TOHIVEA / TOHIEA PAINTED BY CECIL WILLIAM HODGES

CECIL WILLIAM HODGES (1744-1797) 

 Mount Tohivea or Tohiea (1,207m- 3,960ft)  

  France  (French Polynesia )  

 In View taken in the bay of Moorea, 1774, oil on canvas,  The National Maritime Museum, London.

The mountain 

Mount Tohivea (1,207 m - 3,960 feet) also called  Tohiea 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.

Mount Tohivea was formed about two million years ago. Its last eruption was so big, there was a landslide that formed the 2 bays. After the eruption, the volcano became dormant. The area was first settled by early Polynesians during the early 4th century. Then Charles Darwin explored the area. After many years the area became very populated. Then people made trails and then it become a park. Today, the park is a tourist attraction.
Mount Tohivea is a lot visited since it has easy access from Papeete. Many people walk the trails since there is beautiful scenery. People from Tahiti use the Moorea Temae Airport or the Aremeti Ferry to get to Moorea. Mount Tohivea is visible behind Mount Rotui from the two bays
There about 5 miles (8.0 km) of dirt hiking trails along the Mount Tohivea's slopes. The trails are about 2 feet (0.61 m) wide. There are some points with views of Cook's Bay, Opunohu Bay, the Pacific Ocean, and Pao Pao, the largest commune of Moorea. The animals that people can see are mainly Geckos and Salamanders. The hiking trails end close to Mont Mouaroa which is only a couple of miles west of Mont Tohivea. People can also see Mont Mouaroa from both the main road and the two bays. People can mainly see Mont Mouaroa from Opuhunu bay.S ome of the hiking trails go to the bottom of Moorea from the south point. People can also see Mont Tohivea from the south point and get on the trails from there.
There are also farms at the bottom of Mount Tohivea. The farmers mainly farm pineapples and potatoes. The farmers give the pineapples to the Moorea Juice Factory. People can see the farms as they drive the small road up the valley. The farms are mainly located at where the small road starts at the bottom of Opuhunu Bay. There is also a shrimp farm.

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: 

- William Hodges Wikepedia page  

JUNGFRAU PAINTED BY CLEMENT CASTELLI

CLEMENT CASTELLI (1870-1959)  

Jungfrau  (4,158m- 13, 642ft)

Switzerland

The mountain 

The Jungfrau   (4,158 m- 13,642 ft) ("The virgin" in german)  is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps, located between the northern canton of Bern and the southern canton of Valais, halfway between Interlaken and Fiesch. Together with the Eiger and Mönch, the Jungfrau forms a massive wall overlooking the Bernese Oberland and the Swiss Plateau, one of the most distinctive sights of the Swiss Alps. It is one of the most represented by artists summits with the Matterhorn and the Mont Blanc.

The summit was first reached on August 3, 1811 by the Meyer brothers of Aarau and two chamois hunters from Valais. The ascent followed a long expedition over the glaciers and high passes of the Bernese Alps. It was not until 1865 that a more direct route on the northern side was opened.

The construction of the Jungfrau railway in the early 20th century, which connects Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch, the saddle between the Mönch and the Jungfrau, made the area one of the most-visited places in the Alps. Along with the Aletsch Glacier to the south, the Jungfrau is part of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 2001.

Politically, the Jungfrau is split between the municipalities of Lauterbrunnen (Bern) and Fieschertal (Valais). It is the third-highest mountain of the Bernese Alps after the nearby Finsteraarhorn and Aletschhorn, respectively 12 and 8 km away. But from Lake Thun, and the greater part of the canton of Bern, it is the most conspicuous and the nearest of the Bernese Oberland peaks; with a height difference of 3,600 m between the summit and the town of Interlaken. This, and the extreme steepness of the north face, secured for it an early reputation for inaccessibility.

The landscapes around the Jungfrau are extremely contrasted. Instead of the vertiginous precipices of the north-west, the south-east side emerges from the upper snows of the Aletsch Glacier at around 3,500 metres. The 20 km long valley of Aletsch on the south-east is completely uninhabited and also surrounded by other similar glacier valleys. The whole area constitutes the largest glaciated area in the Alps as well as in Europe.

Climbing 

In 1811, the brothers Johann Rudolf (1768–1825) and Hieronymus Meyer, sons of Johann Rudolf Meyer (1739–1813), the head of a rich merchant family of Aarau, with several servants and a porter picked up at Guttannen, having reached the summit for the first time.

The normal route follows the traces of the first climbers, but the long approach on the Aletsch Glacier is no longer necessary. From the area of the Jungfraujoch the route to the summit takes only a few hours. Most climbers start from the Mönchsjoch Hut. After a traverse of the Jungfraufirn the route heads to the Rottalsattel (3,885 m), from where the southern ridge leads to the Jungfrau. It is not considered a very difficult climb but it can be dangerous on the upper section above the Rottalsattel, where most of the accidents happen. The use of the Jungfrau railway can cause some acclimatization troubles as the difference of altitude between the railway stations of Interlaken and Jungfraujoch is almost 3 km. The final section of the climb is accomplished along one of the longest and sharpest arêtes of frozen snow to be found in the Alps, beyond which the eye plunges abruptly down a precipice 3,000 ft. in height into the depths of the Rottal, on the west of the Jungfrau. With perfect steadiness and first-rate guides there is no danger, unless too early in the season, or soon after a heavy fall of fresh snow. When it is necessary to cut steps all the way in hard frozen névé, the work is very laborious, and 3 hours may be consumed in ascending the 725 ft that separate the Sattel from the summit. Some rocks jut out close to the top, but the actual peak consists of a nearly level ridge of frozen snow falling away on either side like a house-top with an excessively steep roof. The view, on one side, commands the icy plains of the Aletsch Glacier, and the highest alpine peaks far and near; on the other overlooks populous valleys that lie at a depth of 2 miles below the spectator's feet.

The painter 

Clement (or Clemente) Castelli was born in Premia, Italy.  He moved to Paris in 1880, and studied painting with  Jules Adler and Léon Bellemont before to be a member of the  " Société des peintres de Montagnes " (Mountain Painters Society). Clement Castelli spent most of his career painting mountains in the French Alps (Chamonix Valley, La Meije and Oisans) but also the Swiss Alps (many paintings representing the Matterhorn in particular and the Junfgfrau) and Italian Alps. It painted as  mountain landscapes as well as valley bottoms or views from the peaks that its qualities of mountaineer allows it to frequent. He also painted some paintings on the Pyrenean sites (the Cirque de Gavarnie, the lake of Gaube or the valley of Ossau) which he exhibited in Tarbes. It was a prolific artist who  often paints on small panels, easier to carry with him in  mountains, but also on canvas. He paints with a brush, quite classically; its palette, made of rather "cold" colors is characteristic.

A stamp, affixed to the back of his paintings, indicates that at least for a time, his studio was located in Paris, rue du Faubourg-du-Temple. Clement Castelli has exhibited his works for many years at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants and at the Salon des Artistes Français.

MAUNA LOA PAINTED BY JULES TAVERNIER

JULES TAVERNIER (1844-1889) 

Mauna Loa volcano  (4,170m - 13, 680 ft)

 United States of America  (Hawai'i)

 In  Mokuaweoweo at the top of Mauna Loa, oil on canvas, Honolulu Museum of Arts  

The volcano 

Mauna Loa  (4,170m - 13, 680ft)  which means Long Mountain in Hawaiian, is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi in the Pacific Ocean. The largest subaerial volcano in both mass and volume, Mauna Loa has historically been considered the largest volcano on Earth. It is an active shield volcano with relatively gentle slopes, with a volume estimated at approximately 18,000 cubic miles (75,000 km3), although its peak is about 120 feet (37 m) lower than that of its neighbor, Mauna Kea. Lava eruptions from Mauna Loa are silica-poor and very fluid, and they tend to be non-explosive.

Mauna Loa has probably been erupting for at least 700,000 years, and may have emerged above sea level about 400,000 years ago. The oldest-known dated rocks are not older than 200,000 years. The volcano's magma comes from the Hawaii hotspot, which has been responsible for the creation of the Hawaiian island chain over tens of millions of years. The slow drift of the Pacific Plate will eventually carry Mauna Loa away from the hotspot within 500,000 to one million years from now, at which point it will become extinct.

Mauna Loa's most recent eruption occurred from March 24 to April 15, 1984. No recent eruptions of the volcano have caused fatalities, but eruptions in 1926 and 1950 destroyed villages, and the city of Hilo is partly built on lava flows from the late 19th century. Because of the potential hazards it poses to population centers, Mauna Loa is part of the Decade Volcanoes program, which encourages studies of the world's most dangerous volcanoes. Mauna Loa has been monitored intensively by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory since 1912. Observations of the atmosphere are undertaken at the Mauna Loa Observatory, and of the Sun at the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, both located near the mountain's summit. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park covers the summit and the southeastern flank of the volcano, and also incorporates Kilauea, a separate volcano.

Source: 

- Hawaii Center for Volcanology

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).
Source:
- Tigertail Virtual Museum 

MONTE EPOMEO PAINTED BY L. T. TURPIN DE CRISSE

LANCELOT THEODORE TURPIN DE CRISSE  (1782-1859)  

Monte Epomeo (789 m - 2,589 ft) 

Italy (Ischia Island)  

 In  Vue depuis Lacco sur le Mont Epomeo, Ischia, 1824, oil on canvas,
 Wallraf Richartz Museum, Köln  

The mountain 

Monte Epomeo (789 m - 2,589 ft) is the highest mountain on the volcanic island of Ischia, in the Gulf of Naples, Italy. Epomeo is believed to be a volcanic horst which towers above the rest of Ischia. Much of Epomeo is covered in lush greenery, with a few vineyards also occupying its slopes. Approximately 75 m (246 ft) from the peak the mountain is covered in white lava which may be confused with snow. A path leads to the summit of the mountain from Fontana, one of its quiet traditional villages.

The  painter 
Lancelot-Théodore, Comte de Turpin de Crissé  was a French writer and painter. His most familiar works are landscapes with structures, usually set in Italy. His father was Colonel Henri Roland Lancelot Turpin de Crissé, an amateur painter of some note. The family was financially ruined by the Revolution and had to flee Paris, but he was able to finish his studies in Switzerland and Italy, thanks to the patronage of Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier.  Upon his return to France in 1809, he exhibited at the Salon. He was then granted the protection of the Imperial Family and became Chamberlain to the former Empress Josephine after her divorce. In 1810, he accompanied her on a trip to Switzerland and Savoy, returning with a large album of drawings.
In 1813, he married into a noble family and received a large inheritance from a cousin.  Three years later, he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. He was then appointed to the "Board of Royal Museums" (1824) and Inspector-General for the "Département des Beaux-Arts" (1825). That same year, he was awarded the Légion d'honneur.  He was named an honorary member of the Maison du Roi in 1829. During this period he made three lengthy trips to Italy; the last on the occasion of his appointment to the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia.
Despite his association with the Bonapartes, he was a staunch Legitimist, resigning all of his offices following the advent of the July Monarchy in 1830 and returning to private life.  He continued to exhibit, however, including a show at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1832. Three years later, he published Souvenirs du vieux Paris, exemples d'architecture de temps et de styles divers.
He continued to advocate for the Bourbons until his death.
He was also known as an avid art collector and promoted many contemporary artists through purchases of their works. Among them were Blondel, Granet and Ingres. His collection included antiquities as well, which he donated to the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers.
 From December 2006 to April 2007, the museum presented a major retrospective of his works, in an effort to make his name known again.
 Sources: 
-  National Gallery of Art 

THE CERVIN /MATTERHORN BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT  (1856–1925) 

 Le Cervin  or Matterhorn  (4,478m -14,691ft)

Switzerland - Italy border

 In The Cervin, watercolour, 1905 -  Private collection 

The mountain 

The  Mont Cervin (4,478m -14,691ft) also known as the Matterhorn is an alpine summit located on the Swiss-Italian border between the canton of Valais and the Aosta Valley in Switzerland. It has several other names: Cervino in Italian, Grand'Bèca in Arpitan, Matterhorn in German. The Cervin / Matterhorn is the most famous mountain in Switzerland, including the pyramidal shape that it offers from the village of Zermatt, in the German-speaking part of the canton of Valais.

Its four sides are joined about 400 meters below the summit in a summit pyramid, called "roof." Its summit is a broad ridge about two meters, on which stand actually two summits: one called "Swiss summit," the farther east, and the "Italian summit" slightly lower (4,476 meters), on the west side of the ridge. The two are separated by a notch in the hollow of which a cross was laid in September 1901.

Its north face is one of the three great north faces of the Alps with the Eiger and the Grandes Jorasses.

The most famous faces of the Matterhorn are the faces east and north, seen from Zermatt. The first

1, 000 meters high, has great risk of falling rocks, which makes it dangerous climb. The north face high of 1100 meters, is one of the most dangerous sides of the Alps, particularly because of the risks of landslides and storms. The south side, overlooking the Breuil (Valtournenche above) is high, it, 1 350 meters. This is the face that offers the most channels. And finally, the west face the highest with its 1400 meters, is the one that is the subject of fewer climbs attempts. Between the west side and the north side there is also the north-northwest side, which does not stretch to the summit but stopped Zmutt Nose, on the bridge of the same name. This is the most dangerous route for climbing the Matterhorn. There is also a south-facing southeast, deemed to be the most difficult of the south face route, which leads to the Pic Muzio, on Furggen Shoulder.

Due to its pyramidal form, the Matterhorn has four main ridges, through which pass most of climbing routes. The easiest ridge, that borrows the normal route, is the Hörnli ridge (Hörnligrat in German): it is between the faces east and north, facing the Zermatt valley. Further west lies the Zmutt ridge (Zmuttgrat), between the north and west sides. Between the western and southern sides is the Lion ridge (Liongrat), also known as Italian ridge, which passes through the Tyndall peak, summit of the southern part of the west side, at which begins the upper face. Finally, the south side is separated from the face is Furggen

Swiss normal route from the cabin of the Hörnli, located at 3260 meters. Since Zermatt is accessed by gondola Schwarzsee; there are 700 vertical meters to the hut and 1200 vertical meters to the summit.

Difficulty (Hörnli ridge): AD (fairly difficult), 3 climbing passage; fixed ropes were installed near the top for easy ascension.

The Italian normal route, taking his departure in Breuil, follows almost entirely the southwest ridge, called the Lion ridge. It was inaugurated by the guide valtournain Jean-Antoine Carrel 17 July 1865.

The climb from the Italian side includes three steps:

- du Breuil (2012 meters) at the shelter Duke of Abruzzi in Oriondé (2802 meters)

- the refuge Duca degli Abruzzi refuge to Jean-Antoine Carrel (3830 meters)

- Jean-Antoine Carrel refuge at the summit (4478 meters).

The ascent by Hörnli ridge, July 14, 1865, was considered the last of the great feats of mountaineering in the Alps. But this ascent error ended at the beginning of the descent, in the death of 4 of the 7 members of the roped Victorieuse.

The painter 
John Singer Sargent  was an American artist who  created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Switzerland, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. He was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, but  in later life he expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe.  Each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure.  Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night.  His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, "Everything is given with the intensity of a dream." In the Middle East and North Africa Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.
With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness.   His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: 'To live with Sargent's water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, 'the refluent shade' and 'the Ambient ardours of the noon.'
Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America's greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer.

2016 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MACHAPUCHARE SACRED MOUNTAIN IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1949

VINTAGE POSTCARD 1949

Machhapucchhre or Machapuchare (6,993 m - 22,943 ft)  

Nepal 

©wanderingvertexes collection.  All right reserved. Copy forbidden

The mountain

Machapuchare (6,993 m - 22,943 ft) or  Machhapuchchhre or Machhapuchhre is a mountain in the Annapurna Himalayas of north central Nepal. It is revered by the local population as particularly sacred to the god Shiva, and hence is off limits to climbing.

Machapuchare is at the end of a long spur ridge, coming south out of the main backbone of the Annapurna Himalayas, which forms the eastern boundary of the Annapurna Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is a favorite trekking destination, and the site of the base camps for the South Face of Annapurna and for numerous smaller objectives. The peak is about 25 km (16 mi) north of Pokhara, the main town of the region. Due to its southern position in the range, and the particularly low terrain that lies south of the Annapurna Himalayas, Machapuchare commands tremendous vertical relief in a short horizontal distance. This, combined with its steep, pointed profile, make it a particularly striking peak, despite a lower elevation than some of its neighbors. Its double summit resembles the tail of a fish, hence the name meaning "fish's tail" in Nepalese. It is also nicknamed the "Matterhorn of Nepal".

Climbing 

Machapuchare has never been climbed to its summit. The only attempt was in 1957 by a British team led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Roberts. Climbers Wilfrid Noyce and A. D. M. Cox climbed to within 150 m (492 ft) of the summit via the north ridge, to an approximate altitude of 22,793 ft (6,947 m). They did not complete the ascent, as they had promised not to set foot on the actual summit.

Since then, the mountain has been declared sacred, and is now closed to climbers. Nowadays it is illegal to climb Machapuchare. 

Vintage postcards

Postcards became popular at the turn of the 20th century, especially for sending short messages to friends and relatives. They were collected right from the start, and are still sought after today by collectors of pop culture, photography, advertising, wartime memorabilia, local history, and many other categories.
Postcards were an international craze, published all over the world. The Detroit Publishing Co. and Teich & Co. were two of the major publishers in the U.S, and sometimes individuals printed their own postcards as well. Yvon were the most famous in France. Many individual or anonymous publishers did exist around the world and especially in Africa and  Asia (Japan, Thailand, Nepal, China, Java) between 1920 and 1955. These photographer were mostly local notables, soldiers, official guides belonging to the colonial armies (british french, belgium...) who sometimes had rather sophisticated equipment and readily produced colored photograms or explorers, navigators, climbers (Vittorio Sella and the Archiduke of Abruzzi future king of Italy remains the most famous of them).
There are many types of collectible vintage postcards.
Hold-to-light postcards were made with tissue paper surrounded by two pieces of regular paper, so light would shine through. Fold-out postcards, popular in the 1950s, had multiple postcards attached in a long strip. Real photograph postcards (RPPCs) are photographs with a postcard backing.
Novelty postcards were made using wood, aluminum, copper, and cork. Silk postcards–often embroidered over a printed image–were wrapped around cardboard and sent in see-through glassine paper envelopes; they were especially popular during World War I.
In the 1930s and 1940s, postcards were printed on brightly colored paper designed to look like linen.
Most vintage postcard collectors focus on themes, like Christmas, Halloween, portraits of movie stars, European royalty and U.S. presidents, wartime imagery, and photos of natural disasters or natural wonders. Not to mention cards featuring colorful pictures by famous artists like Alphonse Mucha, Harrison Fisher, Ellen Clapsaddle, and Frances Brundage.
For vintage postcards, subject matter, condition, and rarity, plus general desirability and demand, determine value.

MONADNOCK MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY ROCKWELL KENT

ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971)

Monadnock  mountain  (965m - 3, 125ft) 

United States of America (New Hampshire) 

In Mount Monadnock- afternoon, oil on canvas    

The mountain 

Mount Monadnock (965m - 3, 125ft) or Grand Monadnock is a mountain in the New England state of New Hampshire. It is the most prominent mountain peak in southern New Hampshire and is the highest point in Cheshire County, New Hampshire. It has long been known as one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world. The word "monadnock" is an Abenaki-derived word used to describe a mountain. Loosely translated it means "mountain that stands alone", although the exact meaning of the word (what kind of mountain) is uncertain. The term was adopted by early settlers of southern New Hampshire and later by American geologists as an alternative term for an Inselberg or isolated mountain. Mount Monadnock is often called Grand Monadnock, to differentiate it from other Vermont and New Hampshire peaks with "Monadnock" in their names. Its official name on federal maps is "Monadnock Mountain".
Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau visited the mountain and wrote fondly of it. Emerson was a frequent visitor, and made the mountain the subject of "Monadnoc", one of his most famous poems. Thoreau visited the mountain four times between 1844 and 1860 and spent a great deal of time observing and cataloging natural phenomena. He is regarded as having written one of the first serious naturalist inventories of the mountain. A bog near the summit of Mount Monadnock and a rocky lookout off the Cliff Walk trail are named after him; another lookout is named after Emerson.

Mount Monadnock is nearly 1,000 feet (300 m) higher than any other mountain peak within 30 miles (48 km) and rises 2,000 feet (610 m) above the surrounding landscape. Mount Monadnock, 62 miles (100 km) northwest of Boston and 38 miles (61 km) southwest of Concord, is located within the towns of Jaffrey and Dublin, New Hampshire.

Monadnock's bare, isolated, and rocky summit provides expansive views. A number of hiking trails ascend the mountain, including the 110-mile (180 km) Metacomet-Monadnock Trail and the 50-mile (80 km) Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway.
The earliest recorded ascent of Mount Monadnock took place in 1725 by Captain Samuel Willard and fourteen rangers under his command who camped at the top and used the summit as a lookout while patrolling for Native Americans. Before the practice came to be frowned upon, many early hikers carved their names in the summit; the earliest such engraving reads "S. Dakin, 1801" and is attributed to a local town clerk. Notable "power hiking" records associated with the mountain include that of Garry Harrington, who hiked to the summit 16 times in a 24-hour period, and Larry Davis, who claimed to have hiked to the summit daily for 2,850 consecutive days (7.8 years).
Monadnock is often claimed to be the second-most frequently climbed mountain in the world, after Mount Fuji in Japan. Monadnock is climbed by 125,000 hikers yearly, while Mount Fuji sees 200,000-300,000 hikers yearly.  However, according to UNESCO, neither mountain comes close in climbing popularity to Tai Shan in China, with more than 2 million visitors a year.

The painter

Rockwell Kent, artist, author, and political activist, had a long  and varied career. During his lifetime, he worked as an architectural draftsman, illustrator, printmaker, painter, lobsterman, ship's carpenter, and dairy farmer. Born in Tarrytown Heights, New York, he lived in Maine, Newfoundland, Alaska, Greenland, and the Adirondacks and explored the waters around Tierra del Fuego in a small boat. Kent's paintings, lithographs, and woodcuts often portrayed the bleak and rugged aspects of nature; a reflection of his life in harsh climates.His experience as a carpenter and builder and his familiarity with tools served him well when he took up the graphic process. His blocks were marvels of beautiful cutting, every line deliberate and under perfect control. The tones and lines in his lithography were solidly built up, subtle, and full of color. He usually made preliminary studies- old-mater style- for composition or detail before starting on a print. Nothing was vague or accidental about his work; his expression was clear and deliberate. Neither misty tonalities nor suggestiveness were to his taste. He was a highly objectified art - clean, athletic, sometimes almost austere and cold. He either recorded adventures concretely, or dealt in ideas. His studio was a model of the efficient workshop: neat, orderly, with everything in its place. His handwriting, the fruit of his architectural training, was beautiful and precise.
When Kent died of a heart attack in 1971, The New York Times described him as "... a thoughtful, troublesome, profoundly independent, odd and kind man who made an imperishable contribution to the art of bookmaking in the United States."  Richer, more accurate accounts of the scope of the artist's influential career as a painter and writer have since superseded this cursory summing-up of an American life. Retrospectives of the artist's paintings and drawings have been mounted, most recently by The Rooms in St. John's, Newfoundland, where the exhibition Pointed North: Rockwell Kent in Newfoundland and Labrador was curated by Caroline Stone in the summer of 2014. Other recent exhibitions include the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery and Owen D. Young Library at St. Lawrence University (Canton, New York) in the autumn of 2012; the Farnsworth Art Museum (Rockland, Maine) during the spring through autumn of 2012; the Bennington Museum in Vermont during the summer of 2012; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the spring through summer of 2012. An exhibition marking the centennial of Kent's time in Winona, Minnesota, took place there in 2013. Among the many notes of increasing awareness of Kent's contributions to American culture is the reproduction of one of Kent's pen-and-ink drawings from Moby Dick on a U.S. postage stamp, part of the 2001 commemorative panel celebrating such American illustrators as Maxfield Parrish, Frederic Remington, and Norman Rockwell.
Noted American and Canadian writers in recent years have found much gold to mine in Kent's improbable personal and public life. The year he spent in Newfoundland, for example, is fictionally (and very loosely) recalled by Canadian writer Michael Winter in The Big Why, his 2004 Winterset Award-winning novel. And certain qualities of the protagonist of Russell Banks's 2008 novel The Reserve are inspired by aspects of Kent's complex personality. Kent's work also figures in Steve Martin's 2010 novel An Object of Beauty and is the subject of a chapter in Douglas Brinkley's 2011 history The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom: 1879–1960.
The Archives of American Art is the repository for Kent's voluminous correspondence.

CIRQUE OF AÏN OUARKA PHOTOGRAPHED BY FREDERIC GADMER

FREDERIC GADMER (1878-1954)

 The Cirque of Aïn Ouarka  (1,672m - 5,485ft)

 Algeria

In Aïn -Ourka et les Pitons de Marne Verte, 1921 Autochrome Lumière,
Musée Départemental Albert Kahn 

The mountain 

The Cirque of Aïn Ouarka   (1,672m - 5,485ft) is a basin surrounded by steep mountains of green marl, where one can find two clear and deep saltwater ponds, coming from thermal waters. In this volcanic crater, in an exceptional landscape is located  the spa of Aïn Ouarka. Situated in the heart of the Ksours Mountains in the Western Saharan Atlas, Aïn Ouarka, part of the municipality of Asla, is located at a distance of 60 kilometers from the town of Aïn Sefra in the Wilaya of Naama.
The area of the high steppe plains of the Algerian western south is characterized by its great extents estimated at 6 million hectares and contains several types of natural environments articulated around ecosystems. Thus, under in arid climate, we find accessible zones of freshness, due to the presence of an important quantity of water, a rather rich biodiversity allowing the cohabitation of domestic, economic and ecological activities. The ecosystem of Aïn Ouarka is presented as a revealing case, requiring a careful thought in regards of its natural assets, its environmental constraints and its future prospects. The therapeutic benefits of water of this site has been highlighted from the very start of the century and much of researchers testify to the presence of two large lakes, with water clear and deep  showing  a site with important vegetation which shelters migratory birds temporarily. At present, the site of Aïn Ouarka, gives the impression of two small water marres very distant one from the other.

The photographer 

Frédéric Georges Gadmer was born in 1878 in France into a Protestant family; his father, Leon, son of Swiss émigré, was confectioner, and his mother, Marie Georgine, was unemployed. Before World War II, he follows his family in Paris and works as a photographer for the house Vitry, located Quai de la Rapée. As an heliogravure company, it performs work for the sciences and the arts, travel and education. In 1898 Gadmer completed his military service as a secretary to the staff then recalled in 1914 at the time of mobilization. In 1915, he joined the newly created  "Photographic Section of the Army" and carried pictures on the front, in the Dardanelles, with General Gouraud, then in Cameroon. In 1919, at age 41, he was hired as a photographer by Albert Khan for his project called "Archives of the Planet". He finds there his comrades of  "the film and photographic section of the army" Paul Castelnau and Fernand Cuville. Soon as he arrived, he made reports in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Palestine. It was the first to make a color portrait of Mustafa Kemal, leader of the Young Turks. In 1921, he returned to the Levant with Jean Brunhes, the scientific director of the Archives of the Planet. The same year, he attended General Gouraud, appointed High Commissioner in Syria. Operator and prolific photographer, specializing in distant lands and landscapes, it covers Iraq, Persia, Afghanistan, Algeria and Tunisia. In 1930, he accompanied Father Francis Aupiais in Dahomey. He also works in Europe. In 1931, at the request of Marechal Lyautey, he photographies the Colonial Exhibition. It is one of the last person to leave the "Archives of the Planet" threatened by the Albert Kahn's bankruptcy in 1932. He then worked at the famous french newspaper L'Illustration and carries postcards for Yvon. He died in Paris, unmarried, in 1954 and is buried in Saint-Quentin, as his parents.

Source: 

- Frédéric Gadmer in the Médiathèque Albert Kahn

About the  "Autochrome Lumière" Photos

The autochrome is a photographic reproduction of process colors patented December 17, 1903 by Auguste and Louis Lumière french brothers. This is the first industrial technique of photography colors, it produces positive images on glass plates. It was used between 1907 and 1932 approximately an particularly in many pictures of the World War I. A important number of photographs of mountains and landscapes around the world was made with this technique, particularly in the for  the Project "The archives of the planet" by Albert Kahn.  

Source: 

- Musée Départemental Albert Kahn on line

MOUNT KATAHDIN PAINTED BY FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH

FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH  (1826-1900)

Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267 f)

United States of America (Maine)

In Twilight (Katahdin), 1860, oil on canvas, The MET

The mountain  

Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267 feet)  is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Maine and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. The mountain, being a mile above sea level, towers above the comparatively low Maine lakes and forests. Named Katahdin by the Penobscot Indians, which means "The Greatest Mountain", Katahdin is the centerpiece of Baxter State Park.  The official name is "Mount Katahdin" as decided by the US Board on Geographic Names in 1893. Among some Native Americans, Katahdin was believed to be the home of the storm god Pamola, and thus an area to be avoidedIt is a steep, tall mountain formed from a granite intrusion weathered to the surface. 

Katahdin was known to the Native Americans in the region, and was known to Europeans at least since 1689. It has inspired hikes, climbs, journal narratives, paintings, and a piano sonata. The area around the peak was protected by Governor Percival Baxter starting in the 1930s. Katahdin  is located near a stretch known as the Hundred-Mile Wilderness.

Katahdin is referred to 60 years after Field’s climb of Agiokochuk (Mount Washington) in the writings of John Gyles, a teenage colonist who was captured near Portland, Maine in 1689 by the Abenaki. While in the company of Abenaki hunting parties, he traveled up and down several Maine rivers including both branches of the Penobscot, passing close to “Teddon”. He remarked that it was higher than the White Hills above the Saco River.

The first recorded climb of "Catahrdin" was by Massachusetts surveyors Zackery Adley and Charles Turner, Jr. in August 1804.[14] In the 1840s Henry David Thoreau climbed Katahdin, which he spelled "Ktaadn"; his ascent is recorded in a well-known chapter of The Maine Woods. A few years later Theodore Winthrop wrote about his visit in Life in the Open Air. Painters Frederic Edwin Church and Marsden Hartley are well-known artists who created landscapes of Katahdin. On 30 November 2011, Christie's auctioned Church's 1860 painting Twilight (Katahdin) for $3.1 million.(see above)

In the 1930s Governor Percival Baxter began to acquire land and finally deeded more than 200,000 acres (809 km2) to the State of Maine for a park, named Baxter State Park after him. The summit was officially recognized by the US Board on Geographic Names as "Baxter Peak" in 1931.

Climbing 

The many routes to the summit all involve at least some scrambling from second to fourth class and come from three general directions, north, east and southwest. However there are several technical routes both rock and ice. A campsite, Chimney Pond, sits within the cirque called the Great Basin. From this point, one can ascend the Cathedral Ridge Route (1.7 mi.) that runs up the salient ridge just west of Baxter Peak or the Saddle Trail (2.2 mi.) which is a bit more pedestrian. Or if you want to head up the Knife Edge (1.1 mi.) you would ascend the Dudley Trail to Pamola Peak (1.3 mi.). You can also head west from Chimney Pond to Hamlin Peak via the Hamlin Ridge Trail (2.2 mi.) if you want to hike the entire western side of the mountain to the summit. You can also climb directly from the east via the Roaring Brook Campground in the Helon Taylor Trail (4.3 mi to summit). This takes you directly to Pamola Peak and the Knife Edge route to the summit and bypasses Chimney Pond.

The painter

Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, perhaps best known for painting large panoramic landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets, but also sometimes depicting dramatic natural phenomena that he saw during his travels to the Arctic and Central and South America. Church's paintings put an emphasis on light and a romantic respect for natural detail. In his later years, Church painted classical Mediterranean and Middle Eastern scenes and cityscapes. Church was the product of the second generation of the Hudson River School and the pupil of Thomas Cole, the school’s founder. The Hudson River School was established by the British Thomas Cole when he moved to America and started painting landscapes, mostly of mountains and other traditional American scenes.  Both Cole and Church were devout Protestants and the latter's beliefs played a role in his paintings especially his early canvases.  Church did differ from Cole in the topics of his paintings: he preferred natural and often majestic scenes over Cole's propensity towards allegory.

Church, like most second generation Hudson River School painters, used extraordinary detail, romanticism, and luminism in his paintings. Romanticism was prominent in Britain and France in the early 1800s as a counter-movement to the Enlightenment virtues of order and logic. Artists of the Romantic period often depicted nature in idealized scenes that depicted the richness and beauty of nature, sometimes also with emphasis on the grand scale of nature.

This tradition carries on in the works of Frederic Church, who idealizes an uninterrupted nature, highlighted by creating excruciatingly detailed art. The emphasis on nature is encouraged by the low horizontal lines, and preponderance of sky to enhance the wilderness; humanity, if it is represented, is depicted as small in comparison with the greater natural reality. The technical skill comes in the form of Luminism, a Hudson River School innovation particularly present in Church's works. Luminism is also cited as encompassing several technical aspects, which can be seen in Church’s works. One example is the attempt to “hide brushstrokes” which makes the scene seem more realistic and lessen the artist’s presence in the work. Most importantly is the emphasis on light (hence luminism) in these scenes. The several sources of light create contrast in the pictures that highlights the beauty and detailed imagery in the painting.

TYCHO PEAK BY NASA LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER

NASA LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER (since 2009)

Tycho Peak  (2,000m or 2 km - 1, 24miles)

The Moon 

© NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

 © Goddard Space Flight Center / Arizona State University

The peak 
A very popular target with amateur astronomers, Tycho is located at 43.37°S, 348.68°E, and is about 51 miles (82 km) in diameter. The summit of the central peak is 1.24 miles (2 km) above the crater floor (images 1& 2). The distance from Tycho's floor to its rim is about 2.92 miles (4.7 km).
Tycho crater's central peak complex (image 3) is about 9.3 miles (15 km) wide.
Many rock fragments ("clasts") ranging in size from some 33 feet (10 m) to hundreds of yards are exposed in the central peak slopes. Were these distinctive outcrops formed as a result of crushing and deformation of the target rock as the peak grew? Or do they represent preexisting rock layers that were brought intact to the surface?
Tycho's features are so steep and sharp because the crater is only about 110 million years old -- young by lunar standards. Over time micrometeorites and not-so-micro meteorites, will grind and erode these steep slopes into smooth mountains. For a preview of Tycho's central peak may appear like in a few billion years, look at Bhabha crater.
On May 27, 2010, LRO captured a top-down view of the summit (above), including the large boulder seen in the image. Also note the fractured impact melt deposit that surrounds the boulder. And the smooth area on top of the boulder, is that also frozen impact melt? These images from the LRO Camera clearly show that the central peak formed very quickly: the peak was there when impact melt that was thrown straight up during the impact came back down, creating mountains almost instantaneously. Or did the melt get there by a different mechanism? The fractures probably formed over time as the steep walls of the central peak slowly eroded and slipped downhill. Eventually the peak will erode back, and this massive boulder will slide 1.24 miles (2 km) to the crater
On June 10, 2011, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft angled its orbit 65° to the west, allowing the LRO Camera NACs to capture a dramatic sunrise view of Tycho crater.
Source: 
- NASA missions official website/ Tycho peak 

The Imager 
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon since 2009 in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO has been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic missions to the Moon. Its detailed mapping program is identifying safe landing sites, locating potential resources on the Moon, characterizing the radiation environment, and demonstrating new technologies.
Launched on June 18, 2009, in conjunction with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), as the vanguard of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program, LRO was the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years. LRO and LCROSS were launched as part of the United States's Vision for Space Exploration program.
The probe has made a 3-D map of the Moon's surface at 100-meter resolution and 98.2% coverage (excluding polar areas in deep shadow), including 0.5-meter resolution images of Apollo landing sites.
The first images from LRO were published on July 2, 2009, showing a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).
The total cost of the mission is reported as US$583 million, of which $504 million pertains to the main LRO probe and $79 million to the LCROSS satellite.
Source: 
- NASA missions official website

CHERNUSHKA NUNATAK PAINTED BY DAVID ROSENTHAL

DAVID ROSENTHAL  (bn.1953)

Chernushka Nunatak (1,640 metres - 5,380 ft)

Antarctica

In  Aerial view of Nunatak, oil on canvas

The mountain 
Chernushka Nunatak  (1,640 metres -5,380 ft) is a isolated nunatak located at coordinates  71°35′S 12°1′E, lying 2 nautical miles (4 km) southwest of Sandseten Mountain on the west side of the Westliche Petermann Range in the Wohlthat Mountains. It was discovered and plotted from air photos by the Third German Antarctic Expedition, 1938–39. It was mapped from air photos and surveys by the Sixth Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, 1956–60, and remapped by the Soviet Antarctic Expedition, 1960–61. It was named by the USSR as a token of the Soviet scientists' achievements in the study of space, by commemorating Chernushka, a dog that was sent into space and safely returned to earth.
Nunataks, also called glacial islands, are exposed portions of ridges, mountains, or peaks not covered with ice or snow within (or at the edge of) an ice field or glacier. Nunataks present readily identifiable landmark reference points in glaciers or ice caps and are often named. The term is derived from the Inuit word, nunataq. Isolated or located by small groups,  there are nearly seventy nunataks in Antartica continent.


The artist 
David Rosenthal is known as an Antarctic Painter, Painter of Ice, Arctic Artist, Alaskan Artist and an Extreme Artist. He has been lured to cold climates regularly to record snow, ice, and landscapes. Davids paintings of glaciers and icebergs are astoundingly realistic and at the same ethereal at the same time. However his work also includes much more than ice, icebergs and glaciers... Cordova, Alaska is the place David Rosenthal calls home. As an artist and art teacher David has taught and continues to teach many students in Alaska. While teaching art in Alaska, David has instructed students and artist in many programs including the Alaska Artists in the Schools Program, Prince William Sound Community College and University of Alaska Fairbanks Summer Sessions. Alaskan artist David Rosenthal makes it a priority to travel around Alaska as much as possible to continue to capture the incredible beauty in his artwork of Alaska.
Having spent over sixty months on the Ice, including four austral winters and six austral summers, David became an Antarctic artist and has created art images from a large variety of places in every season. David has completed paintings of the antarctic landscape from all across Antarctica. Time in Antarctica included travel as a participant in the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program during a summer and a winter at McMurdo Station as well as most of a winter at Palmer Station. David has also worked for the NSF contractor for two winters and four summers in various job capacities as a way to spend time and become familiar with the landscape.
Rosenthal's work also includes many water colors, oil paintings, sketches and small studies. The paintings seem to magically reflect the intensity of nature's colors and the atmospheric phenomena that David witnesses. David really is a master of Extreme Art!
Source:
- David Rosenthal website 

_______________________________
2016 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE SUGAR LOAF PAINTED BY EDUARD HILDEBRANDT

EDUARD HILDEBRANDT (1818-1868) 

The Sugarloaf or Pao de Açucar (396 m - 1,299ft)

Brazil

In  A Glória, Rio de Janeiro, 1846, oil on canvas 

The mountain 

The Sugarloaf Mountain (396 m - 1,299ft) or Pao de Açucar in Portuguese, or Pain de Sucre in French, is a isolated peak situated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean. Rising above the harbor, its name is said to refer to its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated refined loaf sugar. It is known worldwide for its cableway and panoramic views of the city. The name "Sugarloaf" was coined in the 16th century by the Portuguese during the heyday of sugar cane trade in Brazil. According to historian Vieira Fazenda, blocks of sugar were placed in conical molds made of clay to be transported on ships. The shape given by these molds was similar to the peak, hence the name.

Climbing routes:

1907 – The Brazilian engineer Augusto Ferreira Ramos had the idea of linking the hills through a path in the air.

1910 – The same engineer founded the Society of Sugar Loaf and the same year the works were started. The project was commissioned in Germany and built by Brazilian workers. All parts were taken by climbing mountains or lift by steel cables.

1912 – Opening of the tram. First lift of Brazil. The first cable cars were made of coated wood and were used for 60 years.

1972 – The current template trolley was put into operation. This increased the carrying capacity by almost ten times.

2009 – Inauguration of the next generation of cable cars that had already been purchased and are on display at the base of Red Beach.

Visitors can watch rock climbers on Sugarloaf and the other two mountains in the area: Morro da Babilônia (Babylon Mountain), and Morro da Urca (Urca's Mountain). Together, they form one of the largest urban climbing areas in the world, with more than 270 routes, between 1 and 10 pitches long.

Source :
- Sugarloaf Official Website

The painter
Eduard Hildebrandt was a German landscape painter.  He was not twenty when he moved to Berlin, where his teacher was Wilhelm Krause, a painter of sea pieces. In 1842, he went to Paris, entered the atelier of the famous painter Isabey and became the companion of Lepoittevin. In a short time he sent home pictures which might have been taken for copies from these artists. Gradually he mastered the mysteries of touch and the secrets of effect in which the French  excelled.
After 1843 Hildebrandt, under the influence of Humboldt, extended his travels, and in 1864-1865 he went round the world. Whilst his experience became enlarged his powers of concentration broke down. He lost the taste for detail in seeking for scenic breadth. He gradually produced less oil paintings but more water colours, many of them represented by chromolithography. Fantasies in red, yellow and opal, sunset, sunrise and moonshine, distances of hundreds of miles like those of the Andes and the Himalaya, narrow streets in the bazaars of Cairo or Suez, panoramas as seen from mast-heads, wide cities like Bombay or Pekin, narrow strips of desert with measure-less expanses of sky all alike display his quality of bravura.

PICO BOLIVAR PHOTO COMPARISON BETWEEN 1950 AND 2011

PHOTO COMPARISON BETWEEN 1950 AND 2011  

Pico Bolívar (4,978 m - 16,332 ft) 

Venezuela

It is forecast that by 2020,  Venezuela will lose all its glaciers,

The mountain 

Pico Bolivar  (4,978 m -16,332 ft) is the highest mountain in Venezuela. Located in Mérida State, its top is permanently covered with névé snow and three small glaciers. It can be reached only by walking; the Mérida cable car, the highest cable car in the world, only reaches Pico Espejo. From there it is possible to climb to Pico Bolivar. The peak is named after the Venezuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar. The Pico Bolнvar is located on the mountain previously called La Columna, next to El Leуn (4,743 m) and El Toro (4,695 m). The new name was suggested by Tulio Febres Cordero in 1925. It was officially renamed on December 30, 1934. 

The height of this prominent Andean peak has been estimated and calculated various times during history. In 1912 one triangular measurement pointed at 5,002 metres. In 1928 came another calcutation at 5,007 metres, which stood as official height for a long time. During the 1990s the scientists Saler and Abad estimated the height, based upon GPS observations to be 4,980.8 metres.  However, no validation was made. New GPS measurements were made in 2002, which stated a height of 4,978.4 ±0.4 metres. These more correct findings were published in 2005.

The final measurement was made by José Napoleon Hernández from IGVSB; Diego Deiros and Carlos Rodriguez from USB and two guides from Inparques. GPS measurements designed for geodetic network consists of the vertices Pico Bolívar, El Toro, Piedras Blancas, and Mucuñuque Observatory, the latter belonging to the Venezuelan Red Geocentric REGVEN. Measurements were temporally equally long and continuous to ensure a greater volume of data over time to make more consistent and reliable information, five  GPS dual frequency receivers were used.

It is estimated that in 1910 the area covered by glaciers was around 10  km2, divided in two large areas, one embracing Picos Bolívar, Espejo and Concha and the other embracing Picos Humboldt and Bonpland. Possibly a small glaciated area covered the northwest side of Pico El Toro.

Aerial pictures taken in 1952 show the glaciated area had already shrunk to 0.9  km2 for the Picos Bolívar, Espejo and Concha and to 2.0  km2 for the Picos Humboldt and Bonpland.

In 2003 almost all the glaciers of the area had disappeared, with the exception of a two small glaciated areas (7.48 Ha on Pico Bolívar and 35.81 Ha on Pico Humboldt). 

It is forecast that at the current rate Venezuela will lose by 2020 all its glaciers, making it the first Andean country without any glaciated area.

First ascent was made by 1935 by Enrique Bourgoin, H. Márquez Molina and Domingo Peña.

HOOK MOUNTAIN BY EDWARD HOPPER

EDWARD HOPPER (1882-1967) 

Hook Mountain (210 m - 689 ft)

United States of America

In Hook Mountain, Nyack, 1899, watercolor, Whitney Museum, NYC

The mountain

Hook Mountain (210m - 689 ft)  is a summit overlooking Rockland Lake and the Hudson River, a central feature of the Hook mountain State Park.  Hook Mountain was known to Dutch settlers of the region as Verdrietige Hook, meaning "Tedious Point", which may have been a reference to how long the mountain remained in view while sailing past it along the Hudson River, or for the troublesome winds that sailors encountered near the point.  Hook Mountain has also been known in the past as Diedrick Hook.

Like other areas of the Hudson River Palisades, the landscape now included in Hook Mountain State Park was threatened by quarrying in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To ensure the land's protection, the property was acquired to be a part of the Palisades Interstate Park in 1911.

Portions of Hook Mountain State Park and nearby Nyack Beach State Park were designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1980 for their portion of the Palisades Sill.

Hook Mountain was designated by the New York Audubon Society as an Important Bird Area in 1997, due to its importance as a feeding area for migratory songbirds and hawks. It has been utilized annually as a hawk monitoring station since 1971.  The park is currently designated as a "Bird Conservation Area" by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

In May 2015, the Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine announced that they were considering allowing their 38-acre (0.15 km2) property to become a part of Hook Mountain State Park. The order's property, which is adjacent to the southern portion of the park, could be sold to The Trust for Public Land, who would then transfer the property to New York State.

Hook Mountain State Park is a 676-acre -2.74 km2  undeveloped state park located in Rockland County, New York. The park includes a portion of the Hudson River Palisades on the western shore of the Hudson River, and is part of the Palisades Interstate Park system. Hook Mountain State Park is functionally part of a continuous complex of parks that also includes Rockland Lake State Park, Nyack Beach State Park, and Haverstraw Beach State Park.

Sources: 

 - Palissades Parks Conservancy 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Though Hopper claimed that he didn't consciously embed psychological meaning in his paintings, he was deeply interested in Freud and the power of the subconscious mind. He wrote in 1939: "So much of every art is an expression of the subconscious that it seems to me most of all the important qualities are put there unconsciously, and little of importance by the conscious intellect."

Hopper was stoic and fatalistic—a quiet introverted man with a gentle sense of humor and a frank manner. Hopper was someone drawn to an emblematic, anti-narrative symbolism, who "painted short isolated moments of configuration, saturated with suggestion".  His silent spaces and uneasy encounters "touch us where we are most vulnerable", and have "a suggestion of melancholy, that melancholy being enacted". His sense of color revealed him as a pure painter as he "turned the Puritan into the purist, in his quiet canvasses where blemishes and blessings balance".  According to critic Lloyd Goodrich, he was "an eminently native painter, who more than any other was getting more of the quality of America into his canvases".

Hopper derived his subject matter from two primary sources: one, the common features of American life (gas stations, motels, restaurants, theaters, railroads, and street scenes) and its inhabitants; and two, seascapes and rural landscapes, a few (2 or 3, not much)  mountains landscape. Regarding his style, Hopper defined himself as "an amalgam of many races" and not a member of any school, particularly the "Ashcan School".  Once Hopper achieved his mature style, his art remained consistent and self-contained, in spite of the numerous art trends that came and went during his long career.

Hopper's seascapes fall into three main groups: pure landscapes of rocks, sea, and beach grass; lighthouses and farmhouses; and sailboats. Sometimes he combined these elements.

Urban architecture and cityscapes also were major subjects for Hopper. He was fascinated with the American urban scene, "our native architecture with its hideous beauty, its fantastic roofs, pseudo-gothic, French Mansard, Colonial, mongrel or what not, with eye-searing color or delicate harmonies of faded paint, shouldering one another along interminable streets that taper off into swamps or dump heaps."

References

-  Edward Hopper Wikipedia Page 

GUNUNG SEMERU IMAGED IN AUTOCHROME LUMIERE

AUTOCHROME LUMIERE (ANONYMUS)

Gunung Semeru or Gunung Mahameru (3, 676m - 12, 060ft) 

Java - Indonesia

In Gunung Semeru  Anonymus Autochrome Lumière process, circa 1920
©wandering vertexes collection 2016. No copy allowed. Al rights reserved.  

The mountain 

Mount Semeru - Gunung Semeru or Gunung Mahameru indonesian - (3, 676m - 12, 060ft)  is an active volcano located in East Java, Indonesia. It is the highest mountain on the island of Java. This stratovolcano is also known as Mahameru, meaning 'The Great Mountain. The name derived from the Hindu-Buddhist mythical mountain of Meru or Sumeru, the abode of gods.  Semeru is named from Sumeru, the central world-mountain in Buddhist cosmology and by extension Hinduism. As stated in legend, it was transplanted from India; the tale is recorded in the 15th-century East Javanese work Tantu Pagelaran. It was originally placed in the western part of the island, but that caused the island to tip, so it was moved eastward. On that journey, parts kept coming off the lower rim, forming the mountains Lawu, Wilis, Kelut, Kawi, Arjuno and Welirang. The damage thus caused to the foot of the mountain caused it to shake, and the top came off and created Penanggungan as well. Indonesian Hindus also hold a belief that the mountain is the abode of Shiva in Java.

Gunung Semeru or Mahameru is very steep rising abruptly above the coastal plains of eastern Java. Semeru lies at the south end of the Tengger Volcanic Complex.

Semeru's eruptive history is extensive.
Since 1818, at least 55 eruptions have been recorded (10 of which resulted in fatalities) consisting of both lava flows and pyroclastic flows. All historical eruptions have had a VEI of 2 or 3. Semeru has been in a state of near-constant eruption from 1967 to the present. At times, small eruptions happen every 20 minutes or so.
In 2014, there are as many as 25 non-native plants in Mount Semeru National Park, which threaten the endemic local plants. The foreign plants were imported by a Dutch botanist named Van Steenis, in the colonial era. They include Foeniculum vulgare mill, Verbena brasiliensis, chromolaena odorata, and Salvinia molesta.
Mud erosion from surrounding vegetable plantations are also making problem of silting of Ranu Pane Lake, which the lake becomes smaller and shallower. Research predicted the lake will disappear in about 2025, except the kind of vegetables plantation is replaced with more ecological plantations.
Semeru is regularly climbed by tourists, usually starting from the village of Ranu Pane to the north, but though non-technical it can be dangerous. mainly because of the  poisonous gases on Mount Semeru.

Autochrome process
The Autochrome Lumière is an early color photography process. Patented in 1903 by the Lumière brothers in France and first marketed in 1907, it was the principal color photography process in use before the advent of subtractive color film in the mid-1930s.
Between 1909 and 1931, a collection of 72,000 Autochrome photographs, documenting life at the time in 50 countries around the world, was created by French banker Albert Kahn. The collection, one of the biggest of its kind in the world, is housed in The Albert Kahn Museum on the outskirts of Paris. A new compilation of images from the Albert Kahn collection was published in 2008. Several images from the Albert Kahn Collection have been already published in this blog
The National Geographic Society made extensive use of Autochromes and other mosaic color screen plates for over twenty years. 15,000 original Autochrome plates are still preserved in the Society's archives.
In the U.S. Library of Congress's huge collection of American Pictorialist photographer Arnold Genthe's work, 384 of his Autochrome plates were among the holdings as of 1955.
Many photographers used it anonymously as well.

DEVIL'S PEAK PAINTED BY ANDREW COOPER

ANDREW COOPER  (bn. 1967) 

Devil's Peak  (1,000 m - 3,300 ft) 

 South Africa

 In  Devil's Peak, oil on canvas

The mountain 
 Devil's Peak  (1,000 m - 3,300 ft) less high than Table Mountain (1,087 m- 3,566 ft) is part of the mountainous backdrop to Cape Town, South Africa. When looking at Table Mountain from the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, or when looking at the standard picture postcard view of the mountain, the skyline is from left to right: the spire of Devil's Peak, the flat mesa of Table Mountain, the dome of Lion's Head and Signal Hill.
Forty years before Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape in 1497, the Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro created a map of the world for King Alfonso V of Portugal, based on knowledge drawn from the Arabians. On this map, which became the definitive view of the world for the early Portuguese explorers, he named the southernmost tip of Africa, Cabo di Diab – the Devil’s Cape. It’s very likely the association with the Devil simply migrated from the Cape to the mountain that flanks it. After all, sailors are a superstitious lot and Devil’s Peak remains the path through which the Cape Southeaster howls, churning up the waves in the Cape of Storms.
The upper, rocky parts of Devil's Peak, Table Mountain and Lion's Head consist of a hard, uniform and resistant sandstone commonly known as the Table Mountain sandstone or TMS.  The tough sandstone rests conformably upon a basal shale that in turn lies unconformably upon a basement of older (Late Precambrian) rocks (Malmesbury shale/slate and the Cape Granite). Millions of years of erosion have stripped all of the TMS from Signal Hill and that is why it looks very rounded compared to its sister peaks. There is a road that runs almost on the contour from the lower cable station on Table Mountain along the mountain to Devil's Peak. As it turns east around the bulk of Devil's Peak the road cuttings expose a few famous geological unconformities, which illustrate very clearly that the Malmesbury rocks were folded, baked, intruded by granite and planed down by millions of years of erosion before the area sank below the ocean and a new sequence of sediments, including the TMS, began to accumulate.
One can walk to the top (western slopes provide the easiest approach) but the ascent is more pleasant and safer outside of the cold, wet, winter months of May to August.
Source:
 - City of Cape town 

The artist
South African artist Andrew Cooper is a contemporary mountains and landscape  painter.  Born in Cape Town, South Africa in November, 1967, Andrew is a gifted, self taught fine artist, who started painting professionally in 1987. He prefers to work on large scale landscape paintings and seascape paintings allowing the viewer to experience "the grandeur and depth of the scene".
Living in a region rich in breathtaking scenery, he has created a spectacular body of contemporary South African paintings that has been exhibited throughout South Africa and elsewhere around the world.  The 2004 International Art Expo in New York City marked his premiere major American exhibition. His  paintings have also been exhibited in the United Kingdom, most recently in June 2012 (Westcliffe Gallery in Norfolk). Andrew Cooper is devoted to painting much as he is devoted to exploring the vast and spectacular countryside of South Africa. His paintings of the mountainside, seaside, wine country, and the rich grasslands are a testament to his sincere appreciation of nature. . His sharp eye and keen memory for detail caught every nuance of the scenes which played out in glorious colours before him. It was not long before he took paint to canvas and duplicated the glory of nature in its heights of beauty, thereby creating a lasting legacy of Nature's finest moments.
Source: 
- Andrew Cooper website