FITZ ROY / CERRO CHALTEN BY RAMOS CATALAN

RAMOS CATALAN (1888-1961) 

Fitz Roy / Cerro Chalten  (3,405m- 11, 171 ft)

Chile - Argentina border

The mountain 
Fitz Roy / Cerro Chalten  (3,405m- 11, 171 ft) is a mountain located near El Chaltèn village, in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in Patagonia, on the border between Argentina and Chile. First climbed in 1952 by French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, " The Fitz Roy " remains among the most technically challenging mountains for mountaineers on Earth. Mount Fitz Roy is the basis for the Patagonia clothing logo following Yvon Chouinard's ascent and subsequent film in 1968.
Argentine explorer Francisco Moreno first saw the mountain on 2 March 1877. He named it Fitz Roy, in honour of Robert FitzRoy, who, as captain of the HMS Beagle had travelled up the Santa Cruz River in 1834 and charted large parts of the Patagonian coast.
Cerro is a Spanish word meaning mountain, while Chaltèn comes from a Tehuelche (Aonikenk) word meaning "smoking mountain", due to a cloud that usually forms around the mountain's peak. Fitz Roy, however, was only one of a number of peaks the Tehuelche called Chaltèn.
It has been agreed by Argentina and Chile that their international border detours eastwards to pass over the main summit, but a large part of the border to the south of the summit, as far as Cerro Murallуn, remains undefined.

The painter 
Benito Ramos Catalán (1888-1961) was a chilean  painter who used to sign "Ramos Catalan". Known for his marines and landscapes of the Andes and Chile, and most particularly for his mountains paintings. Most of them have the same title: "Mountains of Chile" or  "Mountains landscapes of Andes", making quite difficult to know which mountain was exactly depicted, in a country which has quite a lot of summits ! To add to the difficulty, he used to paint the most famous mountains of his country under very unusual angles or with proportions that do not correspond exactly to their real size... making even more difficult to recognize and identify them for experts ! That is why today, 55 years after his death, some of these mountains paintings are not clearly identified and presented, in the public sales, as 'possibly' a particular summit of Chile or Andes...
His works are in many Chilean institutions like Viña del Mar Fine Art  Museum, O'Higginiano Fine Art Museum in Talca, Valparaiso Fine Art Museum, and Navy  Schools in Valparaiso and Talcahuano. Ranos

MACHU PICCHU BY HIRAM BINGHAM III

 HIRAM BINGHAM III (1875-1956) 

Machu Picchu (2,430 m -7,970 ft) 

Peru

Photo made in 1912 - original ruins before modern reconstruction 

The mountain and site 

Machu Picchu  is a 15th-century Inca citadel situated on a mountain ridge 2,430 m -7,970 ft above sea level. It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District in Peru, above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Machu Picchu lies in the southern hemisphere, 13.164 degrees south of the equator. It is 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Cusco, on the crest of the mountain Machu Picchu, located about 2,430 m-7,970 feet above mean sea level, over 1,000 m-3,300 ft lower than Cusco, which has an elevation of (3,600 m -11,800 ft. As such, it had a milder climate than the Inca capital. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America, one of the most visited tourist attractions in Latin America  and the most visited in Peru.

The city sits in a saddle between the two mountains Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu, with a commanding view down two valleys and a nearly impassable mountain at its back.

Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas" (a title more accurately applied to Vilcabamba), it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. The Incas built the estate around 1450 but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911.

Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Inti Watana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of how they originally appeared. By 1976, thirty percent of Machu Picchu had been restored[4] and restoration continues. Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.

The photographer - explorer

Hiram Bingham III was an American academic, explorer and politician. He made public the existence of the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Later, Bingham served as a member of the United States Senate for the state of Connecticut.
Bingham was not a trained archaeologist. Yet, it was during Bingham's time as a lecturer – later professor – in South American history at Yale that he re-discovered the largely forgotten Inca city of Machu Picchu. In 1908, he had served as delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress at Santiago, Chile. On his way home via Peru, a local prefect convinced him to visit the pre-Columbian city of Choquequirao. Bingham published an account of this trip in Across South America; an account of a journey from Buenos Aires to Lima by way of Potosí, with notes on Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.
Bingham was thrilled by the prospect of unexplored Inca cities, and organized the 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition with one of its objectives to search for the last capital of the Incas. On July 24, 1911, Melchor Arteaga led Bingham to Machu Picchu, which had been largely forgotten by everybody except the small number of people living in the immediate valley, possibly including two local missionaries named Thomas Payne and Stuart McNairn whose are supposed to have already climbed to the ruins in 1906. Also the Cusco explorers Enrique Palma, Gabino Sanchez and Agustín Lizarraga are said to have arrived at the site in 1901. Bingham returned to Peru in 1912, 1914 and 1915 with the support of Yale and the National Geographic Society. In The Lost City of the Incas (1948), a bestseller upon its publication in 1948, Bingham related how he came to believe that Machu Picchu housed a major religious shrine and served as a training center for religious leaders. Modern archaeological research has since determined that the site was not a religious center but a royal estate to which Inca leaders and their entourage repaired during the Andean summer.
Machu Picchu has become one of the major tourist attractions in South America, and Bingham is recognized as the man who brought the site to world attention, although many others helped to bring this site into the public eye. The switchback-filled road that carries tourist buses to the site from the Urubamba River is called the Hiram Bingham Highway.
Bingham has been cited as one possible basis for the "Indiana Jones" character.
Peru has long sought the return of the estimated 40,000 artifacts, including mummies, ceramics and bones, that Bingham had excavated and exported from the Machu Picchu site. On September 14, 2007, an agreement was made between Yale University and the Peruvian government for the return of the objects. On April 12, 2008, the Peruvian government stated that it had revised previous estimates of 4,000 pieces up to 40,000.

MOUNT ETNA BY AKSELI GALLEN-KALLELA

AKSELI GALLEN-KALLELA (1865-1931)

 Mount Etna or Mongibello (3,329 m - 10,922ft) 

 Italy (Sicily) 

In  Mount Etna in 1900 

The mountain 
Mount Etna (3,329 m - 10,922ft) or Mongibello, Mungibeddu in Sicilian, Aetna in Latin is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, in the Province of Catania, between Messina and Catania. It lies above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is the tallest active volcano in Europe. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 (459 sq mi) with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. Only Mount Teide in Tenerife surpasses it in the whole of the European–North-African region. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under this mountain by Zeus, the god of the sky and thunder and king of gods, and the forges of Hephaestus were said to also be located underneath it.
Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is in an almost constant state of activity. The fertile volcanic soils support extensive agriculture, with vineyards and orchards spread across the lower slopes of the mountain and the broad Plain of Catania to the south.
Due to its history of recent activity and nearby population, Mount Etna has been designated a Decade Volcano by the United Nations. In June 2013, it was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Volcanic activity first took place at Etna about 500,000 years ago, with eruptions occurring beneath the sea off the ancient coastline of Sicily.[ About 300,000 years ago, volcanism began occurring to the southwest of the summit (center top of volcano) then, before activity moved towards the present centre 170,000 years ago. Eruptions at this time built up the first major volcanic edifice, forming a stratovolcano in alternating explosive and effusive eruptions. The growth of the mountain was occasionally interrupted by major eruptions, leading to the collapse of the summit to form calderas.
From about 35,000 to 15,000 years ago, Etna experienced some highly explosive eruptions, generating large pyroclastic flows, which left extensive ignimbrite deposits. Ash from these eruptions has been found as far away as south of Rome's border, 800 km (497 mi) to the north.
Thousands of years ago, the eastern flank of the mountain experienced a catastrophic collapse, generating an enormous landslide in an event similar to that seen in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The landslide left a large depression in the side of the volcano, known as 'Valle del Bove' (Valley of the Ox). Research published in 2006 suggested this occurred around 8000 years ago, and caused a huge tsunami, which left its mark in several places in the eastern Mediterranean. It may have been the reason the settlement of Atlit Yam (Israel), now below sea level, was suddenly abandoned around that time. The steep walls of the valley have suffered subsequent collapses on numerous occasions. The strata exposed in the valley walls provide an important and easily accessible record of Etna's eruptive history. The most recent collapse event at the summit of Etna is thought to have occurred about 2,000 years ago, forming what is known as the Piano Caldera. This caldera has been almost entirely filled by subsequent lava eruptions, but is still visible as a distinct break in the slope of the mountain near the base of the present-day summit cone.

The painter 
Akseli Gallen-Kallela was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His work was considered very important for the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallen to Gallen-Kallela in 1907. In 1884 he moved to Paris, to study at the Académie Julian and became friends with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt, the Norwegian painter Adam Dörnberger, and the Swedish writer August Strindberg.
In December 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to Berlin to oversee the joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Here he became acquainted with the Symbolists.
On his return from Germany, Gallen studied print-making and visited London to deepen his knowledge, and in 1898 studied fresco-painting in Italy.
For the Paris World Fair in 1900, Gallen-Kallela painted frescoes for the Finnish Pavilion. In these frescoes, his political ideas became most apparent.Gallen-Kallela officially finnicized his name to the more Finnish-sounding Akseli Gallen-Kallela in 1907.
In 1909, Gallen-Kallela moved to Nairobi in Kenya with his family, and there he painted over 150 expressionist oil paintings and bought many east African artefacts. But he returned to Finland after a couple of years, because he realized Finland was his main inspiration. Between 1911 and 1913 he designed and built a studio and house at Tarvaspää, about 10 km northwest of the centre of Helsinki.
From December 1923 to May 1926, Gallen-Kallela lived in the United States, where an exhibition of his work toured several cities, and where he visited the Taos art-colony in New Mexico to study indigenous American art. In 1925 he began the illustrations for his "Great Kalevala". This was still unfinished when he died of pneumonia in Stockholm on 7 March 1931, while returning from a lecture in Copenhagen, Denmark
His studio and house at Tarvaspää was opened as the Gallen-Kallela Museum in 1961

MOUNT ELGON PAINTED BY RAY NESTOR

RAY NESTOR  (1888-1989)

Mount Elgon (4,321 m -14,177 ft)

Uganda  - Kenya

In Mount Elgon in the far 

The mountain 

Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of eastern Uganda and western Kenya,  north of Kisumu and west of Kitale. The mountain's highest point, named "Wagagai" (4,321 m -14,177 ft), is located entirely within the country of Uganda. Elgon is the seventeenth-highest mountain of Africa. Its vast form, 80 kilometres (50 mi) in diameter, rises 3,070 metres (10,070 ft) above the surrounding plains.  Its cooler heights offer respite for humans from the hot plains below, and its higher altitudes provide a refuge for flora and fauna.
Mount Elgon consists of five major peaks: Wagagai (4,321 m -14,177 ft), in Uganda ; Sudek (4,302 m -14,114 ft)) on the Kenya/Uganda border ; Koitobos (4,222 m -13,852 ft), a flat-topped basalt column in Kenya ; Mubiyi (4,211 m- 13,816 ft) in Uganda ;  Masaba (4,161 m - 13,652 ft) in Uganda.
Although there is no verifiable evidence of its earliest volcanic activity, geologists estimate that Mount Elgon is at least 24 million years old, making it the oldest extinct volcano in East Africa.
Other features of note are: The caldera  (Elgon's is one of the largest intact calderas in the world) ;
the warm springs by the Suam River ; Endebess Bluff (2,563 m - 8,409 ft) ; Ngwarisha, Makingeny, Chepnyalil, and Kitum caves . The cave contains salt deposits and it is frequented by wild elephants that lick the salt exposed by gouging the walls with their tusks. It became notorious following the publication of Richard Preston's book The Hot Zone in 1994 for its association with the Marburg virus after two people who had visited the cave (one in 1980 and another in 1987) contracted the disease and died. The mountain soils are red laterite. The mountain is the catchment area for the several rivers such as the Suam River, which becomes the Turkwel downstream and drains into Lake Turkana, and the Nzoia River and the Lwakhakha River, which flow to Lake Victoria. The town of Kitale is in the foothills of the mountain. The area around the mountain is protected by two Mount Elgon National Parks, one on each side of the international border.
Mount Elgon and its tributaries are home to four tribes, the Bagisu, the Sapiinjak, the Sabaot and the Ogiek, better known in the region under the derogatory umbrella term Ndorobo.

The watercolorist

Ray Nestor was born in India in 1888. He came to Kenya in 1912 as a surveyor and was between 1932 and 1950 farmed at Kipkarren where he did most of his paintings. Ray Nestor modesty as a printer stood between him and the wider recognition of his work. He never courted publicity being content to record his impressions of a fascinating country and its diverse peoples for his own satisfaction and that of his friends. In all his time in Africa, Ray Nestor was seldom without his paints and sketch book, alert to capture the fugitive moment : an old woman in her beads and bangles drawing on her long pipe ; a dhow in full sail beyond the coral reef outside Mombasa harbour ; the stupendous view from his farm house over down and forest, rolling away towards Mount Elgon;

a pair of rhinos threading their way through the bush under the snows of Kilimandjaro.  These sketches are what they claim to be, with all their freshness sponteneity. Ray Nestor died in England in June 1989. 

MOUNT DISCOVERY PAINTED BY DAVID ROSENTHAL

 DAVID ROSENTHAL (bn. 1953)

Mount Discovery  (2, 681m - 8,796 ft)

Antarctica 

1.  Mount Discovery in Summer

2. Mount Discovery at Sunset 

3. Mount Discovery in Twilight 

The mountain 

Mount Discovery  (2, 681m - 8,796 ft) is a conspicuous, isolated stratovolcano, lying at the head of McMurdo Sound and east of Koettlitz Glacier, overlooking the NW portion of the Ross Ice Shelf. It forms the center of a three-armed mass of which Brown Peninsula is one extension to the north; Minna Bluff is a second to the east; the third is Mount Morning to the west.  It was discovered by the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-1904) and named for their expedition ship Discovery.

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  

 

_______________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOAB MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856-1925)  

Mountains of Moab  (910 m -3,000 ft) - (1,300 m - 4,300 ft)

Jordan

Painted in 1905 

The mountain

Moab mountains occupied a plateau about  (910 m -3,000 ft) above the level of the Mediterranean, or  1,300 m - 4,300 ft above the Dead Sea, and rising gradually from north to south.

It was bounded on the west by the Dead Sea and the southern section of the Jordan River; on the east by Ammon and the Arabian desert, from which it was separated by low, rolling hills; and on the south by Edom. The northern boundary varied, but generally is represented by a line drawn some miles above the northern extremity of the Dead Sea.

In Ezekiel 25:9 the boundaries are given as being marked by Beth-jeshimoth (north), Baal-meon (east), and Kiriathaim (south). That these limits were not fixed, however, is plain from the lists of cities given in Isaiah 15-16 and Jeremiah 48, where Heshbon, Elealeh, and Jazer are mentioned to the north of Beth-jeshimoth; Madaba, Beth-gamul, and Mephaath to the east of Baalmeon; and Dibon, Aroer, Bezer, Jahaz, and Kirhareseth to the south of Kiriathaim. The principal rivers of Moab mentioned in the Bible are the Arnon, the Dimon or Dibon, and the Nimrim.

The limestone hills which form the almost treeless plateau are generally steep but fertile. In the spring they are covered with grass and the table-land itself produces grain.

In the north are a number of long, deep ravines, and Mount Nebo, famous as the scene of the death of Moses. The rainfall is fairly plentiful and the climate, despite the hot summer, is cooler than the area west of the Jordan river, snow falling frequently in winter and in spring.

The plateau is dotted with hundreds of dolmens, menhirs, and stone circles, and contains many ruined villages, mostly of the Roman and Byzantine periods. The land is now occupied chiefly by Bedouin, though it contains such towns as al-Karak.

The territory occupied by Moab at the period of its greatest extent, before the invasion of the Amorites, divided itself naturally into three distinct and independent portions: the enclosed corner or canton south of the Arnon (referred to as "field of Moab"); the more open rolling country north of the Arnon, opposite Jericho and up to the hills of Gilead (called the "land of Moab"); and the district below sea level in the tropical depths of the Jordan valley.

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.

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

K2 BYJORGE RODRIGUEZ-GERADA

JORGE RODRIGUEZ-GERADA (bn. 1966)

 K2 peak (8,611m - 28,251 ft) 

China - Pakistan border

The mountain
K2 peak (8,611m - 28,251 ft)  also known as Mount Godwin-Austen or Chhogori is the second highest mountain in the world, after Mount Everest. It is located on the China-Pakistan border between Baltistan, in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of northern Pakistan, and the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang, China.
The name K2 is derived from the notation used by the Great Trigonometric Survey of British India. Thomas Montgomerie made the first survey of the Karakoram from Mount Haramukh, some 210 km (130 miles) to the south, and sketched the two most prominent peaks, labeling them K1 and K2.
The policy of the Great Trigonometric Survey was to use local names for mountains wherever possible and K1 was found to be known locally as Masherbrum. K2, however, appeared not to have acquired a local name, possibly due to its remoteness. The mountain is not visible from Askole, the last village to the south, or from the nearest habitation to the north, and is only fleetingly glimpsed from the end of the Baltoro Glacier, beyond which few local people would have ventured. The name Chogori, derived from two Balti words, chhogo ("big") and ri ("mountain")  has been suggested as a local name, but evidence for its widespread use is scant. It may have been a compound name invented by Western explorers or simply a bemused reply to the question "What's that called?" It does, however, form the basis for the name Qogir (simplified Chinese: 乔戈里峰; traditional Chinese: 喬戈里峰; pinyin: Qiбogēlǐ Fēng) by which Chinese authorities officially refer to the peak. Other local names have been suggested including Lamba Pahar ("Tall Mountain" in Urdu) and Dapsang, but are not widely used.
Lacking a local name, the name Mount Godwin-Austen was suggested, in honor of Henry Godwin-Austen, an early explorer of the area, and while the name was rejected by the Royal Geographical Society, it was used on several maps, and continues to be used occasionally.
The surveyor's mark, K2, therefore continues to be the name by which the mountain is commonly known. It is now also used in the Balti language, rendered as Kechu or Ketu (Urdu: کے ٹو‎). The Italian climber Fosco Maraini argued in his account of the ascent of Gasherbrum IV that while the name of K2 owes its origin to chance, its clipped, impersonal nature is highly appropriate for so remote and challenging a mountain. He concluded that it was ...
K2 is the highest point of the Karakoram range and the highest point in both Pakistan and Xinjiang.
For more about K2 peak :
- Mountain paintings  first  K2 peak post

The Painter 
Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada is a Cuban-American contemporary artist,  born in Cuba on 1966, and raised in the United States. He predominantly creates his work in urban spaces on a large scale ; he designed series on such a spectacular scale that they may be viewed through Google Earth or even photographed by passing satellites. He was a founding member of the early ‘90s New York Culture Jamming movement working first with the group ‘Artfux’ and later with the 'Cicada Corps of Artists', during this period he launched interventions upon billboards and public advertising. By 1997 he was beginning to move towards working solo. In 2002 Rodríguez-Gerada moved to Barcelona where he focused on the large-scale ephemeral charcoal drawings of his Identity Series. He then developed the Terrestrial Series; ephemeral earthworks so large that they can be visible from space. Other ongoing projects include the Identity Composite Series, and smaller artworks he calls Fragment Series, Urban Analogies, and Memorylythics. Since 2009 he has curated the annual AvantGuard Urbano Festival; a small Urban Art Festival with big names, held in Tudela, Navarre, in Northern Spain.  He also takes part in numerous shows and exhibitions.

GUNUNG LAMONGAN BY FRANZ WILHELM JUNGHUHN

FRANZ WILHELM JUNGHUHN  (1809-1864)

Gunung Lamongan (1,651m - 5, 417 ft) 

Indonesia - Java

Painted in 1853-1854 

 Leiden University Library 

The mountain

Gunung Lamongan or Mount Lamongan  (1,651m - 5, 417 ft) is a small stratovolcano located between the massif Tengger caldera complex and Iyang-Argapura volcano complex in East Java, Indonesia. The volcano is surrounded by maars and cinder cones. The volcano's high point is locally named as Gunung Tarub. Lake-filled maars including Ranu Pakis, Ranu Klakah and Ranu Bedali, located on the eastern and western flanks. The northern flanks are dominated by dry maars.

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 . 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.  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.
Source: 
- Wandering Above Silent Vertexes blog

MOUNT ASPIRING / TITITEA PAINTED BY JOHN TURNBULL THOMSON

JOHN TURNBULL THOMSON (1821-1884)

Mount Aspiring / Tititea (3, 033 m -9,951 ft)

New Zealand 

The mountain
Mount Aspiring / Tititea is New Zealand's highest mountain outside the Aoraki/Mount Cook region.
Set within Otago's Mount Aspiring National Park, it has a height of 3,033 metres (9,951 ft). Māori named it Tititea, which translates as Glistening Peak. It was named in December 1857 by the Chief Surveyor for the Otago Province, John Turnbull Thomson.[2] It is also often called 'the Matterhorn of the South,' for its pyramidal peak when seen from the Matukituki River. The first ascent was on 23 November 1909 by Major Bernard Head and guides Jack Clarke and Alec Graham.[3] Head's party climbed to the summit ridge by the west face from the Bonar Glacier, a route not repeated until 1965.
Mount Aspiring / Tititea sits slightly to the west of the main divide, 30 kilometres west of Lake Wanaka.[2] It lies at the junction of three major glacial systems — the Bonar Glacier, which drains into the Waipara River, and the Volta and Therma Glaciers, which both drain into the Waitoto River. The Waipara is a tributary of the Arawhata River, and both the Arawhata and Waitoto Rivers flow out to the west coast in between Haast and Jackson Bay.

The painter 
John Turnbull Thomson was a British civil engineer and artist who played an instrumental role in the development of the early infrastructure of nineteenth-century Singapore and New Zealand.
After his father was killed in a hunting accident in 1830, the young Thomson and his mother went to live in Abbey St. Bathans, Berwickshire. He was educated at Wooler and Duns Academy, later spending some time attached to Marischal College, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh University before studying engineering at Peter Nicholson's School of Engineering at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Thomson arrived in the Malay Straits in 1838 and was employed by the East India Survey. In 1841 he was appointed Government Surveyor at Singapore and in 1844 became Superintendent of Roads and Public Works. He was responsible for the design and construction of a number of notable engineering works including bridges, roads, and hospitals. His outstanding achievement was the erection of the Horsburgh Lighthouse on Pedra Branca. In 1853 his health failed and he returned to England where he studied modern engineering techniques, and travelled widely through Britain and the Continent inspecting engineering works. Early in 1856 he emigrated to New Zealand, where he worked as Chief Surveyor of the Otago Province until 1873. From 1876 until 1879 he was Surveyor-General of New Zealand. He was also the original surveyor of the city of Invercargill.
From 1856 until 1858 Thomson surveyed and explored large sections of the interior of the South Island, covering most of the southern half of the island.
He was also a amateur painter of landscapes, working mostly in oils. He was almost known for the interesting historical topographical viewpoint of his paintings.

MOUNT PELEE SKETCHED IN THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE (MAY 27, 1902) 

The mount Pelée (1, 397m - 4,583 ft)  

France (Martinique) 

The mountain 

Mount Pelée (1, 397m - 4,583 ft)  in French, Montagne Pelée (meaning "peeled mountain") is a semi-active volcano at the northern end of Martinique, an island of French overseas department in the Lesser Antilles island arc of the Caribbean. Its volcanic cone is composed of layers of volcanic ash and hardened lava. The volcano is currently in a quiescent state, which means it is not active, but is registering seismic activity. The stratovolcano is famous for its eruption in 1902 and the destruction that resulted, dubbed the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century. The eruption killed about 30,000 people. Most deaths were caused by pyroclastic flows which completely destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre (at that time, the largest city on the island), within minutes of the eruption.

The eruption left only two survivors in the direct path of the flows: Louis-Auguste Cyparis survived because he was in a poorly ventilated, dungeon-like jail cell; Léon Compère-Léandre, living on the edge of the city, escaped with severe burns. Havivra Da Ifrile, a young girl, reportedly escaped with injuries during the eruption by taking a small boat to a cave down shore, and was later found adrift 3 km (1.9 mi) from the island, unconscious. The event marked the only major volcanic disaster in the history of France and its overseas territories.

As of 2013, the volcano currently lies quiescent above Saint-Pierre and Martinique. Before the 1902 eruption—as early as the summer of 1900—signs of increased fumarole activity were present in the Étang Sec crater. Relatively minor phreatic (steam) eruptions that occurred in 1792 and 1851 were evidence that the volcano was active. Signs of unrest will almost certainly precede any future eruptive activity from Mount Pelée, and its past activity (including the violent eruptions uncovered by carbon dating) is an extremely important factor for hazard assessment.
A few volcanic earthquakes occur on Martinique every year, but Mount Pelée is under continuous watch by geophysicists and volcanologists (IPGP). As researcher Jean-Pierre Viode states, the volcanic observatory on Martinique would be able to observe activity months before an actual eruption. The city of Saint-Pierre was never fully rebuilt, though some villages grew up in its place. The estimated population of Commune of Saint-Pierre in 2004 was 4,544.
The 1902  memorable  eruption inspired  quite a few writers amoung whose
 Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts (The Day The World Ended  - Stein and Day, 1969) ;
Patrick Chamoiseau (Texaco, Gallimard, 1992. Trans. Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokurov, Vintage International, 1998) and Jean Rhys (Heat).

BEN LOMOND PAINTED BY JOHN GLOVER

JOHN GLOVER  (1767-1849) 

Ben Lomond or Tudema tura (1,572m - 5,157ft) 

Australia (Tasmania)

In Mr Talbot’s Property- four men catching opposums

National Gallery of Australia

The mountain 

Ben Lomond  (1,572m - 5,157ft) or Turbunna or Tudema Tura in Tasmanian Aboriginal Palawa langage, not to be confused with Ben Lomond eponymus name of the mountain in Scotland, is a mountain in the north of Tasmania, Australia. The mountain is composed of a central massif with an extensive plateau high outlier peaks projecting from the mountain. The highest feature on the plateau is the unimposing summit of Legges Tor, at 1572 m, on the northern aspect of the plateau. The southern end of the plateau is dominated by Stacks Bluff, which is an imposing feature that drops away above the surrounding foothills. The prominent outlier peaks of Ragged Jack, Mensa Moor  and Tower Hill surround the plateau. Ben Lomond is east of Launceston in the Ben Lomond National Park. Tasmania's premier Alpine skiing operations are located at Ben Lomond with downhill skiing facilities in the State. Its accessibility from Launceston, together with the existence of a ski village on the plateau make Ben Lomond an all year round favourite for tourists and hikers. Access to the village and summit can be made via several walking tracks or via a zig-zag road known as "Jacobs Ladder".

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Palawa name for Ben Lomond was usually recorded as Turbunna, Toorbunna or Toorerpunner. It is said to mean 'Rain Tail'. Modern etymological researchers of the Palawa lexicon assert that, in addition to turbunna, there were several names for Ben Lomond:

Parndoke,  Parndokenne, Loonder, Tritterer, Tudema tura  (a name for Ben Lomond recorded by John Glover).
Although the mountain was seen by Flinders on his circumnavigation of Tasmania, the modern name was given by Colonel Paterson, who founded the first settlement in northern Tasmania in 1804, and is taken from the eponymous Scottish mountain. There is no isolated peak named Ben Lomond but instead the name may refer to the plateau, massif, bioregion or national park in which it is situated. In colonial times 'Ben Lomond' referred to both the southern extremity of the massif and the country around the southern escarpment.  The toponym does not appear cartographically in reference to the entire massif until the 1900s; when Stacks Bluff also appeared on modern maps.

The painter
John Glover  was an English-born Australian artist during the early colonial period of Australian art. In Australia he has been dubbed "the father of Australian landscape painting".
In his youth, the Countess of Harrington helped establish his practice as an art instructor, and may have taken lessons from him herself. Removed to London in 1805, became a member of the Old Water Colour Society, and was elected its president in 1807.  In the ensuing years he exhibited a large number of pictures at the exhibitions of this society, and also at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists. He had one-man shows in London in 1823 and 1824. He was a very successful artist and, although never elected a member of the Academy, his reputation stood very high with the public. He became known in both England and France as the English Claude. This phrase was making comparison with Glover and the French seventeenth century artist Claude Lorrain, whose works collected by eighteenth century English "grand tourists", strongly influenced the evolution of the English style, in both painting and the layout of landscape gardens.
On his 64th birthday in 1831,Glover decided to move to Australia and arrived in Tasmania  He brought with him a strong reputation as a landscape painter. From April 1831 until early 1832 he lived in Hobart on a property named "Stanwell Hall", which can be seen in his work Hobart Town, taken from the garden where I lived.  In 1832 he acquired one of the largest grants of land in Van Diemen's Land at the time at Mills Plains, Deddington.
Glover is best known now for his paintings of the Tasmanian landscape.  He gave a fresh treatment to the effects of the Australian sunlight on the native bushland by depicting it bright and clear, a definite departure from the darker "English country garden" paradigm. Note this example Patterdale Farm (circa 1840).  His treatment of the local flora was also new because it was a more accurate depiction of the Australian trees and scrubland. Glover noted the "remarkable peculiarity of the trees" in Australia and observed that "however numerous, they rarely prevent your tracing through them the whole distant country".
Natives on the Ouse River, Van Diemen’s Land (1838) is "informed by European notions of an Antipodean Arcadia, with Indigenous people living in a landscape unsullied by European contact."  John Glover's last major work was painted on his 79th birthday.
The John Glover Society was established on Aug 22, 2001 to honor and promote Glover's memory and his contribution to Australian art. The society commissioned a life-size statue of Glover, unveiled in February 2003 in Evandale, Tasmania. It also runs the annual Glover Prize, which is held in Evandale.
John Glover's work features in many prominent art galleries throughout Australia (and the world). His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and a symposium in Australia.
From 2004, The John Glover Society has awarded the Glover Prize for depictions of Tasmanian landscapes. It is the richest art prize in Australia for landscape painting.
Source: 
- John Glover at the Art Gallery of New South Wales 

SNEEUBERG PAINTED BY ANDREW COOPER

ANDREW COOPER (bn. 1967) 

 Sneeuberg (2,026 m - 6, 647 ft) 

South Africa 

The mountain 
The Sneeuberg (2,026 m - 6, 647 ft)  is a mountain  located in the Cederberg mountains range, South Afirca.  The Sneeuberg is the Highest point of the Cederberg mountains, the second one being Tafelberg (1,969 m) which should not be confused with the Table Mountain in Cape Town.  The Cederberg mountains and nature reserve are located near Clanwilliam, approximately 300 km north of Cape Town. The mountain range is named after the endangered Clanwilliam cedar (Widdringtonia cedarbergensis), which is a endemic tree of the area. The mountains are noted for dramatic rock formations and San rock art. The Cederberg Wilderness Area is administered by CapeNature.
The dominating characteristic of the area is sharply defined sandstone rock formations (Table Mountain Group), often reddish in colour. This group of rocks contains bands of shale and in recent years a few important fossils have been discovered in these argillaceous layers. The fossils are of primitive fish and date back 450 million years to the Ordovician Period.
As a wilderness area, the primary activity is eco-tourism, including camping, rock climbing and hiking. The main campsite, Algeria, is operated by CapeNature, while others such as Sanddrif, Driehoek, Jamaka and Kromrivier are privately operated.
The Cederberg is renowned for its quality of rock climbing routes particularly around the Krakadouw and Tafelberg peaks. The Table Mountain Sandstone creates ideal conditions for spectacular routes. There are numerous day and overnight hikes including the popular and spectacular Wolfberg Arch, Wolfberg Cracks and the Maltese Cross. The area is also home to an amateur astronomical observatory, which regularly hosts open evenings for the public.

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

EL CHIMBORAZO MAPPED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT  (1769-1859) 

Chimborazo  (6,263 m - 20,549  ft)

Ecuador

(Click images to enlarge)

In Map of the Mountain Chimborazo in 1802

The mountain

Chimborazo  (6,263 m -20,548 ft) is a currently inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes ans the highest mountain in Ecuador and the Andes north of Peru ; it is higher than any more northerly summit in the Americas. Chimborazo is not the highest mountain by elevation above sea level, but its location along the equatorial bulge makes its summit the farthest point on the Earth's surface from the Earth's center.

Chimborazo is at the main end of the Ecuadorian Volcanic Arc, north west of the town of Riobamba. Chimborazo is in la Avenida de los Volcanes (the Avenue of Volcanoes) west of the Sanancajas mountain chain. Carihuairazo, Tungurahua, Tulabug, and El Altar are all mountains that neighbor Chimborazo.  The closest mountain peak, Carihuairazo, is 5.8 mi (9.3 km) from Chimborazo. There are many microclimates near Chimborazo, varying from desert in the Arenal to the humid mountains in the Abraspungo valley.

Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around A.D. 550. 

Until the beginning of the 19th century, it was thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth (measured from sea level), and such reputation led to many attempts on its summit during the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 1746, the volcano was explored by French academicians from the  French Geodesic Mission. Their mission was to determine the sphericity of the Earth. Their work along with another team in Lapland established that the Earth was an oblate spheroid rather than a true sphere. They did not reach the summit of Chimborazo.

In 1802, during his expedition to South America, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montufar, tried to reach the summit. From his description of the mountain, it seems that before he and his companions had to return suffering from altitude sickness they reached a point at 5,875 m, higher than previously attained by any European in recorded history. (Incans had reached much higher altitudes previously). In 1831, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault and Colonel Hall reached a new "highest point", estimated to be 6,006 m.

On 4 January 1880, the English climber Edward Whymper reached the summit of Chimborazo. The route that Whymper took up Chimborazo is now known as the Whymper route. Edward Whymper, and his Italian guides Louis Carrel and Jean-Antoine Carrel, were the first Europeans to summit a mountain higher than 20,000 feet. As there were many critics who doubted that Whymper had reached the summit, later in the same year he climbed to the summit again, choosing a different route (Pogyos) with the Ecuadorians David Beltrбn and Francisco Campaсa.

The cartographer 

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.

Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.

On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a While. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783.  Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.

Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit.  Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.

At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.

MOUNT THULE PAINTED BY LAWREN HARRIS

LAWREN HARRIS (1885-1970)

Mount Thule  (1,711m- 5,614 ft)

Canada - Nunavut

About Nunavut
Nunavut is the newest, largest, and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the boundaries had been contemplatively drawn in 1993. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canada's political map since the incorporation of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1949.

The mountain 

Mount Thule (1,711m- 5,614 ft) is a mountain on Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada. It is located 38 km (24 mi) north of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island. It is associated with the Baffin Mountains which in turn form part of the Arctic Cordillera mountain system. The Baffin Mountains are ice-capped mountains in which some of the highest peaks of eastern North America.  While they could be considered a single mountain range as they are separated by bodies of water to make Baffin Island, this is not true, as they are closely related to the other mountain ranges that make the much larger Arctic Cordillera mountain range. The highest point is Mount Odin at (2,147 m -7,044 ft) while Mount Asgard (2,015 m - 6,611 ft) is perhaps the most famous. The highest point in the northern Baffin Mountains is Qiajivik Mountain at (1,963 m -6,440 ft). Mount Tule is the fourth highest point (1,711m- 5,614 ft).  Being situated north of the Arctic tree line, there are no trees in the Baffin Mountains but only rocks which are primarily deeply dissected granitic rocks. It was covered with ice until about 1500 years ago, and vast parts of it are still ice-covered.  The dominant vegetation in the Baffin Mountains is a discontinuous cover of mosses, lichens and cold-hardy vascular plants such as sedge and cottongrass.

Geologically, the Baffin Mountains form the eastern edge of the Canadian Shield, which covers much of Canada's landscape. 

One of the first mountaineering expeditions in the Baffin Mountains was in 1934 by J.M Wordie, in which two peaks called Pioneer Peak and Longstaff Tower were climbed. The Auyuittuq National Park was established in 1976. It features many of Arctic wilderness, such as fjords, glaciers and ice fields. In Inuktitut - the language of Nunavut's Aboriginal people, Inuit - Auyuittuq means "the land that never melts". Although Auyuittuq was established in 1976 as a national park reserve, it was upgraded to a full national park in 2000.
There were Inuit settlements in the Baffin Mountains before European contact. The first European contact is believed to have been by Norse explorers in the 11th century, but the first recorded sighting of Baffin Island was Martin Frobisher during his search for the Northwest Passage in 1576.

The painter 
Lawren Stewart Harris, (1885–1970) was a leading landscape canadian painter, imbuing his paintings with a spiritual dimension. An inspirer of other artists, he was a key figure in the Group of Seven and gave new vision to representations of the northern Canadian landscape. During the 1920s, Harris's works became more abstract and simplified, especially his stark landscapes of the Canadian north and Arctic.  He also stopped signing and dating his works so that people would judge his works on their own merit and not by the artist or when they were painted.
In 1924, a sketching trip with A.Y. Jackson to Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies marked the beginning of Harris' mountain subjects, which he continued to explore with annual sketching trips until 1929, exploring areas around Banff National Park, Yoho National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park. In 1930, Harris went on his last extended sketching trip, travelling to the Arctic aboard the supply ship SS. Beothic for two months, during which time he completed over 50 sketches.  "We are on the fringe of the great North and its living whiteness, its loneliness and replenishment, its resignations and release, tis call and answer, its cleansing rhythms. It seems that the top of the continent is a source of spiritual flow that will ever shed clarity into the growing race of America."(Lawren S. Harris, 1926)
For Harris, art was to express spiritual values as well as to represent the visible world. North Shore, Lake Superior (1926), an image of a solitary weathered tree stump surrounded by an expanse of dramatically lit sky, effectively evokes the tension between the terrestrial and spiritual.
The resulting Arctic canvases that he developed from the oil panels marked the end of his landscape period, and from 1935 on, Harris enthusiastically embraced abstract painting. Several members of the Group of Seven later became members of the Canadian Group of Painters including Harris, A. J. Casson, Arthur Lismer, A. Y. Jackson, and Franklin Carmichael.
From 1934 to 1937, Harris lived in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he painted his first abstract works, a direction he would continue for the rest of his life. In 1938 he moved to Sante Fe, New Mexico, and helped found the Transcendental Painting Group, an organization of artists who advocated a spiritual form of abstraction.
In 1969, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
Harris died in Vancouver in 1970, at the age of 84, as a well-known artist. He was buried on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, where his work is now held.
On November 26, 2015 his painting Mountain and Glacier was auctioned for $3.9 million at a Heffel Fine Art Auction House auction in Toronto, breaking the previous record for the sale of one of Harris's works.
In 2016 a film about Harris's life, Where the Universe Sings, was produced by TV Ontario. It was created by filmmaker Peter Raymont and directed by Nancy Lang.

_______________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT ST HELENS BY EMMET GOWIN

EMMET GOWIN (bn. 1941) 

Mount St. Helens or Louwala-Clough (2, 549 m - 8, 363 ft) 

United States of America (Washington State)

1. Debris flow at the northern base of Mounts Helens, 1980

2. Ash over new snow on the  South flank of Mount St Helens, 1982

3. Ashes after Mount St Helens 1980 Plinian eruption, 1982 

The mountain 
Mount St. Helens ( 2, 549m- 8,363 ft )  or Louwala-Clough (known as Lawetlat'la to the Cowlitz people, and Loowit to the Klickitat people) is an active stratovolcano located in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is 96 miles (154 km) south of Seattle, Washington, and 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Portland, Oregon. Mount St. Helens takes its English name from the British diplomat Lord St Helens, a friend of explorer George Vancouver who made a survey of the area in the late 18th century.The volcano is located in the Cascade Range and is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire that includes over 160 active volcanoes. This volcano is well known for its ash explosions and pyroclastic flows.
Mount St. Helens is most notorious for its major 1980 eruption, the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States. The magma in St. Helens burst forth into a large-scale pyroclastic flow that flattened vegetation and buildings over 230 square miles (600 km2). More than 1.5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide were released into the atmosphere. On the Volcanic Explosivity Index scale, the eruption was rated a five (a Plinian eruption). Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. A massive debris avalanche triggered by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale caused an eruption that reduced the elevation of the mountain's summit from 9,677 ft (2,950 m) to 8,363 ft (2,549 m), leaving a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide horseshoe-shaped crater. The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles (2.9 km3) in volume. For more than nine hours, a vigorous plume of ash erupted, eventually reaching 12 to 16 miles (20 to 27 km) above sea level.  The plume moved eastward at an average speed of 60 miles per hour (100 km/h) with ash reaching Idaho by noon. Ashes from the eruption were found collecting on top of cars and roofs next morning, as far as the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. The Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was created to preserve the volcano and allow for its aftermath to be scientifically studied.
As with most other volcanoes in the Cascade Range, Mount St. Helens is a large eruptive cone consisting of lava rock interlayered with ash, pumice, and other deposits. The mountain includes layers of basalt and andesite through which several domes of dacite lava have erupted. The largest of the dacite domes formed the previous summit, and off its northern flank sat the smaller Goat Rocks dome. Both were destroyed in the 1980 eruption.
Between 1980 and 1986, activity continued at Mount St. Helens, with a new lava dome forming in the crater. Numerous small explosions and dome-building eruptions occurred. From December 7, 1989, to January 6, 1990, and from November 5, 1990, to February 14, 1991, the mountain erupted with sometimes huge clouds of ash.
Magma reached the surface of the volcano about October 11, 2004, resulting in the building of a new lava dome on the existing dome's south side. This new dome continued to grow throughout 2005 and into 2006. Several transient features were observed, such as a lava spine nicknamed the "whaleback," which comprised long shafts of solidified magma being extruded by the pressure of magma beneath. These features were fragile and broke down soon after they were formed. On July 2, 2005, the tip of the whaleback broke off, causing a rockfall that sent ash and dust several hundred meters into the air.
Mount St. Helens showed significant activity on March 8, 2005, when a 36,000-foot (11,000 m) plume of steam and ash emerged—visible from Seattle. This relatively minor eruption was a release of pressure consistent with ongoing dome building. The release was accompanied by a magnitude 2.5 earthquake. Another feature to emerge from the dome was called the "fin" or "slab." Approximately half the size of a football field, the large, cooled volcanic rock was being forced upward as quickly as 6 ft (2 m) per day.
In mid-June 2006, the slab was crumbling in frequent rockfalls, although it was still being extruded. The height of the dome was 7,550 feet (2,300 m), still below the height reached in July 2005 when the whaleback collapsed. On October 22, 2006, the collapse and avalanche of the lava dome sent an ash plume 2,000 feet (600 m) over the western rim of the crater; the ash plume then rapidly dissipated. On December 19, 2006, a large white plume of condensing steam was observed, leading some media people to assume there had been a small eruption. However, the Cascades Volcano Observatory of the USGS did not mention any significant ash plume.  The volcano was in continuous eruption from October 2004, but this eruption consisted in large part of a gradual extrusion of lava forming a dome in the crater.
On January 16, 2008, steam began seeping from a fracture on top of the lava dome. Associated seismic activity was the most noteworthy since 2004. Scientists suspended activities in the crater and the mountain flanks, but the risk of a major eruption was deemed low.] By the end of January, the eruption paused; no more lava was being extruded from the lava dome.
On July 10, 2008, it was determined that the eruption had ended, after more than six months of no volcanic activity.
Source:
 - Wikipedia 

The photographer 
Emmet Gowin (born 1941 in Danville, Virginia) is an American photographer. He first gained attention in the 1970s with his intimate portraits of his wife, Edith, and her family. Later he turned his attention to the landscapes of the American West, taking aerial photographs of places that had been changed by humans or nature, including the Hanford Site, Mount St. Helens(see below), and the Nevada Test Site. Gowin taught at Princeton University for 25 years.
After graduating from high school he attended the Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University). During his first year in college he saw a catalog of the Family of Man exhibit and was particularly inspired by the works of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
In 1970 his work was shown at the George Eastman House and a year later at the Museum of Modern Art. About this same time he was introduced to the photographer Frederick Sommer, who became his lifelong mentor and friend. Gowin received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974, which allowed him to travel throughout Europe. He was also awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1979 and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 1994.
In 1980 Gowin received a scholarship from the Seattle Arts Commission which provided funding for him to travel in Washington and the Pacific Northwest. Beginning with a trip to Mount St. Helens soon after it erupted, Gowin began taking aerial photographs (see below). For the next twenty years, Gowin captured strip mining sites, nuclear testing fields, large-scale agricultural fields and other scars in the natural landscape.
In 1982 the Gowins were invited by Queen Noor of Jordan, who had studied with Gowin at Princeton, to photograph historic places in her country. He traveled there over the next three years and took a series of photographs of the archaeological site at Petra. The prints he made of these images were the first time he introduced photographic print toning in his work.
Gowin retired from teaching at Princeton University at the end of 2009  and lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Edith.
Gowin once said that : "The coincidence of the many things that fit together to make a picture is singular. They occur only once. The never occur for you in quite the same way that they occur for someone else, so that in the tiny differences between them you can reemploy a model or strategy that someone else has used and still reproduce an original picture. Those things that do have a distinct life of their own strike me as being things coming to you out of life itself."
In an essay for the catalog for an exhibition of his work at Yale University, writer Terry Tempest Williams said "Emmet Gowin has captured on film the state of our creation and, conversely, the beauty of our losses. And it is full of revelations."

BAZARDÜZÜ PAINTED BY ILIA ZANKOVSKY

ILYA ZANKOVSKY (1832-1919)

Bazardüzü or Bazar Dyuzi  (4,467 m- 14,656 ft) 

Russia - Azerbaijan border 

The Mountain 
Mount Bazardüzü or Bazar Dyuzi  (4,467 m - 14,656 ft) in Russian Базардюзю,  is a mountain peak in the Caucasus range in Dagestan on the border between Russia and Azerbaijan. It is the highest peak in Azerbaijan. The southernmost point of Russia is located about seven kilometers southwest of the peak. Other important mountains of the Dagestan area are Diklosmta (4.285 m), Gora Addala Shukgelmezr (4.152 m) and Gora Dyultydag (4.127 m).
Source: 
- Peakbagger.com

The painter 
Ilya Nikolaevitch Zankovsky was a russian  painter and graphic artist who studied as a noncredit student in the Imperial Academy of Arts (IAKh, 1862–1863) and who did not finish the course. Zankovsky lived in Tiflis, served in the Military topographic department of the Caucasus military region. He painted landscapes of the Caucasus (Mount Elbrus, Georgian military road, The Darial Gorge, From the main mountain range, Mount Ushba. Hunters halt). He worked a lot in watercolor. His works were shown at the exhibitions of the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts, the Society for mutual aid of Caucasian artists, the Society of Russian Watercolorists, and at the Autumn exhibitions in the halls of the IAKh. Zankovsky taught in the Drawing School under the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts in 1880s–1910s.
In 2009 an exhibition of Zankovsky’s works was held in Moscow. Works by Ilya Zankovsky are in many museum collections, including the State Russian Museum, Odessa Fine Arts Museum, Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts named after M. A. Vrubel, and Dagestan Museum of Local History.
Source : 
 -Wandering Above Silent Vertexes blog

LA MONTAGNE VERTE PAR EUGENE DELACROIX

EUGENE  DELACROIX (1798-1863)

 La Montagne Verte (1,190 m - 3,901 ft)

France  (Pyrenees)

In  La montagne Verte - montagne par temps sombre, Pyrénées, 1845 

Musée du Louvre Paris. 

The mountain 

La Montagne Verte (1,190 m - 3,901 ft)  is a mountain located between Laruns and the Col d'Aubisque, in the french side of Pyrenees. It is really a mountain of green color! It is a grassy plateau, curled, dotted with barns, as picturesque as easy to find, on foot or by mountain bike, thanks to the abundance of tracks and paths. In spite of its modest altitudes, this stroll in Vallée d'Ossau offers, especially in the spring, splendid views on the high Pyrenees massifs surrounding long for snow.

The painter 
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish author Walter Scott and the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
In contrast to the Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival Ingres, Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic. Friend and spiritual heir to Théodore Géricault, Delacroix was also inspired by Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in often violent action.
However, Delacroix was given to neither sentimentality nor bombast, and his Romanticism was that of an individualist. In the words of Baudelaire, "Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible."
In 1832, Delacroix traveled to Spain and North Africa, as part of a diplomatic mission to Morocco shortly after the French conquered Algeria. He went not primarily to study art, but to escape from the civilization of Paris, in hopes of seeing a more primitive culture.  He eventually produced over 100 paintings and drawings of scenes from or based on the life of the people of North Africa, and added a new and personal chapter to the interest in Orientalism.  Delacroix was entranced by the people and the costumes, and the trip would inform the subject matter of a great many of his future paintings. He believed that the North Africans, in their attire and their attitudes, provided a visual equivalent to the people of Classical Rome and Greece: "The Greeks and Romans are here at my door, in the Arabs who wrap themselves in a white blanket and look like Cato or Brutus…"
He managed to sketch some women secretly in Algiers, as in the painting Women of Algiers in their Apartment (1834), but generally he encountered difficulty in finding Muslim women to pose for him because of Muslim rules requiring that women be covered. Less problematic was the painting of Jewish women in North Africa, as subjects for the Jewish Wedding in Morocco (1837–41).
While in Tangier, Delacroix made many sketches of the people and the city (see painting above), subjects to which he would return until the end of his life. Animals—the embodiment of romantic passion—were incorporated into paintings such as Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable (1860), The Lion Hunt (of which there exist many versions, painted between 1856 and 1861), and Arab Saddling his Horse (1855).