INDRASAN PAINTED BY VASILY VERESHCHAGIN

VASILY VERESHCHAGIN (1842-1904)
Mount Idrasan (6,621m - 21, 722ft)
India, Pakistan

In Glacier on the Road from Kashmir to Ladakh, 1875,  Tretyakov Gallery Moscow.

The mountain
Mount Indrasan (6,621m - 21, 722ft) is located in Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh. Mt. Indrasan is considered as the most difficult mountain to climb in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas because of the challenges involved in scaling it. It was first climbed on October 13, 1962 by an expedition organized by Kyoto University Alpine Club, Kyoto, Japan. It is also believed that whenever Lord Indra arrives on earth he resides here. Indrasan i.e. the royal seat of the Lord Indra. The Pir Panjal Range also Panchaladeva in Hindu scriptures, is a group of mountains in the Lesser Himalayan region, running from east-southeast (ESE) to west-northwest (WNW) across the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, the Indian administrated Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Pakistani administered territory of Azad Kashmir, where the average elevation varies from 1,400 m (4,600 ft) to 4,100 m (13,500 ft). The Himalayas show a gradual elevation towards the Dhauladhar and Pir Panjal ranges. Pir Panjal is the largest range of the Lesser Himalayas. The region is connected to the Valley of Kashmir via Mughal Road and used to be the historical connection of Kashmir with India.

 
The painter
Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin (Васи́лий Васи́льевич Вереща́гин) transcribed in English as "Basil Verestchagin", was one of the most famous Russian war artists and one of the first Russian artists to be widely recognized abroad. The graphic nature of his realist scenes led many of them to never be printed or exhibited. In 1864 he proceeded to Paris, where he studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme, though he dissented widely from his master's methods. In the Paris Salon of 1866 he exhibited a drawing of Dukhobors chanting their Psalms. In the next year he was invited to accompany General Konstantin Kaufman's expedition to Turkestan. He was an indefatigable traveler, returning to St. Petersburg in late 1868, to Paris in 1869, back to St. Petersburg later in the year, and then back to Turkestan at the end 1869 via Siberia. In 1871, he established an atelier in Munich, and made a solo exhibition of his works at the Crystal Palace in London in 1873.
More about the painter

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Wandering Vertexes 2020
A blog by Francis Rousseau

MUIR GLACIER PAINTED BY THOMAS HILL

THOMAS HILL (1829-1908)
Muir Glacier (90 m - 200 ft)
United States of America ( Alaska)

In Muir Glacier, Alaska. oil on canvas, Oakland Museum of California

The Glacier
Muir Glacier is a glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is currently about 0.7 km (0.43 mi) wide at the terminus. As recently as the mid-1980s the glacier was a tidewater glacier and calved icebergs from a wall of ice 90 m (200 feet) tall.
The glacier is named after Scottish-born naturalist John Muir, who traveled around the area and wrote about it, generating interest in the local environment and in its preservation. His first two visits were in 1879 (at age 41) and 1880. During the visits, he sent an account of his visits in installments to the San Francisco Bulletin. Later, he collected and edited these installments in a book, Travels in Alaska, published in 1915, the year after he died.
Muir Glacier has undergone very rapid, well-documented retreat since its Little Ice Age maximum position at the mouth of Glacier Bay around 1780. In 1794, the explorer Captain George Vancouver found that most of Glacier Bay was covered by an enormous ice sheet, some 1,200 meters (3,900 ft) in places.
In 1904 the glacier reportedly "broke through the mountains" with Pyramid Peak to the west and Mt. Wright and Mount Case to the east.
From 1892 to approximately 1980, it had retreated nearly 32 kilometers (20 mi). Between 1941 and 2004, the glacier retreated more than 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) and thinned by over 800 meters (2,600 ft). Ocean water has filled the valley replacing the ice and creating Muir Inlet.

The painter
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Hill’s work was often driven by a vision resulting from his experiences with nature. For Thomas Hill, Yosemite Valley and the White Mountains of New Hampshire were his sources of inspiration to begin painting and captured his direct response to nature.
Hill was loosely associated with the Hudson River School of painters. The Hudson River School celebrated nature with a sense of awe for its natural resources, which brought them a feeling of enthusiasm when thinking of the potential it held. Mainly the earlier members of the Hudson River School, around the 1850-60’s, displayed man as in unison with nature in their landscape paintings by often painting men on a very small scale compared to the vast landscape. Thomas Hill often brought this technique into his own paintings in for example in his painting, Yosemite Valley, 1889.
He made early trips to the White Mountains with his friend Benjamin Champney and painted White Mountain subjects throughout his career. An example of his White Mountain subjects is Mount Lafayette in his Mount Lafayette in Winter.
Hill acquired the technique of painting en plein air. These paintings in the field later served as the basis for larger finished works. In plein air means to “paint outdoors and directly from the landscape”,[ which Hill incorporated into many of his paintings. Hill’s landscape paintings demonstrate how he combined his powers of observation with powerful motifs in each painting.
Hill’s move to California in 1861 brought him new material for his paintings. He chose monumental vistas, like Yosemite. During his lifetime, Hill’s paintings were popular in California, costing as much as $10,000. Hill's best works are considered to be these monumental subjects, including Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Vernal Falls and Yosemite Valley.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

POPOCATEPETL PAINTED BY JOSÉ MARIRA VELASCO

 

JOSÉ MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)
The Popocatépetl (5,426 m -17,802 ft)
Mexico

In Popocatepetl , oil on canvas, Private owner

The mountain
Popocatépetl (5,426 m - 17,802 ft) is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca (it smokes) and tepētl (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity. By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.
Magma erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.

The Painter
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings.
Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.
Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.
The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE WATZMANN PAINTED BY JOHAN CHRISTIAN DAHL

JOHAN CHRISTIAN DAHL  (1788-1857)
The Watzmann (2,713m - 8,901ft)
Germany (Bavarian Alps)

In The Watzmann (1825), Oil on canvas, 45 x 33 cm, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

The mountain
The Watzmann (2,713m - 8,901ft) is a mountain in the Bavarian Alps south of the village of Berchtesgaden. It is the third highest in Germany, and the highest located entirely on German territory. Three main peaks array on a N-S axis along a ridge on the mountain's taller western half: Hocheck (2,651 m), Mittelspitze (Middle Peak, 2,713 m) and Sьdspitze (South Peak, 2,712 m).
The Watzmann massif also includes the 2,307 m Watzmannfrau (Watzmann Wife, also known as Kleiner Watzmann or Small Watzmann), and the Watzmannkinder (Watzmann Children), five lower peaks in the recess between the main peaks and the Watzmannfrau.
The entire massif lies inside Berchtesgaden National Park.
The Watzmann Glacier is located below the famous east face of the Watzmann in the Watzmann cirque and is surrounded by the Watzmanngrat arête, the Watzmannkindern and the Kleiner Watzmann. The size of the glacier reduced from around 30 hectares (74 acres) in 1820 until it split into a few fields of firn, but between 1965 and 1980 it advanced significantly again and now has an area of 10.1 hectares (25 acres). Above and to the west of the icefield lie the remains of a transport-bomber that crashed in October 1940.
Amongst the other permanent snow and icefields the Eiskapelle ("Ice Chapel") is the best known due to its easy accessibility from St. Bartholomä. The Eiskapelle may well be the lowest lying permanent snowfield in the Alps. Its lower end is only 930 metres high in the upper Eisbach valley and is about an hour's walk from St. Bartholomä on the Königssee. The Eiskapelle is fed by mighty avalanches that slide down from the east face of the Watzmann in spring and accumulate in the angle of the rock face. Sometimes a gate-shaped vault forms in the ice at the point where the Eisbach emerges from the Eiskapelle. Before entering there is an urgent warning sign that others have been killed by falling ice.
In the east face itself is another icefield in the so-called Schöllhorn cirque, called the Schöllhorneis, which is crossed by the Kederbach Way (Kederbacher-Weg). The cirque and icefield are named after the Munich citizen, Christian Schöllhorn, who was the first victim on the east face. On 26 May 1890 he fell at the upper end of the icefield into the randkluft and was fatally injured. Another small nameless snowfield is located several hundred metres below the Mittelspitze also in the east face. 

CADILLAC MOUNTAIN BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)
Cadillac Mountain (466 m - 1,530 ft)
United States of America (Maine)

In The Artist Sketching at Mount Desert, Maine, oil on canvas 1860s, 

National Gallery of art, Washington DC 

The mountain,
Cadillac Mountain (466 m-1,530 ft) is located on Mount Desert Island, within Acadia National Park, in the U.S. state of Maine. Its summit is the highest point in Hancock County and the highest within 25 miles (40 km) of the shoreline of the North American continent between the Cape Breton Highlands, Nova Scotia and peaks in Mexico. It is known as the first place in the U.S. to see the sunrise, although that is only true for a portion of the year. Before being renamed in 1918, the mountain had been called Green Mountain. The new name honors the French explorer and adventurer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac. In 1688, De la Mothe requested and received from the Governor of New France a parcel of land in an area known as Donaquec which included part of the Donaquec River (now the Union River) and the island of Mount Desert in the present-day U.S. state of Maine. Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, a shameless self-promoter who had already appropriated the "de la Mothe" portion of his name from a local nobleman in his native Picardy, thereafter referred to himself as Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, Donaquec, and Mount Desert ! From 1883 until 1893 the Green Mountain Cog Railway ran to the summit to take visitors to the Green Mountain Hotel. The hotel burned down in 1895 and the cog train was sold and moved to the Mount Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire

 

The painter 

Sanford Robinson Gifford was born in Greenfield, New York and spent his childhood in Hudson, New York, the son of an iron foundry owner. He attended Brown University 1842-44, before leaving to study art in New York City in 1845. He studied drawing, perspective and anatomy under the direction of the British watercolorist and drawing-master, John Rubens Smith.  He also studied the human figure in anatomy classes at the Crosby Street Medical college and took drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.  By 1847 he was sufficiently skilled at painting to exhibit his first landscape at the National Academy and was elected an associate in 1851, an academician in 1854. Thereafter Gifford devoted himself to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the early Hudson River School.
Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.
In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.
Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.
During the summer of 1867, Gifford spent most of his time painting on the New Jersey coast, specifically at Sandy Hook and Long Branch, according to an auction Web site.
Another journey, this time with Jervis McEntee and his wife, took him across Europe in 1868. Leaving the McEntees behind, Gifford traveled to the Middle East, including Egypt in 1869. Then in the summer of 1870 Gifford ventured to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States, this time with Worthington Whittredge and John Frederick Kensett. At least part of the 1870 travels were as part of a Hayden Expedition, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden.
Returning to his studio in New York City, Gifford painted numerous major landscapes from scenes he recorded on his travels. Gifford's method of creating a work of art was similar to other Hudson River School artists. He would first sketch rough, small works in oil paint from his sketchbook pencil drawings. Those scenes he most favored he then developed into small, finished paintings, then into larger, finished paintings.
Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. Examples of Gifford's "chief pictures" in museum collections today include: Lake Nemi (1856–57), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ; The Wilderness (1861), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ;  A Passing Storm (1866), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut ;  Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
On August 29, 1880, Gifford died in New York City, having been diagnosed with malarial fever. The MET in New York City celebrated his life that autumn with a memorial exhibition of 160 paintings. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

 

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
 

TETON RANGE PAINTED BY THOMAS MORAN

THOMAS MORAN (1837-1926)
Grand Teton (4,199 m - 13,775 ft)
United States of America (Wyoming)

In Teton range, Oil on cnavas, 1897, 76.2 x 114.3 cm, The MET, (on view on Gallery 765)

 About this painting in the MET note
" As Albert Bierstadt claimed the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada for his art, so Moran made the Yellowstone region and the Grand Canyon his signature subjects. His dazzling watercolors of Yellowstone led directly to its designation, in 1872, as the first national park. A native of Great Britain and an ardent admirer of the English painter J. M. W. Turner, Moran used prismatic color to capture the splendors of the American West—such as this dramatic view of the Tetons, located just south of Yellowstone. For centuries, Indigenous communities lived on and cared for this land, yet they are notably absent from Moran’s work. Instead, the artist depicted the landscape as an untouched pre-industrial paradise—thus, ripe for White settlement and colonization "

The mountain
Grand Teton (4,199 m - 13,775 ft) is the highest mountain in Grand Teton National Park in Northwest Wyoming, and a classic destination in American mountaineering. It is the highest point of the Teton Range, and the second highest peak in the U.S. state of Wyoming after Gannett Peak. The mountain is entirely within the Snake River drainage basin, which it feeds by several local creeks and glaciers.The Teton Range is a subrange of the Rocky Mountains, which extend from southern Alaska to northern New Mexico.  Grand Teton's name was first recorded as Mount Hayden by the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870. However, the name "the Grand Teton" had early currency. The Edition of April, 1901 of the USGS 1:125,000 quadrangle map of the area shows "Grand Teton" as the name of the peak. A United States National Park named "Grand Teton National Park" was established by law in 1929. By 1931, the name Grand Teton Peak was in such common usage that it was recognized by the USGS Board on Geographic Names. Another shift in usage led the Board to shorten the name on maps to Grand Teton in 1970. The origin of the name is disputed. The most common explanation is that "Grand Teton" means "large teat" in French, named by either French-Canadian or Iroquois members of an expedition led by Donald McKenzie of the North West Company. However, other historians disagree, and claim that the mountain was named after the Teton Sioux tribe of Native Americans.

The painter
Thomas Moran was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist. He was a younger brother of the noted marine artist Edward Moran, with whom he shared a studio. A talented illustrator and exquisite colorist, Thomas Moran was hired as an illustrator at Scribner's Monthly. During the late 1860s, he was appointed the chief illustrator for the magazine, a position that helped him launch his career as one of the premier painters of the American landscape, in particular, the American West.
Moran along with Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill, and William Keith are sometimes referred to as belonging to the Rocky Mountain School of landscape painters because of all of the Western landscapes made by this group.
Thomas Moran has a painting exhibited as part of the White House collection with The Three Tetons painted in 1895.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT HAWKES / HAWKES HEIGHTS BY CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH

CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH (1776-1859),
Mount Hawkes / Hawkes Heights (2,000 m- 6,600 ft)
Antarctic (Coulman Island)

In Coulman Island, discovered Jan.4. 1844, watercolor on paper,

Yale Center for BRitish Art, New Haven, USA

The mountain
Mount Hawkes ( 2,000 m- 6,600 ft) also called  Hawkes Heights  is an ice-filled volcanic crater that dominates the southern part of Coulman Island, in the Ross Sea, Antarctica and marks the island's summit. The feature was named by the New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE), 1958–59, for Captain William M. Hawkes, U.S. Navy, who took a leading part in early air operations from Williams Field near McMurdo Station, including long range photo reconnaissance and supply flights, and the first air landing at the South Pole. He was commander of one of the two planes which made the historic first flight from Christchurch to McMurdo Station on December 17, 1955. His air photos proved of great value to two NZGSAE parties to this part of Victoria Land. Mount Hawkes is also named for Hawkes, who was assigned to Air Development Squadron Six (VX-6) in 1955–56.

The artist
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier, and... spy as well !. His military career began in 1787, when he studied at the Austrian academy for artillery and engineers at Mechelen and Leuven in Belgium (his native country). Although his military service, which ended in 1820 and included the Napoleonic Wars, saw him travel extensively (including the West Indies, Canada, United States, Southern and Northern Europe and ...Antarctica).
As a prolific self-taught illustrator (over 38,000 drawings!) He left quite an important number of books of beautifully watercolored landscapes taken all around the world. those nooks of watercolors are nowadays in the collections of the Yale Center From British Art. Among them :
- Views of France, Volume I (81 watercolors), Views of France, Volume II (93 watercolors),
- Views of England and Wales, Volume I (82 watercolors), Views of England and Wales, Volume II (74 watercolors),
- Views of Northern Europe, Volume I (68watercolors) , Views of Northern Europe, Volume II (78) watercolors),
- Views of Polar Regions (75 watercolors) (see above)
- Views of Spain, Volume I (69 watercolors), Views of Spain, Volume II (72 watercolors), But one of his noteworthy achievements was an 1800 experiment to determine which color should be used for military uniforms. He is also known in military history circles for Costume of the Army of the British Empire, produced towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and an accurate depiction of contemporary British uniform.
As an antiquarian, he also produced, in collaboration with Samuel Rush Meyrick, Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Islands, 1815, and The Ancient Costume of England, with historical illustrations of medieval knights, ladies, shipsm and battles.
He also wrote on the history of the Seven Years' War and The Natural history of dogs.
Quite a productive fellow !

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY JOHN MARTIN

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

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

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

The volcano
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 m- 4,203 ft at present) is one of those legendary and mythic mountains the Earth paid regularly tribute. Monte Vesuvio in Italian modern langage or Mons Vesuvius in antique Latin langage is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples (Italy) about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore.
It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure.
Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman antique cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and several other settlements. That eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ash, and fumes to a height of 33 km (20.5 mi), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing. At least 1,000 people died in the eruption. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.
Vesuvius has erupted many times since and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions (said Plinian eruptions). It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.
Vesuvius was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the oceanic African plate were pushed to hotter depths in the earth, the water boiled off and caused the melting point of the upper mantle to drop enough to create partial melting of the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak place at the Earth's surface it broke through, producing the volcano.
he area around Vesuvius was officially declared a national park on June 5, 1995. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors and there is a small network of paths around the mountain that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends.
There is access by road to within 200 metres (660 ft) of the summit (measured vertically), but thereafter access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the mountain from the road to the crater.
The first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius opened in 1880. It was later destroyed by the 1944 eruption. "Funiculì, Funiculà", a famous Neapolitan song with lyrics by journalist Peppino Turco set to music by composer Luigi Denza, commemorates its opening.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT LANGI PAINTED BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

 

EUGENE VON GUERARD (1811-1901)
Mount Langi Ghiran (924 m - 3,031ft)
Australia (Victoria)

In Mount Langi from Pleasant Creek oil on canvas, 1890

The mountain
Mount Langi Ghiran (924m - 3,031ft) is located in the west of Victoria southeast of Australia. The nearest town to Mount Langi Ghiran is Ararat about 16.3 km away.
The first European to climb Mount Langi Ghiran was Major Thomas Mitchell, on his 1836 'Australia Felix' expedition. He first named it Mount Mistake !
There are two reservoirs in the park which were built from local granite blocks in the 1880s. The main reservoir forms part of Ararat's water supply and is worth a visit.
A "spot mill" for extracting timber was built on the northern slopes in 1940 but was short lived. Today little evidence remains to remind us of the mill's past operation.
Since 1970, famous vineyards are situated in the valley of Mount Langi Ghiran.

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.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT ARARAT PAINTED BY LEVON KOJOYAN

LEVON KOJOYAN (1924-2015)
Mount Ararat (5,137 m- 16,854ft)
Turkey (since 1921)

The mountains
There are two mountains in the world called Mont Ararat, One in Turkey, one in United States of America (Pennsylvania). The one we are talking about is Mount Ararat in Turkey, which has a very long and complex political, religious, sacred and mythical history.
Mount Ararat (5,137 m- 16,854ft) (Turkish: Ağrı Dağı; Armenian: Մասիս, Masis) is a snow-capped and dormant stratovolcano in the eastern extremity of Turkey. It consists of two major volcanic cones: Greater Ararat, the highest peak in Turkey and the Armenian plateau with an elevation of 5,137 m (16,854 ft); and Little Ararat, with an elevation of 3,896 m (12,782 ft). The Ararat massif is about 40 km (25 mi) in diameter and is part of the range of Armenian Highlands.
Mountains of Ararat have been perceived as the traditional resting place of Noah's Ark since the 11th century. It is the principal national symbol of Armenia and has been considered a sacred mountain by Armenians. It is featured prominently in Armenian literature and art and is an icon for Armenian irredentism. Along with Noah's Ark, it is depicted on the coat of arms of Armenia.
Mount Ararat forms a near-quadripoint between Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran. Its summit is located some 16 km (10 mi) west of both the Iranian border and the border of the Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan, and 32 km (20 mi) south of the Armenian border. The Turkish–Armenian–Azerbaijani and Turkish–Iranian–Azerbaijani tripoints are some 8 km apart, separated by a narrow strip of Turkish territory containing the E99 road which enters Nakhchivan at 39.6553°N 44.8034°E.
From the 16th century until 1828 Great Ararat's summit and the northern slopes, along with the eastern slopes of Little Ararat were part of Persia, while the range was part of the Ottoman-Persian border. Following the 1826–28 Russo-Persian War and the Treaty of Turkmenchay, the Persian controlled territory was ceded to the Russian Empire. Little Ararat became the point where the Turkish, Persian, and Russian imperial frontiers converged.
The current international boundaries were formed throughout the 20th century. The mountain came under Turkish control during the 1920 Turkish–Armenian War. It formally became part of Turkey according to the 1921 Treaty of Moscow and Treaty of Kars. By the Tehran Convention of 1932, a border change was made in Turkey's favor, allowing it to occupy the eastern flank of Lesser Ararat.The Iran-Turkey boundary skirts east of Lesser Ararat, the lower peak of the Ararat massif.
The nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) party claims eastern Turkey (Western Armenia) as part of what it considers United Armenia. The Armenian government has not made official claims to any Turkish territory,however the Armenian government has avoided "an explicit and formal recognition of the existing Turkish-Armenian border." According to Turkish political scientist Bayram Balci, regular references to the Armenian Genocide and Mount Ararat "clearly indicates" that the border with Turkey in contested in Armenia.


The painter
Merited Artist of Armenia Levon Kojoyan died today at the age of 91. His civil funeral will be held on March 12. He will be laid to rest on March 13. Levon Kojoyan was born in 1924 in Russia. He apprenticed to Hakob Kojoyan.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY CHARLES MOUTON-DUGASSEAU

 CHARLES MOUTON-DUGASSEAU (1812- 1883)
Mount Vesuvius (1,281m - 4,203ft)
Italy

In La Baie de Naples avec une éruption du Vésuve sous la neige,
6 January 1836,(Bay of Naples with Mount Vesuvius Erupting and Covered in Snow), 6 Janvier 1836,
Gouache on paper 42.7cm x 63.3cm.
Private collection

The artist
Charles Dugasseau, born Charles-Alexandre-Ernest Mouton or Mouton-Dugasseau  was a painter, designer and curator of the Tessé Museum in Le Mans. After making his debut at Le Mans in 1836, Charles Dugasseau spent seven years in Italy in Rome. Student of Ingres who describes him as his friend, and who invites him to come and listen to music until the end of his days. His Sapho exhibited at the Salon in 1845, with Christ surrounded by the founders of the religion, was noticed by Francis Wey, Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire who made this comment: “Serious painting, but pedantic - looks like a very solid Lehmann. His Sapho making the leap of Lefkada is a pretty composition ”.
Nephew of Narcisse Desportes, curator of the Tessé Museum and botanist, Charles Dugasseau replaced him in 1856. He increased the museum's collection by making purchases, in particular twenty-three works by Italian primitives acquired during the sale after the death of a collector from Manceau, Évariste Fouret (1807-1863). He requests deposits from the French State and makes or has made many copies of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, (Joconda), Bernardino Luini, Francesco Melzi (Flora ou Colombine or La Dame au jasmin), Andrea Solari (The Virgin with the Green Cushion).
The second part of his career was devoted to landscape painting.

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.

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.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

RIESENGEBIRGE AND SZRENICA (3) PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

 

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)
Riesengebirge (1,362 m - 4,469 ft)
Poland - Czech Republic border

In New Moon above the Riesengebirge Mountains, 1810, pen and gray ink with watercolor over graphite on wove paper overall, 26.2 x 36.5 cm, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

The mountain
Szrenica (1,362 m - 4,469 ft) is a mountain peak situated in the western part of Karkonosze on Polish and Czech border within the Karkonosze National Park. Its name originates from the Polish word szron (frost). There is a weather station situated close to the summit. The peak is deforested, both the southern and the northern parts are used intensively for skiing. The elevation gain compared to the main range is approximately 60 m. Szrenica Is part of the Giant Mountains range (Riesengebirge in german) frequently painted by the most famous romantic german painter Caspar David Friedrich.

The painter
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization".
Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. In line with the Romantic ideals of his time, he intended his paintings to function as pure aesthetic statements, so he was cautious that the titles given to his work were not overly descriptive or evocative. It is likely that some of today's more literal titles, such as The Stages of Life, were not given by the artist himself, but were instead adopted during one of the revivals of interest in Friedrich. Complications arise when dating Friedrich's work, in part because he often did not directly name or date his canvases. He kept a carefully detailed notebook on his output, however, which has been used by scholars to tie paintings to their completion dates.


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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONTE DEL FORNO PAINTED BY GIOVANNI GIACOMETTI

GIOVANNI GIACOMETTI (1868-1933)

Monte del Forno (3,214m -10,544 ft )

Italy - Switzerland border 

In Lake and mount  del Forno, watercolour,  Private collection  

The mountain
Monte del Forno (3,214m -10,544 ft )  not to be confused with  Monte Forno (Austrian, Slovenian Italian border)  is a mountain in the Bregaglia Range (Alps), located on the border between Italy and Switzerland. On its western side it overlooks the Forno Glacier and Lake.

The painter 
Giovanni Giacometti was a Swiss painter, the father of the famous painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti, and of Diego Giacometti, the furniture designer as well as the father of the architect Bruno Giacometti ! In 1886, he studied painting at the School of Decorative Arts in Munich, where he met Cuno Amiet the following year. Both decide to pursue their studies in Paris, in October stood at the Académie Julian, where Giacometti remains until 1891.
In 1893, shortly after his return to Switzerland, to Bergell, he became friends with Giovanni Segantini, his eldest ten years, which has great influence on his work by opening it to the beauty of the mountain scenery and the rules of divisionism. After his sudden death in 1899, Giacometti met Ferdinand Hodler, who teaches him to create a rigorous and ornamental composition by appropriate use of shapes and colors.
He sees regularly Cuno Amiet, who after a year spent in Pont-Aven, shared his experience with him. In 1900 he exhibited in the Swiss Pavillon of the Universal Exhibition in Paris. From 1905, Giacometti works again in a great complicity with Amiet and begins to break free from the influence of Segantini. In 1906, held an exhibition of his work at Kunstlerhaus Zurich. In 1907 he went to Paris with Amiet to the Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne. They copy all the works of Van Gogh. In 1908, he exhibited with the French Fauves at the Richter Gallery in Dresden.
In 1909, the Tannhauser Gallery presents his works in Munich. He meets Alexi von Jawlensky, and in 1911 participates in the Berlin Secession. In 1912, Giacometti has a solo show at the Kunsthaus Zurich presents two works in the Sonderbund of Cologne. In 1918 after Hodler' s death, he began to be involved into the Swiss political world paying an important part as a committed artist, following int that way friend Amiet.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE RIGI PAINTED BY TURNER

J.M.W. TURNER (1775-1851)

The Rigi or Rigi Kulm or Mount Rigi (1, 797m - 5,897ft)

Switzerland

In Lucerne by Moonlight - Sample Study, ca.1842/43, Watercolour on paper, 23.5 x 32.5 cm,

Tate London

The mountain
The Rigi (1, 797m - 5,897ft) is a mountain massif of the Alps, located in Central Switzerland.
The whole massif is almost entirely surrounded by the water of three different water bodies: Lake Lucerne, Lake Zug and Lake Lauerz. The range is in the Schwyzer Alps, and is split between the cantons of Schwyz and Lucerne, although the main summit, named Rigi Kulm, at 1,798 meters above sea level, lies within the canton of Schwyz. Technically, the Rigi is not a part of the Alps, and belongs instead to the Swiss plateau. It is mostly composed of molasse and other conglomerate, as opposed to the Bündner schist and flysch of the Alps.
The Rigi Kulm and other areas, such as the resort of Rigi Kaltbad, are served by Europe's oldest mountain railways, the Rigi Railways. Swiss Railways offer a special round-trip excursion, the “Rigi-Rundfahrt”, covering multiple segments by train, cog-railway, gondola (optional) and lake steamer. The whole area offers many activities such as skiing or sledging in the winter, and hiking in the summer.
The name Rigi is from Old High German "rîga" which means "row, stripe, furrow", after the stratification that is clearly visible on the north-side of the mountain. The name is first recorded in 1350 as Riginun. The name was interpreted as Regina montium "queen of mountains" by Albrecht von Bonstetten (1479), who however gives Rigena as alternative form.
Mt. Rigi has been featured in many works of art, including both paintings and literary publications. Perhaps the most famous paintings of the Rigi were the series by J.M.W. Turner , several of which are in the collection of the Tate Britain in London.
Mark Twain also visited Rigi during his tour of Central Europe in the late 1870s, and wrote about his travels in chapter 28 of his "A Tramp Abroad."

The painter
The english painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence in the history of painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.
More about Turner

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LUSHAN / 庐山 BY JEAN-BAPTISTE NÉE

 

JEAN-BAPTISTE NÉE (b.1986)

Lushan / 庐山 or Mount Lu (1,474m- 4,834ft)

China

 In  Lushan (IX), lavis, 2018, 14x19cm,  Collection privée ©Jean-Baptiste Née 

@jeanbaptiste.nee 

The artist
Jean-Baptiste Née, born in 1986. is a french painter, scenographer and visual artist, graduated from Arts-Décoratifs of Paris in 2012. Jean-Baptiste Née works in the mountains and high mountains, always in situ, in direct confrontation with the movements of the earth and water and wind. He gives a growing place for the action of the elements on the work in progress (rain, snow, frost, etc.). He established his "large workshop" in the Swiss Alps or in the Vercors massif - especially in winter -, as well as during long hikes in the Italian Alps. In the winter of 2018, he worked in the massifs of Wudangshan and Lushan, in China, (see above) and became interested in the Taoist notion of "Sky" (t’ien 天).
Since 2016, Jean-Baptiste Née exhibits regularly in galleries in France and Switzerland. His workshop is in Montreuil, France.

The mountain
Mount Lu or Lushan (庐山)  ( (1,474m- 4,834ft) is situated in the northern part of Jiangxi province in southeastern China, and is one of the most renowned mountains in the country. Mount Lushan is one of the spiritual centres of Chinese civilization. Buddhist and Taoist temples, along with landmarks of Confucianism, where the most eminent masters taught, blend effortlessly into a strikingly beautiful landscape which has inspired countless artists who developed the aesthetic approach to nature found in Chinese culture.
The oval-shaped mountains are about 25 km long and 10 km wide, and neighbors Jiujiang city and the Yangtze River to the north, Nanchang city to the south, and Poyang Lake to the east. Its highest point is Dahanyang Peak (1,474m- 4,834ft) and is one of the hundreds of steep peaks that towers above a sea of clouds that encompass the mountains for almost 200 days out of the year. Mount Lu is known for its grandeur, steepness, and beauty, and is part of Lushan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, and a prominent tourist attraction, especially during the summer months when the weather is cooler.
Lushan was a summer resort for Western missionaries in China. Absalom Sydenstricker, the father of Pearl Buck was one of the first five missionaries to acquire property in the Kuling Estate on the mountain.
More about Mount Lu  

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2020- Wandering Vertexes... / Mountain paintings
A blog by Francis Rousseau 

THE DACHSTEIN PAINTED BY FERDINAND GEORG WALDMÜLLER

 

FERDINAND GEORG WALDMÜLLER (1793-1865)

Hoher Dachstein (2, 995m - 9, 826ft)

 Austria 

In The Dachstein, 1835, oil on canvas, Belvedere Museum, Vienna

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

The painter
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller was an Austrian writer and one of the most important painters of the Biedermeier period. Whether it was the conquest of the landscape and thus the convincing rendering of closeness or distance, the accurate characterisation of the human face, the detailed and refined description of textures, or the depiction of rural everyday life: his works – brilliant, explanatory, moralising, and socially critical – influenced a whole generation of artists. Being an advocate of natural observation and plein air painting, as well as a critic of academic painting, Waldmüller was far ahead of his time.

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Wandering Vertexes 2020
A blog by Francis Rousseau

MONT GAUSSIER (3) PAINTED BY VINCENT VAN GOGH

VINCENT VAN GOGH  (1853-1890) 

  Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft)  

France

In  Entrée de la carrière près de Saint-Rémy (et Mont Gaussier), 1889,  

Oil on canvas 52.0 x 64.0 cm. Private collection 

 

About the painting
During his internment in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Van Gogh seized the surroundings to nourish his artistic geography. He tirelessly paints and draws new Provencal motifs: cypress trees, olive groves and hills. With the Alpilles chain and the Mont Gaussier rising behind the asylum buildings, the painter has the opportunity to represent this mountain range as well as the quarry which is nearby. Of the latter, he gave two performances: one painted in mid-July - shortly after he suffered a new seizure - the other (the one above) in October in which  Mount Gaussier, the highest moutain of Les Alpilles appears on right. 

The mountain
The Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft) is a summit of the Alpilles located south of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Today, the place of passage of many hikers who cross it by the GR6, Mount Gaussier was very early used as habitat by protohistoric populations, before having at its summit a medieval castle, nowadays disappeared. Mount Gaussier is made of crystalline limestone, white and hard. One finds in the soil the trace of many fossils. This type of summit is characteristic of the Alpilles range of mountains, especially on the north face.
The first traces of habitation on Mount Gaussier are ancient. In 1996, three sites dating from Protohistory were discovered at the summit and on the slopes. This is what emerges from the study of stones, tiles, ceramics and shards of amphora found on the premises. Moreover, the foundation of a wall was identified at the top during the same prospecting.
Most of the human activity of antiquity at Mount Gaussier nevertheless concentrated at the foot of it, since it was there that was built the Salyan city of Glanum (today Saint-Remy de Provence). Research carried out in 1996 and 1997 revealed that the well-preserved remains of a protohistoric rampart with towers have been cleared in several places, particularly on the ridges which dominate to the north-east and south-west the Saint-Clerg and at the foot of Mount Gaussier. The system of rampart which encircled the city in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. J.-C. leaned on the cliffs of the mount Gaussier which border it on a hundred meters. It is also believed that Mount Gaussier, by its situation, could be used as an acropolis because of its plateau surrounded by cliffs and that its access from Glanum was made possible by a narrow corridor.
If, according to the archaeologist Henri Rolland, some families occupied the Alpilles range, on the slopes of Mount Gaussier, between the first Iron Age and the end of Antiquity, but also in the High Middle Ages, only the foot and the summit of the mountain were occupied in the following centuries, especially in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was here that a part of the inhabitants of Glanum took up residence after the ruin of the ancient city in the alluvial deposits of the mountain.
Mount Gaussier, like Glanum, then in ruins, and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, became property of the church of Avignon at the end of the 9th century in a county of Provence powered by Count Thibert.
It is possible to reach the Mount Gaussier from the ruins of Glanum or from La Caume by the GR6 climbing previously metal ladders.

The painter
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He died by suicide at 37, following years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He took up painting in 1881 having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
More about Vincent Van Gogh

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2020 - 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.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TOHIVEA (2) PAINTED BY JOHN LA FARGE

JOHN LA FARGE (1835-1910) 

Mount Tohivea   (1,207 m-3,960 ft)

French Polynesia (Moorea)

In  The entrance of Tutira River, with Tohivea in the back 1895,
 National Gallery of Art, Washington 

The mountain
Mount Tohivea (or Tohiea)  (1,207 m - 3,960 ft) is a volcanic peak and the highest point on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia. On its slopes are many streams and fertile soils. There are hiking trails along the summit close to Belvedere Point where people can view Mont Routui and the two bays and three peninsulas of Moorea. Mount Tohivea is a dormant volcano that is easily visible from Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. The surrounding peaks are almost as tall as Mount Tohivea.
Mt. Tohivea has many peaks surrounding it. These include Mount Rotui (899 m), and Mou'a Roa (880 m), both of which can be seen from Belvedere Point. Other peaks include Mou'a Puta (830 m) and Mou'a Tamaru To'ofa (916 m).  

The painter

John La Farge was an American painter, muralist, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer.

born in New York City to wealthy French parents and was raised bilingually; as a child, he and his brothers produced a handmade magazine in French entitled Le Chinois.  His interest in art began during his studies at Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland and St. John's College (now Fordham University) in New York.  He initially intended to study law, but this changed after his first visit to Paris, France in 1856. Stimulated by the arts in the city, he studied with Thomas Couture and became acquainted with notable literary people. La Farge also studied with the painter William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island.

More about the painter  

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT SHANDIZOU PAINTED BY WU GUANZHONG

 

WU GUANZHONG (1919-2010)
Mount Shandizou ( 5,596 m -18,360 ft)

 China

 In Yulong Mountain  under moonlight, Ink on paper, Christie's Hong Kong 

The mountain
Shandizou ( 5,596 m -18,360 ft)  is the highest peak in the  Yùlóng Xuěshān also called  Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, a mountain massif or small mountain range in Yulong Naxi Autonomous County, Lijiang, in Yunnan province, China. The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain massif forms the bulk of the larger Yulong Mountains, that stretch further north. The northwestern flank of the massif forms one side of the Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡), which has a popular trekking route on the other side. In this gorge, the Jinsha (upper Yangtze) River descends dramatically between Jade Dragon and Haba Snow Mountain. The Yulong Mountains lie to the south of the Yun Range and are part of Southwest China's greater Hengduan Mountains.
In 1938, an expedition lead by the Australian lawyer, feminist, conservationist, and mountaineer, Marie Byles, failed to reach the summit due to bad weather.  Shanzidou has been climbed only once, on May 8, 1987, by an American expedition. The summit team comprised Phil Peralta-Ramos and Eric Perlman. They climbed snow gullies and limestone headwalls, and encountered high avalanche danger and sparse opportunities for protection. 
The Austro-American botanist and explorer Joseph Rock spent many years living in the vicinity of Mt Satseto, and wrote about the region and the Naxi people who occupy it. An interest in Rock later drew the travel writer Bruce Chatwin to the mountain, which he wrote about in an article that appeared in the New York Times and later, retitled, in his essay collection What Am I Doing Here? Chatwin's article inspired many subsequent travellers, including Michael Palin, to visit the region.

The Artist
Wu Guanzhong (吴冠中) was a contemporary Chinese painter widely recognized as a founder of modern Chinese painting.  He is considered to be one of the greatest contemporary Chinese painters. Wu's artworks had both Western and Eastern influences, such as the Western style of Fauvism and the Eastern style of Chinese calligraphy. Wu had painted various aspects of China, including much of its architecture, plants, animals, people, as well as many of its landscapes and waterscapes in a style reminiscent of the impressionist painters of the early 1900s. He was also a writer on contemporary Chinese art.  Wu has written many articles based on his version of form and how it applies to modernism. He considered himself as primarily a painter and not as a theorist. Wu had the approach of going out and looking at nature to find something that piqued his interest. Then he would start with a preliminary sketch of what it was that he saw. Next he spent a great deal of time in the studio trying to figure out the best way to show the power of the form of the object. He would then paint quickly and impulsively with whatever European of Chinese brush felt right. Wu would go on painting for hours until he was too emotionally drained to continue. He had his first professional solo exhibition in 1979, and his career took off in the 1980s. He has been the solo exhibitionist in over 10 and been part of a joint exhibition in over 10 others.
In 1991 Wu was made an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of CultureEarly in his career Guanzhong adopted the pen name Tu, which he used to sign his work.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT KOSCIUSZKO BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

EUGENE VON GUERARD (1811-1901)
Mount Kosciuszko (2, 228 m - 7,310 ft)
Australia

In North east view from the top of Mt Kosciusko, 1866, colour lithograph, 44.0 × 59.6 cm-
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

The mountain 

On earth, there are two mountains named Mount Kosciuszko. One is located in Antartica continent and the other in Australia (Oceania continent). 

In Australia, Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m - 7,310 ft) is a mountain located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park, part of the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves, in New South Wales  and is located west of Crackenback and close to Jindabyne.

Mount Kosciuszko is the highest mountain in Australia.

Mount Kosciuszko was named by the Polish explorer Paul Edmund Strzelecki in 1840, in honour of the Polish national hero and hero of the American Revolutionary War General Tadeusz Kościuszko, because of its perceived resemblance to the Kościuszko Mound in Kraków. The spelling "Mount Kosciuszko" was officially adopted in 1997 by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales, Australia. 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 Mt Blanc (4,808m)

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.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau