MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU PEINT PAR LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON

LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON (1851-1912)
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft)
Nouvelle Zélande

In Aquarelle de Milford Sounds pour une série de Cartes postales d'art, New Zealand Posycard Society 

La montagne
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) est une montagne emblématique de l'île du Sud de la Nouvelle-Zélande, située sur les rives du Milford Sound. C'est l'un des sommets les plus photographiés du pays. La forme specifique du sommet du sud de la Nouvelle-Zélande donne son nom à la montagne, d'après la mitre des évêques chrétiens. Il a été nommé par le capitaine John Lort Stokes du HMS Achéron.
Une partie de la raison de son statut emblématique est son emplacement. Près des rives de Milford Sound, dans le parc national de Fiordland, au sud-ouest de l'île du Sud, c'est un spectacle époustouflant. La montagne s'élève presque verticalement depuis les eaux de Milford Sound, qui techniquement est un fjord.
Le pic est en fait un ensemble étroitement regroupé de cinq sommets, Mitre Peak n'étant même pas le plus haut, mais depuis les points de vue les plus facilement accessibles, Mitre Peak apparaît comme un seul point.
Milford Sound fait partie de Te Wahipounamu, un site du patrimoine mondial déclaré par l'UNESCO.
Le seul accès routier à Milford Sound se fait via la State Highway 94, en soi l'une des routes les plus pittoresques de Nouvelle-Zélande.

Le peintre
Laurence William Wilson émigre à Auckland en 1877, puis voyage beaucoup pour s'installer à Dunedin en 1884. Il peint à la fois à l'huile et à l'aquarelle. Il est le disciple de George O'Brien et devient enseignant. L'un de ses élèves était l'artiste de Dunedin Alfred O'Keefe. En 1895, LW Wilson avec Grace Joel, Alfred O'Keefe, Jane Wimperis et Girolami Nerli formèrent le Easel Club, une scission de l'établissement de Dunedin, qui proposait un programme de cours spéciaux et l'introduction d'un modèle professionnel pour le dessin d'après modèle.  En 1904, LW Wilson quitta Dunedin pour Melbourne où il passa 5 mois sur une peinture commandée par la ville avant de partir pour l'Angleterre, pour finalement retourner en Nouvelle-Zélande via l'Inde et l'Afrique. Il a exposé à la Canterbury Society of Arts en 1882 et à l'Otago Art Society entre 1994 et 1904. Son travail a été inclus à l'exposition NZ and South Seas de Dunedin 1889-90 et à l'exposition de St Louis en 1904. LW Wilson est présent dans les collections de toutes les principales galeries publiques de Nouvelle-Zélande.

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

MITRE PEAK ET MONT PEMBROKE PEINTS PAR LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON

 

LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON (1850-1912)
Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft)
Mont Pembroke ( 2,015m)
Nouvelle-Zélande


In Milford Sound with Mount Pembroke Peak and Mitre Peak/Rahotu 1901, watercolor on Bristol board- South Coast Antiques & Gallery

Les montagnes
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1 683 m) est une montagne emblématique de Nouvelle-Zélande, située sur la rive du Milford Sound (South Island). C'est l'un des sommets les plus photographiés du pays. C'est la forme particulière évoquant un couvre chef d'évêque chrétien, la mitre, qui a donné son nom à ce sommet. Il a été nommé ainsi par le capitaine John Lort Stokes du HMS Acheron. Le sommet jaillit  du rivage de Milford Sound, dans le parc national de Fiordland, au sud-ouest de l'île du Sud, offrant un spectacle époustouflant. La montagne s'élève presque verticalement à partir de la surface de l'eau qui est en réalité un fjord. Le pic est un ensemble étroitement groupé de cinq pics, Mitre Peak n'étant même pas le plus haut. Selon le point de vue ou l'on se place, Mitre Peak  peut apparaître comme un seul pic. Milford Sound fait partie de Te Wahipounamu, un site inscrit du patrimoine mondial par l'UNESCO. Le seul accès routier à Milford Sound se fait par la State Highway 94,  l'une des routes les plus pittoresques de Nouvelle-Zélande. Mitre Peak est difficile à gravir et peu de gens le font. La première tentative a été faite en 1883, mais a été avortée en raison du mauvais temps. La tentative suivante eut lieu le 13 mars 1911 par JR Dennistoun de Peel Forest. Il y a six voies jusqu'à Mitre Peak, et la plupart des grimpeurs commencent par prendre un bateau pour Sinbad Bay. 

Le mont Pembroke, ou Mount Pembroke en anglais, est un sommet de Nouvelle-Zélande.  Il culmine à 2 015 mètres d'altitude au nord de Milford Sound, un fjord du parc national de Fiordland qui baigne sa base.

Le peintre
Laurence William Wilson émigre à Auckland en 1877 puis voyage beaucoup avant de s'installer à Dunedin en 1884. Il peint à la fois à l'huile et à l'aquarelle, devient compagnon de peinture de George O'Brien puis  professeur. L'un de ses élèves fut 'artiste Dunedin Alfred O'Keefe. En 1895, LW Wilson avec Grace Joel, Alfred O'Keefe, Jane Wimperis et Girolami Nerli formnt le Easel Club, émanation artistique de  l'établissement de Dunedin, qui offrait un programme de cours spéciaux et l'introduction d'une femme modèle professionnelle pour le nu.  En 1904, LW Wilson quitta Dunedin pour Melbourne où il passa 5 mois sur une peinture commandée de la ville avant de partir pour l'Angleterre, retournant finalement en Nouvelle-Zélande via l'Inde et l'Afrique. Il a exposé avec la Canterbury Society of Arts en 1882 et l'Otago Art Society entre 1994 et 1904. Son travail a été inclus dans l'exposition NZ and South Seas Dunedin 1889-90 et à l'exposition St Louis en 1904. LW Wilson est représenté dans le collections de toutes les grandes galeries publiques de Nouvelle-Zélande.

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

 

MITREPEAK / RAHOTU SKETCHED BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)
Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft)
New Zealand (South Island)

  In Milford sound, series of watercolours Milford Sounbdof, 1870

The mountain
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron.
Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight. The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.
The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.
Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.


The Painter
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London, the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

 
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

CATHEDRAL PEAK PAINTED BY JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF

JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF (1886-1957)
Cathedral Peak (3,004 m - 9,856 ft)
South Africa (Natal)

The mountain
Cathedral Peak is a mountain in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is a 3,004 m (9,856 ft) high free standing mountain in the Drakensberg. The mountain is also known as Mponjwana (Little Horn) by the local Amangwanepeople. Cathedral Peak is part of the Cathedral Ridge which is at right angles to the main range. Other peaks in the spur are the Twins, also known as the Triplets, (2,899 m or 9,510 feet), the Bell (2,930 m or 9,800 feet), the Outer (3,006 m or 9,860 feet) and Inner (3,005 m or 9,858 feet) Horns, the Chessmen (2,987 m or 9,800 feet) and Mitre Peak (3,023 m or 9,919 feet).
Cathedral Peak was first climbed by D.W. Basset-Smith and R.G. Kingdon in 1917, via the gully.


The painter
Jacobus Hendrik (Henk) Pierneef (usually referred to as Pierneef) was a South African landscape artist, generally considered to be one of the best of the old South African masters. His distinctive style is widely recognized and his work was greatly influenced by the South African landscape.
Most of his landscapes were of the South African highveld, which provided a lifelong source of inspiration for him. Pierneef's style was to reduce and simplify the landscape to geometric structures, using flat planes, lines and colour to present the harmony and order in nature. This resulted in formalised, ordered and often-monumental view of the South African landscape, uninhabited and with dramatic light and colour.
Pierneef's work can be seen worldwide in many private, corporate and public collections, including the Africana Museum, Durban Art Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, King George VI Art Gallery, Pierneef Museum and the Pretoria Art Gallery.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU PAINTED BY LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON

LAURENCE WILLIAM  WILSON  (1851-1912)

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft)

New Zealand 

In Mitre Peak, Milford Sound, oil on canvas,  Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand

The mountain
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron.
Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight. The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.
The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.
Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand

The painter
Laurence William Wilson emigrated to Auckland in 1877 and then travelled extensively to settle in Dunedin in 1884. He painted in both oils and watercolours, became a painting companion of George O'Brien and a teacher. One of his pupils was the Dunedin artist Alfred O'Keefe. In 1895, LW Wilson together with Grace Joel, Alfred O'Keefe, Jane Wimperis and Girolami Nerli formed the Easel Club , a breakaway from the Dunedin Establishment, which offered a programme of special classes and the introduction of a professional lady model for life drawing. In 1904 LW Wilson left Dunedin for Melbourne where he spent 5 months on a commissioned painting of the city before he set out for England, eventually returning to New Zealand via India and Africa. He exhibited with the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1882 and the Otago Art Society between 1994 and 1904. His work was included in the NZ and South Seas Exhibition Dunedin 1889-90 and at the St Louis Exposition in 1904. LW Wilson is represented in the collections of all the major public galleries in New Zealand.

___________________________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN HOYTE

JOHN  HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

In Milford sound, series of watercolour, 1870

The mountain
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron.
Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight. The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.
The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.
Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

The painter
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London, the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MITRE PEAK/KARAKORAM AND MUZTAGH TOWER BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943), 

Mitre Peak - Karakoram (6,010 m  - 9,720 ft)  

Pakistan

Muztagh Tower (7,276m - 23, 871ft)

China, Pakistan border 

In Karakoram 1909- Mitre Peak and Mustag  tower, 1909, 

during the Expedition of Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia

The mountain 

1.Mitre Peak (6,010 m - 19,720 ft)  (left in the photo) - not to be confused with Mitre Peak/Rahotu in New Zealand (South Island) - is a mountain in the Karakoram mountain range near Concordia in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. 

Mitre Peak marks the confluence of the branches of the Baltoro Glacier with the Gasherbrum branch arriving from the SE and the Godwin Austin branch arriving from the NE. It sits across from Broad Peak, the 12th highest mountain on Earth. 

The first ascent was made by the high mountain guide Ivano Ghirardini alone in June 1980, following a mixed path that follows the corridor on the right side from the Baltoro glacier. The route joins the so-called "moon crescent" ridge that connects the Miter peak to the surrounding peaks at 5,700 meters above sea level. A very steep rocky bastion and a terminal wall lead to the summit which is so narrow that the mountaineer had to sit there. Return is via the same route that may prove dangerous due to the risk of avalanches. 

This ascent has never been reiterated. 

 2. Muztagh Tower (7,276m - 23, 871ft) (bottom-right in the photo)  is a mountain in the Baltoro Muztagh, part of the Karakoram range in Baltistan on the border of the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. It stands between the basins of the Baltoro and Sarpo Laggo glaciers.

The Vittorio Sella's photographs of the Muztagh Tower in 1909 during the Italian Expediiton of the Duke of Abruzzi to K2, inspired the first ascent.

Nearly fifty years after Sella's photo was taken, in 1956, his photograph inspired two expeditions to race for the first ascent. Both teams found their routes less steep than Sella's view had suggested. The British expedition, consisting of John Hartog, Joe Brown, Tom Patey and Ian McNaught-Davis, came from the Chagaran Glacier on the west side of the peak and reached the summit via the Northwest Ridge first on July 6, five days before the French team (Guido Magnone, Robert Paragot, André Contamine, Paul Keller) climbed the mountain from the east. The doctor François Florence waited for the two parties at the camp IV during 42 hours without a radio, when they went, reached the summit and came back to this camp.

The artist 

Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club. He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888). 

He took part in various expeditions outside Italy: 

- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name; 

- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897; 

- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899; 

- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Rwenzori; 

- Recognition at K2 in 1909 ; 

- In Morocco in 1925. 

During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram (K2), he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia. 

Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II. His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.

His photos mountain are still considered today to be among the finest ever made. 

Jim Curran believes that "Sella remains probably the greatest photographer of the mountain. His name is synonymous with technical perfection and aesthetic refinement. " 

The quality of the pictures of Vittorio Sella is partly explained by the use of a view camera 30 × 40 cm, despite the difficulty of the transportation of such a device, both heavy and fragile in places inaccessible; to be able to transport it safely, he had to make special pieces that can be stored in saddle bags. His photographs have been widely distributed, either through the press or in the galleries, and were unanimously celebrated; Ansel Adams, who was able to admire thirty-one in an exhibition that was organized at Sella American Sierra Club, said they inspired him "a religious kind of sense of wonder." Many of his pictures were taken in the mountains for the very first time in the History, which give them a much artistic, historical but also scientific value ; for example, one could measure the decline in the Rwenzori glaciers in Central Africa. 

___________________________ 

2019 - Wandering Vertexes... 

by Francis Rousseau

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

2. In Mitre Peak from Milford Sound, watercolour, 1870 

About the works
During his years in New Zealand, from 1860 to 1879, John Barr Clark Hoyte travelled around the country searching for dramatic landscapes to paint.
The watercolours of Mitre Peak are thought to date from the 1870s.

The mountain
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron.
Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight. The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.
The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.
Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.
Climbing
Mitre Peak is difficult to climb and not many people do so. The first attempt was made in 1883, but was aborted due to bad weather. The next attempt was on 13 March 1911 by JR Dennistoun from Peel Forest. People did not believe Dennistoun, who claimed to have built a cairn on the peak to which he had fixed his handkerchief. Those facts were confirmed by the next successful climbers in 1914. There are six routes up to Mitre Peak, and most climbers start by getting a boat to Sinbad Bay.

The painter
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London, the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU PAINTED BY JOHN GULLY

JOHN GULLY (1819 -1888)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

In Milford Sound , watercolour, Museum of New Zealand Te-papa

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

The artist
John Gully (1819 -1888) was a New Zealand landscape painter born in United Kingdom.

Gully's formal education finished when he was apprenticed to Stothert's foundry aged around 13. He worked in the designing and drafting department. He received some training in painting from a Bristol watercolourist, W. J. Muller.
In 1852 Jane and John decided to emigrate with their family of three children to New Zealand.

On 31 July 1860, Gully and his family left New Plymouth on the Airedale for the city of Nelson, where he spent the rest of his life.
He was encouraged by the geologist Julius von Haast, who commissioned him to complete 12 watercolours of Canterbury mountains and glaciers to illustrate a lecture given by Haast at the Royal Geographical Society in London in 1864.
 Eventually in 1863, with assistance of his friend, politician and amateur painter James Crowe Richmond (whom he had met while in New Plymouth), Gully was appointed as a full-time draughtsman at the Nelson provincial survey office. James Crowe Richmond was a lifelong friend of Gully's and his companion in many painting expeditions. He continued to paint in his spare time until 1878 when he was able to resign his position to paint full-time. He was a popular artist during his lifetime and is now regarded as one of New Zealand's foremost landscape painters.
Painting almost entirely in watercolour, Gully often went on sketching trips and filled sketch-books with careful pencil studies and numerous quick-wash drawings both in colour and sepia.
Gully's large watercolours became immensely popular at Art Society shows. He sold all of the watercolours he submitted to the 'New Zealand Exhibition' in Dunedin in 1865 before the exhibition even opened and won a silver medal. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1871 and in 1873 sent 9 paintings to the New Zealand court at the International Industrial Exhibition in Vienna. 

In 1886, he exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London and the 'Intercolonial Exhibition' in Melbourne. He also exhibited works with the Society of British Watercolour Artists in London.
Gully died on 1 November 1888 at the age of sixty-nine after a long and painful illness.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

RAHOTU / MITRE PEAK BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

In Mitre Peak, 1870 , watercolour, 1870 

About the works
During his years in New Zealand, from 1860 to 1879, John Barr Clark Hoyte travelled around the country searching for dramatic landscapes to paint.
The numerous watercolours of Mitre Peak he painted are thought to date from the 1870s.

The mountain
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron.
Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight. The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.
The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.
Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

The Painter
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London, the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY GORDON TOVEY

 GORDON TOVEY (1901-1974)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

  In Mitre Peak, 1966, oil on canvas,  Christchurh Art gallery.

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

 The painter
Arthur Gordon Tovey was a notable New Zealand artist, art teacher and administrator, educationalist, and writer. Born in Wellington, he started exhibiting in 1922, and in 1924 he took a job as an artist with the Railways Advertising Branch.  This work took him to London, where some of his posters for the Southern Railway Posters won praise.  In 1930, following his marriage, he moved back to New Zealand, and two years later he began teaching art at the Dunedin School of Art at King Edward Technical College.  He rose to be head of the school in 1937 and became known for innovative programs integrating the visual and performing arts.  His students in this period included Colin McCahon and Doris Lusk.
During World War II, he worked on camouflage.
 In 1943, he became a full-time art lecturer at Dunedin Training College, where he again introduced educational innovations.  In 1946, he was appointed the first supervisor of art and craft for the Wellington Department of Education.  He was particularly interested in fostering understanding of, and education in, Maori arts, crafts, music, and mythology, and he wrote two books on these subjects, Art and Craft for the South Pacific (1959) and The arts of the Maori (1961).
He retired in 1966, returning to painting and writing full-time. During this period, he published an epic poem, The Twice Born Seed.

MITREPEAK/ RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

 Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

1.  In Milford sound, series of watercolours  Milford Sounbdof, 1870

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

The Painter 

John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London,  the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.

Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.

During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.

His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.

The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

 Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

1.  In Milford sound, watercolour, 1870  

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

Climbing

Mitre Peak is difficult to climb and not many people do so.  The first attempt was made in 1883, but was aborted due to bad weather. The next attempt was on 13 March 1911 by JR Dennistoun from Peel Forest. People did not believe Dennistoun, who claimed to have built a cairn on the peak to which he had fixed his handkerchief. Those facts were confirmed by the next successful climbers in 1914. There are six routes up to Mitre Peak, and most climbers start by getting a boat to Sinbad Bay.

The Painter 

John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London,  the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

MITRE PEAK/ RAHOTU PAINTED BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

EUGENE VON GUERARD  (1811-1901)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

In Mitre Peak and Milford Sound, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Australia

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

The painter 
Johann Joseph Eugene von Guerard was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia from 1852 to 1882. Known for his finely detailed landscapes in the tradition of the Düsseldorf school of painting, he is represented in Australia's major public galleries, and is referred to in the country as Eugene von Guerard. In 1852 von Guerard arrived in Victoria, Australia, determined to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. As a gold-digger he was not very successful, but he did produce a large number of intimate studies of goldfields life, quite different from the deliberately awe-inspiring landscapes for which he was later to become famous. Realizing that there were opportunities for an artist in Australia, he abandoned the diggings and was soon undertaking commissions recording the dwellings and properties of wealthy pastoralists.
By the early 1860s, von Guerard was recognized as the foremost landscape artist in the colonies, touring Southeast Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of the sublime and the picturesque.  He is most known for the wilderness paintings produced during this time, which are remarkable for their shadowy lighting and fastidious detail.  Indeed, his View of Tower Hill in south-western Victoria was used as a botanical template over a century later when the land, which had been laid waste and polluted by agriculture, was systematically reclaimed, forested with native flora and made a state park. The scientific accuracy of such work has led to a reassessment of von Guerard's approach to wilderness painting, and some historians believe it likely that the landscapist was strongly influenced by the environmental theories of the leading scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Others attribute his 'truthful representation' of nature to the criterion for figure and landscape painting set by the Düsseldorf Academy.
In 1866 his Valley of the Mitta Mitta was presented to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; in 1870 the trustees purchased his Mount Kosciusko shown in this article was titled "Northeast view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko", which is actually  "from Mount Townsend".
In 2006, the City of Greater Geelong purchased his 1856 painting View of Geelong for A$3.8M. His painting, Yalla-y-Poora, is in the Joseph Brown Collection on display at the National Gallery of Victoria.  The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney holds an extensive collection of working sketchbooks by Eugene von Guerard, as well as larger drawings and paintings and a diary. The sketchbooks cover regions as diverse as Italy and Germany, Tasmania, New South Wales, and of course, Victoria.
In 1870 von Guerard was appointed the first Master of the School of Painting at the National Gallery of Victoria, where he was to influence the training of artists for the next 11 years. His reputation, high at the beginning of this period, had faded somewhat towards the end because of his rigid adherence to picturesque subject matter and detailed treatment in the face of the rise of the more intimate Heidelberg School style. Amongst his pupils were Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Von Guerard retired from his position at the National Gallery School the end of 1881 and departed for Europe in January 1882. In 1891 his wife died. Two years later, he lost his investments in the Australian bank crash and he lived in poverty until his death in Chelsea, London, on 17 April 1901.
Several paintings of mountains of Australia and New Zealand by Eugène von Guerard are published in this blog, check the link in the name list of painters....

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

 JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

 Mitre Peak / Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

1.  In Mitre Peak, 1870 , watercolour, 1870  

2.  In Mitre Peak from Milford Sound, watercolour 1870

About the works 

During his years in New Zealand, from 1860 to 1879, John Barr Clark Hoyte travelled around the country searching for dramatic landscapes to paint.
The watercolours of Mitre Peak are thought to date from the 1870s.

The mountain 

Mitre Peak/ Rahotu  (1,683m -  5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron. 

Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight.  The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.

The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.

 Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.

The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.

Climbing

Mitre Peak is difficult to climb and not many people do so.  The first attempt was made in 1883, but was aborted due to bad weather. The next attempt was on 13 March 1911 by JR Dennistoun from Peel Forest. People did not believe Dennistoun, who claimed to have built a cairn on the peak to which he had fixed his handkerchief. Those facts were confirmed by the next successful climbers in 1914. There are six routes up to Mitre Peak, and most climbers start by getting a boat to Sinbad Bay.

The Painter 

John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London,  the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.