MOUNT UTSU / 鬱岳 BY UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE / 歌川 広重

UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE  / 歌川 広重 (1797-1858)

Mount Utsu (鬱岳) (818m - 2,848ft)

Japan   

1. In Famous Yam Soup and Distant View of Mount Utsu - 

from the series 53 Stations of the Tôkaidô Road  1840 - Museum of Fine Arts Boston 

2.  In View of Mount Utsu - from the series 53 Stations of the Tôkaidô Road 

3. In Narrow ivy covered Road at Mount Utsu - from the series 53 Stations of the Tôkaidô Road

The Mountain 

Mount Utsu  (鬱岳) (818m- 2,848ft)  is located in the Kitami Mountains (北見山地), a mountain range of Hokkaidō, Japan. Unlike much of the rest of Japan, the Kitami Mountains are not very seismically active.The Kitami Mountains are north of the Ishikari Mountains and east of the Teshio Mountains. Rocks from the Kitami mountains are mostly sedimentary from the Cretaceous-Paleogene periods. Volcanic rock was placed down on top of this from volcanoes that erupted in the Miocene or later.The Kitami Mountains formed in the inner arc of the Kurile Arc.

Mount Utsu, the lowest peak of Kitami Mountains range, is a meisho which means a place well known for its mythology and paths of overgrown ivy and maples trees. Mount Utsu is often used metaphorically to contrast a kind of reality within the dream world. Utsu is a play on the word Utsutsu which’s literal meaning is reality and has connotations of one’s awakening moments and also a mountain of sadness. It appears in stories and operates in both the prose and poetry. It’s appears in famous works such as The Ise Stories which is a narrative that tells the travels of an unnamed protagonist. Mount Utsu in  the Suruga Province is mentioned in Chapter 9 of the Ise Stories and this chapter is a tale of the protagonists’ exile to eastern Japan. In this part of the story, the unnamed protagonist meets a wandering monk at Mount Utsu which means the main protagonist is awakening to reality. He then ask the monk to present his lover with a poem of longing, despair and sadness. In the poem, he says he can no longer see his love, not even in his dreams, which symbolizes that she hasn’t been thinking of him. In ancient Japanese tradition, it is believed that if he sees his lover in a dream, that she will be thinking about him... Mount Utsu has been depicted in many paintings as well, like The Fifty Three Stations of the Tōkaidō by Hiroshige (see above).

The artist

Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川 広重), also know as Andō Hiroshige (安藤 広重), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his landscapes, such as the series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (see above) and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō; and for his depictions of birds and flowers. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints.
Hiroshige produced over 8,000 works
He dominated landscape printmaking with his unique brand of intimate, almost small-scale works compared against the older traditions of landscape painting descended from Chinese landscape painters such as Sesshu. The travel prints generally depict travelers along famous routes experiencing the special attractions of various stops along the way. They travel in the rain, in snow, and during all of the seasons. In 1856, working with the publisher Uoya Eikichi, he created a series of luxury edition prints, made with the finest printing techniques including true gradation of color, the addition of mica to lend a unique iridescent effect, embossing, fabric printing, blind printing, and the use of glue printing (wherein ink is mixed with glue for a glittery effect).
For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists closely studied Hiroshige's compositions, and some, such as Vincent van Gogh or Claude Monet, painted copies of Hiroshige's prints.

THE RIGI BY TURNER

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775-1851)

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

Switzerland

1.  In The blue Rigi at Sunrise, Lucerne, 1842, watercolour, Tate Britain

2.  In The red Rigi at Sunrise, 1842, watercolour, Tate Britain

3.  In The dark Rigi, 1842,  watercolour, Tate Britain

The mountain 

The Rigi (1, 797m - 5,897ft), also known as Queen of the Mountains) is a mountain massif of the Alps, located in Central Switzerland. The whole massif is almost entirely surrounded by the water of three different water bodies: Lake Lucerne, Lake Zug and Lake Lauerz. The range is in the Schwyzer Alps, and is split between the cantons of Schwyz and Lucerne, although the main summit, named Rigi Kulm, at 1,798 meters above sea level, lies within the canton of Schwyz. Technically, the Rigi is not a part of the Alps, and belongs instead to the Swiss plateau. It is mostly composed of molasse and other conglomerate, as opposed to the Bündner schist and flysch of the Alps.

The Rigi Kulm and other areas, such as the resort of Rigi Kaltbad, are served by Europe's oldest mountain railways, the Rigi Railways. Swiss Railways offer a special round-trip excursion, the “Rigi-Rundfahrt”, covering multiple segments by train, cog-railway, gondola (optional) and lake steamer. The whole area offers many activities such as skiing or sledging in the winter, and hiking in the summer.

The name Rigi is from Old High German  "rîga" which means  "row, stripe, furrow", after the stratification that is clearly visible on the north-side of the mountain. The name is first recorded in 1350 as Riginun. The name was interpreted as Regina montium "queen of mountains" by Albrecht von Bonstetten (1479), who however gives Rigena as alternative form.

Mt. Rigi has been featured in many works of art, including both paintings and literary publications. Perhaps the most famous paintings of the Rigi were the series by J.M.W. Turner (see above), several of which are in the collection of the Tate Britain in London.

Mark Twain also visited Rigi during his tour of Central Europe in the late 1870s, and wrote about his travels in chapter 28 of his "A Tramp Abroad."

There is a Catskills resort called the Rigi Kulm in Abraham Cahan's novel The Rise of David Levinsky (1917).

 Source: 

- Summit post. org 

The 3 Rigi by J.M.W. Turner 

Tate brings together for the first time ever three of J.M.W. Turner’s very greatest watercolour paintings: The Blue Rigi, The Dark Rigi and The Red Rigi. Turner’s groundbreaking use of watercolour, which spanned his career, culminated in the early 1840s with a series of transcendent views of Swiss lakes and mountains.

 Chief among these are the three views of Mount Rigi as seen from Lake Lucerne. Each shows the mountain at a different time of day and is characterised by a defining colour or tone: dark, blue or red.
The Blue Rigi was Turner's first attempt at recording the moment before dawn when the sun just perceptibly begins to chase away the cool darkness of night. Using subtly modulated washes of blue, Turner recreates the stillness and wonder of this instant, anticipating by many years the unified tonal approach to image-making of the Aesthetic Movement.

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

In his thirties, Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice.   Turner's talent was recognized early in his life....
- For More about JMW Turner Biography 

MONTAGNE SAINTE VICTOIRE BY MARSDEN HARTLEY

MARSDEN HARTLEY (1877-1943)

Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011 m - 3, 316ft)

France (Provence)

 1. In Montagne Sainte Victoire from Chateau Noir, pink mountain, 1927, oil on canvas,

 Private collection 

2.  In Montagne Sainte Victoire from Chateau Noir, red mountain, 1927, oil on canvas,

Private collection 

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1, 011 m-3, 316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
- More about Montagne Sainte Victoire 

The painter 
Marsden Hartley  was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.
Hartley began his art training at the Cleveland Institute of Art after his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1892.  He won a scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art.
In 1898, at age 22, he moved to New York City to study painting at the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase, and then attended the National Academy of Design. Hartley was a great admirer of Albert Pinkham Ryder and visited his studio in Greenwich Village as often as possible. His friendship with Ryder, in addition to the writings of Walt Whitman and American transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, inspired Hartley to view art as a spiritual quest.
Hartley first traveled to Europe in April 1912, and he became acquainted with Gertrude Stein's circle of Avant-garde writers and artists in Paris.  Stein, along with Hart Crane and Sherwood Anderson, encouraged Hartley to write as well as paint.
In 1913, Hartley moved to Berlin, where he continued to paint and befriended the painters Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. He also collected Bavarian folk art.  His work during this period was a combination of abstraction and German Expressionism, fueled by his personal brand of mysticism.
In Berlin, Hartley developed a close relationship with a Prussian lieutenant, Karl von Freyburg. References to Freyburg were a recurring motif in Hartley's work, most notably in Portrait of a German Officer (1914). Freyburg's subsequent death during the war hit Hartley hard, and he afterward idealized their relationship. Many scholars believe Hartley to have been gay, and have interpreted his work regarding Freyburg as embodying his homosexual feelings for him.
Hartley finally returned to the U.S. in early 1916. He lived in Europe again from 1921 to 1930, when he moved back to the U.S. for good.  He painted throughout the country, in Massachusetts, New Mexico, California, and New York. He returned to Maine in 1937, after declaring that he wanted to become "the painter of Maine" and depict American life at a local level.  This aligned Hartley with the Regionalism movement, a group of artists active from the early- to-mid 20th century that attempted to represent a distinctly "American art." He continued to paint in Maine, primarily scenes around Lovell and the Corea coast, until his death in Ellsworth in 1943. His ashes were scattered on the Androscoggin River. Most of his mountains paintings of Maine are nowadays in the MET collections.

Marsden Hartley and the Montagne Sainte Victoire
(notice from Baltimore Museum of Art)
" The American artist Marsden Hartley greatly admired the work of Paul Cézanne. Even though Cézanne had died in 1906, Hartley traveled to southern France in 1925 to live in the countryside that Cézanne loved. When he first saw Mont Sainte-Victoire, he said, “I couldn’t believe my eyes for what I saw in the way of dignified beauty…”  He rented lodging on the same estate where Cézanne had had a studio, affording him the same view of the magnificent Mont Sainte-Victoire that had inspired Cézanne. Hartley thought of himself as a realist and intended to paint the mountain as most people would see it. But in the strong southern light, he found the mountain “full of hypnotic attraction” and began to express his feelings about the mountain through color. Marsden Hartley was captivated by the reddish color of the earth around Mont Sainte-Victoire, comparing it to the vivid colors of stained glass windows. He wrote, “Such color exists nowhere outside of the windows of Chartres & Sainte-Chapelle—the earth itself seems as if it were naturally incandescent & seems fired from underneath somehow—yet withal so restrained and dignified.”

DER NIESEN PAINTED BY FERDINAND HODLER

FERDINAND HODLER  (1853-1918)

Der Niesen  (2, 362m - 7,749ft) 

Switzerland

1. In Der Niesen bei Regen von Heustrich aus, oil, 1910, Kunstmuseum Basel 

2.  In Der Niesen, 1910, Private Collection  

The mountain 

The Niesen (2, 362m - 7,749ft)  is a mountain of the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. It overlooks Lake Thun, in the Bernese Oberland region, and forms the northern end of a ridge that stretches north from the Albristhorn and Mannliflue, separating the Simmental and Kandertal valleys. The literal translation of the German word "Niesen" is  "sneeze", but the Niesen because of its shape, is often called The Swiss Pyramid. Administratively, the summit is shared between the municipalities of Reichenbach im Kandertal, to the south-east, and Wimmis, to the west and north. Both municipalities are in the canton of Bern. The summit of the mountain can be reached easily by using the Niesenbahn funicular from Mülenen (near Reichenbach). The construction of the funicular was completed in 1910. Alongside the path of the Niesenbahn is the longest stairway in the world with 11,674 steps. It is open only once a year to the public for a stair run.
Since the 18th century, the Niesen was the subject of a number of paintings which will all be published in this blog, one by one. The Ferdinand Holder's paintings are the two first ones to be published.
Source : 
- Niesen official website 

The Painter 
Ferdinand  Hodler was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the 19th century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of symbolism he called Parallelism. Hodler's work in his final phase took on an expressionist aspect with strongly colored and geometrical figures. Landscapes were pared down to essentials, sometimes consisting of a jagged wedge of land between water and sky...
- More about Ferdinand Hodler Biography 

MOUNT CHOCORUA PAINTED BY THOMAS COLE

THOMAS COLE (1801-1848) 

Mount  Chocorua (1,061m - 3,480 ft) 

United States of America (New Hampshire)

In  Mount Chocorua, 1827

In Autumn landscape with Mount Chocorua, 1828.

The mountain 

 Mount Chocorua (1,061m - 3,480 ft) is a summit in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the easternmost peak of the Sandwich Range. Although the range is not outstanding for its elevation, it is very rugged and has excellent views of the surrounding lakes, mountains, and forests. Mount Chocorua's bare summit can be seen from almost every direction and can be identified from many points throughout central New Hampshire and western Maine.

It is believed that Chocorua was the name of a Native American man in the 18th century, although no authentic records of his life exist. The usual story is that in about 1720 Chocorua was on friendly terms with settlers and in particular the Campbell family that had a home in the valley now called Tamworth. Chocorua was called away and left his son in the care of the Campbell family. The boy found and drank a poison that Mr. Campbell had made to eliminate troublesome foxes, and Chocorua returned to find his son had died. Chocorua, distraught with grief, pledged revenge on the family. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Campbell returned home one afternoon to find his wife and children had been slain. Campbell suspected Chocorua and pursued him up the mountain that today bears his name. Chocorua was wounded by a shot from Campbell's rifle. Before Campbell could reach Chocorua, he uttered a curse upon the white settlers and their homes, livestock, and crops, and leapt from the summit to his death. There are at least three other versions of the legend of Chocorua... 

Mount Chocorua is a popular destination for hikers. Although it is under 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in elevation, its bare and rocky summit commands excellent views in all directions. Since most trails begin at much lower elevations, a hike to the summit is a strenuous exercise. There are many trails up the mountain, and they can be quite crowded during the summer months. Especially popular are the Piper Trail (4.2 miles (6.8 km) each way from the east), the Champney Falls Trail (from the north), and the Liberty Trail (from the southwest).

The painter 

Thomas Cole (1801– 848) was an American artist known for his landscape and history paintings. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century. Cole's work is known for its romantic portrayal of the American wilderness.

More about Thomas Cole biography 

THE CORCOVADO PAINTED BY AUGUSTUS EARLE

AUGUSTUS EARLE (1793-1838)

The Corcovado or Monte Cristo  (710m - 2, 230ft) 

Brazil 

 In View on the Sugarloaf  from the summit of Corcovado mountain, near Rio, 1822

The mountain 

The Corcovado (710m - 2, 230ft) meaning "hunchback" in Portuguese, is a mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The granite peak is located in the Tijuca Forest, a national park. It is often confused with nearby Sugarloaf Mountain. The peak of Corcovado is a big granite dome, which describes a generally vertical rocky formation. It is claimed to be the highest such formation in Brazil, the second highest being Pedra Agulha, situated near to the town of Pancas in Espírito Santo.
Corcovado hill lies just west of the city center but is wholly within the city limits and visible from great distances. It is known worldwide for the 38 metre (125 ft) statue of Jesus atop its peak, entitled Cristo Redentor or "Christ the Redeemer".
The most popular attraction of Corcovado mountain is the statue and viewing platform at its peak, drawing over 300,000 visitors per year. From the peak's platform the panoramic view includes downtown Rio, Sugarloaf Mountain, the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas (lake), Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, Estádio do Maracanã (Maracanã Stadium), and several of Rio's favelas. Cloud cover is common in Rio and the view from the platform is often obscured. Sunny days are recommended for optimal viewing. An additional attraction of the mountain is rock climbing. The south face had 54 climbing routes in 1992. The easiest way starts from Park Lage.
The Corcovado is also a symbol of the Brazilian culture.
Source: 
- WikiRio

The artist 
Augustus Earle was a London-born travel artist. Unlike earlier artists who worked outside Europe and were employed on voyages of exploration or worked abroad for wealthy, often aristocratic patrons, Earle was able to operate quite independently - able to combine his lust for travel with an ability to earn a living through art. The body of work he produced during his travels comprises a significant documentary record of the effects of European contact and colonisation during the early nineteenth century. From 1817 to 1832, Earle travelled trough Sicily, Malta, Gibraltar, North Africa, North Americas (New York Philadelphia), South America (Brazil, Peru, Chile), Tristan da Cunha (Antartica) the Pacific, Asia, India, Mauritius, St Helena (where he met the french emperor Napoleon in exil), New South Wales, New Zealand, Tasmania... he came back in England in 1832 ans died in London in 1838.

CERRO PEDERNAL BY GEORGIA O' KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887–1986)

Cerro Pedernal (3,006 m - 9,862 ft)

United State of America (New Mexico) 

1. In Road to Pedernal, 1936, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe

2.   In Cerro Pedernal at dawn, 1936, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe

3.  In Pedernal from Ghost ranch, 1936, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe

The mountain 

Cerro Pedernal  (3,006 m - 9,862 ft) locally known as just "Pedernal", is a narrow mesa in northern New Mexico (U.S.A). The name is Spanish for "flint hill". The mesa lies on the north flank of the Jemez Mountains, south of Abiquiu Lake, in the Coyote Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest.  Cerro Pedernal is essentially a high, long butte created by a volcanic process. Viewed along its East-West line, it appears as a tall point rising out of the New Mexico desert, but viewed along its North-South vantage, its true shape is more apparent as a long ridge.

Pedernal is the source of a chert used by the prehistoric Gallina people. The native peoples of the area used the rock around this mountain for arrowheads and other tools. 

Its cliffs are popular with rock climbers. Despite Cerro Pedernal's history and beauty, she is seldom climbed. The high butte is ringed by a long, sheer cliff band that seems impossible to climb unroped. Perhaps this is why few see her summit. However, there is a weakness in the cliffs that offers a short Class 4 scramble to the top. From the summit of Cerro Pedernal, you are afforded uncommon views. The Sangre de Cristo range is visible from Colorado to New Mexico. The Colorado 14er Culebra Peak is easily visible, as well as New Mexico's highest point, Wheeler Peak. On a clear day, the southern San Juan range in Colorado is visible, and even the La Platas around Durango. Ringing Cerro Pedernal is the Jemez range, which are mostly rolling mountains with lush greens. To the West is high desert landscape of deep red sandstone, blue rivers, and the tans and browns of the high desert. The summit of Cerro Pedernal is quite a spectacular spot. 

The famous artist Georgia O'Keeffe used to live for a time in this area (Ghost Ranch) and painted Cerro Pedernal several times (more than 20 paintings). She referred to Pedernal as her "favorite mountain."   Her ashes were scattered on its top.

The painter 

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.
Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.
O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.
In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.
In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.
Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”
Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art.  In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.
Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

TAISHAN / 泰山 PAINTED BY WANG HUI / 王翬

WANG HUI  / 王翬(1632-1717)
Taishan /泰山 (1,533m - 5,029ft)

China 

 In The Kangxi Emperor's Southern Tour, Scroll 3, 1698. The MET, New York 

The mountain 

Taishan /泰山  or Mount Tai  (1,533m - 5,029ft)  is a mountain of historical and cultural significance located north of the city of Tai'an, in Shandong province, China. The tallest peak is the Jade Emperor Peak (玉皇頂). Mount Tai is of key importance in Chinese religion, being the eastern one of the Sacred Mountains of China. It is associated with sunrise, birth, and renewal, and is often regarded the foremost of the five. According to historical records, Mount Tai became a sacred place haunted by emperors to offer sacrifices and meditate in the Zhou Dynasty before 1,000 BC. A total of 72 emperors were recorded as visiting it. Writers also came to acquire inspiration, to compose poems, write essays, paint and take pictures. Hence, a great many cultural relics were left on the mountain.
Mount Tai is a tilted fault-block mountain with height increasing from the north to the south. It is the oldest example of a paleo-metamorphic formation from the Cambrian Period in eastern China. Known as the Taishan Complex, this formation contains magnetized, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock as well as intrusions of other origins during the Archean Era. The uplift of the region started in the Proterozoic Era; by the end of the Proterozoic, it had become part of the continent. Besides the Jade Emperor Peak, other distinctive rock formations are the Heaven Candle Peak, the Fan Cliff, and the Rear Rock Basin.
Visitors can reach the peak of Mount Tai via a bus which terminates at the Midway Gate to Heaven, from there a cable car connects to the summit. Covering the same distance on foot takes from two and a half to six hours.
To climb up the mountain, one can take one of two routes. The more popular east route starts from Taishan Arch. On the way up the 7,200 stone steps, the climber first passes the Ten Thousand Immortals Tower (Wanxianlou), Arhat Cliff (Luohanya), and Palace to Goddess Dou Mu (Doumugong). The climbing from the First Gate to Heaven, the main entrance bordering on Tai'an town, up the entire mountain can take two and a half hours for the sprinting hiker to six hours for the leisure pace.

The artist
Wang Hui / 王翬 was a Chinese landscape painter, one of the Four Wangs. He, and the three other Wangs, dominated orthodox art in China throughout the late Ming and early Qing periods. Of the Four Wangs, Wang Hui is considered the best-known today.
Wang Hui followed in the footprints of his great grandfathers, grandfather, father and uncles and learned painting at a very early age. He was later taught by two contemporary masters, Zhang Ke and Wang Shimin, who taught him to work in the tradition of copying famous Chinese paintings. Along with the other Wangs, Wang Hui helped to perpetuate the tradition of copying the ancient masters rather than creating original work.
Notice about the scroll above:
In 1689 the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662 – 1722), a Manchu whose forebears had conquered China in 1644, made a grand tour to consolidate his authority over southern China. The renowned landscapist Wang Hui was commissioned to record the journey in a series of twelve oversize handscrolls. This scroll, the third in the set, highlights the emperor’s visit to Mount Tai, China’s “Sacred Peak of the East.” Although Wang based his design on maps and woodblock prints — he never visited the mountain — he also connected specific sites with imaginary landscape passages inspired by classical precedents and employed a traditional “blue-and-green” palette to underscore the emperor’s beneficent rule.
Source:
 -  Wang Hui in the MET collections

THE ESJA BY JOHANNES SVEINSSON KJARVAL

 JOHANNES SVEINSSON KJARVAL (1885-1972) 

The Esja or Esjan  (914 m - 2, 999ft)

Iceland.  

Painted in 1939

The mountain

Esja (914 m - 2,999 ft) often called "Esjan" or "The Esja" is situated in the south-west of Iceland, about 10 km to the north of Iceland's capital city Reykjavik. Esja is not a single mountain, but a volcanic mountain range, made from basalt and tuff. The etymology of the name is unclear. Esja can be used as a first name in Iceland. In the Kjalnesingasaga, there is a rich widow among Irish settlers named Esja, but it is likely that the women's name is derived from the mountain and not vice versa.

The easternmost summits of the mountain range, called Móskarðshnúkar, are of an unusually light colour. An Icelandic writer in the 19th century, so goes the story, hoped to see the sun there after a long period of rain. But when he looked closer, it was only the mountaintops with their colours. In reality, it is the rhyolite stone, often to be found in Icelandic nature near old (and also active) central volcanoes.

Climbing 

Within easy reach of the capital, Esja is a very popular recreation area for hikers and climbers. The best known hiking paths lead to the summits Pverfellshorn (780 m) and Kerhólakambur (851 m). Pverfellshorn is also easily accessible by public transport. The path is divided into sections, marked with signs along the way. Each sign gives an indication of the difficulty of the path ahead with a grade system ranging from 1 boot (easy) to 3 boots (challenging). At the third sign experienced climbers can choose to climb directly to the peak, instead of following the path which goes off to the right. Approximately 6.6 kilometers of walking and 200 meters away from sea level is an point a big rock called Steinn. It is here that most inexperienced climbers choose to go down again, as the path becomes increasingly difficult from there. The highest point, at 914 m, is called Hábunga. From Þverfellshorn, reaching Habunga requires another three-kilometer trek northeast, across a rocky plateau with no directional signs or clear path. As of August 2011, Habunga was marked only by a large cairn with a wooden stick at the top.

The painter
Johannes Sveinsson Kjarval was an Icelandic painter. He is considered one of the most important artists of Iceland. Born in poverty, he was adopted and, as a young man, worked as a fisherman. However, he spent every spare time drawing and painting and managed to learn basics from artist Ásgrímur Jónsson. At age 27 with financial support from fishermen and the Icelandic Confederation of Labour he passed an entrance examination and was admitted to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for higher education in the arts where he completed his studies. During the Copenhagen years he became acquainted with various styles including impressionism, expressionism and cubism but he also became an accomplished draughtsman. Later he also took shorter trips to France and Italy.
Kjarval was a prolific painter, leaving thousands of drawings and paintings after a long life. The paintings vary greatly in style and frequently mix different styles into a very personal style. Although not surreal, some of his works include absurd and symbolist elements mixing elves and myths into landscape. Many of his works include Icelandic landscape and lava formation but many of his landscape paintings are partially "cubist" and abstract with his focus on zooming on the closest ground and less the impressive mysterious mountains in the background. Later in his life his art frequently also included abstract painting.
Because of the unique mix of styles, it is an oversimplification to classify him has a landscape painter. His work includes expressionist, abstract, cubist, landscape and portrait paintings and drawings - and his "style promiscuity" was highly original as the man himself was. He was a highly original modernizer of his time and still remains quite unique among Icelandic and world painters. In 1958 he was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal by the King of Sweden.

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MAKALU PAINTED BY NICHOLAS ROERICH

NICHOLAS ROERICH (1874-1947)

Makalu  (8, 485m - 27, 838 ft)  

Nepal - China Border

1. Makalu  main peak, 1937-39  

2. Makalu main  peak and subsidiary peaks 1937-39

Nicholas Roerich  Museum New York City

The mountain 

Makalu  (8, 485m - 27, 838 ft)  is the fifth highest mountain in the world. It is located in the Mahalangur Himalayas 19 km (12 mi) southeast of Mount Everest, on the border between Nepal and China. One of the eight-thousanders, Makalu is an isolated peak whose shape is a four-sided pyramid.
Makalu has two notable subsidiary peaks. Kangchungtse, or Makalu II (7,678 m) lies about 3 km (2 mi) north-northwest of the main summit. Rising about 5 km (3.1 mi) north-northeast of the main summit across a broad plateau, and connected to Kangchungtse by a narrow, 7,200 m saddle, is Chomo Lonzo (7,804 m).
The first climb on Makalu was made by an American team led by William Siri in the spring of 1954. The expedition was composed of Sierra Club members including Allen Steck, and was called the California Himalayan Expedition to Makalu. They attempted the southeast ridge but were turned back at 7,100 m (23,300 ft) by a constant barrage of storms.
A New Zealand team including Sir Edmund Hillary was also active in the spring, but did not get very high due to injury and illness. In the fall of 1954, a French reconnaissance expedition made the first ascents of the subsidiary summits Kangchungtse (October 22: Jean Franco, Lionel Terray, Sardar Gyaltsen Norbu and Pa Norbu) and Chomo Lonzo (October 30: Jean Couzy and Terray).
Makalu was first climbed on May 15, 1955 by Lionel Terray and Jean Couzy of a French expedition led by Jean Franco. Franco, G. Magnone and Sardar Gyaltsen Norbu summitted the next day, followed by Bouvier, S. Coupe, Leroux and A. Vialatte on the 17th. This was an amazing achievement at the time to have the vast majority of expedition members summit, especially on such a difficult peak. Prior to this time, summits were reached by 1-2 people at most with the rest of teams providing logistical support before turning around and heading home. The French team climbed Makalu by the north face and northeast ridge, via the saddle between Makalu and Kangchungtse (the Makalu-La), establishing the standard route.

The painter 
Nicholas Roerich known also as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (Никола́й Константи́нович Ре́рих) is quite an important figure of mountain paintings in the early 20th century.  He was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, perceived by some in Russia as an enlightener, philosopher, and public figure. In his youth was he was quite influenced by a movement in Russian society around the occult and was interested in hypnosis and other spiritual practices. His paintings are said to have hypnotic expression.
Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, he lived in various places around the world until his death in Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, India. Trained as an artist and a lawyer, his main interests were literature, philosophy, archaeology, and especially art. After the February Revolution of 1917 and the end of the czarist regime, Roerich, a political moderate who valued Russia's cultural heritage more than ideology and party politics, had an active part in artistic politics. With Maxim Gorky and Aleksandr Benois, he participated with the so-called "Gorky Commission" and its successor organization, the Arts Union (SDI).
After the October Revolution and the acquisition of power of Lenin's Bolshevik Party, Roerich became increasingly discouraged about Russia's political future. During early 1918, he, Helena, and their two sons George and Sviatoslav emigrated to Finland. After some months in Finland and Scandinavia, the Roerichs relocated to London, arriving in mid-1919. Later, a successful exhibition resulted in an invitation from a director at the Art Institute of Chicago, offering to arrange for Roerich's art to tour the United States. During the autumn of 1920, the Roerichs traveled to America by sea.  The Roerichs remained in the United States from October 1920 until May 1923.
After leaving New York, the Roerichs – together with their son George and six friends – began the five-year-long 'Roerich Asian Expedition' that, in Roerich's own words: "started from Sikkim through Punjab, Kashmir, Ladakh, the Karakoram Mountains, Khotan, Kashgar, Qara Shar, Urumchi, Irtysh, the Altai Mountains, the Oyrot region of Mongolia, the Central Gobi, Kansu, Tsaidam, and Tibet" with a detour through Siberia to Moscow in 1926.
In 1929 Nicholas Roerich was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the University of Paris. He received two more nominations in 1932 and 1935. His concern for peace resulted in his creation of the Pax Cultura, the "Red Cross" of art and culture. His work for this cause also resulted in the United States and the twenty other nations of the Pan-American Union signing the Roerich Pact on April 15, 1935 at the White House. The Roerich Pact is an early international instrument protecting cultural property.
In 1934–1935, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (then headed by Roerich admirer Henry A. Wallace) sponsored an expedition by Roerich and USDA scientists H. G. MacMillan and James F. Stephens to Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, and China.
Roerich was in India during the Second World War, where he painted Russian epic heroic and saintly themes, including: Alexander Nevsky, The Fight of Mstislav...
In 1942, Roerich received Jawaharlal Nehru at his house in Kullu. Together they discussed the fate of the new world: "We spoke about Indian-Russian cultural association, it is time to think about useful and creative cooperation ...”.
Gandhi would later recall about several days spent together with Roerich's family: "That was a memorable visit to a surprising and gifted family where each member was a remarkable figure in himself, with a well-defined range of interests." ..."Roerich himself stays in my memory. He was a man with extensive knowledge and enormous experience, a man with a big heart, deeply influenced by all that he observed". During the visit, "ideas and thoughts about closer cooperation between India and USSR were expressed. Now, after India wins independence, they have got its own real implementation[clarification needed]. And as you know, there are friendly and mutually-understanding relationships today between both our countries".
In 1942, the American-Russian cultural Association (ARCA) was created in New York.
Its active participants were Ernest Hemingway, Rockwell Kent, Charlie Chaplin, Emil Cooper, Serge Koussevitzky, and Valeriy Ivanovich Tereshchenko. The Association's activity was welcomed by scientists like Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton.
Roerich died on December 13, 1947.
_______________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT ERRIGAL PAINTED BY PAUL HENRY

PAUL HENRY (1877-1958)

 Mount Errigal  (751m - 2, 464 ft)

Ireland 

The mountain

Mount Errigal  (751m - 2, 464 ft) called in Irish An Earagail, possibly meaning "oratory" is a mountain near Gweedore in County Donegal, Ireland. It is the tallest peak of the Derryveagh Mountains, the tallest peak in County Donegal, and the 76th tallest peak in Ireland.  Errigal is also the most southern, steepest and highest of the mountain chain, called the "Seven Sisters" by locals. The Seven Sisters includes Muckish, Crocknalaragagh, Aghla Beg, Ardloughnabrackbaddy, Aghla More, Mackoght and Errigal. The nearest peak is Mackoght, which is also known as Little Errigal or Wee Errigal (Irish: an Earagail Bheag). Errigal is well known for the pinkish glow of its quartzite in the setting sun. Another noted quality is the ever-changing shape of the mountain depending on what direction you view it from. Errigal was voted 'Ireland's Most Iconic Mountain' by Walking & Hiking Ireland in 2009.
Climbing
The mountain is most often climbed from the carpark off the R251 road. The route initially starts off by crossing heavily eroded and boggy land towards a visible track through the shiny scree from where the ascent proper starts. After reaching the summit, people usually walk the short but exposed walk along ‘One Man’s Pass’ which leads across to the second and lower of the twin summits. No special equipment is needed to climb the mountain, but caution is advised.

The painter
Paul Henry was an Irish artist noted for depicting the West of Ireland landscape and particularly landscapes of Achill Island and Connemara in a spare post-impressionist style. Born in Belfast, Ireland, the son of a Baptist minister, Paul Henry began studying at Methodist College Belfast in 1882. During this period he first began drawing regularly. At the age of fifteen he moved to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He studied art in Belfast before going to Paris in 1898 to study at the Académie Julian and at Whistler's studio. He married the painter Grace Henry in 1903 and returned to Ireland in 1910. From then until 1919 he lived on , where he learned to capture the peculiar interplay of light and landscape specific to the West of Ireland. In 1919 he moved to Dublin and in 1920 was one of the founders of the Society of Dublin Painters.  In the 1920s and 1930s Paul Henry was Ireland's best known artist, one who had a considerable influence on the popular image of the west of Ireland. Although he seems to have ceased experimenting with his technique after he left Achill and his range is limited, he created a large body of fine images whose familiarity is a testament to its influence. The National Gallery of Ireland held a major exhibition of his work in 2004.
A painting by Paul Henry was featured on an episode of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, broadcast on 12 November 2006. The painting was given a value of approximately £40,000 - £60,000 by the roadshow. However, due to the buoyancy of the Irish art market at that time, it sold for €260,000 on 5 December 2006 in James Adams' and Bonhams' joint Important Irish Art sale.
Source: 
- Paul Henry and Achill Island

SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY HANSON PUTHUFF

HANSON PUTHUFF (1875-1972)

Superstition mountain (1,910 m - 6,266 ft) 

United State of America (Arizona) 

In Enduring Ramparts - Superstition Mountains 

The mountain

 Superstition Mountain (1,910 m - 6,266 ft) is part of the Supertistions mountains range popularly called "The Superstitions",  also called Wi:kchsawa in Yavapai langage and Sierra de la Espuma  Spanish. It is  located in Arizona, east of Phoenix. The mountain range is in the federally designated Superstition Wilderness Area, and includes a variety of natural features in addition to its namesake mountain. 

- Weavers Needle, a prominent landmark and rock climbing destination set behind and to the east of Superstition Mountain, is a tall eroded volcanic remnant that plays a significant role in the legend of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine. According to this legend, a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz discovered a mother lode of gold in the Superstition Wilderness and revealed its location on his deathbed in Phoenix in 1891 to Julia Thomas, a boarding-house owner who had taken care of him for many years. 

-  Peralta Canyon, on the northeast side of Superstition Mountain, contains a popular trail that leads up to Fremont Saddle, which provides a very picturesque view of Weavers Needle. Some Apaches believe that the hole leading down into the lower world, or hell, is located in the Superstition Mountains. Winds blowing from the hole is supposed to be the cause of severe dust storms in the metropolitan region.

- Miner's Needle is another prominent formation in the wilderness and a popular hiking destination.

The Superstition Mountains have a desert climate, with high summer temperatures and a handful of perennial sources of water.  Numerous hiking trails cross the mountains from multiple access points, including the Peralta Trailhead, the most popular. The Lost Dutchman State Park, located on the west side of Superstition Mountain, includes several short walking trails.

The Superstition Mountains are bounded roughly by U.S. Route 60 on the south, State Route 88 on the northwest, and State Route 188 on the northeast.

The painter 

Hanson Duvall Puthuff was a landscape painter and muralist, born in Waverly, Missouri. Puthuff studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to Colorado in 1889 to study at University of Denver Art School. He traveled to Los Angeles in 1903 and for 23 years worked as a commercial artist painting billboards while painting landscapes in his leisure. In 1926, he abandoned commercial art and devote full-time to fine art and exhibitions. He is nationally famous for his lyric interpretations of the Southern California deserts.  Puthuff was one of the cofounders of the California Art Club and the Laguna Beach Art Association. He won awards in 1909 from the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, a bronze medal at the Paris Salon in 1914, and two silver medals from the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. His works are exhibited in, among other places, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, and Bowers Museum. Many of his works are also cataloged in the Smithsonian American Art Museum art inventory. Puthuff died in Corona del Mar on May 12, 1972. In 2007, the Pasadena Museum of California Art featured California Colors: Hanson Puthuff, the first solo museum exhibition of his work. In conjunction with the exhibit, the Museum republished the artist's autobiography.

MULHACEN PAINTED BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA

JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BATISTA  (1863-1923)

 Mulhacén  (3, 478 m - 11,411ft)

Spain

Painted in 1890

The mountain 

Mulhacén (3, 478 m - 11,411ft) is the highest mountain in continental Spain and in the Iberian Peninsula. It is part of the Sierra Nevada range in the Cordillera Penibética. It is named after Abu l-Hasan Ali, or Muley Hacén as he is known in Spanish, the penultimate Muslim King of Granada in the 15th century who, according to legend, was buried on the summit of the mountain.
Mulhacén is the highest peak in Europe outside the Caucasus Mountains and the Alps. It is also the third most topographically prominent peak in Western Europe, after Mont Blanc and Mount Etna, and is ranked 64th in the world by prominence.  The peak is not exceptionally dramatic in terms of steepness or local relief. The south flank of the mountain is gentle and presents no technical challenge, as is the case for the long west ridge. The shorter, somewhat steeper north east ridge is slightly more technical. The north face of the mountain, however, is much steeper, and offers several routes involving moderately steep climbing on snow and ice (up to French grade AD) in the winter
Mulhacén can be climbed in a single day from the villages of either Capileira or Trevélez, but it is more common to spend a night at the mountain refuge at Poqueira, or in the bare shelter at Caldera to the west. Those making the ascent from Trevelez can also bivouac at the tarns to the northeast of the peak.


The painter 
Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida  was a Spanish painter.  Sorolla excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes, and monumental works of social and historical themes. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the sunlight of his native land....
More about Joaquin Sorolla, follow the link. 

TINDFJALLAJÖKULL PAINTED BY ASGRIMUR JONSSON

ASGRIMUR JONSSON (1876-1958)

  Tindfjallajökull (1,462m - 4,797ft) 

Iceland

 Painted in 1909

The mountain 
Tindfjallajцkull (1,462m - 4,797ft) is a stratovolcano in the south of Iceland.  It has erupted rocks of basaltic to rhyolitic composition, and a 5-km-wide caldera was formed during the eruption of the 54,000-year-old Thуrsmцrk Ignimbrite. It is capped by a glacier of 19 km2. Its highest peak is Ymir which takes its name from the giant Ymir of Norse mythology. The most recent eruption was at an unknown time in the Holocene. The name means "Tindfjцll glacier". Tindfjцll ("peak mountains") is a ridge that extends to the south of the glacier. The rivers that flow from the glacier are Hvitmaga to the north-east, Gilsa to the south, Porolfsa to the south-west, Vala to the north-west and Blesa to the north. Hvнtmaga, Gilsб and Юуrуlfsб drain into Markarfljot while Vala and Blesa drain into Eystri Ranga.

 The Painter 
Asgrímur Jónsson was an Icelandic painter, and one of the first in the country to make art a professional living. He studied at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen between 1900 and 1903 and traveled widely after graduation. The subjects of his pictures are mostly the landscapes of his home country, particularly mountains. His painting style is similar to the French impressionists like Corot. Some of his pictures also illustrate Icelandic sagas and folk tales.
He was also noted for his murals in various churches in Iceland. A number of his works are on display in the National Gallery of Iceland. Jónsson influenced many artists in Iceland. A short time before he died he had donated his house in Reykjavík to the Icelandic Government along with all those paintings which were at that time in his possession. These consisted of 192 oil paintings and 277 water colours together with a great number of unfinished pictures dating from various periods in his life. During his lifetime Ásgrímur Jónsson was honoured in many ways. He was made honorary professor at the University of Iceland and, in 1933 he was made Grand Knight of the Icelandic Order of the Falcon. He was an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts and Knight of Dannebrog, first class. He died in 1958 and was buried in Gaulverjabær.


2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

HUNTS MESA BY ARTHUR WESLEY DOW

ARTHUR WESLEY DOW (1857-1922)

Hunts Mesa (1,942 m - 6,370 ft)

United State of America (Arizona)

In The Enchanted Mesa, 1913

The mountain 

Hunts Mesa (1,942 m - 6,370 ft) is a rock formation located in Monument Valley, south of the border between Utah and Arizona in the United States and west of the border between Arizona's Navajo County and Apache County. It is one of two popular interior destinations in the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park for tourists to experience panoramic views of the popular sandstone formations from a distance. The other is Mystery Valley. A Navajo guide is required to hike to either.

Hunts Mesa forms the southeastern edge of Monument Valley and the northern edge of Little Capitan Valley. Access to Hunts Mesa is not through the general entrance of the park but rather through the sand dunes northeast of the town of Kayenta, Arizona.

On October 16, 1984, a United States Air Force B-52G bomber crashed on Hunts Mesa, killing two of the seven crewmen.

The painter 

Arthur Wesley Dow was an American painter, printmaker, photographer and influential arts educator.
Dow taught at three major American arts training institutions over the course of his career beginning with the Pratt Institute from 1896-1903 and the New York Art Students League from 1898-1903; then, in 1900, he founded and served as the director of the Ipswich Summer School of Art in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and from 1904 to 1922, he was a professor of fine arts at Columbia University Teachers College. His ideas were quite revolutionary for the period; he taught that rather than copying nature, art should be created by elements of the composition, like line, mass and color.  He wanted leaders of the public to see art is a living force in everyday life for all, not a sort of traditional ornament for the few. Dow suggested this lack of interest would improve if the way art was presented would permit self-expression and include personal experience in creating art. His ideas on Art were published in the 1899 book Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers. The following extracts are from the prefatory chapter "Beginnings" to the second edition of this book (1912) : " Composition ... expresses the idea upon which the method here presented is founded - the "putting together" of lines, masses and colors to make a harmony. ... Composition, building up of harmony, is the fundamental process in all the fine arts. ... A natural method is of exercises in progressive order, first building up very simple harmonies ... Such a method of study includes all kinds of drawing, design and painting. It offers a means of training for the creative artist, the teacher or one who studies art for the sake of culture."

THE STROMBOLI PAINTED BY LUIGI MAYER

LUIGI MAYER (1755-1803) 

Stromboli volcano  (924 m -3,031 ft)

Italy (Island of Stromboli) 

In Island of Stromboli, New York Public Library 

The mountain 

Stromboli  is a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the north coast of Sicily, containing one of the three active volcanoes  (924 m -3,031 ft) in Italy. It is one of the eight Aeolian Islands, a volcanic arc north of Sicily. This name is derived from the Ancient Greek name Strongulē which was given to it because of its round swelling form. The island's population is about 500. The volcano has erupted many times and is constantly active with minor eruptions, often visible from many points on the island and from the surrounding sea, giving rise to the island's nickname "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean". The most recent major eruption was on 13 April 2009. Stromboli stands 926 m (3,034 ft) above sea level, and over 2,700 m (8,860 ft) on average above the sea floor.  There are three active craters at the peak. A significant geological feature of the volcano is the Sciara del Fuoco ("Stream of fire"), a big horseshoe-shaped depression generated in the last 13,000 years by several collapses on the northwestern side of the cone. Two kilometers to the northeast lies Strombolicchio, the volcanic plug remnant of the original volcano.

Mt. Stromboli has been in almost continuous eruption for the past 2,000 years. A pattern of eruption is maintained in which explosions occur at the summit craters, with mild to moderate eruptions of incandescent volcanic bombs, at intervals ranging from minutes to hours. This Strombolian eruption, as it is known, is also observed at other volcanoes worldwide. Eruptions from the summit craters typically result in a few short, mild, but energetic bursts, ranging up to a few hundred meters in height, containing ash, incandescent lava fragments and stone blocks. Stromboli's activity is almost exclusively explosive, but lava flows do occur at times when volcanic activity is high: an effusive eruption occurred in 2002, the first in 17 years, and again in 2003, 2007, and 2013–14. Volcanic gas emissions from this volcano are measured by a Multi-Component Gas Analyzer System, which detects pre-eruptive degassing of rising magma, improving prediction of volcanic activity.

The artist

Luigi Mayer was an Italian-German artist and one of the earliest and most important late 18th-century European painters of the Ottoman Empire. Mayer was a close friend of Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Baronet, a British ambassador to Turkey between 1776 and 1792, and the bulk of his paintings and drawings during this period were commissioned by Ainslie.  He travelled extensively through the Ottoman Empire between 1776 and 1794, and became well known for his sketches and paintings of panoramic landscapes of ancient sites from the Balkans to the Greek Islands, Sicily, Turkey and Egypt, particularly ancient monuments and the Nile. Many of the works were amassed in Ainslie's collection, which was later presented to the British Museum, providing a valuable insight into the Middle East of that period.

SAN JACINTO PEAK PAINTED BY JOHN FROST

JOHN FROST (1890-1937)

 San Jacinto Peak  (3,302 m - 10,834 ft) 

 United States of America (California) 

1. In  Mount San Jacinto, Whitewater Wash, 1926, oil on canvas

2. In Mount San Jacinto, 1928, oil on canvas

The mountain

San Jacinto Peak  (3,302 m - 10,834 ft) often designated Mount San Jacinto, is the highest peak of the San Jacinto Mountains, and of Riverside County, California. It lies within Mount San Jacinto State Park. To the Cahuilla Indians, the peak was known as I a kitch (or Aya Kaich), meaning "smooth cliffs." It was the home of Dakush, the meteor and legendary founder of the Cahuilla. Naturalist John Muir wrote of San Jacinto Peak, "The view from San Jacinto is the most sublime spectacle to be found anywhere on this earth!".  From the peak, San Gorgonio Mountain can be seen across the San Gorgonio Pass. Also easily visible below is the Coachella Valley and the Salton Sea. In addition, much of the Inland Empire, including Ontario to the west, can be viewed on a clear day.

San Jacinto Peak is one of the most topographically prominent peaks in the United States. It is ranked sixth among peaks in the 48 contiguous states. Mount San Jacinto is one of the "Four Saints", a name occasionally used to describe the high points of the four mountains over 10,000 feet named for Catholic saints in Southern California: San Jacinto Peak, Mount San Gorgonio (high point of the San Bernardino Mountains), San Bernardino Peak, and Mount San Antonio (high point of the San Gabriel Mountains).

Known for its spectacular north escarpment, the peak rises 10,000 feet (3,000 m) above San Gorgonio Pass. It plays host to the famous Cactus to Clouds Trail.
The first successful ascent of the difficult northeast escarpment was made in 1931 by Floyd Vernoy and Stewart White of Riverside.
Source: 
-Mount San Jacinto State Park  website

The painter

John (Jack) Frost was an American artist who holds a high place in the California school of Impressionism. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 14, 1890 and his initial art training came from his famous father, Arthur B. Frost who was known as an illustrator.  Later John Frost traveled to France to study at the Academie Julian under Richard Miller and Jean-Paul Laurens. 

For reasons of health, Frost decided to relocate to Pasadena, California in 1918. In California, he became a highly respected artist, his paintings show the influence of his training in French Impressionism. Inspired by his new surroundings, Frost glorified the California landscape with atmospheric and impressionistic renderings of the Sierra Nevada mountains, sunsets, meadows, the small town of Lone Pine, California, shacks in Palm Springs, the arid California desert with pink verbena flowers and the coastal sand dunes near Carmel.

Frost exhibited and sold his paintings at the Stendhal Gallery that was located at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He was a member of the California Art Club, Painters and Sculptors of Los Angeles and the Pasadena Society of Fine Arts. He was awarded the Gold Medal at the Painters and Sculptors in 1924. 

His works can be found in the Gardena High School collection, the Irvine Museum collection, Irvine, California and important private collections. John Frost died at the young age of forty-seven in Pasadena.