THE ZUGSPITZE PAINTED BY CARL ROTTMANN

CARL ROTTMANN (1797-1850)  

 Die Zugspitze  (2, 962 m- 9, 718 ft) 

Germany 

In View of the Eibsee, 1825, oil on canvas,  Neue Pinakothek, Munchen

The mountain 
The Zugspitze (2,962m -9,718 ft) above sea level, is the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany. It lies south of the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and the border between Germany and Austria runs over its western summit. South of the mountain is the Zugspitzplatt, a high karst plateau with numerous caves. On the flanks of the Zugspitze are three glaciers, including the two largest in Germany: the Northern Schneeferner with an area of 30.7 hectares and the Höllentalferner with an area of 24.7 hectares. The third is the Southern Schneeferner which covers 8.4 hectares.
The Zugspitze was first climbed on 27 August 1820 by Josef Naus, his survey assistant, Maier, and mountain guide, Johann Georg Tauschl. Today there are three normal routes to the summit: one from the Höllental valley to the northeast; another out of the Reintal valley to the southeast; and the third from the west over the Austrian Cirque (Österreichische Schneekar). One of the best known ridge routes in the Eastern Alps runs along the knife-edged Jubilee Ridge (Jubiläumsgrat) to the summit, linking the Zugspitze, the Hochblassen and the Alpspitze. For mountaineers there is plenty of nearby accommodation. On the western summit of the Zugspitze itself is the Münchner Haus and on the western slopes is the Wiener-Neustädter Hut.
Three cable cars run to the top of the Zugspitze. The first, the Tyrolean Zugspitze Cable Car, was built in 1926 and terminated on an arête below the summit before the terminus was moved to the actual summit in 1991. A rack railway, the Bavarian Zugspitze Railway, runs inside the northern flank of the mountain and ends on the Zugspitzplatt, from where a second cable car takes passengers to the top. The rack railway and the Eibsee Cable Car, the third cableway, transport an average of 500,000 people to the summit each year. In winter, nine ski lifts cover the ski area on the Zugspitzplatt. The weather station, opened in 1900, and the research station in the Schneefernerhaus are mainly used to conduct climate research.
At the Zugspitze's summit is the Münchner Haus, a mountain hut (Alpenhütte), a facility built by the German Alpine Club (Deutscher Alpenverein). For more than a hundred years, the summit has also had a weather station, which nowadays also gathers data for the Global Atmosphere Watch.
Climbing up the Zugspitze can involve several routes. The large difference in elevation between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the summit is 2,200 m (7,200 ft), making the climb a challenge even for trained mountaineers.

The painter 
Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann was a German landscape painter and the most famous member of the Rottmann family of painters. Rottmann belonged to the circle of artists around the Ludwig I of Bavaria, who commissioned large landscape paintings exclusively from him. He is best known for mythical and heroising landscapes. The landscape painter Karl Lindemann-Frommel belonged to his school. Rottmann  received his first drawing lessons from his father, Friedrich Rottmann, who taught drawing at the university in Heidelberg. He formed himself chiefly through the study of nature and of great masterworks. In his first artistic period, he painted atmospheric phenomena. After gaining prominence with Heidelberg at Sunset (a water color), and Castle Eltz, he settled in Munich in 1822 and devoted himself to Bavarian scenery. Here his second period began, and in 1824 he married Friedericke, the daughter of his uncle, Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, who served as an attendant at court. Through this connection, he made the acquaintance of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who in 1826/27 sponsored his travels in Italy in order to widen his repertoire, which up to that point consisted solely of domestic, German, landscapes. In Italy, Rottmann made sketches for the 28 Italian landscapes in fresco which he was commissioned to paint in the arcades of the Hofgarten at Munich. The cycle, completed in 1833, gave visual expression to Ludwig’s alliance with Italy, and raised the genre of landscape painting to the height of history painting, the preferred mode of the King’s other great commissions for monumental painting. The frescos unfortunately deteriorated under climatic influences. The cartoons for them are in the Darmstadt Gallery.
In 1834 Rottmann traveled to Greece to prepare for a commission from Ludwig for a second cycle; one might mark here the beginning of his third period. At first also intended for the Hofgarten arcade, the 23 great landscapes were eventually installed in the newly built Neue Pinakothek where they were given their own hall.

MOUNT LISTER AND ROYAL SOCIETY RANGE BY DAVID ROSENTHAL

DAVID ROSENTHAL (bn. 1953),

Mount Lister and Royal Society Range  (4,205 m - 13,205 ft)  

Antarctica (Victoria Land)

In Royal Society Range in Sunset, oil on canvas. 

The mountain
Mount Lister  (4,205 m - 13,205 ft)  forms the highest point in The Royal Society Range (coordinates 78°10′S 162°40′E), a majestic mountain range in Victoria Land, Antarctica. Mount Lister is located along the western shore of McMurdo Sound between the Koettlitz, Skelton and Ferrar glaciers. Other notable local terrain features include Allison Glacier, which descends from the west slopes of the Royal Society Range into Skelton Glacier.  The range was probably first seen by Captain James Clark Ross in 1841.
The range was explored by the British National Antarctic Expedition (BrNAE) under Robert Falcon Scott, who named the range after the Royal Society and applied names of its members to many of its peaks. For example, Mount Lister was named for Lord Joseph Lister, President of the Royal Society, 1895-1900.  The Royal Society provided financial support to the expedition and its members had assisted on the committee which organized the expedition.
The Royal Society Range contains over 50 basaltic vents, ranging in size from tiny mounds to cinder cones up to 300 meters (985 feet) high. Dating of surface material indicates they were active earlier than 15 million years ago (e.g. Heald Island) and as recently as 80,000 years ago, with glacier-bound tephra layers suggesting even more recent Holocene activity. The vast majority of vents are located in the foothills of the Royal Society mountains just north of Koettlitz Glacier, and most are Quaternary in age. Most emanating flows are 3–10 meters thick and less than 4 kilometers long. The composition, with very few exceptions, is porphyritic basanite with primarily olivine and clinopyroxene phenocrysts, though some phenocrystic plagioclase is also present.
The Royal Society Range consists of a Precambrian igneous and meta-igneous basement complex overlain by Devonian- to Triassic-age sandstones, siltstones and conglomerates of the Beacon Supergroup which dip shallowly westward away from the Ross Sea coast. The entire region is cut by north-south trending longitudinal faults, east-west trending transverse faults, and structurally related dike swarms.

The Painter 
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!
_______________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT CAMEROON / FAKO IN STAMPS

VINTAGE STAMPS (1972, 1983) 

Mount Cameroon or Fako  (4, 040 m - 13,250 ft) 

Cameroon 

1 In Mont Cameroun en Eruption, 1983 Stamp 70F designed by Louis-Marie Lemana for 

République Unie du Cameroun 

2. In Mont Cameroun et Fleuve Wouri, 1972 Stamp 40F designed by P. Lambert for 

 République Fédérale du Cameroun

 Courtesy mountainstamp.com

The mountain 

Mount Cameroon (4, 040 m - 13,250 ft) is an active volcano in Cameroon near the Gulf of Guinea (Africa). Mount Cameroon is also known as Cameroon Mountain or Fako (the name of the higher of its two peaks) or by its native name Mongo ma Ndemi ("Mountain of Greatness"). It is the highest point in sub-Saharan western and central Africa,  the fourth most prominent peak in Africa and the 31st most prominent in the world. It rises from the coast through tropical rainforest to a bare summit which is cold, windy, and occasionally dusted with snow. 

The mountain is part of the area of volcanic activity known as the Cameroon Volcanic Line, which also includes Lake Nyos. More than 100 small cinder cones, often fissure-controlled parallel to the long axis of the massive 1,400-cubic-kilometre (336 cu mi) volcano, occur on the flanks and surrounding lowlands. A large satellitic peak, Etinde (also known as Little Mount Cameroon), is located on the southern flank near the coast. 

Mount Cameroon has the most frequent eruptions of any West African volcano. 

The first written account of volcanic activity could be the one from the Carthaginian Hanno the Navigator, who might have observed the mountain in the 5th century BC. Moderate explosive and effusive eruptions have occurred throughout history from both summit and flank vents. A 1922 eruption on the southwestern flank produced a lava flow that reached the Atlantic coast, and a lava flow from a 1999 south-flank eruption stopped only 200 m (660 ft) from the sea, cutting the coastal highway.  The most recent eruption occurred on February 3, 2012.

English explorer Mary Kingsley, was one of the first Europeans to scale the mountain in 1897.

The peak is frequently ascended by hikers. The annual Mount Cameroon Race of Hope scales the peak in around 4½ hours. Sarah Etonge, who has won the race seven times and is also a tour operator, has become known as queen of the mountain.

Vintage Stamps in Cameroon 
After being colonized by British and by French, Cameroon Became independent in 1960.
The independent Cameroon has issued stamps from 1960 – the first set commemorating independence. After the establishment of the federal republic, when the Southern Cameroons join Cameroon, stamps of Cameroon are, in 1961, overprinted ‘République Federale’ and a face value in the British currency for specific use in the Southern Cameroons. A set inscribed ‘République Federale’ and surcharged in the British currency is issued on 1 January 1962. Subsequent issues are in Cameroon CFA Franc currency only. Since independence, Cameroon has had a modest issuing policy with many issues with themes of national interest and a limited number of issues aimed at the topical collectors market.
General issues about Cameroon Stamps :
- German protectorate (1897-1919)
- French mandated territory (1921-1946)
- French trust territory (1946-1957)
- French trust territory, self government (1957-1960),
- Republic (1960-1961)
- Federal republic of Cameroon (1961-1972)
- United republic (1972-1984)
-  Republic  (984 - Present)

ZHANGYE DANXIA / RAINBOW MOUNTAINS IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1970

VINTAGE POSTCARD 1970

Zhangye Danxia / Rainbow Mountains (1,500 to 2,500 m - 4,921 to 8202 ft)

 China 

The mountains 

Zhangye Danxia (1,500 to 2,500 m - 4,921 to 8202 ft) is known for the unusual colours of the rocks, which are smooth and sharp. Like in alt the others parts of the world where this kind of so called rainbow Mountain can be found, they are the result of deposits of sandstone and other minerals that occurred over 24 million years.  In the case of the Zhangye Danxia, the result, similar to a layer cake, is connected to the action of the same tectonic plates responsible for creating parts of the Himalayan mountains. Wind, rain, and time then sculpted extraordinary shapes, including towers, pillars, and ravines, with varying colours, patterns, and sizes.

Zhangye Danxia is located inside The Gansu Zhangye National Geopark (甘肃张掖国家地质公园), in Sunan and Linze counties within the prefecture-level city of Zhangye,in the northern foothills of the Qilian Mountains (祁连山). It covers an area of 322 square kilometres (124 sq mi). The site became a quasi-national geopark on April 23, 2012 . It was formally designated as ″Gansu Zhangye National Geopark″ by the Ministry of Land and Resources on June 16, 2016 after it has passed the on-site acceptance test. Known for its colorful rock formations, it has been voted by Chinese media outlets as one of the most beautiful landforms in China.

The core area of the park, Linze Danxia Scenic Area, is located 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of downtown Zhangye and 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the seat of Linze County. It is the most developed and most visited part of the park. A second scenic area, Binggou (冰沟), located on the north bank of Liyuan River (梨园河), was officially inaugurated on 3 August 2014. 

In 2005, Zhangye Danxia was voted by a panel of reporters from 34 major media outlets as one of the most beautiful Danxia landform areas in China. In 2009, Chinese National Geography magazine chose Zhangye Danxia as one of the "six most beautiful landforms" in China.  The area has become a top tourist attraction for Zhangye. A series of boardwalks and access roads have been built to help visitors to explore the rock formations.  In 2014, 100 million yuan was invested to improve the facilities in the Binggou area.

THORPE CLOUD BY FRANÇOIS VIVARES

FRANÇOIS VIVARES (1708-1780) 

Thorpe Cloud (287 m - 942 ft)  

United Kingdom (England)

The Hill 

Thorpe Cloud  (287m - 942ft)  is an isolated limestone hill (a reef knoll) lying between the villages of Thorpe and Ilam on the Derbyshire/Staffordshire border at the southern end of Dovedale. It is a popular hill amongst the many day-trippers who visit the area, and provides a fine viewpoint north up the dale and south across the Midland plain.

Like much of the dale, including Bunster Hill on the opposite bank, it is in the ownership of the National Trust, and is part of their South Peak Estate. These Dovedale properties were acquired by the Trust in 1934. In 1997, the writer Jeff Kent discovered that a double sunset could be seen against Thorpe Cloud from the top of nearby Lin Dale and, two years later, the phenomenon was first captured on film by the photographer Chris Doherty. The occurrence is visible in good weather on and around the summer solstice and perhaps beyond, when the sun sets on the summit of the hill, partially reappears from its steep northern slope and sets for a second and final time shortly afterwards. The precise event and its location are described in Kent's book The Mysterious Double Sunset. Thorpe Cloud and Dovedale were used as locations in the 2010 film of Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe. Thorpe Cloud can be clearly made out in several scenes towards the end of the film.

Thorpe Cloud also has a rifle range which local and national shooting clubs use.

The artist

François Vivares was a French landscape-engraver, active in England. He was born in France at Saint-Jean-du-Bruel, near Montpellier, and brought up in Geneva. At the age of 18 he moved permanently to London. He took on Peter Paul Benazech as apprentice in 1746. Vivares exhibited engravings with the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1766 and 1768. During the last thirty years of his life he resided in Great Newport Street, central London, where he kept a print-shop. There he died on 28 November 1780, and was buried in Paddington churchyard. He was three times married, and had 31 children. His son Thomas Vivares also worked as an engraver.

His plates number about 160, and were largely published by John Boydell. Many were from the old masters: Claude, Poussin, Il Bolognese, Vanderneer and Cuyp; but a large proportion of them are views of English scenery after Thomas Gainsborough, Wootton, Thomas Smith of Derby, the Smiths of Chichester, and others. Claude's Enchanted Castle he left unfinished at his death, and it was completed by William Woollett.

AÏDOUR / SANTA CRUZ PAINTED BY AUGUSTIN FERRANDO

AUGUSTIN FERRANDO  (1880-1957)

Aïdour / Santa Cruz (589m - 1932 ft) 

Algeria

In La baie d 'Oran et l'Aïdour, 1922, oil on cardboard, Private collection   

The Mountain 

The Aïdour (589m - 1932 ft)  also known under the name of Santa Cruz is a mountain  which dominates the city of Oran in Algeria. Several buildings are built at the top of the mountain, including a fortress and the well known christian chapel of Santa Cruz. 

This mountain is known by a number of toponyms, and especially its eastern end which dominates the city of Oran by a plateau and a steep hill separated by a small pass. This small coastal chain located to the west of the city of Oran, develops for a distance of about 25 km in a direction west-south-west, east-northeast. It ends at the sea in its eastern end by the Djebel Santon and the hill of Santa Cruz which enclose the bay of Mers el-Kebir. It dominates in the north the small coastal plain going from the Andalusians to the jebel Santon, and to the south the plain bordering the great Sebkha of Oran (salt lake) from Boutlelis to Oran.

From the 12th century this mountain is known as Aïdour, a name reported by Arab chroniclers. An even more ancient name is reported by other chroniclers: Mount Guedera or Guedara. Later the Turks called him Mourdjadjo. The Spaniards name the hill "La Silla" (the saddle). The name of concurrent use of the Aïdour is then Santa Cruz for the hill, and Murdjadjo for the plateau.

The Phoenicians had chosen Madagh Creek in the west to set up their trading posts, but the Romans preferred to develop the site of Portus Magnus 40 kilometers to the east on the present town of Bethioua. In the 15th century, during the Islamic period, a mausoleum (gubba) was erected on the eastern end of the plateau which dominates Oran, and dedicated to Abdelkader al-Jilani, prefessor and  eminent imam buried in Baghdad. The story goes that in 1425, one of the disciples of Abou Madyane, Tlemcen's famous saint, died suddenly before reaching the wadi and his disciples then installed small mausoleums in memory of his teacher Abdelkader al-Jilani. It is therefore not a tomb but a cenotaph.

In 1805, when Spain occupied Oran, the Marquis de Santa Cruz, governor of the city, decided in 1563 to build the fort of Santa Cruz on the rocky spur of Aïdour. His position was strategic for the defense of Oran and Mers El Kebir.
The chapel of Santa Cruz was built in 1850, after the terrible cholera epidemic of 1849, which had caused several hundred victims a day. It is dedicated to Our Lady of Salvation. In 1950, during the french colonisation, the construction project of the architect Lesaint was opened, with a cloister and a small Romane basilica with a slightly crushed dome, in the presence of Bishop Roncalli, apostolic nuncio, and future Pope John XXIII. The old chapel at the foot of the bell tower was demolished in 1951 at the beginning of the construction of the cloister, which ended in 1956.

 Source : 

 ©wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com

The Painter 

Augustin Jean Ferrando is a French orientalist painter born in Algeria in 1880 then French department. A student of the school of fine arts of Algiers in 1898, then of the Academy Druet and Rochegrosse, formerly of the school of the fine arts of Paris, with Fernand Cormon (1845-1924), he meets in Paris Derain, Matisse, Leger, Vlaminck, Utrillo. Ferrando, considered the only fawn painter from Algeria, and the representative of the Algiers School, obtained several vermilion medals (at the exhibitions of the Orientalist artists' society). It was mobilized in 1914 among the Zouaves of Algiers until 1918. He was appointed director of the Oran School of Fine Arts, founder of the Association of African Artists, and became curator of the Demaeght Museum in 1935. He worked in Oued Taria, where his second wife was born.
He has made numerous exhibitions in Algiers (Galerie Charlet), Oran (Galerie Pozzalo and Galerie Pasteur), Paris (Palais de New York),  The Biennale de Menton, Musée Rolin d'Autun in 1977, Boulogne-Billancourt in 1990, Versailles and Paris in 1992, and in the exhibition  Albert Marquet and his friends, July 2008,  at the Cultural center of Saint-Raphaël (France).
Source : 
 ©wanderingvertexes.blogspot.com

MOUNT BANAHAW (2) BY FERNANDO AMORSOLO

FERNANDO AMORSOLO (1882-1972),

Mount Banahaw (2, 170m- 7, 120 ft) 

Philippines (Luzon)

 In Afternoon meal of the rice workers with Mount Banaho de Luchan, Private collection 

The mountain

Mount Banahaw (2, 170m- 7, 120 ft) is an active volcano on Luzon in the Philippines. The three-peaked volcano complex is located between the provinces of Laguna and Quezon and is the tallest mountain in the Calabarzon region dominating the landscape for miles around. 

Mount Banahaw is a traditional pilgrimage site for locals, believed by many as a "Holy mountain", a spiritually-charged location. The mountain and its environs are considered sacred by local residents; the water from its sacred springs are deemed "holy water" for allegedly having beneficial qualities, issuing forth from locations called "puestos" or "holy sites". These sites are unique natural features composed not only of springs, but also caves, streams and boulders; with names with biblical allusions, and shrines erected in, on or around them. These locations were allegedly revealed to a man named Agripino Lontoc by the "Santong Boses" or the "Holy Voices", which also gave the names to these places way back during the Spanish Colonial Era. Another one of this mountain is the adjacent Mount Banahaw de Lucbán.

Due to incessant climbing activity the mountain trails have become littered with trash. In March 2004, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ordered a 5-year suspension of hiking activity in the mountains, covering the Dolores and Sariaya trails. Reopening was delayed was then scheduled to March 2012, but was further extended to February 2015.

The painter 
Fernando Cueto Amorsolo was one of the most important artists in the history of painting in the Philippines.Amorsolo was a portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes. He is popularly known for his craftsmanship and mastery in the use of light. After graduating from the Univeajor influences on his work. Amorsolo set up his own studio upon his return to Manila and painted prodigiously during the 1920s and the 1930s. His Rice Planting (1922), which appeared on posters and tourist brochures, became one of the most popular images of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Beginning in the 1930s, Amorsolo's work was exhibited widely both in the Philippines and abroad. His bright,optimistic, pastoral images set the tone for Philippine painting before World War II . Except for his darker World War II-era paintings, Amorsolo painted quiet and peaceful scenes throughout his career.

Amorsolo was sought after by influential Filipinos including Luis Araneta, Antonio Araneta and Jorge B. Vargas. Amorsolo also became the favourite Philippine artist of United States officials and visitors to the country. Due to his popularity, Amorsolo had to resort to photographing his works and pasted and mounted them in an album. Prospective patrons could then choose from this catalog of his works. Amorsolo did not create exact replicas of his trademark themes; he recreated the paintings by varying some elements.

His works later appeared on the cover and pages of children textbooks, in novels, in commercial designs, in cartoons and illustrations for the Philippine publications such The Independent, Philippine Magazine, Telembang, El Renacimiento Filipino, and Excelsior. He was the director of the University of the Philippine's College of Fine Arts from 1938 to 1952.

During the 1950s until his death in 1972, Amorsolo averaged to finishing 10 paintings a month. However, during his later years, diabetes, cataracts, arthritis, headaches, dizziness and the death of two sons affected the execution of his works. Amorsolo underwent a cataract operation when he was 70 years old, a surgery that did not impede him from drawing and painting.

After being confined at the St. Luke's Hospital in Quezon City for two months, Amorsolo died  at the age of 79 on April 24, 1972. The volume of paintings, sketches and studies of Amorsolo is believed to have reached more than 10,000 pieces. Amorsolo was an important influence on contemporary Filipino art and artists, even beyond the so-called "Amorsolo school." Amorsolo's influence can be seen in many landscape paintings by Filipino artists, including early landscape paintings by abstract painter Federico Aguilar Alcuaz.

In 2003, Amorsolo's children founded the Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving Fernando Amorsolo's legacy, promoting his style and vision, and preserving a national heritage through the conservation and promotion of his works.

Sources

 - Fernando Amorsolo foundation web site 

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY HOKUSAI

 KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760–1849) 

Fujiyama / 富士山  (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

The Big wave from 100 views of the Fuji, color block print, last series, 2nd volume, 1834.

About this print

 It is a mirrored version of the famous Great wave of Kanagawa   from the 36 views of the Fuji.
There are no boats and the wave crests are birds flying to the Mount Fuji.

The artist
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎)  was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji " both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. In this series, Mt Fuji is painted on different meteorological conditions, in different hours of the days, in different seasons and from different places.

The mountain 
This is the legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山).
It is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). Several names are attributed to it:  "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san".  The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji,  have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳／富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

SERRA DOS ORGAOS BY JOHANN MORITZ RUGENDAS

JOHANN MORITZ RUGENDAS (1802-1858)

Serra dos Orgaos: 

Pedra do Sino (2,263m- 7,425 ft)

Dedo de Deus (1,682m - 5,551ft) 

Escalavrado  (1,490m -4,890 ft) 

Brazil

 In Serra dos Orgaos, 1820, engraving, Centro de documentaçao D. Joaoa VI, Brazil

The mountains 

Pedra do Sino (Bell Rock) at 2,263 metres (7,425 ft),  Dedo de Deus (God's finger) at 1,682m (5,551ft) and  Escalavrado at 1,692 m (5,551 ft) are the highest  peaks int the Serra dos Órgãos  (Organ Range), a mountain range located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and containing the Serra dos Órgãos National Park. The peaks with steep rock walls are dramatic features that can be seen on a clear day from Rio de Janeiro, which is 50 kilometres (31 mi) distant. The Serra dos Órgãos cover san area of 20,024 hectares (49,480 acres). The range is an escarpment on the northern edge of the Guanabara Graben between the cities of Petropolis and Teresopolis. The name comes from perceived resemblance of the vertical rock formations created by erosion to the tubes of organs.

A north west fracture is exposed at the plateau's rock surfaces, which defines the direction of the ridges and valleys along the escarpment. One of these ridges contains several granite peaks including God's Finger. Formation of the rocks may have occurred around 620 million years ago. North east vertical fractures, spaced regularly about every 500 m (1,600 ft), cut the north west structures at right angles. Erosion along these fractures has isolated the massive rock blocks. The valleys have well-preserved deposits of debris that has fallen from the rock walls. In November 1981 a period of intense rain triggered hundreds of shallow landslides and flows of debris that blocked the BR-116 highway and killed about 20 people.

The painter 

Johann Moritz Rugendas was a German painter, famous for his works depicting landscapes and ethnographic subjects in several countries in the Americas, in the first half of the 19th century. Rugendas is considered "by far the most varied and important of the European artists to visit Latin America." whom Alexander von Humboldt influenced.  

Rugendas was born in Augsburg, then Holy Roman Empire, now Germany, into the seventh generation of a family of noted painters and engravers of Augsburg, the great grandson of Georg Philipp Rugendas, 1666–1742, a famous painter of battles.  Inspired by the artistic work of Thomas Ender (1793–1875) and the travel accounts in the tropics by German naturalists Johann Baptist von Spix (1781–1826) and Carl von Martius (1794–1868), in the course of the Austrian Brazil Expedition, Rugendas arrived in Brazil in 1821. There he was soon hired as an illustrator for Baron von Langsdorff's scientific expedition to Minas Gerais and São Paulo. Consul-general of the Russian Empire in Brazil, Langsdorff had a farm in the northern region of Rio de Janeiro, where Rugendas went to live with other members of the expedition. Rugendas visited the Serra da Mantiqueira and the historical towns of Barbacena, São João del Rei, Mariana, Ouro Preto, Caeté, Sabará and Santa Luzia. Just before the fluvial phase of the expedition started (a fateful journey to the Amazon), he became alienated from von Langsdorff, left the expedition and was replaced by the artists Adrien Taunay and Hércules Florence. However, he remained on his own in Brazil until 1825, exploring and recording his many impressions of daily life in the provinces of Mato Grosso, Pernambuco, Bahia, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro. He produced mostly drawings and watercolors.
- More about Johann Moritz Rugandas

SINAÏ / JABAL MUSA BY JOHN MARTIN

JOHN MARTIN (1789-1854)

Mount Sinaï or Jabal Musa (2, 285 m - 7, 496 ft) 

Egypt

  In The flight into Egypt, oil on canvas, The MET  

The mountain 

Mount Sinaï (2,285 m - 7,496 ft) or Jabal Mūsā or Gabal Mūsā (in arab: "Moses' Mountain" or "Mount Moses"), also known as Mount Horeb or Jebel Musa (a similarly named mountain in Morocco), is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is a possible location of the biblical Mount Sinai.  The latter is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus (and other books of the Bible) and the Quran. According to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition, the biblical Mount Sinai was the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments. It is the reason it is a Sacred mountain for Jewish and Christian. 

Saint Catherine's Monastery - visible on the painting  above on the right side of the Holy family -  is officially called "Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai"  and lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge, at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the city of Saint Catherine, South Sinai Governorate, Egypt. The monastery is controlled by the autonomous Church of Sinai, part of the wider Eastern Orthodox Church, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world. The site contains the world's oldest continually operating library, possessing many unique books including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus. A small town with hotels and swimming pools, called Saint Katherine City, has grown around the monastery.

Sources : 

- More about Mont Sinaï 

The Painter 

John Martin was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator. He was celebrated for his typically vast and melodramatic paintings of religious subjects and fantastic compositions, populated with minute figures placed in imposing landscapes. Martin's paintings, and the engravings made from them, enjoyed great success with the general public—in 1821 Lawrence referred to him as "the most popular painter of his day"—but were lambasted by Ruskin and other critics.

- More about John Martin 

LES FALAISES D'ETRETAT PAINTED BY GUSTAVE COURBET

GUSTAVE COURBET  (1819-1877)

The Falaises d'Etretat (70 to 90 m -  230 to 300 ft)  

La Porte d'aval, L'Aiguille, La Porte d'Amont, La Manneporte

France (Normandie)  

In Les falaises d'Etretat après l'orage, 1870, oil on canvas, 162cm x130 - 51.2 x 63.8 in,  

Musée d'Orsay Paris  

The cliffs 

Etretat is best known for its chalk cliffs, including three natural arches and a pointed formation called L'Aiguille (the Needle), which rises 70 m- 230 ft above the sea. The Etretat Chalk Complex, as it is known, consists of a complex stratigraphy of Turonian and Coniacian chalks. Some of the cliffs are as high as 90 metres (300 ft).

These cliffs and the associated resort beach attracted artists including Eugène Boudin, Gustave Courbet and Claude Monet.  They were featured prominently in the 1909 Arsène Lupin novel The Hollow Needle by Maurice Leblanc. They also feature in the 2014 film Lucy, directed by Luc Besson.

Two of the three famous arches are visible from the town, the Porte d'Aval (Aval Cliff)  and the Porte d'Amont (Amont Cliff).  The Manneporte  (Main Door) is the third and the biggest one, and cannot be seen from the town.

- La Porte d'Aval (Aval Cliff ) 

On the foreshore cleared by the sea at the foot of the Porte d'Aval, one notices, dug into the limestone bedrock and partially covered with green algae, ancient parks а oysters, whose culture lasted only a few years. 

- L'arche et L'aiguille  (The Ark and the Needle)

An underground river, then marine erosion formed a natural arch and a estimated 55 meter to 70 meters  high needle, relic piece of the cliff. Maurice Leblanc describes it in these terms in his novel The Hollow Needle (1909) : "An enormous roach, more than eighty meters high, colossal obelisk, plumb on its granite base"  At his time, the site already attracted many tourists among them "lupinophiles" admirers of Arsene Lupine: American students came for the key to the cave, where the "gentleman burglar" had found the treasure of kings of France.

- The Manneporte and the Trou à L'homme (The Maindoor and Hole of the man) 

From the old French manna door, "big door, main door". It is wider than the cliff of Aval and is located behind it. Above а side of the arch, we see a huge black hole in the cliff:  le Trou à l'homme (the Hole of the Man)  that takes its name from a Swedish sailor, sole survivor of the sinking of his ship due to violent storm that would have lasted nearly 24 hours. It would have been projected by a blade into this cavity, thereby assuring its survival. The so called  Hole of the Man is accessible by an iron ladder and it is always off-water at the time of the tides.

The long tunnel which opens to the "Hole of the Man " leads а Creek Petit Port at the mouth of the valleuse Jambourg actually a beach at the foot of the needle and framed by two large doors.

You can reach the top of the cliff by a staircase directly at the end of the Perrey, followed by a well laid out, sloping path that runs alongside the golf course, to the right you climb to the top. One enjoys at the same time, of the sight on the village, on the needle and on Manneporte. You can also enter the little natural refuge nicknamed "Chambre des Demoiselles" ( Young ladies room) described by Maurice Leblanc.

- La porte d'Amont  (Amont Cliff)

The Porte d'Amont is the smallest of the three doors and the most visually famous.  The french writer Guy de Maupassant compares this cliff of upstream to " an elephant that plunges its trunk into the water ". At the top of the cliff stands the stone silhouette of the chapel Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, protector of fishermen. The present building succeeds a chapel of the nineteenth century. You can also reach the cliff but the staircase is much steeper.  The current building succeeds a 19th century chapel in neo-gothic style.   It was destroyed by the occupier during the Second World War. Then one arrive at the monument and the museum made by the architect Gaston Delaune and dedicated to Charles Nungesser and François Coli, two aviators who tried to rally New York in 1927 and which were seen for the last time in this place, after Having taken off from Le Bourget on the edge of their plane, the mythical White Bird.

The GR 21 long-distance hiking path (Le Havre to Le Tréport) passes through the town.

 Source: 

 - Etretat official website  

 The Painter 

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.
Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death.
Courbet  painted a few mountains in his life : the Juras mountains around Ornans ( France) and a few  mountains in Switzerland during his exil; Like many painters of the 19th Century, Courbet didn't name the mountain he painted; he liked to give a description of the general atmosphere rather than  a precise geographical location.
 "I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty."

GROSS WINDGÄLLEN PAINTED BY ASCAN LUTTEROTH

ASCAN  LUTTEROTH (1842 - 1923)
The Gross Windgällen (3,187 m - 10, 456ft)
Switzerland (Canton of Uri) 

The Mountain

The Gross Windgällen (3,187 m - 10, 456ft) high mountain in the Glarus Alps, overlooking the valley of the Reuss in the canton of Uri. The name Gross Windgällen derives from Gälle or gellen, meaning as much as wailing, shrilling or whistling.  The massif of the Gross Wingällen lies between two parallel valleys, the Schächental on the north side and the Maderanertal on the south side, both converging to the Reuss on the west at approximately 500 metres above sea level or 2,700 m below the summit. On the north side, the massif encloses a small valley, the Brunnital, which belong to the Schächental, thus forming an amphitheatre of several summits above 3,000 m, including the Gross Ruchen on the east; the north wall of the Gross Ruchen being connected with that of the Gross Windgällen.

Several glaciers can be found on the southern side of the mountain, among which the Stäfelfirn, located east of the summit. The north-west face is very steep and has no glaciers, it overlooks the small lake of Seewli (2,028 m). Two kilometres south-west of the Gross Windgällen lies the Chli Windgällen (2,986 m).

The closest locality is Golzern on its southern flanks at 1,400 m, from where the Gross Windgällen is usually climbed. The Windgällen hut, owned by the Academic Alpine Club of Zurich is located higher at 2,032 m. From there starts the normal route to the top, via the Stäfelfirn.

The first climbing was made in 1848 by a mountain guide from Uri, Josef Maria Tresch-Exer together with Melchior Tresch. This enabled Tresch-Exer for a subsequent climb to the summit together with Georg Hoffmann which took place ten days later.

The painter

Ascan Lutteroth was a German landscape painter, son of the banker Christian Alexander Ascan Lutteroth. He studied from 1861 with Alexandre Calame in Geneva and 1864 to 1867 with Oswald Achenbach in Düsseldorf. From 1868 to 1870 he lived in Italy, he went and live in Capri for a while, before going to  Berlin until 1877. Crown Prince Frederick William and Crown Princess Victoria greatly appreciated him. In 1879 they took him on their journey to San Remo and Lutteroth became the teacher of the Crown Princess. In 1890 Wilhelm II gave him the official title of professor. He is regarded as the most important Hamburg landscape painter of his time. Until 1909 he was chairman of the Hamburg artist 's workshop of 1832. Among the 91 paintings and 32 watercolors he produced, Lutteroth mainly painted landscapes from Italy and the Hamburg area, alpine and forest scenes, sparingly populated with small figures. His works were represented in the major national and international exhibitions, including in the Berlin National Gallery, the Rudolfinum Prague, and the Magdeburg Gallery.  Today the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau in the Georgian Palace,  the Museumberg Flensburg, the Städtische Galerie Rosenheim and the Museum Villingen-Schwenningen have pictures by him. In the Leipzig Museum, there was a painting of the Mawensi (East Summit of Kilimanjaro) depicting Lutteroth in 1889, with the African farmer and researcher Hans Meyer. Donated to the Museum Leipzig Museum in 1890 by  J. Meyer, this work has been lost since the Second World War.

PEÑALARA PAINTED BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA

JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BATISDA (1863-1923)

Peñalara (2,428 m -7,966 ft)  

Spain

 In Vista del Torneo, El Pardo y la Sierra de Guadarrama, 1907, oil on canvas, 

Museo Sorolla Madrid

The Mountain

In this painting one can see a panoramic of a part of El Pardo, in the first term and in the background, the Sierra de Guadarrama and its highest peak the Peñalara, half covered by snow.

El Pardo is located in the northern suburb of Madrid, close to the Manzanares river. Part of its area is covered by a forest named Monte de El Pardo (El Pardo Mountain). The ward contains a neighbourhood called Mingorrubio.  The ward was first mentioned in 1405 and in 1950 was an autonomous municipality of the Community of Madrid. One of the most notable buildings is the Royal Palace of El Pardo, built in 1406 by the order of King Henry III of Castile. It was the first large edifice built in the area.
The Peñalara (2,428 m -7,966 ft)  is the highest peak of the Sierra de Guadarrama,  a mountain range forming the main eastern section of the Sistema Central, the system of mountain ranges along the centre of the Iberian Peninsula.  The range runs southwest—northeast, extending from the province of Ávila in the southwest, through the Community of Madrid, to the province of Segovia in the northeast. The range measures approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) in length.  The mountain range's proximity to Madrid means it can get crowded with visitors. The range is crossed by numerous roads and railway routes. It has a highly developed tourism infrastructure, coupled with provisions for various mountain sports. This poses a threat to the fragile environment and habitats of the mountains.
The others peaks of the Sierra de Guadarama range are: Bola del Mundo (2,265 m, 7,431 ft),
Cabezas de Hierro (2,383 m, 7,818 ft), Dos Hermanas (2,285 m, 7,496 ft), Flecha (2,078 m, 6,807 ft), La Maliciosa (2,227 m, 7,306 ft), La Najarra (2,108 m, 6,916 ft), El Nevero (2,209 m, 7,227 ft),
Pandasco (2,238 m, 7,342 ft), Peña del Águila (2,010 m, 6,594 ft), La Peñota (1,945 m, 6,381 ft)
Risco de los Claveles (2,387 m, 7,831 ft), Risco de los Pájaros (2,334 m, 7,657 ft), Siete Picos (2,138 m, 7,014 ft), Montón de Trigo (2,161 m, 7,089 ft), Cerro de Valdemartín (2,280 m, 7,480 ft), Monte Abantos (1,753 m, 5,751 ft) and   El Yelmo (1,717 m, 5,633 ft).
The flora of the Sierra de Guadarrama is characterized in the higher elevation Atlantic vegetation region with Juniper groves, montane grasslands, Spanish broom thickets, pine forests, and Pyrenean Oaks forests; and in the lower elevation Mediterranean vegetation region by Holm oak forests. while the pastures around the summits are fringed by juniper and Spanish broom shrubs.

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.

Sorolla's influence on some other Spanish painters, such as Alberto Pla y Rubio and Julio Romero de Torres, was so noted that they are described as "sorollista."

After his death, Sorolla's widow, Clotilde Garcia del Castillo, left many of his paintings to the Spanish public. The paintings eventually formed the collection that is now known as the Museo Sorolla, which was the artist's house in Madrid. The museum opened in 1932.

Sorolla's work is represented in museums throughout Spain, Europe, America, and in many private collections in Europe and America. In 1933, J. Paul Getty purchased ten Impressionist beach scenes made by Sorolla, several of which are now housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum.

In 2007 many of his works were exhibited at the Petit Palais in Paris, alongside those of John Singer Sargent, a contemporary who painted in a similarly impressionist-influenced manner. In 2009, there was a special exhibition of his works at the Prado in Madrid, and in 2010, the exhibition visited the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba, Brazil.

 - More about Joaquin Sorolla 

MOUNT MANAIA PAINTED BY CHARLES BLOMFIELD

CHARLES BLOMFIELD (1848-1926)

Mount Manaia (420m - 1, 378ft) 

New Zealand

In Mount Manaia, Whangarei, 1921, oil on board, Private collection, New Zealand

The mountain 

Mount Manaia  (420m) is a dominant landmark approximately 30 kilometres southeast of Whangarei city on the Whangarei Heads peninsula. The summit offers outstanding views of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery, Bream Bay and the Hauraki Gulf to the south, Whangarei Harbour to the west and the Poor Knights Islands and Northland coast to the north.

Mt Manaia - along with Mt Lion, Bream Head and the Hen and Chicken Islands, are the scattered remnants of a large, 50 kilometer diameter volcano that erupted with force 20 million years ago during the early miocene period. Its jagged outline is similar to that of its neighbours and other volcanic outcrops in Northland that erupted in a similar period.

Today blanketed by native bush, Manaia's jagged peaks and steep bluffs are protected within a Department of Conservation reserve which features a well-maintained 1Ѕ hour track to the summit.

The painter 

Charles Blomfield  was a New Zealand decorator, artist and music teacher born in London, England.

A widow, Blomfield's mother brought her family to New Zealand in the 1860's intending to settle in Northland as part of a settlement called Albertland. On arrival in Auckland they decided not to proceed on Northland to become farmers but to pursue urban trades in Auckland. The family remained in Auckland after that and many of the descendants of the various children still reside in the Auckland area.

Charles Blomfield lived in Freeman's Bay - 40 Wood Street, in a house built by his brother and allegedly made out of the timber from one large Kauri tree. As well as an exhibiting easel painter Blomfield worked as a sign-writer and interior decorator; for this trade he maintained studios in shops at various times. These were usually on Karangahape Road, one of these was shared with his daughter who made a living painting floral pieces which she also exhibited at the Auckland Society of Arts.

Blomfield travelled throughout the centre of the North Island on several occasions in the 1870s and 80s creating many landscape paintings of the New Zealand countryside, often for sale to visitors to New Zealand. He was fortunate to view the famed Pink and White Terraces several times and paint them before they were destroyed by the eruption of Tarawera in 1886. His meticulous sketches and finished paintings are some of the main records of them (see above).  For the remainder of his life he was probably able to rely on new versions of his classic views of them to supplement his income.

His paintings are widely regarded as the epitome of 19th century New Zealand landscape art, although his work, like many of his contemporaries, fell out of fashion during the 20th century, only to be re-evaluated in the 1970s. He was unable to come to terms with developments in art and remained staunchly conservative and hostile to 'modern art'. In his later years he found himself increasingly sidelined by the artistic circles in Auckland which he had previously shone in and was probably embittered by this.

Blomfield died at his residence in Wood Street in 1926. He was survived by several children. One of his brothers, William, was a noted newspaper cartoonist.

COL DU SAINT-GOTHARD BY JEAN-FRANÇOIS ALBANIS BEAUMONT

JEAN-FRANÇOIS ALBANIS  BEAUMONT (1753-1812) 

Col du Saint Gothard (2, 108m - 6,916 ft) 

Switzerland

 In Ascension du Gothard from Journey in the Alps Lepontine  from France to Italy, 1800, aquatint

The  mountain pass
The Col du Saint-Gothard (2, 108m - 6,916 ft), in  Italian Passo del Gottardo, in German  Gotthardpass, is a mountain pass of the Swiss Alps which connects Andermatt in the Canton of Uri to Airolo in the canton of Ticino. This pass, whose name refers to Gothard de Hildesheim, provided most of the direct flows of people and goods between northern Switzerland and Ticino and Italy, and more generally between the center of the plain of Pô  and North Europe.
The vast glacial basin that leads to the pass itself is a place of passage that has been used for centuries, which has contributed to the prosperity of the cities of Milan and Zurich, linking them directly. It would have been opened around 1220, thanks in particular to the construction of the Pont du Diable (The Bridge of Evil) which brings the advantage over other passes of the Central Alps to be relatively low and to have valleys easy to access.
It was linked with the constitution of a first confederation of Swiss cantons (Confederation of III Cantons) at the end of the 13th century around Lake Lucerne and towards Ticino. At that time, the canton of Uri  enjoyed a new importance and potential income from the toll. His dependence of the Count of Zurich Rudolf II, from the house of Habsburg, was bought in 1231 in the name of Frederick II.
The first mention of an hospice existing in this mountain pass, dates back to 1237.  Four centuries later, in 1602, Frederic Borromée established a priest there and built a house for travelers in 1623-1629. From 1685 to 1841, the establishment is managed by the Capuchin brothers. After the fall of an avalanche in 1774 (as it can be seen in the painting above) the building is rebuilt in stone, accompanied by an octagonal stable. The old "Souste" (now the National Museum of St. Gothard) was erected in 1834-1837 according to plans of Domenico Fontana. This rectangular building, with portico and characteristic arcades on the main façade, was restored in 1983-1986. The building initially served as a hotel for wealthy travelers, but also as a warehouse and customs post. It later became a dependency of the Albergo Monte Prosa, established on plans by A. Regli and inaugurated in 1886.
A dam was constructed in the cervical bowl of the pass. During the second half of the 20th century, the lake near the pass was immersed in obsolete munitions by the Swiss army.
To reach Airolo, there are two routes that leave from the summit:
- Tremola vecchia (meaning "old trembling" in Italian), the old road, still almost entirely paved;
- A more modern road, the Nuova tremola.
To reach Andermatt, the winding road offers a view of beautiful scenery.

The route of the pass is regularly borrowed by the cyclist Tour de Suisse. Since its creation in 1933, this competition has passed 37 times on the Gotthard.

The painter
Sir  Jean-François Albanis Beaumont, draughtsman, aquatint engraver, and landscape painter, was born in Chambery in 1753, but naturalized in England.  He studied classics in Chambéry and when he was 17 years old went to Paris. He studied 4 years at the Royal College of Engineering of Mézières and received several commissions in the Bourbonnais.
Returning in 1775 to Chambéry, he designed the decorations for the celebrations of the marriage of Clotilde de France and Prince Charles-Emmanuel. Engineer Filippo Nicolis di Robilant encouraged him to work for king Victor Amadeus III, who placed him with the chief engineer of the county of Nice, where he took part in the important works underway in Port Lympia. He was inscribed on April 30, 1780, in the class of civil architects of the University of Turin.
He accompanied the Duke of Gloucester, William Frederick of Hanover in his Grand Tour (Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland), who subsequently entrusted him with the education of his children. He then settled in Britain and married an Englishwoman of Protestant religion.
In 1787 he began to publish his first works illustrated with his own drawings "Picturesque travel to the Pennine Alps", "Historical and picturesque journey of the County of Nice", "Journey through the Rhaetian Alps in 1786", "Selected views of antiquities And ports in the south of France "and" Travel through the Maritime Alps".
In 1796, his mission was completed and he could return to Savoie and settle near Genevawhere in 1798 he bought a small agricultural estate on the commune of Thônex with which he planned to enter the  trade of wool. He does not find the success expected and must soon resell everything and resume his work as geographer and traveler.
In 1800, he published "Journey in the Alps Lepontine from France to Italy" and then "Description of the Greek and Cote Alps" (1802 and 1806).
In 1810, he died at the monastery of Sixt of which he became the owner. He had resumed the exploitation of the iron mines, but he faced too many difficulties. He is buried on the spot.
The views of the towns and landscapes he drew are very sought after and give an idea of ​​the appearance of these places at the time.

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY HASUI KAWASE

 HASUI KAWASE (1883-1957) 

Fujiyama / 富士山  (3,776.24 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

In  Mt Fuji seen from Oshino, 1942, woodblock print (shin hanga), Private collection 

The mountain 

This is the legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山)  (3,776.24 m -12,389 ft)
It is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan. Several names are attributed to it:  "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san".  The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji,  have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳／富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

The artist
Hasui Kawase (川瀬 巴水) was one of the most prominent print japanese designers of the shin-hanga ("new prints") movement. Kawase worked almost exclusively on landscape and townscape prints based on sketches he made in Tokyo and during travels around Japan. However, his prints are not merely meishō (famous places) prints that are typical of earlier ukiyo-e masters such as Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Kawase's prints feature locales that are tranquil and obscure in urbanizing Japan. Hasui considered himself a realist and employed his training in Western painting in his compositions. Like Hiroshige he made travel and landscape prints, though his subjects were less known locations rendered with naturalistic light, shade, and texture, without the captions and titles that were standard in prints of Hiroshige's age.
Kawase left a large body of woodblock prints and watercolors. Many of the watercolors are linked to the woodblock prints, he also produced oil paintings, traditional hanging scrolls and a few byōbu (folding screens). In the West, Kawase is mainly known as a Japanese woodblock printmaker. He and Hiroshi Yoshida are widely regarded as two of the greatest artists of the shin-hanga style, and are known especially for their landscape prints.

THE SAINTE-BAUME PAINTED BY JOACHIM PATINIER

JOACHIM PATINIER (1483-1524)

La Sainte-Baume (1,148m -3,766ft)

 France (Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur)

  1. In The Rest on the flight to Egypt, oil on wood panel, Museo nacional del Prado, Madrid 

2. In Saint Mary Magdalene in ecstasy, "atelier de...", oil on wood panel, Kunsthaus Zürich

The Mountain
The Sainte-Baume massif has two summits, of the same altitude : the Joug de l'Aigle (Eagle Jug) and the Signal des Beguines (1,148m - 3,766ft). The massif also includes on its western flank the highest point of the Bouches-du-Rhône: the Pic de Bertagne (1,042 m - 3,419 ft), a majestic rocky outcrop dominating the western slope of the massif. The Sainte-Baume is a Provençal massif in the South-East of France, which extends between the departments of the Bouches-du-Rhone and the Var on an area of ​​45,000 hectares over 35 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide and has a 13.3-kilometer-long peak line. It is the most extensive and highest of the Provençal mountain ranges, located about twenty kilometers from the Mediterranean coast, close to cities of Marseille, Aix-en-Provence and Toulon.
The exceptional character of the site is the presence of a developed beech forest preserved for centuries and the cave of Saint Mary Magdalene, a major Christian pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages. In Occitan Provençal, the name Santa Bauma comes from the presence of a cave (bauma / baumo in Provençal), which in the Christian tradition was occupied by Mary Magdalene for thirty years in the first century, after it had landed at the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and evangelized Provence.  She was buried in the crypt of the basilica of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.
In the pre-Christian era, the Sainte-Baume is already the sacred mountain for the people living in Massilia (nowadays Marseilles): high place of worship of the fecundities, and in particular of the goddess Artemis of Ephesus. Around 60, Lucan, a Latin poet, mentions a certain "sacred wood" near Massilia ... Around 415,  the cave of Mary Magdalene began to be a famous place of pilgrimage and at the same period, Saint Jean Cassien founded a first priory on his return from Egypt.  In 816, Pope Stephen VI, then, in 878, Pope John VIII went there. As on 22 July 1254, the king of France Saint Louis (Louis IX) visited Sainte-Baume on his return from the Crusade. In 1279, Charles II of Anjou, king of Sicily and count of Provence, carried out the excavations and discovered the relics of Mary Magdalene in Saint-Maximin, in a crypt buried under the Benedictine priory dedicated to the saint. A marble tomb is identified as that of Mary Magdalene. In addition, a scroll of parchment explains that the relics were buried at the beginning of the eighth century in order to protect them from the Saracen invasions that raged in the country.  In 1288, after six years of detention in Barcelona, ​​Charles II can implement his project to build a basilica to shelter the relics. Finally, on June 21, 1295, he obtained from Pope Boniface VIII a pontifical bull, which entrusted to the young order of the Dominicans the charge of the holy places: the basilica of Saint-Maximin and the cave of Sainte-Baume. In 1332, on the same day, Philip VI of Valois, King of France, Alfonso IV of Aragon, Hughes of Cyprus, and John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, came and pray in the cave. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, popes, kings and princes went on pilgrimage to the grotto, one of the most famous in Christendom.
Geologically, the formation of the Sainte-Baume massif has the same origin as the Pyrenean fold. These formations are attributed to the displacement of the Iberian peninsula in relation to the European plate. It begins to detach itself 120 million years ago and begins a vast movement of rotation, then digging the Pyrenean sulcus. 65 million years ago, the movement changed: the Iberian peninsula collided with the European plate, which caused the formation of the Pyrenees. The south-east of France, then propelled northeast of a hundred kilometers, undergoes deformations, one of the most important of which is that of the massif of Sainte-Baume.

About the paintings 
In the paintings presented here, the mountain with houses various constructions, including a circular building with dome, seems freely inspired by the Sainte-Baume in Provence, a site which was from the Middle Ages, for all Christian Europe, an important place of pilgrimage. Evoked in several of Patinier's paintings, the Sainte-Baume becomes the main motif of The Rest on the flight to Egypt  (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid) and , of course, for the Landscape with Saint Mary Magdalene in ecstasy (Kunsthaus, Zürich).

The painter 
Joachim Patinier, also called Patenir  was a major Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, then the centre of the art market in the Netherlands. Patinier was a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre and he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter.  He effectively invented the world landscape, a distinct style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes which is Patinier's important contribution to Western art.
There are only five paintings signed by Patinier, but many other works have been attributed to him or his workshop with varying degrees of probability. The ones that are signed read: (Opus) Joachim D. Patinier, the "D" in his signature signifying Dionantensis ("of Dinant"), reflecting his place of origin. The 2007 exhibition at the Museo del Prado in Madrid contained 21 pictures listed as by Patinier or his workshop, and catalogued a further 8 which were not in the exhibition.
Patinier was the friend of not only Dürer, but with Quentin Metsys as well, with whom he often collaborated. The Temptation of St Anthony (Prado) was done in collaboration with Metsys, who added the figures to Patinier's landscape. His career was nearly contemporary with that of the other major pioneer of paintings dominated by landscape, Albrecht Altdorfer, who worked in a very different style.
Patinier's immense vistas combine observation of naturalistic detail with lyrical fantasy. The steep outcrops of rocks in his landscapes are more spectacular versions of the group of very individual formations just around his native Dinant but also of sacred mountains of the time like the Sainte- Baume ; these became a part of the world landscape formula, and are found in the works of many painters who never saw the originals. His landscapes use a high viewpoint with a high horizon, but his grasp of aerial perspective is far from complete. He uses a consistent and effective colour scheme in his landscapes, which was influential on later landscape painting. The foreground is dominated by brownish shades, while "the middle ground [is] a bluish green and the background a pale blue", creating an effective sense of recession into the distance; "When combined with the frequently hard-toned browns, greens and blues that alternate with significant areas of white, a sense of impending doom is created by the threatening clouds, the capricious and sharply pointed contours of the rocks and the crowding together of natural elements."
Examples of his work include The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Prado, who have four Patinier, including two signed ones), The Baptism of Christ (one of two in Vienna), St. John at Patmos (by or with his workshop, National Gallery, London), Landscape with the Shepherds (Antwerp), and The Rest on the Flight to Egypt  (Museo Nacional del Prado Madrid ; National Gallery of Art, Washington),  Saint Mary Magdalene in ecstasy (Kunsthaus, Zürich).  There is also a triptych attributed to him called The Penitence of St. Jerome.