KANGCHENJUNGA PAINTED BY EDWARD LEAR

EDWARD LEAR (1812-1888)

Kangchenjunga (8, 538m -28,169 ft) 

India, Nepal border

The mountain 

Kangchenjunga  (8,586 m (28,169 ft)  is the third highest mountain in the world. It  lies partly in Nepal and partly in Sikkim, India. Kangchenjunga is the second highest mountain of the Himalayas after Mount Everest. Three of the five peaks – Main, Central and South – are on the border between North Sikkim and Nepal. Two peaks are in the Taplejung District, Nepal.

Kangchenjunga Main is the highest mountain in India, and the easternmost of the mountains higher than 8,000 m (26,000 ft).  Until 1852, Kangchenjunga was assumed to be the highest mountain in the world, but calculations based on various readings and measurements made by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1849 came to the conclusion that Mount Everest, known as Peak XV at the time, was the highest.  It is listed int the  Eight Thousanders and as Seven Third Summits   

Kangchenjunga is the official spelling adopted by Douglas Freshfield, A. M. Kellas, and the Royal Geographical Society that gives the best indication of the Tibetan pronunciation. Freshfield referred to the spelling used by the Indian Government since the late 19th century. There are a number of alternative spellings including Kangchendzцnga, Khangchendzonga, and Kanchenjunga.  Local Lhopo people believe that the treasures are hidden but reveal to the devout when the world is in peril; the treasures comprise salt, gold, turquoise and precious stones, sacred scriptures, invincible armor or ammunition, grain and medicine. Kangchenjunga's name in the Limbu language is Senjelungma or Seseylungma, and is believed to be an abode of the omnipotent goddess Yuma Sammang.

It rises in a section of the Himalayas called Kangchenjunga Himal that is limited in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak Chu and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River. It lies about 128 km (80 mi) east of Mount Everest.

Allowing for further verification of all calculations, it was officially announced in 1856 that 

Kangchenjunga was first climbed on 25 May 1955 by Joe Brown and George Band, who were part of a British expedition. They stopped short of the summit as per the promise given to the Chogyal that the top of the mountain would remain inviolate. Every climber or climbing group that has reached the summit has followed this tradition. Other members of this expedition included John Angelo Jackson and Tom Mackinon.  In May 1979,  Doug Scott, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker established a new route on the North Ridge their third ascent which was the first one ever made without oxygen.

In 1983, Pierre Beghin made the first solo ascent accomplished without the use of supplemental oxygen.  In 1992, Wanda Rutkiewicz was  the first woman in the world to ascend and descend K2 and a world-renowned Polish climber, died after she insisted on waiting for an incoming storm to pass, which she did not survive.  In 1998, Ginette Harrison was the first woman who climbed Kangchenjunga North face ;  Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, an Austrian mountaineer, was the second woman to reach the summit in 2006. 

In May 2014, the Bulgarian diabetic climber Boyan Petrov reached the peak without the use of supplemental oxygen. 
Sources: 
- Summitpost.org
-  PeakBagger
- Everest News.com

The painter 

Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, and is known now mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold: as a draughtsman employed to illustrate birds and animals; making coloured drawings during his journeys, which he reworked later, sometimes as plates for his travel books; as a (minor) illustrator of Alfred Tennyson's poems. As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense collections of poems, songs, short stories, botanical drawings, recipes, and alphabets. He also composed and published twelve musical settings of Tennyson's poetry.

Lear was already drawing "for bread and cheese" by the time he was aged 16.
In 1842,  Lear began a journey into the Italian peninsula, travelling through the Lazio, Rome, Abruzzo, Molise, Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily.  In personal notes, together with drawings, Lear gathered his impressions on the Italian way of life, folk traditions, and the beauty of the ancient monuments. Of particular interest in Lear was the Abruzzo, which he visited in 1843, through the Marsica (Celano, Avezzano, Alba Fucens, Trasacco) and the plateau of Cinque Miglia (Castel di Sangro and Alfedena), by an old sheep track of the shepherds.
Among his travels, he visited Greece and Egypt during 1848–49, and toured India and Ceylon during 1873–75. While travelling he produced large quantities of coloured wash drawings in a distinctive style, which he converted later in his studio into oil and watercolour paintings, as well as prints for his books. His landscape style often shows views with strong sunlight, with intense contrasts of colour.  Between 1878 and 1883 Lear spent his summers on Monte Generoso, a mountain on the border between the Swiss canton of Ticino and the Italian region of Lombardy.  His watercolor Mount Olympus dated 1849 in in the MET in New York City.  His oil painting The Plains of Lombardy from Monte Generoso is in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford (UK).

Sources: 

- Wikipedia 

TABLE MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY WILLIAM HODGES

WILLIAM HODGES (1744-1797) 

Table mountain or Hoerikwaggo (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)  

South Africa

In Table mountain as seen from on board HMS Resolution' captain Cook, 1772, oil on canvas 

The mountain 

Table Mountain also called Hoerikwaggo is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa and  forming part of the Table Mountain National Park.  The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) from side to side, edged by impressive cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill, forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.

The cliffs of the main plateau are split by Platteklip Gorge ("Flat Stone Gorge"), which provides an easy and direct ascent to the summit and was the route taken by Antуnio de Saldanha on the first recorded ascent of the mountain in 1503.

The flat top of the mountain is often covered by orographic clouds, formed when a south-easterly wind is directed up the mountain's slopes into colder air, where the moisture condenses to form the so-called "table cloth" of cloud. Legend attributes this phenomenon to a smoking contest between the Devil and a local pirate called Van Hunks. When the table cloth is seen, it symbolizes the contest.

Table Mountain is at the northern end of a sandstone mountain range that forms the spine of the Cape Peninsula. To the south of the main plateau is a lower part of the range called the Back Table. On the Atlantic coast of the peninsula, the range is known as the Twelve Apostles. The range continues southwards to Cape Point. Table Mountain is featured in the Flag of Cape Town and other local government insignia. It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top. 

Source:

-  Table mountain national park website 

The painter 

William Hodges was an English painter, member of James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and best known for the sketches and paintings of locations he visited on that voyage, including Table Bay, Tahiti, Easter Island, and the Antarctic.

 He studied under William Shipley, and afterwards in the studio of Richard Wilson, where he met Thomas Jones.

Between 1772 and 1775 Hodges accompanied James Cook to the Pacific as the expedition's artist. Many of his sketches and wash paintings were adapted as engravings in the original published edition of Cook's journals from the voyage.

Most of the large-scale landscape oil paintings from his Pacific travels for which Hodges is best known were finished after his return to London; he received a salary from the Admiralty for the purposes of completing them. These paintings depicted a stronger light and shadow than had been usual in European landscape tradition. Contemporary art critics complained that his use of light and colour contrasts gave his paintings a rough and unfinished appearance.

In 1778, under the patronage of Warren Hastings, Hodges travelled to India, one of the first British professional landscape painters to visit that country. He remained there for six years, staying in Lucknow with Claude Martin in 1783. His painting of "Futtypoor Sicri" is in Sir John Soane's Museum.

Later Hodges travelled also across Europe, including a visit to St. Petersburg in Russia in 1790.

In 1793 Hodges published an illustrated book about his travels in India.

In late 1794 Hodges opened an exhibition of his own works in London that included two large paintings called The Effects of Peace and The Effects of War.  In late January, 1795, with Britain engaged in the War of the First Coalition against Revolutionary France and feelings running high, the exhibition was visited by Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of King George III. The Duke took offence at the political nature of Hodges' paintings and ordered the exhibition closed; this royal censure effectively ended Hodges' career as a painter.

Hodges retired to Devon and became involved with a bank, which failed during the banking crisis of March, 1797. On 6 March of that year, he died from what was officially recorded as "gout in the stomach", but which was also rumoured to be suicide from an overdose of laudanum.

Hodges Knoll in Antarctica is named after William Hodges.

Source:

-  Wikepedia 

STETIND PAINTED BY PEDER BALKE

PEDER BALKE (1804-1887)

Stetind or Stetinden  (1,392 m - 4,567 ft)

Norway 

1. In Steditnden, 1864, oil on canvas, National gallery of Norway 
2.  In Steditnden from coastline of Stefjorden, 1821, oil on canvas

The mountain 
Stetind or Stetinden is a mountain in Tysfjord, Nordland county, Norway. It is located about 15 kilometres (9 mi) northeast of the village of Kjшpsvik. The mountain has very smooth sides reaching all the way to the fjord. Stetind has an obelisk-shape which gives it a very distinct look.  The shape of the mountain has been compared with a  "ste" which means "anvil" and the last element is the finite form of tind which means "mountain peak".  In 2002 it was voted to be the "National Mountain" of Norway by listeners of NRK.
Climbing 
The mountain had several attempts at first ascents. First was the German Paul Gussfeldt  and the Norwegian Martin Ekroll in the summer of 1888. The Dane Carl Hall and the Norwegian mountain guide Mathias Soggemoen attempted in 1889.
Neither group succeeded, but Carl Hall built a cairn on the lower summit about 500 metres (1,600 ft) southeast of the main summit. That cairn is now called Halls fortop (elevation 1,304 metres or 4,278 feet). Around 1900, William Cecil Slingsby also failed to reach the summit.
It was not until 30 July 1910 that Ferdinand Schjelderup, Carl Wilhelm Rubenson, and Alf Bonnevie Bryn finally reached the summit of Stetind.  The weather conditions were good. It was Rubenson's 25th birthday, and he was given the honor of being first in the rope. The hardest part was to pass the smooth crag "Mysosten", which Rubenson finger traversed along a tiny crack. After this passage there was an easy climb to the summit. The same three climbers continued their 1910 tour by making first ascents of the Lofoten summits Svolvaergeita and Trakta. Arne Naess, Ralph 
Hoibakk, and K. Friis Baasted did the first winter climb of Stetind in 1963 on the eastern wall. In 1966, Arne Naess and four others were the first ones to summit via the west wall.


The painter 
Peder Balke is a Norwegian painter that was even barely known in his home country, until recently. He didn’t encounter success during his lifetime. Having difficulties to sell his paintings, he abandoned his career to focus on social projects and politics but he continued to paint for his own pleasure. Once delivered from the pressure of making a living from his paintings, his style changed to become more personal, more modern.
During the summer 1832, Peder Balke, who was in love with the Norwegian landscapes, decided to go and seek for its most remote, its most desolate and its most distant points by sailing up the west coast of Norway as far as he could go. He went up to the inhospitable and barely accessible far-northern region of Finnmark. He reached the North Cape, the northernmost part of Norway, which was even more impressive at that time because it was the further north you could go, the final limit to knowledge and exploration – beyond it lies nothing (explorers only reached the North Pole in the late 1900s, two decades after his death).

Peder Balke wrote in his memoirs: “I can’t begin to describe how elated I was at having seen and re-tread the land, once again, after satisfying my deep longing to see the northern provinces. No easier is it for me to pen my thoughts on which sublime and mesmerizing impressions the wealth of natural beauty and unrivaled settings leave upon the mind of an observer. These impressions not only overwhelmed me for a brief moment, but they, too, influenced my entire future since I never yet, neither abroad nor other places in our country, have had the occasion to gaze at something so awe-inspiring and exciting as that which I observed during this journey to Finnmark. Unsurpassed in the norther provinces is the beauty of nature, while humans – nature’s children – play but a minor role, in comparison”.

 The 1832 journey had a momentous effect upon his development as an artist; the eerie, isolated, dramatic and gloomy Arctic landscapes became a leitmotiv as he continued to paint them from his memory for the rest of his life. 

And I totally understand why. I myself went to the North Cape region and can testimony that it’s still a rather hostile place but that the landscapes are breathtaking, inspiring and unforgettable.

Peder Blake’s early paintings are quintessentially romantic, the product of a man awed by nature, overwhelmed by the often-horrifying beauty of his own land.

Long forgotten, Peder Balke is today increasingly recognized as an important precursor of modern painters.

_______________________________

2016 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

EL CAPITAN PAINTED BY JULES TAVERNIER

JULES TAVERNIER (1844-1889) 

El Capitan (2,309m - 7,573 ft) 

United States of America 

The mountain 

El Capitan is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, located on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith extends about 3,000 feet (900 m) from base to summit along its tallest face and is one of the world's favorite challenges for rock climbers.

The formation was named "El Capitan" by the Mariposa Battalion when it explored the valley in 1851. El Capitan ("the captain", "the chief") was taken to be a loose Spanish translation of the local Native American name for the cliff, variously transcribed as "To-to-kon oo-lah" or "To-tock-ah-noo-lah". It is unclear if the Native American name referred to a specific tribal chief or simply meant "the chief" or "rock chief".  In modern times, the formation's name is often contracted to "El Cap", especially among rock climbers and BASE jumpers.

The top of El Capitan can be reached by hiking out of Yosemite Valley on the trail next to Yosemite Falls, then proceeding west. For climbers, the challenge is to climb up the sheer granite face. There are many named climbing routes, all of them arduous, including Iron Hawk and Sea of Dreams, for example.

Climbing

The Nose was first climbed in 1958 by Warren Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore in 47 days using "siege" tactics: climbing in an expedition style using fixed ropes along the length of the route, linking established camps along the way. 

The second ascent of The Nose was in 1960 by Royal Robbins, Joe Fitschen, Chuck Pratt and Tom Frost, who took seven days in the first continuous climb of the route without siege tactics. 

The first solo climb of The Nose was done by Tom Bauman in 1969. 

The first ascent of The Nose in one day was accomplished in 1975 by John Long, Jim Bridwell and Billy Westbay. Today, The Nose typically takes fit climbers 4–5 days of full climbing, and has a success rate of around 60%.

Beverly Johnson was the first woman to successfully ascend El Capitan, via the Nose route, with Dan Asay in June 1973. In September 1973, Beverly Johnson and Sibylle Hechtel were the first team of women to ascend El Capitan via the Triple Direct route, which takes the first ten pitches of the Salathe Wall, then continues up the middle portion of El Capitan via the Muir Wall, and finishes on the upper pitches of the Nose route.  In 1977, Molly Higgins and Barb Eastman climbed the Nose, to become the second party of women to climb El Capitan and the first to climb it via the Nose. In 1978, Bev Johnson was the first woman to solo El Capitan by climbing the Dihedral Wall.  Hazel Findlay has made three free ascents of El Capitan, including the first female ascent of Golden Gate in 2011, the first female ascent of Pre-Muir Wall in 2012, and a three-day ascent of Freerider in 2013.

Reference:

- El Capitan in web Stanford edu page 
- El Capitan in Wikipedia page 

The painter 
Jules Tavernier was a French painter, illustrator, and an important member of Hawaii’s Volcano School.  He studied with the French painter, Félix Joseph Barrias (1822–1907). he left France in the 1870s and never  return. Tavernier was employed as an illustrator by Harper's Magazine, which sent him, along with Paul Frenzeny, on a year-long coast-to-coast sketching tour in 1873.
 Eventually, he continued westward to Hawaii, where he became quite famous as a landscape painter. He was fascinated by Hawaii’s erupting volcanoes—a subject that pre-occupied him for the rest of his life, which was spent in Hawaii, Canada and the western United States. Tavernier died on 18 May 1889 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He painted several version of the Kilauea erupting between 1880 and the end of his life.
Among the public collections holding paintings by Jules Tavernier are the Brigham Young University Museum of Art (Provo, UT), the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (Colorado Springs, CO), the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento), the Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa, OK), Hearst Art Gallery (Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Museum of Nebraska Art (Kearney, NE), the Oakland Museum of California, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Stark Museum of Art (Orange, TX), the Society of California Pioneers (San Francisco, CA), the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (Hagerstown, MD) and the Yosemite Museum (Yosemite National Park).

After his death his art lived on in the hearts and homes of Hawaiians, and many more artists picked up on the volcano landscape theme he started. His Western art was mostly forgotten. Fifty years after his death the Honolulu Advertiser remembered Jules Tavernier in December 1940 with the comment: “...to the generation which knew King Kalakaua, Tavernier recalls to mind some of the greatest paintings ever made of Hawaii volcanoes.” At the beginning of the twenty-first century interest has reawakened in Tavernier's Western landscape art; museums are purchasing his pictures and prices for his oil paintings are increasing. His students included D. Howard Hitchcock (1861–1943), Amédée Joullin (1862–1917), Charles Rollo Peters (1862–1917) and Manuel Valencia (1856–1935). Reference   - Biography of  Jules Tavernier in Tigertail Virtual Museum

THE TELL ATLAS (LALLA KHEDIDJA) PAINTED BY CECIL A. HUNT

 CECIL ARTHUR HUNT  (1873-1965) 

Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft)
Algeria

  In Tell Atlas near Constantine, oil on canvas,  The Potteries Museum (U.K)

The mountain 

Lalla Khedidja 2,308 m (7,572 ft) in the Jurjura Range is the  highest summit of the Tell Atlas (الاطلس التلي‎‎), a mountain chain over 1,500 km (932 mi) in length, belonging to the Atlas mountain ranges in North Africa, stretching from Morocco, to Tunisia through Algeria. The ranges of this system have average elevations of about 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and form a natural barrier between the Mediterranean and the Sahara.  Several large cities such as the Algerian capital, Algiers and Oran lie at the base of the Tell Atlas. The Algerian city Constantine lies 80 km inland and directly in the mountains at 650 meters in elevation. A number of smaller towns and villages are situated within the Tell; for example, Chiffa is nestled within the Chiffa gorge.

The Tell Atlas runs parallel to the Mediterranean coast. Together with the Saharan Atlas to the south it forms the northernmost of two more or less parallel ranges which approach one another towards the east, remaining quite distinct from one another in Western Algeria and merging in Eastern Algeria. At the western end, it ends at the Rif and Middle Atlas ranges in Morocco. The Tell Atlas are also a distinct physiographic section of the larger Atlas Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger African Alpine System physiographic division.  The Tell Atlas and the Saharan Atlas form two natural barriers, the first against the Mediterranean and the second against the Sahara. Between them lies the valley of the Chelif and various lesser rivers.  South of the Tell Atlas is the high plateau of the Hautes Plaines (~1000 m in elevation) with level terrain where water collects during the wet season, forming large shallow salt lakes which become salt flats as they dry. Agriculture includes grazing of sheep and goats on grass in better-watered high plateau areas and some farming; dry-land barley is grown there.

The Chelif is a 725 km long river with headwaters in the Tell Atlas to its discharge into the Mediterranean. The Chelif is characterized by an extremely fertile valley. Other noteworthy rivers having their sources in this range are the Medjerda and the Seybouse River. Only seasonal streams are found flowing south from the Tell Atlas.

The painter 

Cecil Arthur Hunt was born in Torquay on 8 March 1873, the son of the highly regarded writer and geologist, Arthur Roope Hunt. He was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, studying Classics and Law, and being called to the Bar in 1899. He treated painting and writing as serious pastimes until 1925, when he was elected to the full membership of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He then relinquished his legal career to become a professional painter.

Hunt had first exhibited in 1900, at the Alpine Club Galleries, and had held his first major show a year later, alongside E Home Bruce at the Ryder Gallery. From the first, he established himself as an atmospheric painter of mountains, especially of the Alps and Dolomites. However, he was soon accepted as a master of a great variety of topographies, for he exhibited the products of his wide travels frequently and extensively. Favourite destinations included the West Country, the West Coast of Scotland, the Rhone Valley, Northern Italy, Rome and Taormina. From 1911, until his death, Hunt lived at Mallord House in Chelsea, especially designed for him by Sir Ralph Knott to include a large studio on the ground floor. During the summer months he and his family retreated to the farm estate of Foxworthy, on the edge of Dartmoor.
Hunt showed work regularly at the Royal Academy (from 1912), the Royal Society of British Artists (from 1914) and the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours (from 1918). He was elected a member of the RBA in 1914, an associate of the RWS in 1919, and a full member six years later. He acted as the Vice-President of the RWS for a three-year period from 1930. His many substantial solo shows included six at the Fine Art Society (1919-34) and one at Colnaghi’s (1945). Following his death, in 1965,  he was the subject of a large memorial show at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours.
Chris Beetles has done much to revive interest in the work of Cecil Arthur Hunt. He mounted a large scale retrospective exhibition in 1996 at his London gallery, on the exact site of the artist’s first substantial show in 1901. The retrospective was accompanied by a definitive catalogue.

Sources:

- Chris Beetles Gallery

GUNUNG GEDE BY FRANZ WILHEM JUNGHUHN

FRANZ WILHEM JUNGHUHN (1809-1864)

Gunung Gede  (2,958 m - 9,705ft) 

Indonesia (Java) 

Print, 1856, Leiden University Library

The mountain 

Gunung Gede or Mount Gede  (2,958 m - 9,705ft) is a stratovolcano situated in West Java, Indonesia. It contains two peaks: Mount Gede  (Big Mountain in Sundanese)  and Mount Pangrango. Three major cities, Cianjur, Sukabumi and Bogor, are located in the volcano complex at the east, south and northwest, respectively, along with suburban growth. Seven craters are located in the complex: Baru, Gumuruh (2,927 m), Lanang (2,800 m), Kawah Leutik, Ratu (2,800 m), Sela (2,709 m) and Wadon (2,600 m). 

Historical volcanic activity has been recorded since the 16th century. With the amalgamation and growth of Greater Jakarta with those 3 cities, dense suburban growth has engulfed the fringes of the volcano, home to roughly 4 million people. Though not listed as one of the Decade Volcanoes or thought to produce large eruptions, the huge populations nearby give a potential for severe destruction if indeed a large eruption did occur.

Gunung Gede is part of the Mount Gede Pangrango National Park.  It evolved from already existing conservation areas, such as Cibodas Botanical Gardens, Cimungkat Nature Reserve, Situgunung Recreational Park and Mount Gede Pangrango Nature Reserve, and has been the site of important biological and conservation research over the last century. In 1977 UNESCO declared it part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

Reference 

- Mount Gede official Website 

The artist 

Friedrich Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn was a German-Dutch botanist and geologist, who studied medicine in Halle and in Berlin from 1827 to 1831, meanwhile publishing  (1830)a seminal paper on mushrooms in Limnaea. 

Junghuhn settled on Java, where he made an extensive study of the land and its people. 

He discovered the Kawah Putih crater lake south of Bandung in 1837.

 He published extensively on his many often highly adventurous expeditions and his scientific analyses.  Among his works is an important description and natural history in many volumes of the volcanoes of Java, Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis der vulkanen in den Indischen Archipel (1843). 

He completed Die Topographischen und Naturwissenschaftlichen Reisen durch Java (Topographic and Scientific Journeys in Java) in 1845 and a first anthropological and topographical study of Sumatra, Die Bättalander auf Sumatra (Batak lands of Sumatra). in 1847.

In 1849, ill health forced his return to the Netherlands.  While in the Netherlands, Junghuhn began work on a four volume treatise published in Dutch and translated into German between 1850 and 1854: Java, deszelfs gedaante, bekleeding en inwendige struktuur (in German: Java, seine Gestalt, Pflanzendecke, und sein innerer Bau). Junghuhn was an avid humanist and socialist. In the Netherlands he published anonymously his free-thinking manifesto Licht- en Schaduwbeelden uit de Binnenlanden van Java (Images of Light and Shadow from Java's interior) between 1853 and 1855. The work was controversial, advocating socialism in the colonies and fiercely criticizing Christian and Islamic proselytization of the Javanese people.   Junghuhn instead wrote of his preference for a form of Pandeism (pantheistic deism), contending that God was in everything, but could only be determined through reason.  The work was banned in Austria and parts of Germany for its "denigrations and vilifications of Christianity", but was a strong seller in the Netherlands where it was first published pseudonymously.  It was also popular in colonial Indonesia, despite opposition from the Dutch Christian Church there. 

Recovered from his ills, Junghuhn returned to Java in 1855. Highly interested in botany and its practical applications, he  became embroiled in a bitter and extended controversy about the effectiveness of Cinchona species in the treatment of malaria.  This controversy was conducted in public and in print with open letters to and demands on Het Natuurkundig Genootschap; part of this exchange of minds can be followed in Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië from 1862 onwards.  At his direction massive plantation of Chincocina was carried out in Java, making it leading producer of Kina (Chinocina bark). 

He remained on Java until his death from liver disease in 1864.  On his deathbed in his house near Lembang on the slopes of the volcano Tangkuban Perahu just north of Bandung, Java,  it is  said that Junghuhn asked the doctor to open the windows, in order to say goodbye to the mountains that he loved. 

In Lembang there is a small monument to his memory in a grassy square named after him planted with some of his favorite trees among which the Cinchona. A minor item of trivia playing into polemical discussions of Junghuhn is his surname, literally translated as "young chicken".

The plants Cyathea junghuhniana and Nepenthes junghuhnii are named after Franz Junghuhn.

Reference 

 - Juhnghuhn biography in Dutch  in BWSA

MOUNT PILATUS (TOMLISHORN) PAINTED BY ALBERT GOODWIN

ALBERT GOODWIN (1884-1932)

 Mount Pilatus or Tomlishorn (2,128 m - 6,982 ft)

Switzerland

As seen from Stanstadt, Lucerne 

The mountain 

Mount Pilatus  is overlooking Lucerne in central Switzerland. It is composed of several summits of which the highest (2,128 m) is named Tomlishorn. Another summit named Esel (2,119 m) lies just over the railway station. Jurisdiction over the massif is divided between the cantons of Obwalden, Nidwalden, and Lucerne. The main peaks are right on the border between Obwalden and Nidwalden.

A few different local legends about the origin of the name exist. One claims that Mount Pilatus was named so because Pontius Pilate was buried there; a similar legend is told of Monte Vettore in Italy. Another is that the mountain looks like the belly of a large man, Pilate, lying on his back and was thus named for him. The name may also be derived from "pileatus," meaning "cloud-topped."

A medieval legend had dragons with healing powers living on the mountain. A chronicle from 1619 reads: 'as I was contemplating the serene sky by night, I saw a very bright dragon with flapping wings go from a cave in a great rock in the mount called Pilatus toward another cave, known as Flue, on the opposite side of the lake'. 

Nowadays, dragon has been replaced by fortified radar (part of the Swiss FLORAKO system) and weather stations on the Oberhaupt summit, not open to the public view and used all year round.

Climbing

The top can be reached with the Pilatus railway, the world's steepest cogwheel railway, from Alpnachstad, operating from May to November (depending on snow conditions), and the whole year with the aerial panorama gondolas and aerial cableways from Kriens. Both summits of Tomlishorn and Esel can be reached with a trail. Mount Pilatus has the longest summer toboggan track in Switzerland (0.88 miles or 1,350 m) and the biggest suspension rope park in Central Switzerland.

During the summer, the "Golden Round Trip" — a popular route for tourists — involves taking a boat from Lucerne across Lake Lucerne to Alpnachstad, going up on the cogwheel railway, coming down on the aerial cableways and panorama gondolas, and taking a bus back to Lucerne.

Numbered amongst those who have reached its summit are Conrad Gessner, Theodore Roosevelt, Arthur Schopenhauer (1804), Queen Victoria and Julia Ward Howe (1867).

Reference 

- Mont Pilatus website 

The painter 

Albert Goodwin was a English landscape painter well known for his watercolours. His work shows the influences of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

After leaving school he became an apprentice draper. His exceptional artistic ability was recognized at an early age and he went on to study with the Pre-Raphaelite artists Arthur Hughes and Ford Madox Brown - the latter predicting that he would become "one of the greatest landscape painters of the age". At the age of 15 his first painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy. He became an associate member of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) in 1876. He was championed by famed art critic John Ruskin who took him on a tour of Europe, where he made many sketches from nature which were later turned into watercolours. During his lifetime he traveled extensively throughout Britain and Europe, and visited many other countries.

Although the Pre-Raphaelites were not primarily landscape painters, their views on ‘truth to nature’, and their practice of working directly from nature for the landscape settings of their pictures, inevitably influenced most contemporary landscape painters in the 1850s and 1860s; and in his Notes on Prout and Hunt, Ruskin quite rightly described Goodwin’s work as having been ‘founded first on strong Pre-Raphaelite veracities…’. 

Goodwin was, in fact, extremely fortunate in being taught by Brown, who is by far the most original and interesting of the landscape painters associated with the Pre-Raphaelite circle; however, despite Brown’s devotion to the concept of truth to nature, and working sur le motif, his landscapes are, in the final analysis, strangely artificial – reminiscent of the magical realism of Palmer’s Shoreham period rather than the naturalism of Constable, Cox or De Wint. Similarly, Goodwin’s landscapes are invariably infused with a poetic charm that raises them above mere description; indeed, one critic complimented him for having that ‘peculiar faculty of painting a natural scene with an undercurrent of supernatural feeling’. 

Goodwin was a prolific artist, producing over 800 works and continuing to paint well into his eighties. His wide variety of landscape subjects reflected his love of travel and show the influence of Turner, with whom he felt a strong affinity. In later works he developed experimental techniques such as using ink over water color to achieve atmospheric lighting effects. His works are also an important record of social history.

Reference 

- Albert Goodwin  biography in Artrenewal.org

ULURU / AYERS ROCK PAINTED BY VINCENT FORRESTER

VINCENT FORRESTER

Uluru /Ayers Rock  (863m -2,831 ft)

 Australia 

 2. Uluru / Ayers Rock -  Totemic map

The mountain 

Uluru (863m -2,831 ft) also known as Ayers Rock (in honour of the then Chief Secretary of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers) is a large sandstone rock formation in the southern part of the Northern Territory in central Australia.  
Officially  the rock is gazetted as "Uluru / Ayers Rock" 
It lies 335 km (208 mi) south west of the nearest large town, Alice Springs, 450 km (280 mi) by road.

Kata Tjuta and Uluru are the two major features of the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park. Uluru is sacred to the Pitjantjatjara Anangu, the Aboriginal people of the area. The area around the formation is home to an abundance of springs, waterholes, rock caves, and ancient paintings.  Both Uluru and the nearby Kata Tjuta formation have great cultural significance for the Aṉangu people, the traditional inhabitants of the area, who lead walking tours to inform visitors about the local flora and fauna, bush food and the Aboriginal dreamtime stories of the area.

Uluru is notable for appearing to change colour at different times of the day and year, most notably when it glows red at dawn and sunset.

Uluru is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Uluru is an inselberg, literally "island mountain". An inselberg is a prominent isolated residual knob or hill that rises abruptly from and is surrounded by extensive and relatively flat erosion lowlands in a hot, dry region.  Uluru is also often referred to as a monolith, although this is a somewhat ambiguous term that is generally avoided by geologists. The remarkable feature of Uluru is its homogeneity and lack of jointing and parting at bedding surfaces, leading to the lack of development of scree slopes and soil. These characteristics led to its survival, while the surrounding rocks were eroded. For the purpose of mapping and describing the geological history of the area, geologists refer to the rock strata making up Uluru as the Mutitjulu Arkose, and it is one of many sedimentary formations filling the Amadeus Basin.

According to the Aṉangu, traditional landowners of Uluru: 

The world was once a featureless place. None of the places we know existed until creator beings, in the forms of people, plants and animals, traveled widely across the land. Then, in a process of creation and destruction, they formed the landscape as we know it today. Aṉangu land is still inhabited by the spirits of dozens of these ancestral creator beings which are referred to as Tjukuritja or Waparitja.

There are a number of differing accounts given, by outsiders, of Aboriginal ancestral stories for the origins of Uluru and its many cracks and fissures. One such account, taken from Robert Layton's (1989) Uluru: An Aboriginal history of Ayers Rock, reads as follows:

Uluru was built up during the creation period by two boys who played in the mud after rain. When they had finished their game they travelled south to Wiputa ... Fighting together, the two boys made their way to the table topped Mount Conner, on top of which their bodies are preserved as boulders. 

Two other accounts are given in Norbert Brockman's (1997) Encyclopedia of Sacred Places.

The first tells of serpent beings who waged many wars around Uluru, scarring the rock. The second tells of two tribes of ancestral spirits who were invited to a feast, but were distracted by the beautiful Sleepy Lizard Women and did not show up. In response, the angry hosts sang evil into a mud sculpture that came to life as the dingo. There followed a great battle, which ended in the deaths of the leaders of both tribes. The earth itself rose up in grief at the bloodshed, becoming Uluru.

The Commonwealth Department of Environment's webpage advises:

Many...Tjukurpa such as Kalaya (Emu), Liru (poisonous snake), Lungkata (blue tongue lizard), Luunpa (kingfisher) and Tjintir-tjintirpa (willie wagtail) travel through Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park. Other Tjukurpa affect only one specific area.

Kuniya, the woma python, lived in the rocks at Uluru where she fought the Liru, the poisonous snake.

It is sometimes reported that those who take rocks from the formation will be cursed and suffer misfortune. There have been many instances where people who removed such rocks attempted to mail them back to various agencies in an attempt to remove the perceived curse.

Climbing Uluru

The local Aṉangu do not climb Uluru because of its great spiritual significance. They request that visitors do not climb the rock, partly due to the path crossing a sacred traditional Dreamtime track, and also due to a sense of responsibility for the safety of visitors. The visitors guide says "the climb is not prohibited, but we prefer that, as a guest on Aṉangu land, you will choose to respect our law and culture by not climbing.

The Aṉangu also request that visitors do not photograph certain sections of Uluru, for reasons related to traditional Tjukurpa beliefs. These areas are the sites of gender-linked rituals and are forbidden ground for Aṉangu of the opposite sex to those participating in the rituals in question. The photographic restriction is intended to prevent Aṉangu from inadvertently violating this taboo by encountering photographs of the forbidden sites in the outside world. 

The painter 

Vincent Forrester is Luritja/Aranda man born in Alice Springs. He lived on a cattle station (Angus Downs) in a traditional environment, where he was influenced by his forefathers. Today, he still practices his responsibilities and rituals and now takes his place as a teacher of traditional aboriginal law to young men.

Vincent was instrumental in setting up Central Land Council, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, Aboriginal Legal Services, Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) and its television station Imparja.

Growing up as a stockman and stationhand, Vincent came to know his country intimately. His grandfather's showed him the landscape and told him the stories, associated with his country and Alice Springs, where he became the Aboriginal historian of the area. His grandmother's showed him bush foods and bush medicine for both Luritja and Aranda country. It was in his teens when working as a cattleman, that the tourism industry was in its infancy and Vincent began working as a tour guide. He later became a very popular guide at Kings Canyon, a ranger at Uluru/Kata Juta National Park and later a specialist guide at Alice Springs Desert Park.

He was also heavily involved in Territory and National politics, as the chairman of the National Aboriginal Conference (the precursor to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) where he worked as an Indigenous advisor to three Australian Prime Ministers - Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke - was a founding member of the Makarrata treaty committee (under the Fraser Government), the Australian member for the World Council of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva, worked with UNFSCO in Paris for the return of sacred objects to traditional Australian Indigenous owners.

Vincent Forrester's spiritual connection to the land, his identity as a story teller and tour guide, has led to the artistic endeavour comprising his most recent set of paintings.

Vincent's art represents a narrative and spiritual legacy to his seven children and seven grandchildren.

MOUNT VINSON BY U.S. GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

US GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 

Mount Vinson (4,892 m - 16,050 ft) 

Antartica - International condominium 

1. Colorized anonymus photo  (ca .1930)

2. Vinson Massif and Sentinel range Map.

The mountain 

Mount Vinson  (4,892 m -16,050 ft) is the highest peak in Antarctica  and it is part of the seven highest summits  in the world among:  

Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m),  Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia. 

Mount Vinson lies in the north part of Vinson Massif’s summit plateau in the south portion of the main ridge of the Sentinel Range about 2 kilometres  north of Hollister Peak. It was first climbed in 1966. An expedition in 2001 was the first to climb via the Eastern route, and also took GPS measurements of the height of the peak. As of February 2010, 1,400 climbers have attempted to reach the top of Mount Vinson.

Vinson Massif  is a large mountain massif that is 21 km (13 mi) long and 13 km (8.1 mi) wide and lies within the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains. It overlooks the Ronne Ice Shelf near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. The massif is located about 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) from the South Pole. Vinson Massif was discovered in January 1958 by U.S. Navy aircraft. In 1961, the Vinson Massif was named by USACAN, for Carl G. Vinson, United States congressman from the state of Georgia, for his support for Antarctic exploration. On Nov. 1, 2006, USACAN declared Mount Vinson and Vinson Massif to be separate entities.
Climbing 

In 1963, two groups within the American Alpine Club, one led by Charles Hollister and Samuel C. Silverstein, M.D., then in New York, and the other led by Peter Schoening of Seattle, Washington, began lobbying the National Science Foundation to support an expedition to climb Mount Vinson. The two groups merged in spring 1966 at the urging of the National Science Foundation and the American Alpine Club, Nicholas Clinch was recruited by the American Alpine Club to lead the merged expeditions. Officially named the American Antarctic Mountaineering Expedition 1966/67, the expedition was sponsored by the American Alpine Club and theNational Geographic Society,, and supported in the field by the U.S. Navy and the National Science Foundation Office of Antarctic Programs. Ten scientists and mountaineers participated in AAME 1966/67. In addition to Clinch they were Barry Corbet, John Evans (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN), Eiichi Fukushima (University of Washington, Seattle, WA), Charles Hollister, Ph.D. (Columbia University, New York, NY), William Long, Ph.D. (Alaska Methodist University, Anchorage, AK), Brian Marts, Peter Schoening, Samuel Silverstein, M.D. (Rockefeller University, New York, NY) and Richard Wahlstrom.

In the months prior to its departure for Antarctica the expedition received considerable press attention, primarily because of the reports that Woodrow Wilson Sayre was planning to fly in a Piper Apache piloted by Max Conrad, the "flying Grandfather", with four companions into the Sentinel Range to climb the Mount Vinson. Sayre had a reputation for problematic trips as a result of his unauthorized, unsuccessful, and nearly fatal attempt to climb Mount Everest from the North in 1962. His unauthorized incursion into Tibet led China to file an official protest with the U.S. State Department. In the end, the purported race did not materialize as Conrad had difficulties with his plane. According to press reports, he and Sayre were still in Buenos Aires on the day the first four members of AAME 1966/67 reached Mount Vinson's summit.

In December 1966 the Navy transported the expedition and its supplies from Christchurch, New Zealand to the U.S. base at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, and from there in a ski-equipped C-130 Hercules to the Sentinel Range. All members of the expedition reached the summit of Mount Vinson. The first group of four climbers summited on December 18, 1966, four more on December 19, and the last three on December 20.

On August 17, 2006, from nomination by Damien Gildea of the Omega Foundation, US-ACAN approved naming the subsidiary peaks south of Mount Vinson for the AAME 1966/67 members Nicholas Clinch, Barry Corbet, Eiichi Fukushima, Charles Hollister, Brian Marts, Samuel Silverstein, Peter Schoening and Richard Wahlstrom. Other peaks in the Sentinel Range had previously been named for John Evans and William Long.

Gavin Bate ascending Mount Vinson in 2000

The climb of Vinson offers little technical difficulty beyond the usual hazards of travel in Antarctica, and as one of the Seven Summits, it has received much attention from well-funded climbers in recent years. Multiple guide companies offer guided expeditions to Mount Vinson, at a typical cost of around $30,000 per person, including transportation to Antarctica from Chile.

Reference

 - Mount Vinson Wikipedia Page 

MOUNT HUANGSHAN PAINTED BY SHITAO

SHITAO  - 石涛 (1641-1707)

Mount Huangshan (1,864 m - 6,115 ft) 

China

painted in 1670

The mountain

Huangshan -  黄山 is a mountain range in southern Anhui province in eastern China. Vegetation on the range is thickest below 1,100 meters -3,600 ft), with trees growing up to the treeline at 1,800 meters -5,900 ft).   The Huangshan mountain range has many peaks, some more than 1,000 meters (3,250 feet) high. The three tallest and best-known peaks are Lotus Peak (Lian Hua Feng, 1,864 m), Bright Summit Peak (Guang Ming Ding, 1,840 m), and Celestial Peak (Tian Du Feng, literally Capital of Heaven Peak, 1,829 m). 

The area is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly-shaped granite peaks, Huangshan pine trees, hot springs, winter snow, and views of the clouds from above. Much of Huangshan's reputation derives from its significance in Chinese arts and literature. In addition to inspiring poets such as Li Bai, Huangshan and the scenery therein has been the frequent subject of poetry and artwork, especially Chinese ink painting and, more recently, photography. Overall, from the Tang Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, more than 20,000 poems were written about Huangshan, and a school of painting named after it. The mountains also have appeared in modern works. James Cameron, director of the 2009 film Avatar, cited Huangshan as one of his influences in designing the fictional world of that film.  The area also has been a location for scientific research because of its diversity of flora and wildlife. In the early part of the twentieth century, the geology and vegetation of Huangshan were the subjects of multiple studies by both Chinese and foreign scientists. The mountain is still a subject of research. For example, in the late twentieth century a team of researchers used the area for a field study of Tibetan macaques, a local species of monkey.

Huangshan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of China's major tourist destinations.  The World Heritage Site covers a core area of 154 square kilometres and a buffer zone of 142 square kilometres. In 2002, Huangshan was named the "sister mountain" of Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps.

The painter 

Shitao - 石涛 -  was a Chinese landscape painter and poet during the early part of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911).  Shitao was a member of the Ming royal house. He narrowly avoided catastrophe in 1644 when the Ming Dynasty fell to invading Manchurians and civil rebellion. Having escaped by chance from the fate to which his lineage would have assigned him, Shitao assumed the name Yuanji Shitao no later than 1651 when he became a Buddhist monk. He moved from Wuchang, where he began his religious instruction, to Anhui in the 1660s. Throughout the 1680s he lived in Nanjing and Yangzhou, and in 1690 he moved to Beijing to find patronage for his promotion within the monastic system. Frustrated by his failure to find a patron, Shitao converted to Daoism in 1693 and returned to Yangzhou where he remained until his death in 1707.

Shitao is one of the most famous individualist painters of the early Qing dynasty. The art he created was revolutionary in its transgressions of the rigidly codified techniques and styles that dictated what was considered beautiful.  Imitation was valued over innovation, and although Shitao was clearly influenced by his predecessors (namely Ni Zan and Li Yong), his art breaks with theirs in several new and fascinating ways. His formal innovations in depiction include drawing attention to the act of painting itself through his use of washes and bold, impressionistic brushstrokes, as well as an interest in subjective perspective and the use of negative or white space to suggest distance.  Shi Tao's stylistic innovations are difficult to place in the context of the period.  In a colophon dated 1686, Shitao wrote: "In painting, there are the Southern and the Northern schools, and in calligraphy, the methods of the Two Wangs (Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Xianzhi). Zhang Rong (443–497) once remarked, 'I regret not that I do not share the Two Wangs' methods, but that the Two Wangs did not share my methods.' If someone asks whether I [Shitao] follow the Southern or the Northern School, or whether either school follows me, I hold my belly laughing and reply, 'I always use my own method!'"

The poetry and calligraphy that accompany his landscapes are just as beautiful, irreverent, and vivid as the paintings they complement. His paintings exemplify the internal contradictions and tensions of the literati or scholar-amateur artist, and they have been interpreted as an invective against art-historical canonization.

Reference: 

- Shitao Biography in China on line Museum 

THE WETTERHORN PAINTED BY JOSEPH A. KOCH

JOSEPH ANTON KOCH  (1768-1839)

Das Wetterhorn or Halse Jungfrau   (3,692m -12,113ft)

Switzerland

 Mit dem reichenbachtal,1824 - Museum Oscar Reinhart

The mountain 

The Wetterhorn (3,692m-12,113ft) in the  Bernese Alps, towers above the village of Grindelwald. Formerly known as Hasle Jungfrau, it is one of three summits of a mountain named Wetterhorn sensu lato, or the "Wetterhцrner", the highest summit of which is the Mittelhorn (3,704 m) and the most distant the Rosenhorn (3,689 m). The Mittelhorn and Rosenhorn are mostly hidden from view from Grindelwald. The Grosse Scheidegg Pass crosses the col to the north, between the Wetterhorn and the Schwarzhorn.

Climbing 

The Wetterhorn summit was first reached on August 31, 1844, by the Grindelwald guides Hans Jaun and Melchior Bannholzer, three days after they had co-guided a large party organized by the geologist Edouard Desor to the first ascent of the Rosenhorn. The Mittelhorn was first summitted on 9 July 1845 by the same guides, this time accompanied by a third guide, Kaspar Abplanalp, and by Stanhope Templeman Speer. The son of a Scottish physician, Speer lived in Interlaken, Switzerland.

A September 1854 ascent by a party including Alfred Wills is much celebrated in Great Britain. Apparently believing to be the first ascendant, Wills' description of this trip in his book "Wanderings Among the High Alps" (published in 1856) helped make mountaineering fashionable in Britain and ushered in the systematic exploration of the Alps by British mountaineers, the so-called golden age of alpinism.  Despite several well-documented earlier ascents and the fact that he was guided to the top, even in his obituary in 1912 he was considered to be "certainly the first who can be said with any confidence to have stood upon the real highest peak of the Wetterhorn proper" (i.e. the 3,692 m summit).  In a subsequent corrigendum, the editors admitted two earlier ascents, but considered his still "the first completely successful" one.

In 1866, Lucy Walker was the first documented female ascendant of the peak.

The 24-year-old English mountaineer William Penhall and his Meiringen guide Andreas Maurer were killed by an avalanche high up on the Wetterhorn on 3 August 1882.

The famed guide and Grindelwald native Christian Almer climbed the mountain many times in his life, including on his first of many trips with Meta Brevoort and her nephew W. A. B. Coolidge in 1868. His last ascent was in 1898 at the age of 70 together with his wife to celebrate their golden anniversary on top.  Winston Churchill is also supposed  to have climbed the Wetterhorn in 1894.

The Wetterhorn summit was the intended terminal for the world's first passenger carrying aerial tramway, but only the first quarter was built. It was in operation until the beginning of World War I.

There are four "normal" routes, depending on direction and season. You will need rope, ax, crampons. Hundred years a ago, a cable car from Grindelwald (1200 m) in three stages was planned. The lowest part can still be seen and is an interesting reminder of the enthusiasm investors had before World War I.

Wetterhorn is neither a difficult, nor an easy mountain. Each access has its specialty. Three huts and  one bivouac are at your choice and if you are in good shape and can climb 2500 meters in one morning, you do not have to bother about huts. The choice of the huts varies according to the season. In summer you have two huts with extremely nice walks. Even if you do not succeed in climbing the Wetterhorn, you will like the view and the variation of the climb to the Dossen- or Gleckstein huts. If you have an inexperienced person or child with you, a short rope is

nice to have. Since the Wetterhorn can be seen from most mountains within 100 miles, the view is unique. Although everything up there is snow and ice, looking perpendicularly down to the green pastures of Grindelwald provides an unforgettable contrast.

The painter 

Joseph Anton Koch was an Austrian (Tyrol) painter of Neoclassicism and later the German Romantic movement; he is perhaps the most significant neoclassical landscape painter.

He   received academic training in the Karlsschule Stuttgart, a strict military academy. In 1791, he ran away, and traveled through France and Switzerland. He arrived in Rome in 1795. Koch was close to the painter Asmus Jacob Carstens and carried on Carstens' "heroic" art, at first in a literal manner. 

After 1800, Koch developed as a landscape painter.  In Rome, he espoused a new type of "heroic" landscape, revising the classical compositions of Poussin and Lorrain with a more rugged, mountainous scenery. In 1812, forced through inadequate income from his work, or in protest of the French invasion, he went to Vienna, where he worked prolifically. He stayed in Vienna until 1815. During this period, he incorporated more non-classical themes in his work.  In Vienna, he was influenced by Friedrich Schlegel and enthusiasts of old German art.  In response, his style became harsher. When returning to Rome, Koch became a conspicuous figure in the German artists' colony there.  He painted, among other works, the four frescoes in the Dante Room of the Villa Massimi (1824–29).  He wrote Moderne Kunstchronik oder die rumfordische Suppe gekocht und geschrieben von J. A. Koch (Stuttgart, 1834) which was directed humorously against unjustifiable criticism and false connoisseurship.  Koch's last years were spent in great poverty. He died in Rome,where he was buried in the Teutonic Cemetery, located next to St. Peter's Basilica within Vatican City.  He etched 20 Italian landscapes and a large sheet representing The Oath of the French at Millesimo; 14 pages after Dante, adding later another 30 pages (published Vicenza, 1904), and 36 pages after Ossian.  

He contributed American landscape scenes to the works of Alexander von Humboldt (1805).

PIC DU MIDI D'OSSAU PAINTED BY EMILE GODCHAUX

EMILE GODCHAUX (1860-1938) 

The Pic du Midi d'Ossau (2, 848 m - 9,462 ft) 

France 

 Painted in 1890

The mountain

The Pic du Midi d'Ossau (2, 848m-9,462 ft)  not to be confused with  the Pic du Midi de Bigorre is a mountain rising above the Ossau Valley in the French Pyrenees. Despite possessing neither a glacier nor, in the context of the range, a particularly high summit, its distinctive shape makes it a symbol of the French side of the Pyrenees. This familiar shape also makes it easily recognisable from afar, and it is particularly distinctive from the Boulevard des Pyrénées in Pau, some 55 km to the north.

The Pic du Midi d'Ossau lies within the commune of Laruns, in the département of Pyrénées Atlantiques and the Aquitaine region of France. It lies within the fully protected area of the Pyrenees National Park.  As normally seen from the north, the mountain presents itself as having two distinct peaks, although from the south two other summits are also visible. It stands separate from any surrounding peaks, being largely surrounded by the valleys of the Gave de Bious, to the west, and the Gave du Brousset, to the east. These two mountain streams come together in the hamlet of Gabas at the foot of the mountain's northern slopes, to form the Gave d'Ossau.

The valley of Ossau is placed in the Béarnaises Pyrénées, between la vallée d'Aspe and the Vallée de Gavarnie, from Rébénacq to the French-Spanish frontier (Col du Portalet). The Col d'Aubisque closes the valley to the east. The villages (from N to S) of the high Ossau are: Bilhères, Bielle, Béon, Bélesten, Gère-Bélesten, Aste-Béon, Louvie-Soubiron, Béost, Assouste, Aas, Laruns, Eaux-Bonnes, Gourette, Eaux-Chaudes, Goust, Gabas, Arouste-Fabréges and Pont de Camps.

The Pic du Midi d'Ossau was reputedly first climbed in 1552 by an expedition led by François de Foix-Candale, later to become the Bishop of Aire. Although the success of this first climb is disputed, it is known that the mountain had been successfully climbed by 1787 when a military surveyor noted that a triangulation cairn had been built on the summit. The first fully recorded climb was by Guillaume Delfau accompanied by Mathieu (a shepherd from Eaux-Bonnes) on October 2, 1797.

The mountain offers many routes of ascent; the voie normale is a serious scramble and rock climb with a grading of PD, II+, 550 m. It approaches the summit via the Refuge de Pombie, a Club Alpin Français owned mountain hut situated at 2,031 m - 6,663 ft, and requires most of a day to execute.

Two others refuges : Cabane Pyrenea Sports belonging to Société Pyrénées Sports at Pau, 25 places located on the NE shore of Lac de Bious-Artigues, and Cabane de Peyreget (1.950 m)

non guarded, 4 places located near Lac de Peyreget and W of Peyreget' little peak ridge. 

Reference 

 - Pic du Midi d'Ossau in Summitpost.org 

The painter 
 Emile Godchaux is a french painter born in 1860. He is  perhaps from the  same the family than the sculptor Roger Godchaux. He is often confused with an other painter from Lyon, Alfred Godchaux, who painted at the same time on similar themes and in a fairly close manner.
Emile Godchaux was well-known from the Bordeaux junk dealers around 1900,  due to the fact he used to sell  his paintings in public places, putting sometimes them in the lottery, the painting being then the jackpot of a series of 10 or 20 tickets for 1 franc !
His favorite themes were the ports, the cliffs of the Normandy coast, the animated Atlantic beaches and fishing boats, the mountainous landscapes taken on the ground in the Pyrenees and Savoie, Venice. His skies are often tumultuous. His characters in costumes of fishermen or farmers  of the end of the century. The material is beautiful, generous and dense, robust design in its schematic. The signing comes in two very different forms, one classic, a large and very readable layout, the other finely cut into the dough through a tip (some paintings bear two signatures). Some mystery still hangs over this prolific painter for which researches are ongoing.
Reference 
- Galerie du Palais Gallien