THE COL DE MONTGENEVRE BY NICOLAS DE STAEL

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955)

Col de Montgenèvre  (1, 850m - 6,070ft)

France (Jura)

In Briançon, oil on canvas,  1953, Private collection

The mountain
The Col de Montgenèvre (1, 850m) is a pass of the French Alps located between the Cerces range (Chaberton range) and the Queyras range. It connects the town of Briançon with Cesana Torinese in Italy but is entirely on the French side of the border, located 2.4 km.
According to  the roman historian Titus Livius, the pass of Montgenèvre would have been crossed by the troops of Hannibal during his passage of the Alps following the future way of the Alps. In Roman antiquity, the summit of the Montgenèvre pass marks the starting point of the Via Domitia (Domitian road), a Roman road built on the initiative of the consul Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus from 121 BC. J.-C. and inaugurated 3 years later; this route then connected Italy to Hispania (Spain) through the south of Gaule (France) freshly conquered.
The Montgenèvre pass has been crossed 10 times by the Tour de France. It has been ranked alternatively 1st or 2nd category.

The Painter 

Nicolas de Staël was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. Nicolas de Staël was born Nikolai Vladimirovich Staël von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн) in Saint Petersbourg (Russia), into the family of a Baron Vladimir Staël von Holstein, the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress. De Staël's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution ; both his father and stepmother died in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Staël was sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922).
De Staël's painting career spans roughly 15 years (from 1940) and produced more than a thousand paintings. His work shows the influence of Gustave Courbet, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Chaim Soutine, as well as of the Dutch masters Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hercules Seghers. During the 1940s and beginning in representation, de Staël moved further and further toward abstraction. Evolving his own highly distinctive and abstract style, which bears comparison with the near-contemporary American Abstract Expressionist movement, and French Tachisme, but which he developed independently of them. Typically his paintings contained block-like slabs of colour, emerging as if struggling against one another across the surface of the image. According to de Staël himself, he turned to his "abstracting" because he "found it awkward to paint an object as a likeness because of the awkwardness I felt when faced ! with the infinite multitude of coexisting objects in any single object".

De Staël's work was quickly recognized within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. However, he moved away from abstraction in his later paintings, seeking a more "French" lyrical style, returning to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) at the end of his life.  His most well-known late paintings of beaches and landscapes are dominated by the sky and effects of light. 

Much of de Staël's late work—in particular his thinned and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s—predicts Color field painting and Lyrical Abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicolas de Staël's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop Art of the 1960s.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT KING WILLIAM I BY WILLIAM CHARLES PIGUENIT

WILLIAM CHARLES PIGUENIT  (1836-1914)

Mount King William  I (1, 324 m- 4,384 ft)

Australia (Tasmania) 

In Mount King William from Lake George, print after an  oil on academy broad, 1887, 

National Library of Australia

The mountain 
Mount King William I (1, 324 m- 4,384 ft)) is a mountain adjacent to the Lyell Highway in Central Highlands, Tasmania.  It is located 10 km southwest of Derwent Bridge. It has two namesakes in the King William Range - Mount King William II (1,363m) and Mount King William III.
It is often a reference point for the 'end' of the inhabited part of the western section of Lyell Highway as there are no permanent structures until Linda; it is inside the eastern boundary of the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. There is also Lake King William, south of Derwent Bridge. It is dammed at Butlers Gorge, its south end. Mount King William was named during Sir John Franklin's journey to the west in 1842.

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, 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.

MOUNT THULE (2) BY LAWREN S. HARRIS

LAWREN S. HARRIS  (1885-1970)

Mount Thule (1, 711m- 5, 614ft)

Canada - Nunavut 

 

In Mont Thule on Bylot Island, oil on canvas, McMichael Canadian Art Collection

The mountain 
Mount Thule (1,711m-  5, 614ft )  is a mountain on Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada. It is located 38 km (24 mi) north of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island. It is associated with the Baffin Mountains which in turn form part of the Arctic Cordillera mountain system.
The Baffin Mountains have some of the a highest peaks of eastern North America, reaching a height of 1,525–2,146 m (5,003–7,041 ft) above sea level. While they could be considered a single mountain range as they are separated by bodies of water to make Baffin Island, this is not true, as they are closely related to the other mountain ranges that make the much larger Arctic Cordillera mountain range.

The painter 
Lawren Stewart Harris (1885–1970) was a leading landscape canadian painter, imbuing his paintings with a spiritual dimension. An inspirer of other artists, he was a key figure in the Group of Seven and gave new vision to representations of the northern Canadian landscape. During the 1920s, Harris's works became more abstract and simplified, especially his stark landscapes of the Canadian north and Arctic.  He also stopped signing and dating his works so that people would judge his works on their own merit and not by the artist or when they were painted.
In 1924, a sketching trip with A.Y. Jackson to Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies marked the beginning of Harris' mountain subjects, which he continued to explore with annual sketching trips until 1929, exploring areas around Banff National Park, Yoho National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park. In 1930, Harris went on his last extended sketching trip, travelling to the Arctic aboard the supply ship SS. Beothic for two months, during which time he completed over 50 sketches.  "We are on the fringe of the great North and its living whiteness, its loneliness and replenishment, its resignations and release, tis call and answer, its cleansing rhythms. It seems that the top of the continent is a source of spiritual flow that will ever shed clarity into the growing race of America."(Lawren S. Harris, 1926)
In 1969, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
Harris died in Vancouver in 1970, at the age of 84, as a well-known artist. He was buried on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, where his work is now held.

VOLCAN TAJUMULCO IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1940

VINTAGE POSTCARD 1940 

Volcàn Tajumulco  (4, 220 m - 13,850 ft)

Guatemala 

In The Volcàn Tajumulco seem from San Marcos, photo print 1940  

The mountain 
Volcán Tajumulco  (4, 220 m - 13,850 ft) is the highest mountain in Central America. It is a large stratovolcano situated in the department of San Marcos in western Guatemala. IIt is part of the mountain range of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, which begins in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas. Tajumulco is composed of andesitic-dacitic lavas on the top of a large escarpment of uncertain origin. It has two summits, one of which has a crater 50–70 metres (160–230 ft) wide. A lava flow from the north-western summit descends into a steep valley on the same side of the volcano.
The volcano's eruptive history is unclear and the date of its last eruption is unknown. Reports from the 18th and early 19th century claim to record eruptions but these are considered unlikely.
The region around Tajumulco is relatively sparsely populated.  The nearest town is San Marcos, located 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) to the south-east.  Although it is infrequently visited,  the volcano can be climbed in about five hours from the hamlet of Tuichán. Several tour companies offer trips up the mountain, but the high altitude requires acclimatization before the summit can safely be reached. Views are variable as the area is frequently covered in mist and cloud, with conditions at their least favorable between April and September

EL COTOPAXI PAINTED BY RAFAEL TROYA

RAFAEL TROYA (1845 - 1920)

Cotopaxi (5,897 m - 19,347 ft) 

Ecuador  

 In Cotopaxi , oil on canvas 1874, Museo Guilermo Perez Chiriboga del Banco Central, Quito

The mountain 

Cotopaxi  is an active stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains,  which rises at 5,897 m - 19,347 ft and is located in the Latacunga canton of Cotopaxi Province, about 50 km (31 mi) south of Quito, and 33 km (21 mi) northeast of the city of Latacunga, Ecuador, in South America.  It is the second highest summit in Ecuador, reaching a height of 5,897 m (19,347 ft). It is one of the world's highest volcanoes. Many sources claim that Cotopaxi means "Neck of the Moon" in an indigenous language, but this is unproven. The mountain was honored as a "Sacred Mountain" by local Andean people, even prior to the Inca invasion in the 15th century.

Most of the time, Cotopaxi is clearly visible on the skyline from Quito and is part of the chain of volcanoes around the Pacific plate known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. It has an almost symmetrical cone that rises from a highland plain of about 3,800 metres (12,500 ft), with a width at its base of about 23 kilometres (14 mi). It has one of the few equatorial glaciers in the world, which starts at the height of 5,000 metres (16,400 ft). At its summit, Cotopaxi has an 800 X 550 m wide crater which is 250 m deep. The crater consists of two concentric crater rims, the outer one being partly free of snow and irregular in shape. The crater interior is covered with ice cornices and rather flat. The highest point is on the outer rim of the crater on the north side.

The first recorded eruption of Cotopaxi was in 1534.  With 87 known eruptions since then, Cotopaxi is one of Ecuador's most active volcanoes.

The painter 

Rafael Troya (1845-1920) was an Ecuadorian painter born, the son of the painter Vicente Troya. Being a teenager, he is taken to the Colegio de la Compañia de Jesus in Quito, but he soon abandons the clerical career to dedicate himself to what was his true vocation: painting. With the painter Luis Cadena, he learns the technique of colors. In 1872, he definitely choose the landscape and accompanied  Reis and Stübel on their study trips in Ecuador on Nature and Archeology. Troya becomes the portraitist of nature, painting compositions full of color and life. In 1890 he came back in the capital of Imbabureña, and decided to be completely dedicated to his art. There he made several masterpieces, such as the paintings on the Apostles, which today are admired in the Ibarra Cathedral, the Ibarra Foundation, preserved in the Hall of the city of Ibarra; Allegory of love, panoramic view of Ibarra; The earthquake of Imbabura, and several religious canvases that are conserved in some churches of Quito, in the church of Caranqui and in the Museum of the Central Bank of Quito. In his paintings, green and bluish tones predominate, characteristic of his native land. He painted a lot of mountains of the Andes and  the most famous volcanoes of the Cordillera. 

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT KAZBEK PAINTED BY VASILY VERESHCHAGIN

                                                 VASILY VERESHCHAGIN (1842-1904) 

Mount Kazbek  (5,047m - 16, 558ft)

Russia - Georgia border

In Mount Kazbek, oil on canvas, 1897-98, The Russian Museum, St Pertersbourg

The mountain 
Mount Kazbek  (5,047m - 16, 558ft) or Mkinvartsveri (in Georgian) or Bashlam (in Vainkah)  is a dormant stratovolcano and one of the major mountains of the Caucasus located in the Kazbegi District of Georgia, just south of the border with Russia.  It is the third highest peak in Georgia (after Mount Shkhara and Janga) and the seventh highest summit in the Caucasus Mountains.  Kazbek is also the second highest volcanic summit in the Caucasus, after Mount Elbrus. The summit lies directly to the west of the town of Stepantsminda and is the most prominent geographic feature of the area. Mount Kazbek is the highest peak of Eastern Georgia.
The region is highly active tectonically, with numerous small earthquakes occurring at regular intervals. An active geothermal/hot spring system also surrounds the mountain.
Kazbek is a potentially active volcano, built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 1,770 m (5,800 feet). Kazbek is the highest of the volcanic cones of the Kazbegi volcanic group which also includes Mount Khabarjina (3,142 m).
Owing to the steepness of its slopes, the glaciers of Kazbek are not very large. The total combined area of all of Kazbek's glaciers is 135 kmІ. The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak (Devdaraki), which creeps down the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level of 2,295 meters (7,530 feet). Kazbek's other glaciers include the Mna, Denkara, Gergeti, Abano, and Chata. The recent collapse of the Kolka Glacier, located in a valley between Mt. Jimara and Kazbek in the year 2002 was attributed to solfatara volcanic activity along the northern slope of the mountain, although there was no eruption. In addition to the 2002 event, a massive collapse of the Devdaraki Glacier on the mountain's northeastern slope which occurred on August 20, 2014, led to the death of seven people. The glacier collapse dammed the Terek River in the Daryal Gorge and flooded the Georgian Military Highway.

The painter 
Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin (Васи́лий Васи́льевич Вереща́гин)  transcribed in English as "Basil Verestchagin", was one of the most famous Russian war artists and one of the first Russian artists to be widely recognized abroad. The graphic nature of his realist scenes led many of them to never be printed or exhibited.  In 1864 he proceeded to Paris, where he studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme, though he dissented widely from his master's methods. In the Paris Salon of 1866 he exhibited a drawing of Dukhobors chanting their Psalms. In the next year he was invited to accompany General Konstantin Kaufman's expedition to Turkestan. He was an indefatigable traveler, returning to St. Petersburg in late 1868, to Paris in 1869, back to St. Petersburg later in the year, and then back to Turkestan at the end 1869 via Siberia. In 1871, he established an atelier in Munich, and made a solo exhibition of his works at the Crystal Palace in London in 1873.
In late 1874, he departed for an extensive tour of the Himalayas, India and Tibet, spending over two years in travel. He returned to Paris in late 1876
After the war, Vereshchagin settled at Munich, where he produced his war pictures so rapidly that he was freely accused of employing assistants. The sensational subjects of his pictures, and their didactic aim, the promotion of peace by a representation of the horrors of war, attracted a large section of the public not usually interested in art to the series of exhibitions of his pictures in Paris in 1881 and subsequently in London, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna and other cities.
By the late 19th century, Vereshchagin had gained popularity not only in Russia, but also abroad and his name never left the pages of the European and American press. From his earliest works, unlike most contemporary battle pieces depicting war as a kind of parade, Vereshchagin graphically depicted the horrors of war. "I loved the sun all my life, and wanted to paint sunshine. When I happened to see warfare and say what I thought about it, I rejoiced that I would be able to devote myself to the sun once again. But the fury of war continued to pursue me," Vereshchagin wrote. One day, in 1882, Vereshchagin’s exhibition in Berlin was visited by German Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. Vereshchagin brought Moltke to his painting The Apotheosis of War. The picture evoked a sort of confusion in the Field Marshal. After his visit to the exhibition, Moltke issued an order forbidding German soldiers to visit it. The Austrian war minister did the same. He also declined the artist's offer to let Austrian officers see his pictures at the 1881 exhibition in Vienna free of charge.

TIANTAI SHAN / 天台山 BY DAI BENXIAO / 戴本晓

DAI BENXIAO / 戴本晓  (1621–1693)

Tiantai Shan /天台山 (1,138m- 3,784ft)

Cbina (Zhejiang)

  In The Strange Pines of Mount Tiantai, 1687, Hanging scroll, ink on paper,  The MET

In the collection of Marie-Hélène and Guy A. Weill until 1991.  

Notice of the MET about this work   
A refuge since its discovery in the fourth century, Mount Tiantai is a legendary dwelling place of Buddhist holy men; its natural stone bridge is a fabled point of connection between this world and the paradise of the immortals. Dai Benxiao, whose Ming-loyalist father committed suicide after being injured in a battle against Qing forces, focuses here on the mountain's pines. Symbolic of survival in times of adversity, the pines, having been suddenly threatened, reflect the artist's uncertainty about his ability to find spiritual sanctuary in a world from which he feels alienated :  " The strangely shaped pine trees of Mount Tiantai have been depicted by artists of previous periods.  I have decided to portray this theme, drawing upon my own imagination. I have heard recently that most of these strange pines have met the sad fate of extinction. It seems that once the natural wonders of the sky, earth, mountains, and rivers are exposed to the intimate scrutiny of the dusty world, they do not last long. This is indeed cause for lamentation."

The mountain 
Tiantai Shan / 天台山 (1138m- 3784ft)  which means “Heavenly Terrace” also called  Mount Tiantai  is a mountain in Tiantai County near the city of Taizhou, Zhejiang, China. The mountain comprises a series of peaks - Tongbai, Foulong, Chicheng, whose the highest is Huading.
From a very early period the Tiantai mountain chain was considered holy, and in ancient times it was associated with Daoism. Many well-known Daoist adepts and masters lived there until the 11th and 12th centuries. Its fame, however, is associated not with Daoism but with Buddhism. According to tradition, the first Buddhist community was founded there in 238-251, but the renown of Tiantai began when the monk Zhiyi settled there in 576. When the Sui dynasty (581–618) unified China in 589, Zhiyi played an important role in giving religious sanction to the new regime and was greatly honoured by the Sui emperor. After Zhiyi’s death in 597, his disciples, under imperial patronage, made Tiantai a major cult centre. The best-known temples established there were the Guoqing, Dazi, Dianfeng, Huoguo, Wannian Bo’er, and Gaoming. Eventually there were 72 major temples as well as a great number of cloisters and shrines on the mountain, and it became a major centre of pilgrimage for both Chinese and Japanese Buddhists. It also gave its name to one of the major schools of Buddhist teaching, Tiantai, perhaps better known under its Japanese name of Tendai.
Many of the temples still remain, although the influence of the Tiantai school in Chinese Buddhism did not survive the 13th century. A good deal of building continued in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the 17th century in particular the Tiantai area produced a number of prominent Buddhist scholars.
The mountain was made a national park on 1 August 1988.

The painter 
Dai Benxiao  / 戴本晓  (1621- 1693)   was a  landscapes painter of the Qing dynasty. His father, Dai Zhong (1602–46), a late Ming-dynasty (1368–1644) loyalist, moved his family to Nanjing in 1632. Political unrest forced them to move in 1637 and several times thereafter, always poor and often hungry. In 1645, having heard of the Manchu conquest of Nanjing, Dai Zhong helped organize resistance to the invading army but was later wounded in battle. Dai Benxiao was able to take his father back to Hezhou, but he died the following year. Thirty years later, Dai Benxiao built a commemorative shrine to his father and to Huilan, a Chan Buddhist martyr of the Southern Song period.
Dai Benxiao was a second-ranking painter of the Anhui school. Like Hong ren, he liked to endow his works with a monumental aspect with great economy of means. He was particularly gifted in the use of the dry brush and blurred wash painting for depicting distances. He seems to have been influenced by the fantastic landscapes dating from the end of the Ming dynasty.

THE MONT BLANC BY GABRIEL LOPPÉ

GABRIEL LOPPÉ (1825-1913)

The Mont Blanc (4,808.13 m - 15,776.7 ft)

 France, Italy border

 In  The Shadow of Mont Blanc at Sunset painted from the summit on 6th August 1873, 

oil on card laid on board

About the painting 

This is a most extraordinary painting not only because it is the first depiction of a mountain shadow from a summit in art but also because it has a unique and unreal atmosphere. 

Loppé, too, had been the first person to paint from the summit of Mont Blanc in 1861. In total, he painted from the top on eleven separate occasions.

Seen from their summits, almost all mountain shadows look triangular regardless of the mountain’s shape. This is caused by the perspective of looking along a long tunnel of shadowed air. The tunnel’s cross section is the shape of the mountain but its end is so far away that it looks insignificant. The finite size of the sun causes the fully shaded parts of the shadow to converge and taper away, and in Mont Blanc’s case, this is over a distance of two to three hundred miles.
As Loppé painted this remarkable meteorological scene at 7.30 in the evening, the temperature would have begun to plummet to around -15 degrees Celsius. His climbing companions became concerned for their safety as recounted in chapter XI, Sunset on Mont Blanc in The Playground of Europe.
In 1894, in the introduction to that book, one of the best known and loved about the Alps, Leslie Stephen wrote a dedication to Loppé:
" Twenty-one years ago, we climbed Mont Blanc together to watch the sunset from its summit. Less than a year ago, we observed the same phenomenon from the foot of the mountain. The intervening years have probably made little difference in the sunset. If they have made some difference in our powers of reaching the best point of view, they have, I hope, diminished neither our admiration of such spectacles, nor our pleasure in each other’s companionship. If, indeed, I have retained my love of the Alps, it has been in no small degree owing to you. 
The huge shadow looking ever more strange and magical struck the distant Becca di Nona and then climbed into the dark region where the broader shadow of the world was rising into the eastern sky. By some singular effect of perspective rays of darkness seemed to be converging from above our heads to a point immediately above the apex of the shadowy cone. For a time it seemed that there was a kind of anti-sun in the east pouring out not light but deep shadow as it rose." 

From the book Loppé  peintre-alpiniste" by William Mitchell © John Mitchell Fine Paintings, London, 2018  

Photo taken from the summit of  Mont Blanc at sunset
 showing the cone of the shadow precisely like Gabriel Loppé
painted it  on  6th August 1873 - Courtesy William Mitchell

The painter 

Toussaint Gabriel Loppé was a French painter, photographer and mountaineer. He became the first foreigner to be made a member of the Alpine Club in London. His father was a captain in the French Engineers and Loppé's childhood was spent in many different towns in south-eastern France. Aged twenty-one Loppé climbed a small mountain in the Languedoc and found a group of painters sketching on the summit. He had found his calling and subsequently went off to Geneva where he met the reputed leading Swiss landscapist, Alexandre Calame (1810 -1864). Loppé took up mountaineering in Grindelwald in the 1850s and made friends easily with the many English climbers in France and Switzerland. Although he was frequently labelled as a pupil of Calame and his rival François Diday, Loppé was almost an entirely self-taught artist. He became the first painter to work at higher altitudes during climbing expeditions earning the right to be considered the founder of the peintres-alpinistes school, which became established in the Savoie at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Notable followers of Loppé include, Charles Henri Contencin (1875-1955) and Jacques Fourcy (1906-1990). Together with the first ascent of Mt Mallet in Chamonix’s Grandes Jorasses range, Loppé made over 40 ascents of Mont Blanc during his climbing career, which lasted until the late 1890s.  He frequently made oil sketches from alpine summits, including a panorama of the view from the summit of Mont Blanc.

His paintings became celebrated for their atmosphere and spontaneity and he soon found himself taking part in many exhibitions in London and in Paris.

By 1896 Loppé had spent over fifty seasons climbing and painting in Chamonix. As the valley’s unrivalled ‘Court painter’ his work was in constant demand with the majority of his pictures going to English climbers and summer tourists.

In his later years, Loppé became fascinated with photography and was quite an innovator in this field too. His long exposure photograph of the Eiffel Tower struck by lightning, now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris remains one of his iconic images. 

MOUNT PRINCETON BY CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS

CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS (1858 -1942) 

Mount Princeton (4, 327 m- 14, 2014ft)

United States of America (Colorado)

In Mount Princeton in  1895, watercolor

The mountain 
Mount Princeton  (4, 327 m- 14, 2014ft) also known as Clak Peak or Princeton Mountain is a high and prominent mountain summit of the Collegiate Peaks in the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. This fourteener is located in San Isabel National Forest, 7.8 miles (12.6 km) southwest (bearing 225°) of the Town of Buena Vista in Chaffee County, Colorado, United States. The mountain was named in honor of Princeton University.[
While not one of the highest peaks of the Sawatch Range, Mount Princeton is one of the most dramatic, abruptly rising nearly 7,000 feet above the Arkansas River valley in only 6 miles.
The first recorded ascent was on July 17, 1877, at 12:30 pm by William Libbey of Princeton University.  It is likely that various miners had climbed the peak earlier.  The name Mount Princeton was in use as early as 1873, and the peak was most likely named by Henry Gannett, a Harvard graduate and chief topographer in a government survey led by George M. Wheeler.

The painter
Charles Partridge Adams was a largely self-taught American landscape artist who painted primarily in Colorado, and secondarily in California. Some paintings were also made in other Rocky Mountain states, the Pacific Northwest and Canada, and a few in Louisiana, the East Coast and Europe.
In 1877 he began work in the Chain and Hardy bookstore in Denver, and received lessons from Helen Henderson Chain, an artist who had studied with George Inness. In 1885 he traveled to the East Coast and visited the studios of George Inness and Worthington Whittredge, and in 1888 he traveled to California and visited the studios of William Keith and Thomas Hill. He traveled to Louisiana in 1890, and to Europe in the summer of 1914. He spent the winter of 1916 in California, and moved to Los Angeles in 1920, and built a second home in Laguna Beach in 1926.
Adams is known for his views of snowy mountain peaks in early morning or sunset light, or wreathed in storm clouds, and for his luminous sunset and twilight paintings of the river bottoms near Denver.
Most of Adams paintings are enhanced by the use of stronger colors than one would find in a photograph. The evening shadows are bluer, the spring grass is greener, the sunsets more strikingly yellow or orange. He sometimes used very small areas of intense blue and red to enliven a dark shadowed area such as the heart of a clump of willows or the dark base of an aspen tree. He also made the mountains look about twice as tall as they actually look, as if seen through a telephoto lens.
Some of his earlier paintings include animals or human figures, but later paintings do not include them. Roughly half of Adams paintings are oils and half are watercolors, which he began painting in the early 1890s. Over 950 paintings have been documented.

THE AIGUILLE DU CHARDONNET PAINTED BY JACQUES FOURCY

JACQUES FOURCY (1906-1990)

Aiguille du Chardonnet (3, 824m - 12,545ft)

France (Auvergne Rhône-Alpes)

In L’Aiguille du Chardonnet vue de la Petite Fourche, oil on canvas, Musée de Chamonix

The mountain 
The Aiguille du Chardonnet (3, 824m- 12, 545 ft) is the culmination of the long ridge that separates the Tour basin from the Argentière basin. The Aiguille du Chardonnet is a summit of the Mont-Blanc massif whose north slope, snowy and glacial, offers a wide choice of routes including the edge Forbes. Its southern slope, much more chaotic with its numerous rocky outcrops, hosts some little-known lanes and two ski corridors.
The first ascent was made by Percy W. Thomas with Joseph Imboden and Jean-Marie Lochmatter on August 1, 1879. The historic route of ascension is currently neglected at the ascent and serves as a classic way of descent. The climb is classically made by the Forbes ridge, which can be embellished by the Gabarrou-Freuchet route, which adds to the size of the route. The Migot spur and the Migot Integral spur are good alternative routes to the Forbes ridge, very varied and less frequented.

The painter
Jacques Fourcy was a French painter, member of the Société des peintres de montagnes.
Born in Paris,  he studied engineering at Ecole Centrale Paris and then joined the railways firm Compagnie des Chemins de Fer de  Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM), then the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer (SNCF). A prisoner of war for five years, he was repatriated as a result of the loss of one eye; he later receives the Croix de Guerre 1939-1945.
His training seems to be that of an self taught one. He began to paint very early, especially watercolors at first. He paints in his spare time and after his retirement. He joined the Société des peintres de montagnes in 1925 and exhibited at the Salon of French artists from 1926. Well known for his particularly lively and colorful watercolors, he also devoted himself, especially after the Second World War, to the oil painting most often done on panels (Isorel). He especially painted the high mountains; his works represent in particular the great peaks of the Chamonix Valley and Oisans but also the summits of the Swiss Alps. The Museum of Chamonix exhibits several of his works.

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 WITH UMBRELLA BY HERBERT PONTING

HERBERT PONTING (1870-1935)
Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

 In "Kasa Fuji" or Fuji's Umbrella,1905, postcard 

About the photo

It shows a lenticular cloud (Altocumulus lenticularis) above Mount Fuji photographed by Herbert Ponting in 1905 and called  "Umbrella " because of the shape of the cloud above the sacred mountain.   Lenticular clouds are stationary clouds that form in the troposphere, typically in perpendicular alignment to the wind direction. They are often comparable in appearance to a lens, saucer or ,when surrounding a mountain, to an umbrella. There are three main types of lenticular clouds: altocumulus standing lenticular (ACSL), stratocumulus standing lenticular (SCSL), and cirrocumulus standing lenticular (CCSL), varying in altitude above the ground.

The photographer 
Herbert George Ponting, FRGS  is best known as the expedition photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to the Ross Sea and South Pole (1910–1913). In this role, he captured some of the most enduring images of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
As a member of the shore party in early 1911, Ponting helped set up the Terra Nova Expedition's Antarctic winter camp at Cape Evans, Ross Island. The camp included a tiny photographic darkroom. Although the expedition came more than 20 years after the invention of photographic film, Ponting preferred high-quality images taken on glass plates.
Ponting was one of the first men to use a portable movie camera in Antarctica. The primitive device, called a cinematograph, could take short video sequences. Ponting also brought some autochrome plates to Antarctica and took some of the first known color still photographs there.
The catastrophic end of "Scott's Last Expedition" also affected Ponting's later life and career. When the Terra Nova had sailed south in 1910, it had left massive debts behind. It was expected that Scott would return from the South Pole as a celebrity and that he could use moving images from his expedition in a one-man show. Ponting's cinematograph sequences, pieced out with magic lantern slides, were to have been a key element in the expedition's financial payback.
In 2009, SPRI and publisher Salto Ulbeek platinum-printed and published a selection of the Collection.  In addition, one of Ponting's photographic darkrooms was reconstructed in the collections of the Ferrymead Heritage Park in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The mountain
The legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山) 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 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 WEISSHORN BY WILHELM FRIEDRICH BURGER

WILHELM FRIEDRICH BURGER (1882-1964)

The Weisshorn  (4, 506m - 14, 783ft)

Switzerland (Valais) 

In The Weisshorn from Zermatt, pencil on paper, John Mitchell Gallery, London 

The mountain 

The Weisshorn (4, 506m - 14, 783ft) meaning white peak  in German ) is a major peak of the Swiss Alps. It is part of the Pennine Alps and is located between the valleys of Anniviers and Zermatt in the canton of Valais.  The Weisshorn was first climbed in 1861 from Randa by the Irish physicist John Tyndall, accompanied by the guides J.J. Bennen and Ulrich Wenger. Nowadays, the Weisshorn Hut is used on the normal route. The Weisshorn is considered by many mountaineers to be the most beautiful mountain in the Alps and Switzerland for its pyramidal shape and pure white slopes.

In April and May 1991, two consecutive rockslides took place from a cliff above the town of Randa on the east side of the massif, below the Bis Glacier.

The artist 

One of the leading graphic artists of his time, Wilhelm, or Willy, Burger is widely recognized today for his lithographed posters. Some of these placards now sell for more than his oils and watercolours! However, he was first and foremost a painter by training. He apprenticed in Zurich before leaving for Philadelphia and New York in 1908. After working there for several years, he returned to Zurich from where he would travel throughout the Swiss Alps, the Mediterranean and even Egypt for his commissions. This lofty panorama was painted in 1933 from the best known viewpoint of the monumental peak that straddles the French and Italian borders. Burger’s watercolour skills come to the fore in his rendering of the shadows reaching down the rocks to the Bergschrund above the Glacier du Géant; the small blob of undiluted ultramarine blue in the centre of Burger’s composition conjures the ice and late afternoon cold.

MOUNT RAINIER OR TACOMA BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)

Mount Rainier  also called MontTacoma (4,392 m -14,411 ft) 

United States of America  (Washington)

In Mount Rainier from the Bay of Tacoma, oil on canvas,  1875,  Tacoma Art Museum

The mountain

Mount Rainier,  Mount Tacoma, or Mount Tahoma (4,392 m-14,411 ft) is the highest mountain of the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, and the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a large active stratovolcano located 54 miles (87 km) south-southeast of Seattle. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc.

Mount Rainier was first known by the Native Americans as Talol, or Tacoma or Tahoma. 

One hypothesis of the word origin is  ("mother of waters"), in the Lushootseed language spoken by the Puyallup people. Another hypothesis is that "Tacoma" means "larger than Mount Baker" in Lushootseed: "Ta", larger, plus "Koma", Mount Baker. Other names originally used include Tahoma, Tacobeh, and Pooskaus. The current name was given by George Vancouver, who named it in honor of his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. The map of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806 refers to it as "Mt. Regniere". Mount Rainier has a topographic prominence of 13,210 ft (4,026 m), which is greater than that of K2, the world's second-tallest mountain, at 13,189 ft (4,020 m). On clear days it dominates the southeastern horizon in most of the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area to such an extent that locals sometimes refer to it simply as "the Mountain." 

With 26 major glaciers and 36 sq mi (93 km2) of permanent snowfields and glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each more than 1,000 ft (300 m) in diameter, with the larger east crater overlapping the west crater. 

Mountain climbing on Mount Rainier is difficult, involving traversing the largest glaciers in the U.S. south of Alaska. Most climbers require two to three days to reach the summit. Climbing teams demand experience in glacier travel, self-rescue, and wilderness travel. 

The worst mountaineering accident on Mount Rainier occurred in 1981, when eleven people lost their lives in an ice fall on the Ingraham Glacier. This was the largest number of fatalities on Mount Rainier in a single incident since 32 people were killed in a 1946 plane crash on the South Tahoma Glacier.

The painter 

Sanford Robinson Gifford was born in Greenfield, New York and spent his childhood in Hudson, New York, the son of an iron foundry owner. He attended Brown University 1842-44, before leaving to study art in New York City in 1845. He studied drawing, perspective and anatomy under the direction of the British watercolorist and drawing-master, John Rubens Smith.  He also studied the human figure in anatomy classes at the Crosby Street Medical college and took drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.  By 1847 he was sufficiently skilled at painting to exhibit his first landscape at the National Academy and was elected an associate in 1851, an academician in 1854. Thereafter Gifford devoted himself to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the early Hudson River School.

Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.

In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.

Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.

During the summer of 1867, Gifford spent most of his time painting on the New Jersey coast, specifically at Sandy Hook and Long Branch, according to an auction Web site.

Another journey, this time with Jervis McEntee and his wife, took him across Europe in 1868. Leaving the McEntees behind, Gifford traveled to the Middle East, including Egypt in 1869. Then in the summer of 1870 Gifford ventured to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States, this time with Worthington Whittredge and John Frederick Kensett. At least part of the 1870 travels were as part of a Hayden Expedition, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden.

Returning to his studio in New York City, Gifford painted numerous major landscapes from scenes he recorded on his travels. Gifford's method of creating a work of art was similar to other Hudson River School artists. He would first sketch rough, small works in oil paint from his sketchbook pencil drawings. Those scenes he most favored he then developed into small, finished paintings, then into larger, finished paintings.

Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. Examples of Gifford's "chief pictures" in museum collections today include: Lake Nemi (1856–57), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ; The Wilderness (1861), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ;  A Passing Storm (1866), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut ;  Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. On August 29, 1880, Gifford died in New York City, having been diagnosed with malarial fever. The MET in New York City celebrated his life that autumn with a memorial exhibition of 160 paintings. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

DRAKENSBERG MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY RUDOLF SAUTER

RUDOLF HELMUT SAUTER (1895-1977)

Thabana Ntlenyana (3, 482m - 11, 424ft) 

South Africa, Lesotho 

  In Drakensberg mountains - South Africa 1926, oil on canvas, John Mitchell Gallery London 

The mountain 
Thabana Ntlenyana  (3,482m - 11, 424ft)  which literally means "Beautiful little mountain" in Sesotho, is the highest point in Lesotho and the highest mountain in southern Africa. It is situated on the Mohlesi ridge of the Drakensberg/Maloti Mountains, north of Sani Pass.  The peak is usually climbed by groups completing a Grand Traverse of the Drakensberg - even though the peak is technically in the Maloti Mountains.
The Maloti Mountains, also spelled Maluti are a mountain range of the highlands of the Kingdom of Lesotho. They extend for about 100 km into the Free State. The Maloti Range is part of the Drakensberg system that includes ranges across large areas of South Africa. “Maloti” is also the plural for Loti, the currency of the Kingdom of Lesotho. The range forms the northern portion of the boundary between the Butha-Buthe District in Lesotho and South Africa’s Orange Free State.
The Drakensberg  is the name given to the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau.

The painter 
Rudolf Helmut Sauter was the son of the German-born artist Georg Sauter (1866-1937), who had settled in London in 1894 and established a career as a portrait painter and landscapist. Educated at Harrow, the young Sauter studied art in London and Munich, and exhibited his work at the Royal Academy, the Royal West of England Academy and the Paris Salon.
During the First World War, Sauter was interned at Alexandra Palace in London and in Frimley in Surrey, where he produced a number of drawings illustrating life in the camp. His letters describing the conditions in the camp, written to his wife in 1918 and 1919, are today in the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London.
 Sauter was the nephew and heir of the writer John Galsworthy, and illustrated an edition of his complete works, as well as painting portraits of the writer and his wife. He exhibited at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and the Royal Society of British Artists, and also produced a number of lithographs of landscape subjects. Sauter developed a particular skill as a pastellist, and showed his work at the Pastel Society.

Sauter travelled extensively, and over his career exhibited landscapes and views of England, South Africa, Italy (particularly Venice and Sicily), Morocco and the westerns states of America, notably views of the Grand Canyon. Apart from showing at the Salons in Paris, he also had one-man exhibitions in New York (at the C. W. Kraushaar Galleries in 1928) and South Africa. His work was exhibited with less frequency after John Galsworthy’s death in 1933, perhaps partly due to the fact that, as the novelist’s heir, he was better able to support himself financially. Much of his work was destroyed in a fire in the 1980’s, shortly after his death, which means that relatively few works by him survive today.

EL PINCHICHA BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT  (1769-1859)

El Pinchicha (4,784 m -15,696 ft)

Ecuador

In  El  Pinchicha  Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique,

gravure, published in Paris by F. Schoell in 1810  

The mountain 
El Pichincha   (4,784 m -15,696 ft)  is an active stratovolcano situated in  Ecuador. The two highest peaks of the mountain are Wawa Pichincha (Hispanicized spelling Guagua Pichincha  meaning child, baby or small  and Ruku Pichincha (Hispanicized Rucu Pichincha meaning old person, in Kithwa rujku langage) (4,698 metres (15,413 ft)). The active caldera is in Wawa Pichincha on the western side of the mountain.
Both peaks are visible from the city of Quito and both are popular acclimatization climbs.
 In October 1999, the volcano erupted and covered the city with several inches of ash. Prior to that, the last major eruptions were in 1553 and during the Plinian eruption of 1660, when about 30 cm of ash fell on the city of Quito.
In 1737 several members of the French Geodesic Mission to the Equator, including Charles-Marie de La Condamine, Pierre Bouguer and Antonio de Ulloa, spent 23 days on the summit of Rucu Pichincha as part of their triangulation work to calculate the length of a degree of latitude.
On 17 June 1742, during the same mission, La Condamine and Bouguer made an ascent of Guagua Pichincha and looked down into the crater of the volcano, which had last erupted in 1660. La Condamine compared what he saw to the underworld.
On May 24, 1822, General Sucre's southern campaign, in the context of the Spanish-America war of independence, came to a climax when patriot forces defeated the Spanish colonial army on the south-east slopes of this volcano. The engagement, known as the Battle of Pichincha, secured the independence of the territories of present-day Ecuador.
The most recent significant eruption was in August 1998. On March 12, 2000, a phreatic eruption killed two volcanologists who were working on the lava dome.

The artist

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

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

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

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

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

THE MONT BLANC BY JOHN RUSKIN

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m - 15,776 ft)

 France- Italy border  

In The Mont Blanc from Saint Martin sur Arve, watercolour, 

Ashmoleum Museum- Oxford University.

The mountain 

 The Mont Blanc  4,808.73 m (15,777 ft)  or Monte Bianco, both meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe after the Caucasus peaks. It is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence.  The Mont Blanc 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 summits, (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 Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.

The mountain lies in a range called the Graian Alps, between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France. The location of the summit is on the watershed line between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy and the valleys of Montjoie, and Arve in France. The Mont Blanc massif is popular for mountaineering, hiking, skiing, and snowboarding.

The three towns and their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valley, Italy, and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and Chamonix in Haute-Savoie, France.  A cable car ascends and crosses the mountain range from Courmayeur to Chamonix, through the Col du Géant. Constructed beginning in 1957 and completed in 1965, the 11.6 km (7¼ mi) Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two countries and is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes.

Since the French Revolution, the issue of the ownership of the summit has been debated. 

From 1416 to 1792, the entire mountain was within the Duchy of Savoy. In 1723 the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, acquired the Kingdom of Sardinia. The resulting state of Sardinia was to become preeminent in the Italian unification.[ In September 1792, the French revolutionary Army of the Alps under Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou-Fézensac seized Savoy without much resistance and created a department of the Mont-Blanc. In a treaty of 15 May 1796, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France.  A Sardinian Atlas map of 1869 showing the summit lying two thirds in Italy and one third in France.

Although the Franco-Italian border was redefined in both 1947 and 1963, the commission made up of both Italians and French ignored the Mont Blanc issue. In the early 21st century, administration of the mountain is shared between the Italian town of Courmayeur and the French town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, although the larger part of the mountain lies within the commune of the latter.

The painter 

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
He was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century, and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature".  From the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.
About mountains he painted quite a lot of times, Ruskin wrote: "They are the great cathedrals of the earth, with their portals of rock, the mosaics of clouds, the choirs of  torrents, and the altars of snow, sometimes with purple sparkling stars." and  "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery."

THE HOHER DACHSTEIN PAINTED BY TONI HALLER

TONI HALLER (1907-1944)

Hoher Dachstein (2, 995m - 9,826ft)

 Austria 

In Lake Gosau with the Dachstein, oil on canvas, private collection 

The painter 

Toni Haller, also known as Hans Sterbik, was an Austrian painter  born in 1907. Not a lot of informations about his life are available except he lived and worked in Vienna.  His work comprises landscapes and predominantly mountains landcapes. He found his motifs in Tyrol, the Salzkammergut, and the Dolomites.  Many works by Toni Haller have been sold at auction, including 'Winter in den Dolomiten' sold in 2011 for $7,563. The artist died in 1944.

The mountain 
Hoher Dachstein (2, 995m - 9,826ft) is a strongly karstic Austrian mountain, and the second highest mountain in the Northern Limestone Alps. It is situated at the border of Upper Austria and Styria in central Austria, and is the highest point in each of those states. Parts of the massif also lie in the state of Salzburg, leading to the mountain being referred to as the Drei-Lander-Berg ("three-state mountain"). The Dachstein massif covers an area of around 20x30 km with dozens of peaks above 2,500 m, the highest of which are in the southern and south-western areas. Seen from the north, the Dachstein massif is dominated by the glaciers with the rocky summits rising beyond them. By contrast, to the south, the mountain drops almost vertically to the valley floor (see above).
The summit was first reached in 1832 by Peter Gappmayr, via the Gosau glacier, after an earlier attempt by Erzherzog Karl via the Hallstätter glacier had failed. Within two years of Gappmayr's success a wooden cross had been erected at the summit. The first person to reach the summit in winter was Friedrich Simony, on 14 January 1847. The sheer southern face was first climbed on 22 September 1909 by the brothers Irg and Franz Steiner.

EL CHIMBORAZO PAINTED BY JOAQUIN PINTO

JOAQUIN PINTO  (1842-1906)

El Chimborazo (6,263 m -20,548 ft)  

Ecuador 

In El Chimborazo, oil on canvas, 190,  Museo Municipal de Quito 

The mountain
Chimborazo  (6,263 m -20,548 ft) is a currently inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes ans the highest mountain in Ecuador and the Andes north of Peru ; it is higher than any more northerly summit in the Americas. Chimborazo is not the highest mountain by elevation above sea level, but its location along the equatorial bulge makes its summit the farthest point on the Earth's surface from the Earth's center.
Chimborazo is at the main end of the Ecuadorian Volcanic Arc, north west of the town of Riobamba. Chimborazo is in la Avenida de los Volcanes (the Avenue of Volcanoes) west of the Sanancajas mountain chain. Carihuairazo, Tungurahua, Tulabug, and El Altar are all mountains that neighbor Chimborazo.  The closest mountain peak, Carihuairazo, is 5.8 mi (9.3 km) from Chimborazo. There are many microclimates near Chimborazo, varying from desert in the Arenal to the humid mountains in the Abraspungo valley.
Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around A.D. 550.
Until the beginning of the 19th century, it was thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth (measured from sea level), and such reputation led to many attempts on its summit during the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1746, the volcano was explored by French academicians from the  French Geodesic Mission. Their mission was to determine the sphericity of the Earth. Their work along with another team in Lapland established that the Earth was an oblate spheroid rather than a true sphere. They did not reach the summit of Chimborazo.
In 1802, during his expedition to South America, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montufar, tried to reach the summit. From his description of the mountain, it seems that before he and his companions had to return suffering from altitude sickness they reached a point at 5,875 m, higher than previously attained by any European in recorded history. (Incans had reached much higher altitudes previously; see Llullaillaco). In 1831, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault and Colonel Hall reached a new "highest point", estimated to be 6,006 m.
On 4 January 1880, the English climber Edward Whymper reached the summit of Chimborazo. The route that Whymper took up Chimborazo is now known as the Whymper route. Edward Whymper, and his Italian guides Louis Carrel and Jean-Antoine Carrel, were the first Europeans to summit a mountain higher than 20,000 feet. As there were many critics who doubted that Whymper had reached the summit, later in the same year he climbed to the summit again, choosing a different route (Pogyos) with the Ecuadorians David Beltrбn and Francisco Campaсa.

The painter 
Joaquín Pinto was an Ecuadorian painter, considered nowadays as one of the best painters of his country in 19th century. Pinto began drawing in his first years of school and  was taught art by Cipriano Borja and the famous Antonio Salas.  Pinto's family became poor following the 1853 death of his father. To earn money, Pinto began to give classes in culture, while continuing his art studies.
 In 1877, Pinto illustrated Federico González Suárez's book Estudio Histórico Sobre los Cañaris. Juan Manosalvas taught Pinto watercolor technique, though Pinto soon surpassed Manosalvas in talent. At the turn of the 20th century, his indigenous costumbrismo was popular both in Ecuador and abroad. His notable clients included Rogelio Bonnal and many politicians...
In 1903, Pinto taught in Cuenca's Escuela de Pintura. Beginning in 1904, he taught painting in Quito's Escuela de Bellas Artes. Pinto's notable paintings include "San Juan en su Visión Apocalíptica de la Virgen", "El Indio de la Magdalena",  "Entierro del Niño Indio", "El Chimborazo" (above) , "Cara-Ajos", and a portrait of his lifelong friend González Suárez.

THE BLACK TUSK PAINTED BY ROBERT GENN

 ROBERT GENN (1936-2014) 

The Black Tusk  (2,319m - 7,608ft) 

Canada (British Columbia) 

1. In An afternoon at Black Tusk, 1999, acrilyc on canvas, Assiniboia Gallery  

 2.  In The Black Tusk, 1995, oil on canvas 

The mountain 
The Black Tusk (2,319m- 7608ft) is a stratovolcano and a pinnacle of volcanic rock in Garibaldi Provincial Park of British Columbia, Canada, part of the part of the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt which is a segment of the Canadian Cascade Arc. The upper spire is visible from a great distance in all directions. It is particularly noticeable from the Sea-to-Sky Highway just south of Whistler, British Columbia. Distinctive and immediately identifiable, The Black Tusk is among the best known mountains in the Garibaldi Ranges of the Coast Mountains. To Squamish people, this mountain is known as "t'ak't'ak mu'yin tl'a in7in'a'xe7en". In their language it means "Landing Place of the Thunderbird" speaking of the supernatural "in7in'a'xe7en" or Thunderbird. The jagged shape of the mountain and its black colouring are said to come from the Thunderbird's lightning.

The painter 

Robert Douglas Genn  was a Canadian artist, who has gained recognition for his style, which is in the tradition of Canadian landscape painting.  Born in Victoria, British Columbia, Genn has often been compared with  members of  the 1920s Canadian Group of Seven.  In 1961, he met Lawren Harris who was a neighbour in Point Grey, Vancouver. Genn had problems with painting skies, and Harris's advice was to turn the picture upside-down: "Paint down from the trees to the clouds at the bottom of the picture to get the perspective right." Genn said this was "valuable advice", which enabled him "to control the gradation, and work up into the trees in a more abstract manner."
His work is in corporate and public collections, including Air Canada, Bank Of Montreal, Canadian General Insurance, Canadian Airlines, Canadian Utilities, The Churchill Corporation, Expo '86, Esso Resources, First City - California II, Highfield Oil & Gas, Molson Brewery Ltd., Montreal Trust, Shell Resources, University of Alberta, Westgate Chevrolet, Glenbow Museum and Government of Belgium.

He ran the Painter's Keys website, a worldwide artists' community, with his staff and volunteers. The web site sends out an erudite free twice-weekly newsletter, which is sent to 135,000 artists in over 100 countries, and claims the largest collection of art quotes online with over 5,382 authors quoted. 

In 2005, Genn campaigned against the Chinese website, arch-world.com, which was selling thousands of high-resolution images of around 2,800 artists' work illegally, without permission. After failing to gain support from the Canadian government or the African embassy in Ottawa, Genn used his web site to enlist subscribers' support to email objections to the arch-world, resulting within days in over 1,000 online complaints from artists, dealers and politicians to the company and governments. This stimulated a diplomatic protest letter to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Trading and Law Department from the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. Genn credited the campaign with the subsequent removal of images by 800 Canadian artists from arch-world, although many works were reinstated on arch-world soon after.

Genn has been a member of the Board of Directors at Emily Carr College of Art & Design.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau