ACROCORINTH PAINTED BY CARL ROTTMANN

CARL ROTTMANN (1797-1850)
Acrocorinth (575m - 1,886 ft)
Greece

 In Corinth with Akrocorinth, 1847, oil on canvas, Neue Pinacothek Munchen 

The rock formation
Acrocorinth (575m - 1,886 ft) (Ακροκόρινθος) or "Upper Corinth", the acropolis of ancient Corinth, is a monolithic rock overseeing the ancient city of Corinth, Greece. Acrocorinth was continuously occupied from archaic times to the early 19th century. Along with Demetrias and Chalcis, the Acrocorinth during the Hellenistic period formed one of the so-called "Fetters of Greece" - three fortresses garrisoned by the Macedonians to secure their control of the Greek city-states. The city's archaic acropolis, already an easily defensible position due to its geomorphology, was further heavily fortified during the Byzantine Empire as it became the seat of the strategos of the thema of Hellas and later of the Peloponnese. It was defended against the Crusaders for three years by Leo Sgouros.
The highest peak on the site was home to a temple to Aphrodite which was converted to a church in  and then became a mosque. The American School's Corinth Excavations began excavations on it in 1929. Currently, Acrocorinth is one of the most important medieval castle sites of Greece.
In a Corinthian myth related in the 2nd century CE to Pausanias, Briareus, one of the Hecatonchires, was the arbitrator in a dispute between Poseidonand Helios, between the sea and the sun: his verdict was that the Isthmus of Corinth belonged to Poseidon and the acropolis of Corinth (Acrocorinth) to Helios.
The Upper Pirene spring is located within the encircling walls. "The spring, which is behind the temple, they say was the gift of Asopus to Sisyphus. The latter knew, so runs the legend, that Zeus had ravished Aegina, the daughter of Asopus, but refused to give information to the seeker before he had a spring given him on the Acrocorinthus."

The painter 

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

In 1834 Rottmann traveled to Greece to prepare for a commission from Ludwig for a second cycle; one might mark here the beginning of his third period. At first also intended for the Hofgarten arcade, the 23 great landscapes (of which the one above) were eventually installed in the newly built Neue Pinakothek where they were given their own hall.

EL COTOPAXI PAINTED BY RAFAEL SALAS

RAFAEL SALAS (1824-1906) 

El Cotopaxi (5,897 m - 19,347 ft) 

Ecuador

 In Vista del volcán Cotopaxi, 1870, oil on canvas, Museo Arocena, Mexico City 

The mountain 

El Cotopaxi  (5,897 m - 19,347 ft)  is an active stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains, 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 m (12,500 ft), with a width at its base of about 23 km (14 mi). It has one of the few equatorial glaciers in the world, which starts at the height of 5,000 m (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 Salas was an important Ecuadorian  landscape and genre painter  of nineteenth century South America neoclassicism. He was the last son of the famous Salas artists dynasty among which  his  half brother Ramon Salas ( 1815-1880), the fist professor a t Academy of fine Arts of Quito and  responsive for the taste of Costumbrismo; and above all their father Antonio Salas (1795-1860) a colonial artist specialized in religious themes like La Muerte de San José and La Negacion de San Pedro in the Cathedral of Quito. 

THE BRENNER PASS BY JEAN-FRANÇOIS ALBANIS BEAUMONT (1753-1812)

JEAN-FRANÇOIS ALBANIS BEAUMONT (1753-1812)

The Brenner Pass (1,372m - 4,501ft)  

Austria - Italy border 

In Montagne de Brenner, 1797, drawing from Picturesque travel to the Pennine Alps

The mountain
The Brenner pass (1,372m - 4,501ft) is an Alpine pass separating Italy (the municipality of Brennero in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano) from Austria (Gries in Tyrol).  The Brenner pass connects the Stubai Alps to the west to the Zillertal Alps to the east, between the peaks of Sattelberg (2,115m - 6,939ft) and Wolfendorn (2,776m - 9,107ft). It separates the southern and northern parts of the Wipptal, a valley formed by Isarco to the south and Sill to the north, extending from Fortezza to Innsbruck. The pass marks the Italian-Austrian border and the watershed between the drainage basin of the Adriatic Sea (Adige) and the Black Sea (Inn and Danube). It is the lowest and most frequented passage between the north and the south of the main ridge of the Alps and the only one that a large transit railway crosses in the open sky. It is also crossed by the Brenner motorway leading from Modena to Innsbruck, part of the European Route 45.
The construction of the motorway began in 1957. On this occasion was built the Europabrücke, which was until 1974 the highest bridge in Europe with 190 m  (623 ft)high.

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

MITTAGSKOGEL / KEPA PAINTED BY MARCUS PERNHART

MARCUS PERNHART (1824-1871)

Mittagskogel / Kepa (2,145 m - 7,037 ft)

Austria, Slovenia border

In Mittagskogel ud Villacher Becken vom Dobratsch gegen Osten, oil on canvas, 1850 

The mountain 

The Mittagskogel in Austrian or Kepa in Slovenian ( 2,145 m- 7,037 ft) is the third highest mountain in the Karawanks range, after Hochstuhl/Stol and the Vertratscha/Vrtača. It is located on the border between Slovenia and Austria.

The massif consisting of main dolomite and Dachstein limestone beds rises between the Slovene Sava valley in the south and the Austrian Drau basin in the north. Its steep northern face, resembling a rocky pyramid with a rounded summit is a landmark in Carinthia.

The mountain is usually climbed from the village of Belca on its Slovenian side.  An Alpine club hut, the Berta Hut, located at an elevation of 1,567 m (5,141 ft), can be reached from the Austrian municipality of Finkenstein; from here, the normal route leads to the summit.

Mentioned as Copan mons in a 1650 map, the German oronym Mittagskogel (Midday Peak) denotes the position of the sun above the summit at noon.

The painter 

Markus Pernhart was a Carinthian Slovenian / Austrian painter. He is considered the first Slovene realistic landscape painter. Early on, he began to paint panels ans humorous works, offered at Klagenfurt weekly market. At  barely 12 years, he painted the guest rooms of Krajcar Restaurant between Klagenfurt and Völkermarkt. The innkeeper made, the bishop's chaplain Henr. Hermann discovered the talented boys. At 15, he trained in painting first with Andreas Hauser in Klagenfurt.  Soon after, he got contact with the Viennese art scene, particularly to Franz Steinfeld, who taught at the Academy of Fine Arts. It was forwarded to the Munich Academy, but soon returned to Carinthia. There he was promoted by his stage name Pernhart the famous landscape painter of his time.

When Pernhart's drawing style had fully developed, he was asked by Max Moro to draw all Castles Carinthia. The idea was to these buildings if they could often for financial reasons can not be obtained, at least to preserve the picture, thereby preserving from decay. Markus Pernhart does not disappoint its customers and held in pencil drawings smallest details of the well-preserved, but also the already partly decayed plants firmly. Already in 1853, he produced 40 drawings followed by 198 others, he property of the Historical Association for Carinthia. In 1855  he gave the Carinthian estates Empress Elisabeth, an album of 21 drawings to which Max Moro contributed. Entitled images from Carinthia  appeared  in 1863-1868 in deliveries as steel engravings with accompanying. After his death appeared 5 lithographic panoramic images (Klagenfurt in 1875 and 1889). 

His entire painted oeuvre consists of approximately 1,200  paintings, drawings and engravings that delight even after his death a large appreciation. Pernhart presented landscapes, preferably lakes and high mountain motifs or castles, but also animals and still life subjects, in an idyllic and pathetic style. His works can be seen against the background of an incipient leisure society, they lead before the regional status objects of his home.

OIL NOYNO EBURRU BY ROBERT MC LELLAN-SIM

ROBERT MC LELLAN-SIM  (1907-1985)

Ol Doinyo Eburru (2,856m- 9,370ft)

 Kenya

 In Mount Eburu and Lake Navaisha, oil on canvas, 1960 

The mountain 
Ol Doinyo Eburru (2,856m- 9,370ft) is an active complex of volcanoes in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya to the northwest of Lake Naivasha.  The volcanic complex has an area of 470 square kilometres (180 sq mi). There are two summits, Eburru hill and West hill.[1] There are young craters on the eastern part of the ridge. It is being exploited for geothermal energy. Soysambu Conservancy is located to the north of the massif, between Lake Elmenteita to the east and Lake Nakuru to the west.

The painter 

Robert Mc Lellan Sim (RMS) attended Newport Secondary School from 1919 to 1924. In 1926 he won three prizes for graphic arts at the National Eisteddfod of Wales and in 1926 he was awarded a scholarship to study at the Newport School of Arts and Crafts (now part of the University of Wales). After finishing college with a Board of Education Teachers Certificate he attended the Newport Institute for Research into Art and Design (N.I.R.A.D.). 

RMS was a prolific artist, and during his time in East Africa (he travelled throughout Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar) he completed as many as 40 paintings a year. His work was in great demand, mostly in Kenya and purchased by many eminent people and was extremely popular as an official gift or a farewell present. The Colony of Kenya presented a McLellan-Sim painting to HM The Queen on the occasion of her Coronation in 1953, and HM The Queen Mother was presented with another to commemorate her Visit to Kenya in 1959. 

RMS’s move to Kenya in 1947 was a search for colour and space. His brief war service in the Far East obviously gave him a taste for warmer climes, brighter colours and wide spaces, aspects that were to feature strongly in his African paintings. He is on record as saying that he preferred landscapes and seascapes to portraits because he could go away on his own, often combining his field trips with fishing expeditions, during which he could turn to his sketch book when the trout would not jump! 

MOUNT HOOD / WY'EAST (1) PAINTED BY CHILDE HASSAM

CHILDE HASSAM (1859-1935)

  Mount Hood  / Wy'east (3,429m-11,249ft) 

United States of America (Oregon)

The mountain 

Mount Hood  / Wy'east (3,429m-11,249ft) is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc of northern Oregon. It was formed by a subduction zone on the Pacific coast and rests in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located about 50 miles (80 km) east-southeast of Portland, on the border between Clackamas and Hood River counties. In addition to being Oregon's highest mountain, it is one of the loftiest mountains in the nation based on its prominence.

The height assigned to Mount Hood's snow-covered peak has varied over its history. 

The peak is home to 12 named glaciers and snowfields. It is the highest point in Oregon and the fourth highest in the Cascade Range. Mount Hood is considered the Oregon volcano most likely to erupt, though based on its history, an explosive eruption is unlikely. Still, the odds of an eruption in the next 30 years are estimated at between 3 and 7 %, so the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) characterizes it as "potentially active", but the mountain is informally considered dormant.

The painter
Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.

THE ESJA (2) BY JOHANNES SVEINSSON KJARVAL

JOHANNES SVEINSSON KJARVAL (1885-1972) 

The Esja or Esjan  (914 m - 2, 999ft)

Iceland  

The mountain

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

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

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

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT STELLER BY DAVID ROSENTHAL

DAVID ROSENTHAL (bn. 1953)

Mount Steller (3, 266m- 10, 715 ft) 

United States of America (Alaska) 

The mountain 
Mount Steller (3,266m - 10, 715 ft)  is a peak at the far eastern end of the Chugach Mountains of Alaska, United States. It is notable for its isolated location among extensive icefields, and for its large rise above local terrain. For example, it rises 8,000 feet (2,440 m) above the Bering Glacier to the south in about 4 horizontal miles (6.4 km).
Mount Steller is the high point of Waxell Ridge, an east-west trending ridge on the south side of the Bagley Icefield, one of the largest icefields in North America. The large Bering Glacier flows past the east and south slopes of the ridge, while the Steller Glacier flows from its west side.
The mountain was named for the naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller.
Due to its isolated location, poor weather, and comparatively low absolute elevation by Alaskan standards, Mount Steller was not climbed until recently. The first ascent was in 1992.

The Painter 
David Rosenthal is known as an Antarctic Painter, Painter of Ice, Arctic Artist, Alaskan Artist and an Extreme Artist. He has been lured to cold climates regularly to record snow, ice, and landscapes. Davids paintings of glaciers and icebergs are astoundingly realistic and at the same ethereal at the same time. However his work also includes much more than ice, icebergs and glaciers... Cordova, Alaska is the place David Rosenthal calls home. As an artist and art teacher David has taught and continues to teach many students in Alaska. While teaching art in Alaska, David has instructed students and artist in many programs including the Alaska Artists in the Schools Program, Prince William Sound Community College and University of Alaska Fairbanks Summer Sessions. Alaskan artist David Rosenthal makes it a priority to travel around Alaska as much as possible to continue to capture the incredible beauty in his artwork of Alaska.
Having spent over sixty months on the Ice, including four austral winters and six austral summers, David became an Antarctic artist and has created art images from a large variety of places in every season. David has completed paintings of the antarctic landscape from all across Antarctica. Time in Antarctica included travel as a participant in the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program during a summer and a winter at McMurdo Station as well as most of a winter at Palmer Station. David has also worked for the NSF contractor for two winters and four summers in various job capacities as a way to spend time and become familiar with the landscape.

Rosenthal's work also includes many water colors, oil paintings, sketches and small studies. The paintings seem to magically reflect the intensity of nature's colors and the atmospheric phenomena that David Rosenthal  witnesses. David Rosenthal really is a master of Extreme Art!

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MONT BLANC (2) BY GABRIEL LOPPÉ

GABRIEL LOPPÉ (1825-1913)

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

France, Italy border

In Sunset on MontBlanc seen from Le Buet, oil on card

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.


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.

_______________________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

TIANMUSHAN / 天目山 BY DONG QICHANG / 董其昌

DONG QICHANG  /  董其昌 (1555-1636)
Tianmushan / 天目山  (1,506 m -4,941 ft) 
China 

In  The Qingbian Mountains, 1617,  ink on paper, hanging scroll, Cleveland Museum of art

About this painting

Dong Qichang radically transforms the landscape composition into a purely abstract design. He organizes the mountain forms to achieve an overall sense of structure, activating the flow of energy (qi) and the momentum of force (shi) throughout the pictorial design. In his art, brush and ink assume life independent of the depicted forms, so that the painting can be appreciated for “the sheer marvels of brush and ink.”

The artist
Dong Qichang / 董其昌  was a Chinese painter, scholar, calligrapher, and art theorist of the later period of the Ming Dynasty. His work favored expression over formal likeness. He also avoided anything he deemed to be slick or sentimental. This led him to create landscapes with intentionally distorted spatial features. Still his work was in no way abstract as it took elements from earlier Yuan masters. His views on expression had importance to later "individualist" painters.
He considered there to be a Northern school, represented by Zhe, and a Southern school represented by literati painters. These names are misleading as they refer to Northern and Southern schools of Chan Buddhism thought rather than geographic areas. Hence a Northern painter could be geographically from the south and a Southern painter geographically from the north. In any event he strongly favored the Southern school and dismissed the Northern school as superficial or merely decorative.
His ideal of Southern school painting was one where the artist forms a new style of individualistic painting by building on and transforming the style of traditional masters. This was to correspond with sudden enlightenment, as favored by Southern Chan Buddhism. By relating to the ancient masters' style, artists are to create a place for themselves within the tradition, not by mere imitation, but by extending and even surpassing the art of the past. Dong's theories, combining veneration of past masters with a creative forward looking spark, would be very influential on Qing Dynasty artist as well as collectors, "especially some of the newly rich collectors of Sungchiang, Huichou in Southern Anhui, Yangchou, and other places where wealth was concentrated in this period". He, together with other early self-appointed arbiters of taste, helped determine which painters were to be considered collectible (or not). As Cahill points out, such men were the forerunners of today's art historians.

 The mountains 
Tianmushan / 天目山  (1,506 m -4,941 ft)  meaning "Heavenly Eyes Mountain" is a mountain in Lin'an County 83.2 kilometers (51.7 mi) west of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, in eastern China. It is made up of two peaks: West Tianmu (1,506 m -  4,941 ft) and East Tianmu (1,480 m -  4,860 ft). Twin ponds near the top of the peaks led to the name of the mountain.
China's Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve lies on the northwest portion of the mountain. It is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve as part of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Program. The mountain has a lush sub-tropical climate with an annual rainfall of 1,767 millimeters (69.6 in) and an annual temperature of 17.3 °C (63 °F).
Tianmu is known for giant Japanese cedars, waterfalls, Tianmu tea, peaks surrounded by clouds, bamboo shoots, temples and nunneries, and odd-shaped rocks. More than 2,000 species of plants grow on the mountain, including (on West Tianmu) the last surviving truly wild population of Ginkgo trees. Prominent among the Japanese cedars is the "Giant Tree King", named by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing. The mountain is also home to hundreds of species of birds and animals, including 39 endangered or protected species. These include the clouded leopard and the black muntjac.
In Chinese, the name Tianmushan can also refer to the adjacent range of mountains, including Mount Mogan or ancient Quingbian mountains

EL MULHACEN (3) BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA

 JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BATISDA (1863-1923),

  El Mulhacén  (3, 478 m - 11,411ft)

Spain

 In  La sierra Nevada Spain from the Alhambra, Granada 

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.

JEBEL BOU NACEUR BY EUGENE DELACROIX

EUGENE  DELACROIX  (1798-1863)

Jebel Bou Naceur (3,356 m - 11,010 ft)

Morocco

 In  Album d'Afrique du Nord et d'Espagne - Environs de Meknès, 1832, watercolour on paper 

The mountain 

Jebel Bou Naceur (3,356 m)  or Adrar Bou Nacer, in Morocco is the highest peak of the Middle Eastern  Atlas, located in its very heart. It is covered with neonates during three quarters of the year, but  despite of that is subject to a typical Mediterranean climate.

The cities of Meknes and Fes are the closest from this summit.

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

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE SCHILTHORN BY JOSEPH ANTON KOCH

JOSEPH ANTON KOCH  (1768-1839)

The Schilthorn  (2,970 m- 9,744 ft) 

Switzerland

In  Das Lauterbrunnen, 1821, oil on canvas, 

The mountain
The Schilthorn  (2,970 m- 9,744 ft) is a peak in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland, near the alpine village of Mürren. Access to the village of Mürren and the summit of Schilthorn is impossible by road. To get there from the valley, take a series of cable cars, the first part of Stechelberg to join Gimmelwald, then Mürren. From Mürren a second cable car leads to Birg, from where a third joins the Schilthorn1. Another way to reach Mürren is to take the cable car from Lauterbrunnen to Grütschalp, then the train to Mürren.

The painter 
Joseph Anton Koch was an Austrian (Tyrol) painter of Neoclassicism and later the German Romantic movement; he is perhaps the most significant neoclassical landscape painter.
He   received academic training in the Karlsschule Stuttgart, a strict military academy. In 1791, he ran away, and traveled through France and Switzerland. He arrived in Rome in 1795. Koch was close to the painter Asmus Jacob Carstens and carried on Carstens' "heroic" art, at first in a literal manner.
After 1800, Koch developed as a landscape painter.  In Rome, he espoused a new type of "heroic" landscape, revising the classical compositions of Poussin and Lorrain with a more rugged, mountainous scenery. In 1812, forced through inadequate income from his work, or in protest of the French invasion, he went to Vienna, where he worked prolifically. He stayed in Vienna until 1815. During this period, he incorporated more non-classical themes in his work.  In Vienna, he was influenced by Friedrich Schlegel and enthusiasts of old German art.  In response, his style became harsher. When returning to Rome, Koch became a conspicuous figure in the German artists' colony there.  He painted, among other works, the four frescoes in the Dante Room of the Villa Massimi (1824–29).  He wrote Moderne Kunstchronik oder die rumfordische Suppe gekocht und geschrieben von J. A. Koch (Stuttgart, 1834) which was directed humorously against unjustifiable criticism and false connoisseurship.  Koch's last years were spent in great poverty. He died in Rome,where he was buried in the Teutonic Cemetery, located next to St. Peter's Basilica within Vatican City.  He etched 20 Italian landscapes and a large sheet representing The Oath of the French at Millesimo; 14 pages after Dante, adding later another 30 pages (published Vicenza, 1904), and 36 pages after Ossian.
He contributed American landscape scenes to the works of Alexander von Humboldt (1805).

MOUNT KENT BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

 EUGENE VON GUERARD (1811-1901)

Mount  Kent (1, 540m - 5052 ft)

Australia

The mountain 

Mount Kent is a mountain s situated 48kms away  the  village of Briagolong southeast of Victoria, southeast of Australia.

The painter 
Johann Joseph Eugene von Guerard was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia from 1852 to 1882. Known for his finely detailed landscapes in the tradition of the Düsseldorf school of painting, he is represented in Australia's major public galleries, and is referred to in the country as Eugene von Guerard. In 1852 von Guerard arrived in Victoria, Australia, determined to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. As a gold-digger he was not very successful, but he did produce a large number of intimate studies of goldfields life, quite different from the deliberately awe-inspiring landscapes for which he was later to become famous. Realizing that there were opportunities for an artist in Australia, he abandoned the diggings and was soon undertaking commissions recording the dwellings and properties of wealthy pastoralists.
By the early 1860s, von Guerard was recognized as the foremost landscape artist in the colonies, touring Southeast Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of the sublime and the picturesque.  He is most known for the wilderness paintings produced during this time, which are remarkable for their shadowy lighting and fastidious detail.  Indeed, his View of Tower Hill in south-western Victoria was used as a botanical template over a century later when the land, which had been laid waste and polluted by agriculture, was systematically reclaimed, forested with native flora and made a state park. The scientific accuracy of such work has led to a reassessment of von Guerard's approach to wilderness painting, and some historians believe it likely that the landscapist was strongly influenced by the environmental theories of the leading scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Others attribute his 'truthful representation' of nature to the criterion for figure and landscape painting set by the Düsseldorf Academy.
In 1866 his Valley of the Mitta Mitta was presented to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; in 1870 the trustees purchased his Mount Kosciusko shown in this article was titled "Northeast view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko", which is actually  "from Mount Townsend".
In 2006, the City of Greater Geelong purchased his 1856 painting View of Geelong for A$3.8M. His painting, Yalla-y-Poora, is in the Joseph Brown Collection on display at the National Gallery of Victoria.  The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney holds an extensive collection of working sketchbooks by Eugene von Guerard, as well as larger drawings and paintings and a diary. The sketchbooks cover regions as diverse as Italy and Germany, Tasmania, New South Wales, and of course, Victoria.
In 1870 von Guerard was appointed the first Master of the School of Painting at the National Gallery of Victoria, where he was to influence the training of artists for the next 11 years. His reputation, high at the beginning of this period, had faded somewhat towards the end because of his rigid adherence to picturesque subject matter and detailed treatment in the face of the rise of the more intimate Heidelberg School style. Amongst his pupils were Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Von Guerard retired from his position at the National Gallery School the end of 1881 and departed for Europe in January 1882. In 1891 his wife died. Two years later, he lost his investments in the Australian bank crash and he lived in poverty until his death in Chelsea, London, on 17 April 1901.

Several paintings of mountains of Australia and New Zealand by Eugène von Guerard are published in this blog, check the link in the name list of painters....

JAKHOO HILLS & HIMALAYAS BY ANNE ELIZA SCOTT

 ANNE ELIZA SCOTT (1810-1892)
   Jakhoo hill (2,454 m - 8,051 ft)
India  

From "Views of Himalayas" Plate 14 -  The village of koomar seen on the left hand range the Kooloo and Kote Kangooro in the distance, 1852, Aquatint, 

About the views and the artist
The views are mostly of the Simla region of the Himalayas, where Anne Eliza Scott (1810-1892) spent time in 1850 and 1851. Anne Eliza was the eldest daughter of Colonel Tobias Kirkwood and married Lieutenant William L.L. Scott of the Bengal Army in 1838. They travelled to India in 1839 and some years later Mrs Scott was informed that the Governor- General Lord Dalhousie and others would like some familiar scenes of the Himalayas to be published. She then  published her unique work Views Of Himalayas, a series of plates  seen from different point of views.

The mountain 
 Jakhoo Hill (2,454 m - 8,051 ft) 2.5 km /1.3 miles east from the Ridge,  is  Shimla's highest peak offering a panoramic view of the Shivalik Ranges and the town of Sanjauli. An ancient "Lord Hanuman" temple is there and every year a big festival is held on Dussehra.

CLARK PEAK BY GLACIERS CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS

CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS (1858 -1942) 

Clark Peak  (3,950m - 12,960 ft) 

United States of America (Colorado) 

In Rawah Peaks, Sequoia Park, oil on canvas,

The mountain 
 Clark Peak is the highest summit of the Medicine Bow Mountains range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The prominent  peak is located in the Rawah Wilderness of Routt National Forest, 6.3 miles (10.1 km) north-northwest (bearing 342°) of Cameron Pass, Colorado, United States, on the drainage divide between Jackson and Larimer counties. Clark Peak is the highest point of Jackson County and the entire drainage basin of the North Platte River.

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.
Adams is widely considered to have been Colorado’s finest landscape artist. He is best known for his stunning 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. His works show an intensely personal and poetic response to the Colorado mountains and plains, with unusual sensitivity to the changing effects of light, atmosphere and season.
Adams early work in the 1880s was largely representational and somewhat prosaic, with only hints of the more impressionist works to follow. His style began to coalesce in the early 1890s with some excellent luminous sunsets, some of which were in a Barbizon style, but overall his output was still uneven. In the later 1890s his painting became much more consistent, impressionist, and colorful, and this style prevailed through about 1915. After that his style became progressively “looser,” with larger brush strokes, brighter colors, more impasto, and much less attention to foreground and detail. Some paintings left at his death show only traces of his previous skill.
Adams experimented freely with different palettes and lighting, and some of these were much more successful than others. He must have created several hundred paintings of Longs and Meeker Peaks from his studio in Estes Park, Colorado, yet no two are alike, and some are strikingly different.
Some of his earlier paintings include animals or human figures, but he was not very successful at rendering these, and 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. Although some of his watercolors are masterfully detailed and very carefully done, others are much less detailed, and must have been done very quickly for the tourist trade. As one watercolorist remarked about one of these, “That one must have taken him all of 15 minutes.” Over 950 paintings have been documented. His total output is unknown, but it is estimated to have been 3,000 or more.

EL ANTISANA PAINTED BY RAFAEL TROYA

RAFAEL TROYA (1845-1920)

El Antisana (5,753 m -18,874 ft)

Ecuador (Napo)

In El Antisana o La cacería del venado, oil on canvas, 1918,

Archivo Histórico del Banco Central del Ecuador, Quito. 

Colección Banco Central del Ecuador, Guayaquil

The volcano 

El Antisana (5,753 m -18,874 ft) is a stratovolcano of the Andes Cordillera, located in Ecuador, in the province of Napo. Its last eruption dates back to 1801 (strombolian-type eruption, with lava flows, dome formation at the top that encloses the main crater, ash rain).

EL Antisana separates the Andean Corridor where Quito (located 50 km to the northwest), the province of Pichincha, the Amazon region and the province of Napo. It is the fourth highest peak of Ecuador. The volcano formed in the southeastern part of the great Chacana caldera and has a cone-like shape typical of stratovolcanoes. The summit is formed in a double cone, the most recent cone-shaped, with a breach, and partly overlooking the old cone, which is composed of two caldeiras (east and south).

The eternal snows cover the two cones. The volcano is very often hidden in the clouds.

It is considered an active volcano because of a perceptible activity via fumaroles releases in craters, hot springs (used for thermal tourism), and the last eruptions that occurred during the 18th century. The eruption of 1728, for example, was similar to the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. However,  the presence of a large glacier, and eternal snows, present a risk for the populations of the province of Pichincha and the capital Quito, and its metropolitan area to the east.

El Antisana is known to offer a higher technical challenge than the rest of Ecuadorian volcanoes. Because of its extremely moving glacier, there is no conventional way due to the fact  many crevasses appear and disappear each year. Antisana is also known to offer one of the most dramatic climate change topics in Latin America as it is estimated that one-third of its glacier has disappeared in 30 years.

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.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE MONT VENTOUX BY PIERRE GRIVOLAS

PIERRE GRIVOLAS (1823 - 1906)

 The mont Ventoux (1, 911m - 6, 270ft)
France (Provence-Alpe-Côte-d'Azur)  

    In  Le mont Ventoux entre 1888 et 1906 - Bibliothèque-Musée Inguimbertine, Carpentras, France  

The mountain 

Mont Ventoux  (1, 911m - 6, 270ft), Ventor in Latin, is located in the French department of Vaucluse (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur). It is about 25 kilometers long on an east-west for 15 kilometers wide on a north-south axis. Nicknamed the Giant of Provence, it is the culmination of the Monts du Vaucluse, the ultimate link of the Southern Alps and the highest peak of Vaucluse. Its geographical isolation makes it visible over great distances.

- More about Mont Ventoux 

The painter
Pierre Grivolas is a French painter born and dead in the same city of Avignon. Student of the Beaux-Arts in Paris, he met Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix and Hippolyte Flandrin. In 1848, the Parisian riots forced him to return to Avignon where he joined  the Félibrige (An association created in 1854 by seven young Provencal friends to restore Provencal language, literature and culture).
Around 1866, Count Nicholas of Séménov and his young wife Marie de Séménov, born in Kologrivoff, both of Russian origin, bought and built an house in Provence, at Les Angles, in a place called Chêne Vert, whose plans were drawn by Pierre Grivolas with contest of his younger brother Antoine. This residence will quickly become the meeting place of the Félibrige movement. The Russian couple and Pierre Grivolas will become very close friends.
He became director of the School of Fine Arts in Avignon from 1878 to 1906 and formed many painted which formed with him the New School of Avignon, third of the name. For this, he renewed the way of painting his students by leaving them academic and leading them on the ground to go to the Angles, along the banks of the Rhone, allowing them to take a new look at the nature through the shadow and the light.
In 1894, he invited his brother Antoine Grivolas to leave the Côte d'Azur to join him and settle in the heart of Mont Ventoux in the "Bergerie du Rat" and then at "Combe de Clare". The two painters lived the same life as the shepherds, sleeping on the straw and feeding on slices of bacon and milk. Having made a set of sketches, sketches and canvases, they moved the following year to settle in Monieux, at the entrance of the Nesque gorges.
From this fraternal collaboration are born works that make them consider as major painters of the mythical Giant of Provence, the Mont Ventoux.

MOUNT BYRD BY DAVID ROSENTHAL

DAVID ROSENTHAL (bn. 1953)

Mount Byrd  (810 m -  2,660 ft)

Antarctica (Ford Ranges)

The mountain 

Mount Byrd  (810 m -  2,660 ft) is a mountain, located 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the eastern end of Asman Ridge in the Sarnoff Mountains, Ford Ranges, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. It was mapped by the United States Antarctic Service (1939–41) led by R. Admiral Richard E. Byrd, and named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) for Richard E. Byrd, Jr., son of Admiral Byrd and a member of Operation Highjump (1946–47), who was of assistance to US-ACAN in clarifying a large number of name suggestions put forth by his father.

The Painter 
David Rosenthal is known as an Antarctic Painter, Painter of Ice, Arctic Artist, Alaskan Artist and an Extreme Artist. He has been lured to cold climates regularly to record snow, ice, and landscapes. Davids paintings of glaciers and icebergs are astoundingly realistic and at the same ethereal at the same time. However his work also includes much more than ice, icebergs and glaciers... Cordova, Alaska is the place David Rosenthal calls home. As an artist and art teacher David has taught and continues to teach many students in Alaska. While teaching art in Alaska, David has instructed students and artist in many programs including the Alaska Artists in the Schools Program, Prince William Sound Community College and University of Alaska Fairbanks Summer Sessions. Alaskan artist David Rosenthal makes it a priority to travel around Alaska as much as possible to continue to capture the incredible beauty in his artwork of Alaska.
Having spent over sixty months on the Ice, including four austral winters and six austral summers, David became an Antarctic artist and has created art images from a large variety of places in every season. David has completed paintings of the antarctic landscape from all across Antarctica. Time in Antarctica included travel as a participant in the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program during a summer and a winter at McMurdo Station as well as most of a winter at Palmer Station. David has also worked for the NSF contractor for two winters and four summers in various job capacities as a way to spend time and become familiar with the landscape.

Rosenthal's work also includes many water colors, oil paintings, sketches and small studies. The paintings seem to magically reflect the intensity of nature's colors and the atmospheric phenomena that David Rosenthal  witnesses. David Rosenthal really is a master of Extreme Art!

 

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

AORAKI / MOUNT COOK (2) BY CHARLES BLOMFIELD

CHARLES BLOMFIELD (1848-1926) 

Aoraki / Mount Cook (3,724m - 12, 218ft) 

New Zealand

 In Mount Cook  from the Lake Pukaki, oil on canvas 

The mountain 

Aoraki / Mount Cook (3,724m - 12, 218ft)  is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Its height since 2014 is listed as 3,724 m since December 1991, due to a rockslide and subsequent erosion. It lies in the Southern Alps, the mountain range which runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination, it is also a favourite challenge for mountain climbers. Aoraki / Mount Cook consists of three summits, from South to North the Low Peak (3,593 m or 11,788 ft), Middle Peak (3,717 m or 12,195 ft) and High Peak. The summits lie slightly south and east of the main divide of the Southern Alps, with the Tasman Glacier to the east and the Hooker Glacier to the southwest.The mountain is in the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, in the Canterbury region. The park was established in 1953 and along with Westland National Park, Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park forms one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The park contains more than 140 peaks standing over 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) and 72 named glaciers, which cover 40 percent of its 700 square kilometres (170,000 acres).

Aoraki is the name of a person in the traditions of the Ngāi Tahu iwi; an early name for the South Island is Te Waka o Aoraki (Aoraki's Canoe). In the past many believed it meant "Cloud Piercer",  Historically, the Māori name has been spelt Aorangi, using the standard Māori form.

Aoraki / Mount Cook has been known to Maori since their arrival in New Zealand some time around the 14th century CE. The first Europeans who may have seen Aoraki / Mount Cook were members of Abel Tasman's crew, who saw a "large land uplifted high" while off the west coast of the South Island, just north of present-day Greymouth on 13 December 1642 during Tasman's first Pacific voyage. The English name of Mount Cook was given to the mountain in 1851 by Captain John Lort Stokes to honour Captain James Cook who surveyed and circumnavigated the islands of New Zealand in 1770. Captain Cook did not sight the mountain during his exploration.
Following the settlement between Ngāi Tahu and the Crown in 1998, the name of the mountain was officially changed from Mount Cook to Aoraki / Mount Cook to incorporate its historic Māori name, Aoraki. As part of the settlement, a number of South Island placenames were amended to incorporate their original Māori name. Signifying the importance of Aoraki / Mount Cook, it is the only one of these names where the Māori name precedes the English.

The painter

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

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

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

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

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

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