MULHACEN (2) BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA

JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BATISTA  (1863-1923)

 Mulhacén  (3, 478 m - 11,411ft)

Spain

In Sierra Nevada  in winter, oil on canvas, 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.

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.

Early in 1911, Sorolla visited the United States for a second time, and exhibited 152 new paintings at the Saint Louis Art Museum and 161 at the Art Institute of Chicago a few weeks later. Later that year Sorolla met Archie Huntington in Paris and signed a contract to paint a series of oils on life in Spain. These 14 magnificent murals, installed to this day in the Hispanic Society of America building in Manhattan, range from 12 to 14 feet in height, and total 227 feet in length.The major commission of his career, it would dominate the later years of Sorolla's life.

Huntington had envisioned the work depicting a history of Spain, but the painter preferred the less specific 'Vision of Spain', eventually opting for a representation of the regions of the Iberian Peninsula, and calling it The Provinces of Spain. Despite the immensity of the canvases, Sorolla painted all but one en plein air, and travelled to the specific locales to paint them: Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Elche, Seville, Andalusia, Extremadura, Galicia, Guipuzcoa, Castile, Leon, and Ayamonte, at each site painting models posed in local costume. Each mural celebrated the landscape and culture of its region, panoramas composed of throngs of laborers and locals. By 1917 he was, by his own admission, exhausted. He completed the final panel by July 1919.

Sorolla suffered a stroke in 1920, while painting a portrait in his garden in Madrid. Paralyzed for over three years, he died on 10 August 1923. He is buried in the Cementeri de Valencia, Spain.

The Sorolla Room, housing the Provinces of Spain at the Hispanic Society of America, opened to the public in 1926. The room closed for remodeling in 2008, and the murals toured museums in Spain for the first time. The Sorolla Room reopened in 2010, with the murals on permanent display.

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.

From 5 December 2011 to 10 March 2012, several of Sorolla's works were exhibited in Queen Sofia Spanish Institute, in New York. This exhibition included pieces used during Sorolla's eight-year research for The Vision of Spain.

MOUNT WILLIAM (ANTARCTICA) IN VINTAGE PRINTS 1898

VINTAGE PRINTS  1898
Mount William (1,600m - 6,200 ft) 

Antarctica 

In  Le Belgica ancré devant le Mont William 1898,
From Travaux hydrographiques et Instructions Nautiques  by Georges Lecointe

The mountain

Mount William (1,600m - 6,200 ft)  is a prominent snowy mountain in Antarctica,  located 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) north-northeast of Cape Lancaster which is the south extremity of Anvers Island, in the Palmer Archipelago. This is the tallest mountain visible from Biscoe Bay, near the south end of the island's Osterrieth Range which also includes Mount Français (the tallest mountain on the island).

This mountain was discovered on February 21, 1832, by John Biscoe who incorrectly believed it to be part of the mainland of Antarctic Peninsula, instead of on an island. He named it for William IV, then King of the United Kingdom. Mountain climbers from the U.K. were the first to ascend this peak, in 1956. In 2003, after climbing this mountain, two Americans skied down.

About the Belgica expedition 
The Belgian Antarctic Expedition led by Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery from 1897 to 1899 aboard the Belgica, is the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic region and, most of all, the very expedition to Antartica.  Among its members are Frederick Cook and Roald Amundsen, explorers who will claim, respectively, the conquest of the North Pole and the conquest of the South Pole and the Northwest Passage.
First expedition to Antarctica with purely scientific objectives, she left Antwerp on August 16, 1897 and headed for the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.  Even before the arrival to the South, several members of the crew abandon the ship or are caught in various quarrels and incidents in Ostend, Montevideo and Punta Arenas, leaving doubts about the choice and quality of the crew members compared to the scientific staff who are irreproachable.  The different nationalities and languages ​​associated with discipline problems undermine the morale of the crew.
After a long journey, the crew docked in Tierra del Fuego or they will have the last contacts with men before their departure to the great south.
Their arrival on the Antarctic continent is the occasion of the first scientific discoveries on these lands. A team of international scientists including a biologist, a glaciologist, a geographer, a naturalist and a doctor will work for several weeks to collect as much information as possible about these virgin lands.
Despite the season, it is decided to continue the exploration further south ..., the ship will be trapped by ice a few weeks later near the island Peter I, and will drift into the sea Bellingshausen during the following thirteen months. The expedition thus became the first to officially winter in the Antarctic region. Seal hunters had forcibly wintered on King George Island in the South Shetland Islands in 1821.
The members of the expedition lived in very harsh weather conditions, but this will not prevent them from collecting a significant amount of scientific data and commenting on the annual Antarctic cycle1. The crew is severely affected by scurvy, but Dr. Cook, in advising the seal and penguin meat, will restore the members of the expedition. On July 5, 1898, Émile Danco died of a heart attack.
After months of drifting, the ship managed to free itself from the ice and make its way to Belgium where explorers were welcomed as heroes. 
This first scientific expedition will launch the great nations to discover the continent. The Belgica Expedition will go down in history as the pioneering expedition to scientific research in Antarctica. Indeed, for the first time, an expedition had explored the Antarctic with a goal primarily scientific, bringing back to his return seasoned men including two of them, Roald Amundsen and Frederick Cook, had discovered their polar vocation, the one that was going to lead them to become great of the conquest of the poles, that of the South for Amundsen, that of the north for Cook.

MAUNA LOA PAINTED BY JULES TAVERNIER

JULES TAVERNIER (1844-1889) 

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

 United States of America  (Hawai'i)

 In Wailuku Falls, Hilo, Snow on the Mauna Loa, c. 1886,  oil on canvas 
Honolulu Museum of Arts  

The volcano 

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

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

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

The painter 
Jules Tavernier was a French painter, illustrator, and an important member of Hawaii’s Volcano School.  He studied with the French painter, Félix Joseph Barrias (1822–1907). he left France in the 1870s and never  return. Tavernier was employed as an illustrator by Harper's Magazine, which sent him, along with Paul Frenzeny, on a year-long coast-to-coast sketching tour in 1873.
 Eventually, he continued westward to Hawaii, where he became quite famous as a landscape painter. He was fascinated by Hawaii’s erupting volcanoes—a subject that pre-occupied him for the rest of his life, which was spent in Hawaii, Canada and the western United States. Tavernier died on 18 May 1889 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He painted several version of the Kilauea erupting between 1880 and the end of his life.
Among the public collections holding paintings by Jules Tavernier are the Brigham Young University Museum of Art (Provo, UT), the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (Colorado Springs, CO), the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento), the Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa, OK), Hearst Art Gallery (Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Museum of Nebraska Art (Kearney, NE), the Oakland Museum of California, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Stark Museum of Art (Orange, TX), the Society of California Pioneers (San Francisco, CA), the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (Hagerstown, MD) and the Yosemite Museum (Yosemite National Park).
After his death his art lived on in the hearts and homes of Hawaiians, and many more artists picked up on the volcano landscape theme he started. His Western art was mostly forgotten.
Fifty years after his death the Honolulu Advertiser remembered Jules Tavernier in December 1940 with the comment: “...to the generation which knew King Kalakaua, Tavernier recalls to mind some of the greatest paintings ever made of Hawaii volcanoes.”
At the beginning of the twenty-first century interest has reawakened in Tavernier's Western landscape art; museums are purchasing his pictures and prices for his oil paintings are increasing.
His students included D. Howard Hitchcock (1861–1943), Amédée Joullin (1862–1917), Charles Rollo Peters (1862–1917) and Manuel Valencia (1856–1935).

SNAEFELL PAINTED BY MUGGUR

MUGGUR (1891-1924) 

Snæfell or Snæfellsjökull  (1,446 m - 4,744 ft)

Iceland

In Snæfellsjökull, 1922, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Iceland

The mountain 
Snæfell or Snæfellsjökull  (1,446 m - 4,744 ft)  (meaning snow-fell glacier) is a 700,000-year-old glacier-capped stratovolcano in western Iceland. The name of the mountain is actually Snæfell, but it is normally called "Snæfellsjökull" to distinguish it from two other mountains with this name. It is situated on the most western part of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in Iceland. Sometimes it may be seen from the city of Reykjavík over Faxa Bay, at a distance of 120 km.
The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, primarily due to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) by Jules Verne, in which the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the earth on Snæfellsjökull. The mountain is included in the Snæfellsjökull National Park (Icelandic: Þjóðgarðurinn Snæfellsjökull).
In August 2012 the summit was ice-free for the first time in recorded history.

The painter 
 Muggur  whose the real name is Guрmundur Petursson Thorsteinsson,  was an Icelandic painter, graphic artist, author and film actor. His younger brothers were all professional football players.
His father, Pétur (1845-1929) was one of the richest men in Iceland. When he was twelve, the family moved to Copenhagen, but they travelled continuously between there and Iceland.
He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1911 to 1915, but also took study trips to Germany and Italy.  In 1915, he made a visit to the United States, where his works had recently been exhibited;
In addition to his paintings, he wrote and illustrated a children's book, The Story of Dimmalimm, about a young girl and an enchanted swan.  He created numerous drawings inspired by the Eddas as well and created Iceland's first unique deck of playing cards.
He was also a talented amateur actor and had a major role in one of Iceland's first films, Sons of the Soil (Saga Borgarжttarinnar), based on a novel by Gunnar Gunnarsson.
A brief marriage that ended in divorce led him to drink heavily. In 1923, already in deteriorating health, he was kicked in the back by a horse. After a lengthy stay at a spa in France, he returned to the family estate in Denmark and died of a chest ailment (possibly tuberculosis), aged only thirty-two. Most of his works are in the National Gallery of Iceland.

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

EUROBEA MONS BY NASA VOYAGER 1 MISSION

NASA VOYAGER I MISSION (1977-2012)

Eurobea Montes (10, 500 m /34, 448 ft -  10, 5 km -  6,5 mi) 

Io (Jupiter's moon)

1.  In Voyager 1 view of Euboea Montes; the main massif is to upper right of center;  the dark oval to its lower left is Creidne Patera. North is at top,   from NASA's image PIA00328, 1 march 1979

 2  In Voyager 1 view of two of Io's ten highest peaks, Euboea Montes, just below upper left, and Haemus Montes, at lower right  © NASA's image PIA00328, 1 march 1979

The mountain 

Eurobea Montes (10, 500 m /34, 448 ft -  10, 5 km -  6,5 mi)  is a mountain on Io, on of the moons of Jupiter. Its coordinates are at 48.89°S 338.77°W.  Euboea Montes is rugby ball shaped (175 km by 240 km), located about 40 kilometers east of Creidne Patera caldera.  There is a curved ridge crest which divides Euboea Montes into two sections: the steep, southern flank with an uneven surface of rounded mounds and the smoother, northern flank sloping about 6° to the northwest. At the base of the northern flank is a thick, ridged deposit with rounded margins.

Schenk and Bulmer used their observations of NASA Voyager 1 images, measurements of heights on the digital elevation map generated from the images, and analogies to Earth structures to characterize Euboea Montes. According to them, the mountain is one block of crustal material, due to its polygonal, relatively intact shape. The block was raised and tilted (by about 6°) by thrust faulting. This uplift led to a massive landslide along the mountain's northern flank.
This scenario is directly tied to the recycling of Io's crust. Older crustal pieces are forced to sink as newer material is thrust above them. This old volcanic crustal material is compressed laterally as it sinks. Schenk and Bulmer argue that this global compression on Io is at least partially relieved by thrust faulting and uplift of large crustal blocks. On Earth, a similar mechanism exists, for example in the Black Hills of Dakota.

Schenk and M. H. Bulmer identify the deposit of a possible landslide off Euboea Montes. The thick deposit at the northern flank is interpreted to be from a landslide, and they further point to the shape of the northern flank as evidence for slope failure. The estimated volume of the debris apron is about 25,000 km3. If this is true, then Euboea Montes has arguably one of the largest debris aprons in the Solar System, of a size similar to those formed by landslides in Valles Marineris, around Olympus Mons on Mars, or submarine landslides on Earth.

The imager 
The Voyager program is a continuing American scientific program that employs two robotic probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, to study the outer Solar System. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and are now exploring the outer boundary of the heliosphere in interstellar space. Although their original mission was to study only the planetary systems of Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 continued on to Uranus and Neptune, and both Voyagers are now tasked with exploring interstellar space. Their mission has been extended three times, and both probes continue to collect and relay useful scientific data. Neither Uranus nor Neptune has been visited by any probe other than Voyager 2.
On August 25, 2012, data from Voyager 1 indicated that it had become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, traveling "further than anyone, or anything, in history".
As of 2013, Voyager 1 was moving with a velocity of 17 kilometers per second (11 mi/s) relative to the Sun. Voyager 2 is expected to enter interstellar space by 2016, and its plasma spectrometer should provide the first direct measurements of the density and temperature of the interstellar plasma.
Data and photographs collected by the Voyagers' cameras, magnetometers, and other instruments revealed previously unknown details about each of the giant planets and their moons. Close-up images from the spacecraft charted Jupiter’s complex cloud forms, winds, and storm systems and discovered volcanic activity on its moon Io. Saturn’s rings were found to have enigmatic braids, kinks, and spokes and to be accompanied by a myriad of "ringlets." At Uranus Voyager 2 discovered a substantial magnetic field around the planet and 10 additional moons. Its flyby of Neptune uncovered three complete rings and six hitherto unknown moons as well as a planetary magnetic field and complex, widely distributed auroras. Voyager 2 is still the only spacecraft to have visited the ice giants.
The Voyager spacecrafts were built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and they were funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which also funded their launchings from Cape Canaveral, Florida, their tracking, and everything else concerning the space probes due the radioactive materials on board the spacecraft.

ALEXANDRA PEAK BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943)

 Alexandra Peak / Mount Stanley  (5,091m - 16,703 ft)

Congo - Uganda border 

 1. In Alexandra  peak from the South, photo, 1906 

The mountain 

 Alexandra Peak (5,091m - 16,703ft) is part of Mount Stanley located in the Rwenzori range, the highest mountain of both Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and the third highest in Africa, after Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 m -19,340ft) and Mount Kenya (5,199 m - 17,057ft). 

Mount Stanley consists of two twin summits and several lower peaks which are : 

Margherita Peak (5,109m - 16,763ft), Alexandra Peak (5,091m - 16,703ft), Albert Peak (5,087m - 16,690ft), Savoia Peak (4,977m - 16,330ft), Ellena Peak (4,968m -16,300ft), Elizabeth Peak (4,929m - 16,170 ft), Phillip Peak (4,920m - 16,140ft), Moebius Peak (4,916m - 16,130 ft) and Great Tooth (4,603m - 15,100ft).
The peak and several other surrounding peaks are high enough to support glaciers. Mount Stanley is named for the journalist and explorer, Sir Henry Morton Stanley. It is part of the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, a UNESCO world Heritage Site. 

Mt. Stanley was first climbed in 1906 by the Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia , Duke of the Abruzzi, (1873-1933),  J. Petigax, C. Ollier, and J. Brocherel. He is known as well for his Arctic explorations and for his mountaineering expeditions, particularly to Mount Saint Elias (Alaska–Yukon) and K2 (Pakistan–China). Margherita Peak is named after Queen Margherita of Italy the prince's cousin.

The Rwenzori Mountains National Park is considered a model for integration of cultural values into the Protected Area Management framework as an innovative approach to resource management, the first of its kind in Africa.  As a result the local communities have embraced collaborative resource management initiatives. Given its significance as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Albertine Rift, various local and international NGOs have supported the management and conservation of the property. A General Management Plan guides management operations on-site. Key challenges to address include illegal felling of trees, snow recession due to global warming, human population pressure adjacent to the property and management of waste generated through tourism operations. UWA is addressing the above threats through resource protection, community conservation education, research and ranger-based monitoring, ecotourism and transboundary initiatives with the DRC. The long-term maintenance of the integrity of the property will be achieved through sustainable financing, ecological monitoring, continued collaboration with key stakeholders and regional cooperation.

The artist
Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club.  He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888) and Les Rouies (1900).
He took part in various expeditions outside Italy:
- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name;
- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897;
- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899;
- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Rwenzori;
- Recognition at  K2   in 1909;
- In Morocco in 1925.
During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram, he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.
Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II.  His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.
His photos mountain are still  considered today to be among the finest ever made.
Jim Curran believes that "Sella remains probably the greatest photographer of the mountain.  His name is synonymous with technical perfection and aesthetic refinement. "
The quality of the pictures of Vittorio Sella is partly explained by the use of a view camera 30 × 40 cm, despite the difficulty of the transportation of such a device, both heavy and fragile in places inaccessible; to be able to transport it safely, he had to make special pieces that can be stored in saddle bags.  His photographs have been widely distributed, either through the press or in the galleries, and were unanimously celebrated; Ansel Adams, who was able to admire thirty-one in an exhibition that was organized at Sella American Sierra Club, said they inspired him "a religious kind of sense of wonder."  Many of his pictures were taken in the mountains for the very first time in the History, which give them a much artistic, historical  but also scientific value ; for example, one could measure the decline in the Rwenzori glaciers in Central Africa.

THE GROSSGLOCKNER BY NIKOLAI ASTUDIN

NIKOLAI ASTUDIN (1847-1925)   

Grossglockner or Glokner (3,798 m - 12,460ft)

Austria 

In Alpine landscape with the the Grossglockner,  1879, oil on canvas 

The mountain  

The Grossglockner (or just Glockner) (3,798 m - 12,460 ft) is above the Adriatic, the highest mountain of Austria and the highest mountain in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. It is part of the larger Glockner Group of the Hohe Tauern range, situated along the main ridge of the Central Eastern Alps and the Alpine divide. The Pasterze, Austria's most extended glacier, lies on the Grossglockner's eastern slope. The characteristically pyramid-shaped peak actually consists of two pinnacles, the Grossglockner and the Kleinglockner (3,770 m -12,370 ft), from German: klein, "small"), separated by a saddle-like formation known as the Glocknerscharte.

The history of the climbs started with French-born natural scientist Belsazar Hacquet, from 1773 professor of anatomy at the Academy of Ljubljana. He travelled the Eastern Alps from 1779 to 1781 and published an itinerary in 1783, describing the Glokner mountain and stating that it had not been climbed yet. He estimated the mountain's height with converted (3,793 m -12,444 ft) and left an engraving illustrating Grossglockner and Pasterze, the first known depiction of the mountain.

Inspired by Hacquet's book and the first ascent of the Mont Blanc in 1786, the Gurk prince-bishop Count Franz Xaver of Salm (1749–1822) together with his vicar general Sigismund Ernst Hohenwart  (1745–1825) and Baron Franz Xaver von Wulfen (1728–1805) started efforts for a Grossglockner expedition. They engaged two peasants from Heiligenblut as mountain guides to do the first explorations for an ascent through the Leitertal valley, which is the side of Grossglockner with the least ice (people feared glaciers in these times). These valiant men, called "Glockners" in the records, did more than they were ordered to do - and probably reached the Kleinglockner summit on 23 July 1799.

One month later the bishop's expedition started: a mountain hut (the first Salm Hut) had been built and the path in the Leitertal valley was prepared so that the bishop could use a horse to reach it. 30 people, among them Salm, Hohenwart and Wulfen, were part of the expedition. They suffered with bad weather and a first effort failed, but on 25 August 1799 Hohenwart and at least four other people, including the two "Glockners", reached - again - the Kleinglockner, where they installed one of the first summit crosses (one of the main goals of the church expedition). Hohenwart's reports did not tell clearly that they had not touched the highest point but Bishop Salm (who had reached the Adlersruhe rock at 3,454 m (11,332 ft)) was informed. Dissatisfied, he invited another, even bigger expedition the next year.

On 28 July 1800, 62 people, among them the pedagogue Franz Michael Vierthaler and the botanist David Heinrich Hoppe, started again into the Leitertal valley. Four peasants and carpenters (the "Glockners" and two others who are not known) did a track in the snow, had installed fixed ropes at some steeper sections up to the end of the Glocknerleitl, and even built a second refuge, called Hohenwarte Hut. The vanguard reached the Kleinglockner peak, however, according to the expedition records by the Dellach priest Franz Joseph Horasch (Orasch), only the four guides and Mathias Hautzendorfer, the local priest of the Rangersdorf parish, were able to cross the Obere Glocknerscharte and climb the Grossglockner summit. Hautzendorfer had to be persuaded to venture the step and administered the last rites in advance.

The two "Glockners" are usually identified as the brothers Joseph (Sepp) and Martin Klotz, however, this surname is not listed in the Heiligenblut parish register. A local peasant named Sepp Hoysen is documented as a member of the second Grossglockner expedition in 1802, and the surveyor Ulrich Schiegg mentioned one Martin Reicher as "Glockner" guide. The peasants and several other members of the expedition (among them Schiegg and his young apprentice Valentin Stanič, who climbed Mt. Watzmann for the first time some weeks later) did the ascent again the next day and finally installed the summit cross and a barometer on the Grossglockner summit.

Bishop Salm undertook two more ascents in 1802 (with Hohenwart reaching the summit) and in 1806, however, he himself never climbed beyond the Adlersruhe rock. The climbing of the Grossglockner was also described by the botanist Josef August Schultes, who explored the massif together with Count Apponyi in 1802. No further ascents were made during the Napoleonic Wars, the huts decayed and were plundered by locals. In the following Vormärz era, however, the mountain became a popular venue for Alpinists like Hermann and Adolf Schlagintweit, who all followed the route of the first ascent.

By the mid 19th century, the developing Alpine tourism began to alter the traditional agriculture economy in the Heiligenblut area. Therefore, the people of Kals tried to lay out a straight ascent from the western side, which however was not reached until Julius von Payer explored the ridge between Glöcknerleitl and Ködnitzkees in 1863. Johann Stüdl had a via ferrata erected along the southwestern ridge the next year and the Stüdlhütte erected at its foot in 1868. Already in 1869, most expeditions to the summit started in Kals. The first winter ascent of the Grossglockner was made on January 2, 1875 by William Adolf Baillie Grohman, a member of the Alpine Club. In 1876 Count Pallavicini and his guide Hans Tribusser undertook the first expedition up the steep glaciated Northeast Face, chopping 2,500 steps into the Pallavicinirinne in an ice climbing master stroke not repeated for 23 years.

In 1879, Count Pallavicini dedicated a new iron summit cross on the occasion of the silver wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and Empress Elisabeth; both had visited Heiligenblut and walked to the present-day Franz-Josefs-Höhe viewpoint in 1865. The cross was installed on 2 October 1880. Pallavicini also had the Archduke John Hut erected at the former Adlersruhe resting place of Bishop Salm, today the highest situated mountain hut in Austria. The Austrian Alpine Club built the new Salmhütte and the Glocknerhaus along the alpine route from Heiligenblut.

A first ascent by skiing was made in 1909 and the circumnavigation of the massif soon became a popular ski mountaineering tour. The Grossglockner became Austria's highest mountain, when the South Tyrolean Ortler region had to be ceded to the Kingdom of Italy according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, which promoted its reputation as a tourist attraction.

The painter 

Nikolai Lvovoch Astudin ( Николай Львович Астудин)  was a Russian landscape painter.

Astudin was the son of an officer and completed his school education in Saint Petersburg. He then became a student of the landscape painter Armand-Théophile Cassagne (1823-1907) in Paris. Study trips lead him to Finland, to the Alpine countries and to Italy. As early as 1876 and 1877 Astudin had exhibitions in Berlin,  and in 1885 in Zurich.  Among his Bonner motifs are the Rhine Bridge (1898) and the Godesburg. In 1912, he moved to Oberlahnstein, where he lived until his death. In this late phase, he mainly painted the Rhine motifs and repeatedly painted Lahneck Castle and The Lorelei (above).  Astudin was widely known for his Rhine paintings and the numerous reproductions of his Rhine views. His work is an expression of the Rhine and Eifelromantik of the early 20th century.
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 (n°8) BY HOKUSAI

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760–1849) 

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

 Pine at Aoyama (Aoyama enza no matsu Chsion), n°8 from the series 
36 Views of Mount Fuji (1830- 32),  woodblock print, ink and color on paper,1930 edition, 

About the 36 Views of Mt Fuji 
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūrokkei) is a series of landscape prints　created by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai (1760? - 1849).
The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. The original thirty-six prints were so popular that Hokusai expanded the series by ten.
The earliest impressions appear faded when compared to the versions usually seen, but are closer to Hokusai's original conception. The original prints have a deliberately uneven blue sky, which increases the sky's brightness and gives movement to the clouds. The peak is brought forward with a halo of Prussian blue. Subsequent prints have a strong, even blue tone and the printer added a new block, overprinting the white clouds on the horizon with light blue. Later prints also typically employ a strong benigara (Bengal red) pigment, which lent the painting its common name of Red Fuji. The green block colour was recut, lowering the meeting point between forest and mountain slope.

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.

PIZ BERNINA & MORTERATSCH BY EMIL NOLDE

Emil Nolde  (1867-1956) 

Piz Bernina (4, 049m- 13, 283ft) 

Switzerland - Italy border 

In  La belle Bernina et le vieux Morteratsch, postcard 

About this work 

The postcards series date from  pre-expressionist phase of Nolde’s career (though he was around 30 when he created them). After hiking in the Swiss Alps, Nolde did a painting, Mountain Giants, presenting the mountains in human form. Nolde wrote : “The picture went to the annual exhibition in Munich in 1896. [Ferdinand] Hodler’s picture “Night”  which established his fame, was also there. But my “Mountain Giants" was soon returned, rejected… In those days there was a general and stormy derision and ridicule about each of Hodler’s pictures. ‘And his colors are as ugly as can be possible!’ What help was my contradiction and my firm conviction that his sinuous, pushing, wry bodies are part of the character of the mountain folk, just as the firs on the mountain slopes are gnarled and grown oddly.” From then, he painted practically every Swissw Alps Summit in human form: the Zugspitze, the Waxenstein, the Eiger, the Monch, the Jungfrau, the Grand Saint- Gothard, Piz Bernina, the Morteratch, the Ortler, the Finsteraarhorn... they will be posted one after one in this blog, the Cervin / Matterhorn being the first one.

The mountain 

Piz Bernina or Pizzo Bernina (4, 049m- 13, 283ft)  is the highest mountain in the Eastern Alps, the highest point of the Bernina Range, and the highest peak in the Rhaetian Alps. It is located south of Pontresina and near the major Alpine resort of St. Moritz, in the Engadin valley with the massif partially in Italy.  The mountain can be seen from different viewpoints with the use of ski-lifts from Diavolezza, Piz Corvatsch or Piz Nair. It is also the most easterly mountain higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft) in the Alps, the highest point of the Swiss canton of Graubünden, and the fifth-most prominent peak in the Alps. The minor summit (4,020 m -13,190 ft) known as La Spedla is the highest point in the Italian Lombardy region. The mountain was named after the Bernina Pass in 1850 by Johann Coaz, who also made the first ascent.  The prefix Piz comes from the Romansch language in Graubünden; any mountain with that name can be readily identified as being located in southeastern Switzerland.
The Morteratsch Glacier  is the largest glacier in the Bernina Mountains. It is located in the canton of Grisons in Upper Engadine. It has a maximum length of 7 km with a height difference of 2,000 m and ends at the highest point on Punta Perrucchetti at 4,020 m. It covers with the Pers glacier about 16 km2. Between 1878 and 1998, the glacier retreated 1.8 km with an annual average of about 17.2 meters. The decline has accelerated in recent years with an average of 30 meters per year from 1999-2005. At the confluence with the Pers Glacier, the Morteratsch Glacier behaves like a natural dam blocking the runoff and the origin of a small lake.

The painter 

Emil Nolde (born Emil Hansen) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke (The Bridge) of Dresden in 1906, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the early 20th century to explore color. He is known for his brushwork and expressive choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding storm-scapes and brilliant florals.

Nolde's intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers reflects his continuing interest in the art of Vincent van Gogh.

From the early 1920s,  Nolde was a supporter of the Nazi party, having become a member of its Danish section. He expressed anti-semitic, negative opinions about Jewish artists, and considered "Expressionism to be a distinctively Germanic style". This view was shared by some other members of the Nazi party, notably Joseph Goebbels and Fritz Hippler.

However Hitler rejected all forms of modernism as "degenerate art", and the Nazi regime officially condemned Nolde's work. Until that time he had been held in great prestige in Germany. A total of 1,052 of his works were removed from museums, more than those of any other artist.  Some were included in the Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937, despite his protests, including (later) a personal appeal to Nazi gauleiter Baldur von Schirach in Vienna. He was not allowed to paint—even in private—after 1941. Nevertheless, during this period he created hundreds of watercolors, which he hid. He called them the "Unpainted Pictures".

In 1942 Nolde wrote: "There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every color holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colors are colors, tones tones...and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit, which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed."

After World War II, Nolde was once again honored, receiving the German Order of Merit, He died in Seebüll (now part of Neukirchen). The Schiefler Catalogue raisonné of his prints describes 231 etchings, 197 woodcuts, 83 lithographs, and 4 hectographs.

PARNASSUS BY EDWARD DODWELL

 Edward_Dodwell (1767-1832) - 

Parnassus (2, 457m - 8,061ft)

Greece

In Mont Parnassus, colored plate, 1821, from the series 30 Views in Greece, BNF Gallica

The mountain 

Parnassus or Mount Parnassus (2, 457m - 8,061ft), in greek Parnassos (Παρνασσός) which means "the mountain of the house of the god", is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth.  According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Dionysus and the Dionysian mysteries; it was also sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs, and it was the home of the Muses. The mountain was also favored by the Dorians.  Parnassus is one of the largest mountainous regions of Mainland Greece and one of the highest Greek mountains. It spreads over three municipalities, namely of Boeotia, Phthiotis and Phocis, where its largest part lies. Its highest peak is Liakouras. 

This relation of the mountain to the Muses offered an instigation to its more recent "mystification", with the poetic-artistic trend of the 19th century called "Parnassism". The Parnassic movement was established in France in the decade 1866–1876 as a reaction to Romanticism with a return to some classicistic elements and belief in the doctrine "Art for the Art", first expressed by the poet Theophile Gautier. The periodical Modern Parnassus issued for the first time by Catul Mendes and Xavier Ricard contained direct references to Mount.Parnassus and its mythological feature as habitation of the Muses. The Parnassists, who did not exceed a group of twenty poets, exercised a relatively strong influence on the cultural life of Paris, particularly due to their tenacity on perfection of rhyme and vocabulary. Parnassism influenced several French poets, such as Baudelaire, but it also exercised an influence on Modern Greek poets, particularly Kostis Palamas and Gryparis.
The name of the mountain, (Mont Parnasse in french ), was also given to a quarter of Paris on the left banc of the Seine, where artists and poets used to gather. Montparnasse is nowadays one of the most renowned quarters of the city and in its cemetery many personalities of the arts and culture are buried.

The painter 
Edward Dodwell  was an Irish painter, traveller and a writer on archaeology.  Dodwell travelled from 1801 to 1806 in Greece, which was then a part of the Ottoman Empire, and spent the rest of his life for the most part in Italy, at Naples, and Rome. He died in Rome from the effects of an illness contracted in 1830 during a visit of exploration to the Sabine Mountains. Dodwell's widow, a daughter of Count Giraud, thirty years his junior, subsequently became famous as the "beautiful countess of Spaur", and played a considerable role in the political life of the papal city.
Dodwell published A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece (1819), of which a German translation appeared in 1821; Views in Greece, with thirty colored plates (1821); and Views and Descriptions of Cyclopian or Pelasgic Remains in Italy and Greece (London and Paris, with French text, 1834).

MOUNT KOSCIUSZKO (AUSTRALIA) BY CHARLES PIGUENIT

WILLIAM CHARLES PIGUENIT (1836 -1914)

Mount Kosciuszko (2, 228 m - 7,310 ft)

Australia

In   Mount Kosciusko from the South East , oil on canvas

The mountain 

On the planet earth, there are two mountains named Mount Kosciuszko. One is located in Antartica continent and the other in Australia (Oceania continent). 

 In Australia, Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m - 7,310 ft) is a mountain located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park, part of the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves, in New South Wales  and is located west of Crackenback and close to Jindabyne.

Mount Kosciuszko is the highest mountain in Australia. Various measurements of the peak originally called Kosciuszko showed it to be slightly lower than its neighbour, Mount Townsend. The names of the mountains were swapped by the New South Wales Lands Department, so that Mount Kosciuszko remains the name of the highest peak of Australia, and Mount Townsend ranks as second.  When considering all of Oceania as a continent, Mount Kosciuszko is overshadowed by Puncak Jaya in Papua, Indonesia, also called Carstensz Pyramid. Different versions of the Seven Summits climbing challenge depend on which is chosen to be the "Australia" peak.

There are several native Aboriginal (Ngarigo) names associated with Mount Kosciuszko, with some confusion as to the exact sounds. These are Jagungal, Jar-gan-gil, Tar-gan-gil, Tackingal; however, all of them mean "Table Top Mountain."

Mount Kosciuszko was named by the Polish explorer Paul Edmund Strzelecki in 1840, in honour of the Polish national hero and hero of the American Revolutionary War General Tadeusz Kościuszko, because of its perceived resemblance to the Kościuszko Mound in Kraków. The spelling "Mount Kosciuszko" was officially adopted in 1997 by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales, Australia. 

Mount Kosciuszko is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven  continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering  challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass.  

The 7 highest summit, (which are obviously 8 with 2 in Europe !) are :  

Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m),  Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Mount Vinson (4,892m)  and Mt Blanc (4,808m)

The painter 

William Charles Piguenit also known as W.C. Piguenit or Bill Piguenit was an Australian landscape painter, amateur photographer, draughtsman and explorer, born in Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land. The family can be traced back to Pons, in the province of Saintonge, France, from which, as Huguenots, they escaped after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 to settle in Bristol, Somerset. William Charles attended Cambridge House Academy in Hobart; a school report of 18 December 1849 praises his 'mapping, particularly that of Van Diemen’s Land’. In September 1850, as an assistant draughtsman, he joined the Tasmanian Lands and Survey Department where much of his time was spent preparing maps of Tasmania. 

When Piguenit exhibited at Melbourne in 1870, showing a watercolour sketch of Mount Wellington from the Huon Road, the Daily Telegraph of 20 July called him 'a young artist who gives promise of better things’. His love for the Tasmanian landscape and his improved artistic ability led to his being invited to accompany James R. Scott’s expedition to Arthur Plains and Port Davey in March 1871 as official artist. The results of the trip formed the basis for later illustrations in the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia and in R.M. Johnston’s Systematic Account of the Geology of Tasmania. 
Having won another silver medal from the academy in 1875 for Mount Olympus, Lake St Clair, Tasmania (see above), Piguenit sent five of his Grose Valley oil landscapes to the academy’s 1876 exhibition and was awarded a certificate of merit for one, though the Sydney Mail critic was tepid in his praise: 'It would be enough to say that they are all very nicely painted and that all have about the same colour and tone’.
Regarded as the leading Australian-born landscape painter in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Piguenit was a founding committee member of the Art Society of New South Wales (elected Vice President in 1886) and regularly showed work in its exhibitions. He was represented in many major exhibitions, such as the 1880 Melbourne International, and he received many awards, including silver medals in 1874 and 1875 from the NSW Academy of Art, two second prizes at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition and gold medals from the 1883 Calcutta International and the 1888 Queensland Art Society and Tasmanian Juvenile Industries exhibitions. He was hung in the Paris Salon in 1893 and at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1894 (Scene on the Upper Nepean River, now AGNSW). A Tasmanian view near Prince of Wales Bay was presented by the Government House Literary Society to their founder and patron, Lady Hamilton, on her departure in 1892.

JEBEL TOUBKAL BY SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL  (1874-1965)

Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft) 

Morocco 

 In Jebel Toubkal at sunset, oil on canvas

The mountain 

Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m - 13, 671 ft)  is the high point of the High Atlas as well as Morocco and North Africa . It is located 63 km south of Marrakech, in the province of Al Haouz, inside the national park that bears its name.
The word Toubkal would be a deformation of French origin of the same Amazigh name Tugg Akal or toug-akal  which means "the one who looks up the earth". The people of this region still use this name.  The Toubkal massif is made up of rocks of various natures. Dark rocks of volcanic origin are found on the summits of andesite and rhyolite. Glaciers have left characteristic marks of their passage in the form of valleys in trough. During the Würm glaciation, the present valley of Assif n'Ait Mizane  was occupied by the longest glacier in the Atlas, about 5 km long.
The climate at Jebel Toubkal  is mountainous. The snow falls in winter and covers the summit.
In the nineteenth century, the interior of Morocco was still terra incognita for the Europeans and for a long time the Jebel Ayachi (3,747 m -12,293ft) ) passed for the highest summit of the High Atlas. In fact, the Toubkal was officially climbed for the first time only on 12 June 1923 by the Marquis de Segonzac, accompanied by Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau. The cairns which they found on the summit had been built by the Berbers of the environs for whom the Toubkal is a holy place dedicated to Sidi Chamarouch (or Chamharouch). A sanctuary is dedicated to him on the way from Imlil to Toubkal.
The ascent of the roof of North Africa attracts a large number of followers of the trekking. This ascent attracts the crowd as much as it does not present great technical difficulties and that the assistance of the muleteers and their mules reduces the physical efforts. The altitude is relatively high (3,200 meters at the shelter and 4,167 meters at the summit).


The artist
 Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was forty before he discovered the pleasures of painting. The compositional challenge of depicting a landscape gave the heroic rebel in him temporary repose. He possessed the heightened perception of the genuine artist to whom no scene is commonplace. Over a period of forty-eight years his creativity yielded more than 500 pictures. His art quickly became half passion, half philosophy. He enjoyed holding forth in speech and print on the aesthetic rewards for amateur devotees. To him it was the greatest of hobbies. He had found his other world -- a respite from crowding events and pulsating politics.
Encouragement to persevere with his hobby stemmed from an amateur prize (his first) which he won for "Winter Sunshine, Chartwell" a bright reflection of his Kentish home. He sent five paintings to be exhibited in Paris in the 1920s.
Modesty shone through that self-estimate. Modesty - and warm sympathy --were undeniably evident in what Churchill told a fellow painter, Sergeant Edmund Murray, his bodyguard from 1950 to 1965. Murray had been in the Foreign Legion and the London Metropolitan Police. Interviewing him to gauge his suitability, Churchill said: "You have had a most interesting life. And I hear you even paint in oils." After Murray had his work rejected by the Royal Academy, Churchill told him: "You know, your paintings are so much better than mine, but yours are judged on their merit."
Churchill's progressive workmanship demonstrates that a pseudonym employed at a crucial stage shrewdly enabled him to find out where he stood before moving on to fine-tool his talent.Churchill again favoured a pseudonym (Mr. Winter) in 1947 when offering works to the Royal Academy, so his fame in other spheres was not exploited. Two pictures were accepted and eventually the title of Honorary Academician Extraordinary was conferred on him. He earned it. That is borne out by the conclusion of the renowned painter Sir Oswald Birley: "If Churchill had given the time to art that he has given to politics, he would have been by all odds the world's greatest painter." Connoisseurs of Sir Winston's art stoutly defend their individual preference, but there are convincing arguments for bestowing highest praise on "The Blue Sitting Room, Trent Park" which was sold in 1949 to aid charity.
Despite outward flippancy, Churchill had a true craftsman's dedication when he took up a paint brush. He consulted teachers admired for their professionalism. He was fond of citing Ruskin's Elements of Drawing and readily accepted Sir William Orpen's suggestion that he should visit Avignon, where the light can verge on a miracle. He recalled an encounter on the Côte d'Azur with artists who worshipped at the throne of Cezanne and gratefully acknowledged the inspiration he derived from their exchange. Marrakech, Morocco -- irresistible and productive -- always brought out the best in him.
Churchill sought and found tranquillity in his art. His much quoted words, summing up expectations of celestial bliss, retain their lustre: "When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject..."
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SCHNEEKOPPE (2) PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)

Schneekoppe or Sněћka or Śnieżka (1,603m - 2,259ft) 

Poland - Czech Republic border   

 In Das Riesengebirge, The Giant Mountains, oil on canvas, Hermitage Museum, St Petersbourg 

The mountain 

Schneekoppe (1,603m  - 2,259ft) in German or Sněћka in Czech or Śnieżka in Polish, is a mountain on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland, the most prominent point of the Silesian Ridge in the Krkonoše mountains. Its summit is the highest point in the Czech Republic, in the Krkonoše and in the entire Sudetes range system.

The first historical account of an ascent to the peak is in 1456, by an unknown Venetian merchant searching for precious stones. The first settlements on the mountain soon appeared, being primarily mining communities, tapping into its deposits of copper, iron and arsenic. The mining shafts, totalling 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) in length, remain to this day.

The first recorded German name was Riseberg ("giant mountain"), mentioned by Georg Agricola in 1546. Fifteen years later the name Riesenberg appears on Martin Helwig's map of Silesia. The German name later changed to Riesenkoppe ("giant top") and finally to Schneekoppe ("snow top", "snowy head").

In Czech, the mountain was initially called Pahrbek Sněžný. Later Sněžka, with the eventual name Sněžovka, meaning "snowy" or "snow-covered", which was adopted in 1823. 

An older Polish name for the mountain was Góra Olbrzymia, meaning "giant mountain".

The first building on the mountaintop was the Chapel of Saint Lawrence (Laurentiuskapelle), built ca. 1665–1681 by the Silesian Schaffgotsch family to mark their dominion, serving also as an inn for a brief period of time. The territory including the mines were the property of the Schaffgotsch family until 1945. The so-called Prussian hut was built on the Silesian (now Polish) side in 1850, followed by the Bohemian hut on the Bohemian (now Czech) side in 1868, both built with the purpose of providing lodging. The Prussian hut was rebuilt twice after fires (1857 and 1862), and the (after 1945) "Polish hut" was finally demolished in 1967. The Bohemian hut fell into disrepair after 1990 and was demolished in 2004.

The painter 
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization".
Friedrich's work brought him renown early in his career, and contemporaries such as the French sculptor David d'Angers (1788–1856) spoke of him as a man who had discovered "the tragedy of landscape". Nevertheless, his work fell from favour during his later years, and he died in obscurity, and in the words of the art historian Philip B. Miller, "half mad". As Germany moved towards modernisation in the late 19th century, a new sense of urgency characterized its art, and Friedrich's contemplative depictions of stillness came to be seen as the products of a bygone age. The early 20th century brought a renewed appreciation of his work, beginning in 1906 with an exhibition of thirty-two of his paintings and sculptures in Berlin. By the 1920s his paintings had been discovered by the Expressionists, and in the 1930s and early 1940s Surrealists and Existentialists frequently drew ideas from his work. The rise of Nazism in the early 1930s again saw a resurgence in Friedrich's popularity, but this was followed by a sharp decline as his paintings were, by association with the Nazi movement, interpreted as having a nationalistic aspect.  It was not until the late 1970s that Friedrich regained his reputation as an icon of the German Romantic movement and a painter of international importance.
Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. In line with the Romantic ideals of his time, he intended his paintings to function as pure aesthetic statements, so he was cautious that the titles given to his work were not overly descriptive or evocative. It is likely that some of today's more literal titles, such as The Stages of Life, were not given by the artist himself, but were instead adopted during one of the revivals of interest in Friedrich. Complications arise when dating Friedrich's work, in part because he often did not directly name or date his canvases. He kept a carefully detailed notebook on his output, however, which has been used by scholars to tie paintings to their completion dates.

MOUNT EVEREST (CHOMOLUNGA) SEEN FROM NASA ISS

NASA INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (since1998)

Mount Everest or Sagarmatha or Chomolunga (8,848 m - 29,029ft) 

China (Tibet) / Nepal  

 In  Himalaya from the International Space Station

The mountain 

Mount Everest (8,848 m - 29,029ft), also known in Nepal as Sagarmāthā and in Tibet as Chomolungma, is Earth's highest mountain. It is located in the Mahalangur mountain range in Nepal and Tibet. The international border between China (Tibet Autonomous Region) and Nepal runs across Everest's precise summit point. Its massif includes neighbouring peaks Lhotse (8,516 m -27,940 ft); Nuptse (7,855 m -25,771 ft) and Changtse (7,580 m -24,870 ft).

In 1856, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at (8,840 m -29,002 ft). The current official height of (8,848 m -29,029 ft) as recognised by China and Nepal was established by a 1955 Indian survey and subsequently confirmed by a Chinese survey in 1975. In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon a recommendation by Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India. As there appeared to be several different local names, Waugh chose to name the mountain after his predecessor in the post, Sir George Everest, despite George Everest's objections.

Mount Everest attracts many climbers, some of them highly experienced mountaineers. There are two main climbing routes: one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal (known as the standard route) and the other from the north in Tibet. While not posing substantial technical climbing challenges on the standard route, Everest presents dangers such as altitude sickness, weather, wind as well as significant objective hazards from avalanches and the Khumbu Icefall. As of 2016, there are well over 200 corpses still on the mountain, with some of them even serving as landmarks.

The first recorded efforts to reach Everest's summit were made by British mountaineers. With Nepal not allowing foreigners into the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. After the first reconnaissance expedition by the British in 1921 reached 7,000 m - 22,970 ft) on the North Col, the 1922 expedition pushed the North ridge route up to 8,320 m - 27,300 ft) marking the first time a human had climbed above 8,000 m - 26,247 ft). Tragedy struck on the descent from the North col when seven porters were killed in an avalanche. The 1924 expedition resulted in the greatest mystery on Everest to this day: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made a final summit attempt on 8 June but never returned, sparking debate as to whether they were the first to reach the top. They had been spotted high on the mountain that day but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again, until Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 8,155 m (26,755 ft) on the North face. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953 using the southeast ridge route. Tenzing had reached 8,595 m - 28,199 ft) the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition. The Chinese mountaineering team of Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo and Qu Yinhua made the first reported ascent of the peak from the North Ridge on 25 May 1960.

Mount Everest is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven  continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering  challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass. 

The 7 summits (which are obviously 8 !)... are :  

Mount Everest (8,848 m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194 m), Kilimandjaro (5,895 m), Mt Elbrus (5,642 m), Vinson  Massif (4,892 m), Mt Blanc (4,807 m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228 m) in Australia.

Imager

In addition to looking heavenward, NASA helps the world see the Earth in ways no one else can. Astronauts on board the International Space Station recently took advantage of their unique vantage point to photograph the Himalayas, looking south from over the Tibetan Plateau. The perspective is illustrated by the summits of Makalu on left (8,462 m - 27,765 ft)], Everest in the middle (8,848 m- 29,035 ft) Lhotse  in the middle (8,516 m-  27,939 ft) and Cho Oyu on right (8,201 m- 26,906 ft)  at the heights typically flown by commercial aircraft.

MOUNT WASHINGTON BY ALBERT BIERSTADT

ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902),

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft)

United States of America  (New Hampshire)

In Autumn in the Conway Meadows Looking Towards Mount Washington, oil on canvas,
 Private collection 

The mountain 

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft) is the highest point in the northeastern United States. It is located in the White Mountains in the county of Coos. Most of the mountain is located in the White Mountain National Forest and Mount Washington State Park.
The mountain is called Agiocochook, the "abode of the great spirit," by the Amerindians. A scientific expedition led by geologist Dr. Cutler named Mount Washington in 1784.
While the western slope, which climbs the Cog Railway, is regular from its base, the other slopes are more complex. To the north, Great Gulf, the largest glacial circus in the mountains, is surrounded by the Northern Presidentials, namely Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison Mountains. These peaks reach far beyond the alpine zone beyond the tree line. The imposing Chandler Ridge extends northeast from the top of Mount Washington to form the southern wall of the amphitheater. It is paced by a motorway to the summit.
The first European to mention the mountain is Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, who sees it from the Atlantic Ocean and describes it as a "high mountain of the interior". Irishman Darby Field says he made his first ascent in 1642.
The Crawford Path, the oldest hiking trail in the United States, was established in 1819 as a mule track from the Crawford Notch Gorge to the summit and has been in use since that time. Ethan Allen Crawford built a lodge at the summit in 1821 that resisted a storm five years later.  In the middle of the nineteenth century, the mountain became a major tourist destination of the country, with the construction of new trails and two hotels. The Summit House, a 20-meter-long stone building with a roof attached to four heavy chains, was opened in 1852. The following year, the Tip-Top House was erected to compete with it. Rebuilt in wood with 91 rooms in 1872-1873, the Summit House burned in 1908 and was replaced by a granite building in 1915. Only the Tip-Top House resists fire; it is now classified in the National Register of Historic Places and has recently been renovated to house exhibitions. Among the attractions of the Victorian era is also a coach road built in 1861, now the Mount Washington Auto Road, and the Mount Washington Cog Railway, a cog railway established in 1869, in service.

The painter 

Albert Bierstadt  was a German-born American painter. He was brought to the United States at the age of one by his parents. He later returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. At an early age Bierstadt developed a taste for art and made clever crayon sketches in his youth. 

In 1851, he began to paint in oils. He became part of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along this scenic river. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

In 1858 he exhibited a large painting of a Swiss landscape at the National Academy of Design, which gained him positive critical reception and honorary membership in the Academy.  At this time Bierstadt began painting scenes in New England and upstate New York, including in the Hudson River valley. A group of artists known as the Hudson River School portrayed its majestic landscapes and craggy areas, as well as the light affected by the changing waters.

In 1859, Bierstadt traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government, to see those landscapes.  He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.

During the American Civil War, Bierstadt paid for a substitute to serve in his place when he was drafted in 1863. He completed one Civil War painting Guerrilla Warfare, Civil War in 1862, based on his brief experiences with soldiers stationed at Camp Cameron in 1861.

Bierstadt's painting was based on a stereoscopic photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt, who operated a photography studio at Langley's Tavern in Virginia. Bierstadt's painting received a positive review when it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1861. Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey observes that Bierstadt's painting, created from photographs, "is quintessentially that of a voyeur, privy to the stories and unblemished by the violence and brutality of first-hand combat experience."

In 1860, he was elected a member of the National Academy; he received medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany.[ In 1867 he traveled to London, where he exhibited two landscape paintings in a private reception with Queen Victoria. He traveled through Europe for two years, cultivating social and business contacts to sustain the market for his work overseas.

As a result of the publicity generated by his Yosemite paintings, Bierstadt's presence was requested by every explorer considering a westward expedition, and he was commissioned by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to visit the Grand Canyon for further subject matter.

Bierstadt's technical proficiency, earned through his study of European landscape, was crucial to his success as a painter of the American West. It accounted for his popularity in disseminating views of the Rockies to those who had not seen them. The immense canvases he produced after his trips with Lander and Ludlow established him as the preeminent painter of the western American landscape. Financial recognition confirmed his status: The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, completed in 1863, was purchased for $25,000 in 1865.

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the romanticism evident in his choices of subject and his use of light was felt to be excessive. 

In 1882 Bierstadt's studio at Irvington, New York, was destroyed by fire, resulting in the loss of many of his paintings. By the time of his death on February 18, 1902, the taste for epic landscape painting had long since subsided. Bierstadt was then largely forgotten. He was buried at the Rural Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Interest in his work was renewed in the 1960s, with the exhibition of his small oil studies. The subsequent reassessment of Bierstadt's work has placed it in a favorable context.

Bierstadt's theatrical art, fervent sociability, international outlook, and unquenchable personal energy reflected the epic expansion in every facet of western civilization during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Bierstadt was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 paintings during his lifetime. Many of these are held by museums across the United States.