenon was observed in 1808 by baron Franz Xaver von Zach from the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica in Marseille. All year long, it can also be seen, with good weather, from Agde, Port-Camargue and the Montagne Noire.
The mountain has symbolical significance for Catalan people. On its summit stands a cross that is often decorated with the Catalan flag.  Every year on 23 June, the night before St. John's day (nuit de la Saint Jean), day of the summer solstice, there is a ceremony called Flama del Canigó (Canigou Flame), where a fire is lit at the mountaintop. People keep a vigil during the night and take torches lit on the fire in a spectacular torch relay to light bonfires elsewhere. Many bonfires are lit in this way all over the Pyrénées-Orientales, Catalonia, Valencian Community, and Balearic Islands theoretically.

The painter 
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturalistic style, primarily landscapes, but also several portraits and, between 1910 and 1914, several female nude paintings.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and with Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water.  During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
The watercolor of Pyrenees (above) is a rare example of Marquet painting mountains, which was not his favorite subject.
Marquet was particularly revered by the American painters Leland Bell and his wife Louisa Matthiasdottir. He was also revered by Bell's contemporaries Al Kresch and Gabriel Laderman. Since both Bell and Laderman were teachers in several American art schools, they have had an influence on younger American figurative artists and their appreciation of Marquet.
Matisse said ; "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

MONT COUDON PAINTED BY OTHON FRIESZ

OTHON FRIESZ (1879 -1949) 

Mont Coudon  (702 m - 2, 303 ft) 

France (Var) 

The mountain 

Mont Coudon (702 m - 2, 303ft) is one of the three main mountains of a range called Monts Toulonnais in the Var region in the south of France, near the city harbour of Toulon and La Valette-du-Var.  The Monts Toulonnais are the general appellation of the numerous mountains around Toulon. The highest is Mount Caume (804 m-2,638ft), the least high is the massif of Cape Sicié (358 m) -1,174ft). The Monts toulonnais are also composed of the Baou de Quatre Oures, the Gros-Cerveau (The Big Brain), Mount Faron, which is the best known, and finally Mount Coudon. 

The summit of Mont Coudon is banned from access because it houses at its summit the Fort Girardon, a very important military base of the "Mediterranean" Navy. The Alps are visible for many days in the year, especially on strong Mistral wind days during which the weather is clear.  In November and only during one and three days in the year, it is possible to see the Corsican peaks by atmospheric reverberation. The panorama is hidden to the west by Mount Faron and Mount Caume.

The Coudon represents the end of the range of the Monts Toulonnais, which begin in the vicinity of Bandol to finish in a peak on the town of La Valette-du-Var. It is of calcareous constitution. 

The writer George Sand ascended  Mount Coudon on May 21, 1861, and mentions it in his diary, Voyage dit du Midi, as well as in the work Tamaris. The ascent is 6.1 km long and has a vertical drop of 438 meters for an average slope of 7.2%.

The painter 

Achille-Émile Othon Friesz who later called himself Othon Friesz, and used to sign his paintings E. Othon Friesz, a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement.  While he was at the Lycée, he met his lifelong friend Raoul Dufy. He and Dufy studied at the Le Havre School of Fine Arts in 1895-96 and then went to Paris together for further study. In Paris, Friesz met Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, and Georges Rouault. Like them, he rebelled against the academic teaching of Bonnat and became a member of the Fauves, exhibiting with them in 1907. The following year, Friesz returned to Normandy and to a much more traditional style of painting, since he had discovered that his personal goals in painting were firmly rooted in the past. He opened his own studio in 1912 and taught until 1914 at which time he joined the army for the duration of the war. He resumed living in Paris in 1919 and remained there, except for brief trips to Toulon and the Jura Mountains, until his death in 1949. During the last thirty years of his life, he painted in a style very far from that of his earlier colleagues and his contemporaries. Having abandoned the lively arabesques and brilliant colors of his Fauve years, Friesz returned to the more sober palette he had learned in Le Havre from his professor Charles Lhuillier and to an early admiration for Poussin, Chardin, and Camille Corot. He painted in a manner that respected Paul Cézanne's ideas of logical composition, simple tonality, solidity of volume, and distinct separation of planes. A faint baroque flavor adds vigor to his  landscapes, still lifes, and figure paintings.