TARANAKI / MOUNT EGMONT BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mount Taranaki / Mount Egmont  (2,518 m - 8,261 ft) 

New Zealand (North Island) 

In  Mount Egmont, Taranaki, watercolor  Alexander Turnbull Library 

The mountain 
Taranaki / Mount Egmont  (2,518 m - 8,261 ft) is an active but quiescent stratovolcano in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island.
According to Māori mythology, Taranaki once resided in the middle of the North Island, with all the other New Zealand volcanoes. The beautiful Pihanga was coveted by all the mountains, and a great battle broke out between them. Tongariro eventually won the day, inflicted great wounds on the side of Taranaki, and causing him to flee. Taranaki headed westwards, following Te Toka a Rahotu and forming the deep gorges of the Whanganui River, paused for a while, creating the depression that formed the Te Ngaere swamp, then heading north. Further progress was blocked by the Pouakai ranges, and as the sun came up Taranaki became petrified in his current location. When Taranaki conceals himself with rainclouds, he is said to be crying for his lost love, and during spectacular sunsets, he is said to be displaying himself to her. In turn, Tongariro's eruptions are said to be a warning to Taranaki not to return.
Captain Cook named it Mount Egmont on 11 January 1770 after John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, a former First Lord of the Admiralty who had supported the concept of an oceanic search for Terra Australis Incognita. Cook described it as "of a prodigious height and its top cover'd with everlasting snow" surrounded by a "flat country ... which afforded a very good aspect, being clothed with wood and verdure".

The Painter 
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London,  Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit.   His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MONTE CROCE DI MUGGIO BY FREDERIC LEIGHTON

 FREDERIC LEIGHTON ( 1830-1896)

Monte Croce di Muggio (1,799 m - 5902 ft) 

Italy   

In Monte Croce, watercolour, The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

The Mountain 

The Monte Croce di Muggio  (1,799 m - 5902 ft)  is a  mountain in the Bergamo Alps in Italy. It is located east of Lake Como.

 Starting points are Mornico (970 m) near Bellano, located southwest of the summit, or Giumello (1,536 m ) in the northeast. A popular climb ( mountain trail ) begins in Mornico and leads over the flank of the Matoch  1,379 m) to Monte Chiara (1,531 m). From there you continue on a flat path to the Rifugio Capanna Vittoria (1,536 m) and then to the summit cross of the Croce di Muggio

 The painter 

Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, PRA known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was an English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter. In 1860, he moved to London, where he associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. He designed Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tomb for Robert Browning in the English Cemetery, Florence in 1861. 

After his death his Barony was extinguished after existing for only a day; this is a record in the Peerage. His house in Holland Park, London has been turned into a museum, the Leighton House Museum. It contains many of his drawings and paintings, as well as some of his former art collection including works by Old Masters and his contemporaries such as a painting dedicated to Leighton by Sir John Everett Millais.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TAMALPAIS PAINTED BY WILLIAM KEITH

WILLIAM KEITH (1838-1911)  

Mount Tamalpais (784m -  2,571 ft)  

 United State of America (California)

  In Sunset Glow on Mt Tamalpais, oil on canvas, 1896 Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The mountain 
Mount Tamalpais (784m -  2,571 ft)  known locally as Mount Tam is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County.  The name Tamalpais was first recorded in 1845. It comes from the Coast Miwok name for this mountain, támal pájiṣ, literally "west hill". Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mount Tamalpais State Park, the Marin Municipal Water District watershed, and National Park Service land, such as Muir Woods. Mount Tamalpais is the highest peak in the Marin Hills, which are part of the Northern California Coast Ranges.
Mount Tamalpais provides one of the last remaining wildlife refuges in the Bay Area. Urbanization has invaded wildlife habitat, forcing many fauna in southern Marin County to retreat up onto Mount Tamalpais, Muir Woods, and the Bolinas Ridge. A wide variety of avifauna, amphibians, arthropods and mammals are found on Mount Tamalpais, including a number of rare and endangered species. Nonetheless, Mt. Tamalpais and the neighboring Golden Gate Recreation Area together encompass over 115 square miles (298 square kilometers) of land, forming one of the largest preserved parklands located near a U.S. urban center.
Mount Tamalpais has been a common subject in California landscape painting. Painters who have made Tamalpais the subject of one or more paintings include Etel Adnan, Harry Cassie Best, Albert Bierstadt, Norton Bush, Russell Chatham, Edwin Deakin, Percy Gray, Ransome Gillett Holdridge, Tom Killion, William Marple, William Birch McMurtrie, Gilbert Munger, Julian Rix, Frederick Schafer, Jules Tavernier, Nancy Wallace, Thaddeus Welch, Ludmilla Welch, Virgil Williams, Jack Wisby, Theodore Wores, and Raymond Dabb Yelland.

The painter
William Keith (November 18, 1838 – April 13, 1911) was a Scottish-American painter famous for his California landscapes. He is associated with Tonalism and the American Barbizon school. Although most of his career was spent in California, he started out in New York, made two extended study trips to Europe, and had a studio in Boston in 1871-72 and one in New York in 1880.
When Keith went to California, and traveled to Yosemite Valley in the 70' with a letter of introduction to John Muir. The two men became deep friends for the next 38 years. Both had been born in Scotland the same year, and they shared a love for the mountains of California. James Mitchell Clarke described their friendship as one "in which deep affection and admiration were expressed through a kind of verbal boxing, counter-jibe answering jibe, counter-insult responding to insult."
During the 1870s Keith painted a number of six- by ten-foot panoramas, including Kings River Canyon (Oakland Museum, originally owned by Gov. Leland Stanford) and "California Alps" (Mission Inn, Riverside). These competed with paintings of similar size and subject matter by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Hill.
 "My subjective pictures are the ones that come from the inside. I feel some emotion and I immediately paint a picture that expresses it. The sentiment is the only thing of real value in my pictures, and only a few people understand that. Suppose I want to paint something recalling meditation or repose. If people do not feel that sensation when my work is completed, they do not appreciate nor realize the picture. The fact that they like it means nothing. Any one who can use paint and brushes can paint a true scene of nature — that is an objective picture. The artist must not depend on extraneous things. There is no reality in his art if he must depend on outside influences — it must come from within."
 ( From 1913 Exhibition booklet, Art Institute of Chicago)

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

ELYSIUM MONS BY NASA MARS ODYSSEY

NASA MARS ODYSSEY  (2001- 2010/2025) 

Elysium Mons  (13,900m / 13, 9km - 46,000 ft / 8,6 mi)

MARS

The Mountain 

Elysium Mons  (13,900m / 13, 9km - 46,000 ft / 8,6 mi) is a volcano on Mars located in the volcanic province Elysium, at 25.02°N 147.21°E, in the Martian eastern hemisphere. It stands about  above the surrounding lava plains, and about 16 km (52,000 ft) above the Martian datum. Its diameter is about 240 km (150 mi), with a summit caldera about 14 km (8.7 mi) across. It is flanked by the smaller volcanoes Hecates Tholus to the northeast, and Albor Tholus to the southeast.

A 6.5 km diameter crater at 29.674 N, 130.799 E, in the volcanic plains to the northwest of Elysium Mons has been identified as a possible source for the nakhlite meteorites, a family of similar basaltic Martian meteorites with cosmogenic ages of about 10.7 Ma, suggesting ejection from Mars by a single impact event. This implies that Martian volcanism had slowed greatly by that point in history.

The Mission 

NASA Mars Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001, on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and reached Mars orbit on October 24, 2001, at 02:30 UTC (October 23, 19:30 PDT, 22:30 EDT). By December 15, 2010, it broke the record for longest serving spacecraft at Mars, with 3,340 days of operation. It is currently in a polar orbit around Mars with a semi-major axis of about 3,800 km or 2,400 miles. It has enough propellant to function until 2025.
Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment.  It is hoped that the data Odyssey obtains will help answer the question of whether life existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory, and previously the Phoenix lander to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

TWIN VOLCANOES PARINACOTA & POMERAPE BY RAFAEL SALAS

RAFAEL SALAS  (1824-1906)  

Parinacota  (6,348 m - 20,827ft)

Pomerape (6,282m-20,610ft)

Chile - Bolivia border 

In Bista del Pomerope and Parinacota, oil on canvas, 1870  

The Mountains 
Parinacota (6,348 m-20,827ft) or Parina Quta or Parinaquta  and Pomerape (6,282m-20,610ft) are two twin massive dormant stratovolcanoes on the border of Chile and Bolivia.  The range they are part of, Cerros de Payachata, means twin mountains and there are only those two peaks in the range.
It is usually counted as a sub-range in the Cordillera Occidental,  part of the Payachata volcanic  Pleistocene group. Both volcanoes are right on the Chilean - Bolivian border and can be climbed from either side. Their closest neighbor is Bolivia's highest mountain Sajama (6,542m-21,463ft) which isn't more than 20km away.
Parinacota is located in the extreme NE of Chile, where the country borders to Bolivia. The closest really large city is La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, which is about 300km and five hours away. Arica, in Chile is at the Pacific coast and is about 180 km far (and almost 5000 vertical meters!).
 Parinacota's last eruptive phase has been dated using the helium surface exposure technique, which ties the eruption to 290AD ± 300 years.
One of the most dramatic eruptive events in the volcano's past was 8,000 years ago, when a major collapse of the edifice produced a 6 kmі (1.44 cubic miles) debris avalanche, which blocked nearby drainage patterns, creating Chungara Lake.
The volcano and Pomerape straddle the border between Sajama National Park (Bolivia) and Lauca National Park (Chile).

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.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

THE WETTERHORN PAINTED BY THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE

THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE (1820-1910)

The Wetterhorn (3, 692m -12, 113ft)

 Switzerland

In Das Wetterhorn, 1858, oil on canvas, Newark Museum.

The mountain 

The Wetterhorn (3,692m-12,113ft) in the  Bernese Alps, towers above the village of Grindelwald. Formerly known as Hasle Jungfrau, it is one of three summits of a mountain named Wetterhorn sensu lato, or the "Wetterhцrner", the highest summit of which is the Mittelhorn (3,704 m) and the most distant the Rosenhorn (3,689 m). The Mittelhorn and Rosenhorn are mostly hidden from view from Grindelwald. The Grosse Scheidegg Pass crosses the col to the north, between the Wetterhorn and the Schwarzhorn. The Wetterhorn summit was first reached on August 31, 1844, by the Grindelwald guides Hans Jaun and Melchior Bannholzer, three days after they had co-guided a large party organized by the geologist Edouard Desor to the first ascent of the Rosenhorn. The Mittelhorn was first summitted on 9 July 1845 by the same guides, this time accompanied by a third guide, Kaspar Abplanalp, and by Stanhope Templeman Speer. 

The painter 

Thomas Worthington Whittredge  was an American artist of the Hudson River School. Whittredge was a highly regarded artist of his time, and was friends with several leading Hudson River School artists including Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Robinson Gifford. He traveled widely and excelled at landscape painting, many examples of which are now in major museums. He served as president of the National Academy of Design from 1874 to 1875 and was a member of the selection committees for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and the 1878 Paris Exposition, both important venues for artists of the day.

Whittredge journeyed across the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains in 1865 with Sanford Gifford and John Frederick Kensett. The trip resulted in some of Whittredge's most important works—unusually oblong, sparse landscapes that captured the stark beauty and linear horizon of the Plains. Whittredge later wrote in his autobiography, "I had never seen the plains or anything like them. They impressed me deeply. I cared more for them than for the mountains... Whoever crossed the plains at that period, notwithstanding its herds of buffalo and flocks of antelope, its wild horses, deer and fleet rabbits, could hardly fail to be impressed with its vastness and silence and the appearance everywhere of an innocent, primitive existence."

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

Un blog de Francis Rousseau

LONE PINE PEAK & MOUNTAIN LAKE BY MARSDEN HARTLEY

MARSDEN HARTLEY (1877-1943)

Lone Pine Peak (1,219 m - 4,000 ft) 

United States of America (Virginia)

 In  Mountain Lake-Autumn, oil on canvas, 1910, The Phillips collection 

The mountain 
Lone Pine Peak (1,219 m - 4,000 ft) is the highest point in the Mountain Lake Wilderness in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, Virginia. The wilderness area is located next to privately owned Mountain Lake, and consists of 8,314 acres (3,365 ha) in Virginia and 2,721 acres (1,101 ha) in West Virginia. Thanks to frequent rains and a high elevation, the wilderness provides habitat not found in other areas of the southern Appalachians, habitats such as mountain bogs, vernal ponds and red spruce wetlands.
The area is part of the Mountain Lake Wilderness Cluster.

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


2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MONT AGEL PAINTED BY PETER MONSTED

PEDER  MONSTED (1859-1941)

Mont Agel  (1,148m - 3,766ft) 

 France (Région Sud) 

In  Cap Martin  french Riviera,  oil on canvas, 1907, private collection  

The mountain 

Mount Agel (1,148m - 3,766ft) ) is a summit of the Alps located in the French town of Peille, in the Prealps of Nice and is the culmination of the Monegasque watershed in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region recently renamed Région  Sud. It dominates the Principality of Monaco and has held a strategic position since ancient times; it still houses today military installations of airforce detection.

It can be seen from some parts of the town of Nice as well as from the Italian Riviera.

The history of Mount Agel begins with the Celtic-Ligurian tribes who occupied the site and some of whose members engaged in the boarding and looting of boats engaged in cabotage. They are submitted from 23 to 13 BC.  by the Romans who restore the old coastal road through the flanks of Mount Agel to connect Ventimiglia to  Narbonne Gaul by the Via Aurelia. 

From the 14th century, Mount Agel is closely linked to the history of the former autonomous city of Peille. In 1860, the annexation of the county of Nice to France changed the boundaries of the region, with many peaks and passes remaining Italian. Mount Agel takes on a great strategic importance which is reinforced by the French defeat of 1870-1871. Mount Agel now houses a large artillery structure equipped with turrets, interconnected by deeply buried galleries. During the fighting of June 1940, his shots participated in the defense of Menton and supported the outpost of Pont-Saint-Louis and Cap-Martin.

The painter 

Peder Mønsted was a Danish realist painter, best known for his landscape paintings.

In 1882, he spent some time in Rome and Capri . In 1883, he worked in  the studios of William Adolphe Bouguereau in Paris. In 1889, he went to Algeria. Three years later, he travelled to Greece, where he was a guest of King George I, who was Danish. While there, he also did portraits of the Royal Family. After that, he visited Egypt and Spain.

His travels produced numerous sketches that became paintings he presented at several international exhibitions. Most of his landscapes were, however, devoted to Scandinavia. He was especially popular in Germany, where he held several shows at the Glaspalast in Munich. During his later years, he spent a great deal of time in Switzerland and travelling throughout the Mediterranean. Most of his works are in private collections. In 1995, a major retrospective, called "Light of the North", was held in Frankfurt am Main.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

MONTE DARWIN PAINTED BY ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971

 ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971)

Monte Darwin (2,438m - 7,999ft) 

Chile (Tierra del Fuego)

In  Mountain Lake -Tierra del Fuego, oil on canvas, 1922-25, The Phillips Collection

About the painting
 For Duncan Phillips, Rockwell Kent's art embodied "the eager linear expression of his own abounding energy and gusto for physical adventure in wild and desolate regions," an appropriate description of the small oil panel entitled Mountain Lake. A record of Kent’s 1922 sailing adventure to the Tierra del Fuego region of South America, it is one of many small studies that may have been painted on site. Kent described the view from his boat, which was anchored in the bay of Bahía Blanca in the Admiralty Sound, noting the emerald green bay and beyond it steep cliffs, heavily wooded, leading to high mountains, still capped with snow.
In Mountain Lake Kent abandoned his earlier preference for rich impasto and surface texture in favor of a thin, sleek finish. The space, arbitrarily adjusted into abstract, flat patterns, reflects a stylistic kinship with both precisionism—an American movement that was widely influential in the early 1920s—and with the simplified forms of woodblock printing, a medium in which Kent worked over a long period of time.
Kent brought many paintings from this trip back to New York with him in 1923. Though they were well reviewed, the artist sensed a declining interest in realism, despite high degree of simplification, verging on abstraction, present in this image. Phillips, however, greatly appreciated Kent's work and purchased Mountain Lake as a representation of the artist's adventures in South America. Phillips first exhibited the painting in 1926, writing in the exhibition catalogue "Kent [did] not need abstract vision, for he moves us like mighty music with images drawn from his own romantic experience."

The mountain 
Monte Darwin  (2,438m - 7,999ft)  is a peak in Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego forming part of the Cordillera Darwin, the southernmost range of the Andes, just to the north of the Beagle Channel in Chile. It is formed of crystalline schists and has massive glaciers down its steep southern slopes. Monte Darwin was for a long time considered as the highest peak in Tierra del Fuego, but that distinction corresponds to a mountain unofficially named Monte Shipton, which is about 2,580 m (8,460 ft) high and is located at 54°39′33″S 69°35′54″W.
Both peaks are best climbed in late December, January, February and March. Monte Shipton was first climbed in 1962 by Eric Shipton, E. Garcia, F. Vivanco and C. Marangunic.
Mount Darwin was given its name during the voyage of the Beagle by HMS Beagle's captain Robert FitzRoy to celebrate Charles Darwin's 25th birthday on 12 February 1834. A year earlier FitzRoy had named an expanse of water to the southwest of the mountain the Darwin Sound to commemorate Darwin's quick wit and courage in saving them from being marooned when waves from a mass of ice splitting off a glacier threatened their boats.
The mountain is part of Alberto de Agostini National Park.

The painter

Rockwell Kent, artist, author, and political activist, had a long  and varied career. During his lifetime, he worked as an architectural draftsman, illustrator, printmaker, painter, lobsterman, ship's carpenter, and dairy farmer. Born in Tarrytown Heights, New York, he lived in Maine, Newfoundland, Alaska, Greenland, and the Adirondacks and explored the waters around Tierra del Fuego in a small boat. Kent's paintings, lithographs, and woodcuts often portrayed the bleak and rugged aspects of nature; a reflection of his life in harsh climates.His experience as a carpenter and builder and his familiarity with tools served him well when he took up the graphic process. His blocks were marvels of beautiful cutting, every line deliberate and under perfect control. The tones and lines in his lithography were solidly built up, subtle, and full of color. He usually made preliminary studies- old-mater style- for composition or detail before starting on a print. Nothing was vague or accidental about his work; his expression was clear and deliberate. Neither misty tonalities nor suggestiveness were to his taste. He was a highly objectified art - clean, athletic, sometimes almost austere and cold. He either recorded adventures concretely, or dealt in ideas. His studio was a model of the efficient workshop: neat, orderly, with everything in its place. His handwriting, the fruit of his architectural training, was beautiful and precise.
Among the many notes of increasing awareness of Kent's contributions to American culture is the reproduction of one of Kent's pen-and-ink drawings from Moby Dick on a U.S. postage stamp, part of the 2001 commemorative panel celebrating such American illustrators as Maxfield Parrish, Frederic Remington, and Norman Rockwell.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

GRAND TETON PAINTED BY THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE

THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE (1820-1910)

Grand Teton  (4,199 m - 13,775 ft)
United States of America (Wyoming)

The mountain 

Grand Teton  (4,199 m - 13,775 ft) is the highest mountain in Grand Teton National Park in Northwest Wyoming, and a classic destination in American mountaineering. It is the highest point of the Teton Range, and the second highest peak in the U.S. state of Wyoming after Gannett Peak. The mountain is entirely within the Snake River drainage basin, which it feeds by several local creeks and glaciers.The Teton Range is a subrange of the Rocky Mountains, which extend from southern Alaska to northern New Mexico.

Grand Teton's name was first recorded as Mount Hayden by the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870. However, the name "the Grand Teton" had early currency. The Edition of April, 1901 of the USGS 1:125,000 quadrangle map of the area shows "Grand Teton" as the name of the peak. A United States National Park named "Grand Teton National Park" was established by law in 1929. By 1931, the name Grand Teton Peak was in such common usage that it was recognized by the USGS Board on Geographic Names. Another shift in usage led the Board to shorten the name on maps to Grand Teton in 1970.

The origin of the name is disputed. The most common explanation is that "Grand Teton" means "large teat" in French, named by either French-Canadian or Iroquois members of an expedition led by Donald McKenzie of the North West Company. However, other historians disagree, and claim that the mountain was named after the Teton Sioux tribe of Native Americans.

 The painter 

Thomas Worthington Whittredge  was an American artist of the Hudson River School. Whittredge was a highly regarded artist of his time, and was friends with several leading Hudson River School artists including Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Robinson Gifford. He traveled widely and excelled at landscape painting, many examples of which are now in major museums. He served as president of the National Academy of Design from 1874 to 1875 and was a member of the selection committees for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and the 1878 Paris Exposition, both important venues for artists of the day.

Whittredge journeyed across the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains in 1865 with Sanford Gifford and John Frederick Kensett. The trip resulted in some of Whittredge's most important works—unusually oblong, sparse landscapes that captured the stark beauty and linear horizon of the Plains. Whittredge later wrote in his autobiography, "I had never seen the plains or anything like them. They impressed me deeply. I cared more for them than for the mountains... Whoever crossed the plains at that period, notwithstanding its herds of buffalo and flocks of antelope, its wild horses, deer and fleet rabbits, could hardly fail to be impressed with its vastness and silence and the appearance everywhere of an innocent, primitive existence."

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

Un blog de Francis Rousseau

SHIVLING / GANGOTRI GROUP BY SAMUEL BOURNE

SAMUEL BOURNE ( 1834-1912) 

Shivling / Gangotri Group (6, 543m- 21, 4671ft) 

India

 In  Moira, South of the Gangootri Glacier, India, albumen silver print from a glass negative, 1867,

Fogg Museum / Harvard Museums 

About the photo 

The view is taken from the remote Gangotri Glacier in Uttarakhand, near the present-day border of India and China. 'Samuel Bourne, the bank clerk and amateur photographer, arrived in India in 1863 during the early years of commercial photography. Photographs taken during three expeditions to Kashmir and the Himalayas between 1863 and 1866 demonstrate his ability to combine technical skill and artistic vision. These views display a compositional elegance which appealed to Victorian notions of the ‘picturesque’; strategically framed landscapes of rugged mountain scenery, forests, rivers, lakes and rural dwellings. 

Copies of this spectacular and very early photograph of the Himalayas by pioneer photographer Samuel Bourne are held in the collections of the Fogg Museum, Harvard University (2.2002.112), Duke University Library (as part of RL.00130), and the British Library (94/4 25).

The photographer 

Samuel Bourne  was a British photographer known for his prolific seven years' work in India, from 1863 to 1870. Together with Charles Shepherd, he set up Bourne & Shepherd first in Shimla in 1863 and later in Kolkata (Calcutta). The company closed only two years ago, in June 2016 ! 

Bourne spent six extremely productive years in India, and by the time he returned to England in January 1871, he had made approximately 2,200 fine images of the landscape and architecture of India and the Himalayas. Working primarily with a 10x12 inch plate camera, and using the complicated and laborious Wet Plate Collodion process, the impressive body of work he produced was always of superb technical quality and often of artistic brilliance.  His ability to create superb photographs whilst travelling in the remotest areas of the Himalayas and working under the most exacting physical conditions, places him firmly amongst the very finest of nineteenth century travel photographers.

On 29 July 1863, he left Simla on the first of his three major Himalayan photographic expeditions. With a retinue of some 30 porters to carry his equipment, he travelled across the Simla Hills to Chini, in the Valley of the Sutlej River, 160 miles north-east of Simla, and spent some time photographing in the Chini-Sutlej River area, before heading up to the borders of Spiti, and returning to Simla on 12 October 1863, with 147 fine negatives.

In 1867, Bourne journeyed on up to the  Gangotri Glacier (see  photo above). There he went on to photograph one of the prime sources of the Ganges, as it issued from the mouth of the glacial ice cave at Gaumukh. His return journey took in Agra, Mussoorie, Roorkee, Meerut and Naini Tal, and he arrived back in Simla, again in time for Christmas! He wrote extensively about his travels in the Himalayas (one of the very few photographers in India to do so), in a long series of letters, which appeared in The British Journal of Photography, between 1863 and 1870.

The mountain 
Shivling ( 6, 543m- 21, 4671ft) is a mountain in the Gangotri Group of peaks in the western Garhwal Himalaya, near the snout of the Gangotri Glacier. It lies in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, 6 kilometres (4 mi) south of the Hindu holy site of Gaumukh (the source of the Bhagirathi River). Its name refers to its status as a sacred symbol -Shiva Linga. While not of locally great elevation, it is a dramatic rock peak.

Shivling forms the western gateway for the lower Gangotri Glacier, opposite the triple-peaked Bhagirathi massif. It lies on a spur projecting out from the main ridge that forms the southwest side of the Gangotri Glacier basin; this ridge contains other well-known peaks such as Bhagirathi, Thalay Sagar and Meru. It was also called Mahadeo Ka Linga or (Mahadev Ka Linga) and  "Matterhorn Peak" by early European visitors because of its similarity in appearance to that Alpine peak. 

Appearing as a single pyramid when seen from Gaumukh, Shivling is actually a twin-summitted mountain, with the northeast summit being slightly higher than the southwest summit. Between Gaumukh and Shivling lies the Tapovan meadow, a popular pilgrimage site due to its inspiring view of the mountain.

Shivling is well-defended on all sides by steep rock faces; only the west flank has a moderate enough slope for snow accumulation.

After British exploration of the Gangotri Glacier in 1933, a German expedition led by R. Schwarzgruber climbed nearby peaks and did a reconnaissance of Shivling in 1938. They reported "no feasible route" on the mountain due to its steepness and the threat of falling seracs.

Shivling was first climbed on 3 June 1974 via the west ridge, by a team from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, led by Hukam Singh. 

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

SCHNEEKOPPE (3) PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)

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

Poland - Czech Republic border   

 In Ruine im Riesengebirge, oil on canvas, Pommersches Landesmuseum

The mountain 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

TAISHAN / 泰山 PAINTED BY JI CHENG / 计成

JI CHENG /  计成  (1582-1642)

Taishan /泰山 (1,533m - 5,029ft)

China 

 In  Journey to Mount Tai,  Ming dynasty, 1368-1644, Harvard Art Museums /Arthur M. Sackler Museum

The artist
 Ji Cheng / 计成 was a Ming dynasty garden designer. Ji Cheng was born in the 10th year of the reign of the Wanli Emperor (1582) in Tongli, Wujiang County, Jiangsu province. As a youth, Ji Cheng made a name for himself as a landscape painter and private garden designer, he admired two Northern
During his lifetime, he designed numerous private gardens in Southern China.
 In his late years, he summarized his lifetime experience into a monograph on landscape design: Yuanye, The Craft of Gardens, 1631. Ji Cheng's Yuanye  is the first monograph dedicated to garden architecture in the world. His work has been translated into many languages.
Ji Cheng's thirty-five room former residence at Hueichuan Bridge, Tongli, is now a tourist attraction.
"The garden is created by the human hand, but should appear as if created by heaven."

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

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE ZUGSPITZE AND THE WAXENSTEIN BY EMIL NOLDE

EMIL NOLDE (1867-1956) 

Die Zugspitze (2,962m - 9,718 ft) 

Die Waxenstein (2,277m - 7,470ft)

 Germany (Bavaria)

  In  The Zugspitze and Waxenstein, postcard 

About this work 

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

The mountain 

The Zugspitze (2,962m -9,718 ft) above sea level, is the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany. It lies south of the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and the border between Germany and Austria runs over its western summit. South of the mountain is the Zugspitzplatt, a high karst plateau with numerous caves. On the flanks of the Zugspitze are three glaciers, including the two largest in Germany: the Northern Schneeferner with an area of 30.7 hectares and the Höllentalferner with an area of 24.7 hectares. The third is the Southern Schneeferner which covers 8.4 hectares.

The Waxenstein (2,277m - 7,470ft) is an Alpine summit, at an altitude of 2,227 m, in the Wetterstein, Germany (Bavaria). It is composed of five points: the Großer Waxenstein ; the Vorderer Waxenstein  ; the Zwölferkopf ; the Mittagscharte and  the Männ.

The painter 

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

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau, #BlogWanderingVertexes, #mountainpaintings

MOUNT WHITNEY PAINTED BY PAUL LAURITZ

    

                                                          PAUL LAURITZ (1889–1975)

Mount Whitney  (4,421 m - 14,505 ft)

United States of America (California) 

 In The High Sierras,  oil on canvas, circa 1929 , The  Crocker Art Museum 

The mountain 
Mount Whitney (4,421 m - 14,505 ft) is the tallest mountain in California, as well as the highest summit in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada.  It is in Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and Tulare counties. The west slope of the mountain is in Sequoia National Park and the summit is the southern terminus of the John Muir Trail which runs 211.9 mi (341.0 km) from Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley. The east slope is in the Inyo National Forest in Inyo County.
The rise is caused by a normal fault system that runs along the eastern base of the Sierra, below Mount Whitney. Thus, the granite that forms Mount Whitney is the same as the granite that forms the Alabama Hills, thousands of feet lower down.  The raising of Whitney (and the downdrop of the Owens Valley) is due to the same geological forces that cause the Basin and Range Province: the crust of much of the intermontane west is slowly being stretched.
In July 1864, the members of the California Geological Survey named the peak after Josiah Whitney, the State Geologist of California and benefactor of the survey.

The painter 
Born in a small art colony of  Norway, Lauritz was exposed to art at an early age, studying with local and foreign artists in Larvik. At age 16 he moved to eastern Canada to live with his sister and found work as a hardrock driller in a mine. Working his way west, he worked as a commercial artist in Vancouver and Portland, OR where he began painting landscapes and portraits. The meager existence in artwork led him to Alaska with the Gold Rush. Unsuccessful as a miner, he again turned to painting and became a close friend of artist Sydney Laurence. The two artists held a joint exhibition before Lauritz left Alaska. In 1919 he settled in Los Angeles and established a studio-home in the Lyceum Theatre on Spring Street. When not teaching at the Chouinard and Otis Art Institutes
or in his studio, he made painting excursions to the Sierra, up the California coast as far north as Carmel, to Mexico (1921), the Columbia River (1924), and Norway (1925).
While in his native land, he was commissioned by the King of Norway to do a painting for the royal palace. Lauritz was an involved member of the Los Angeles art community and served for six years on the Los Angeles Municipal Art Commission. A versatile painter, his diverse subjects include desert scenes, portraits, snow scenes, marines and landscapes.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau, #BlogWanderingVertexes, #mountainpaintings

THE JUNGFRAU, MÖNCH AND EIGER PAINTED BY AUGUST MACKE

AUGUST MACKE (1887-1914)  

The Jungfrau (4,158 m - 13, 642 ft)  

 The Mönch (4,107 m - 13,474 ft)

The Eiger (3,970 m -13,020 ft)

Switzerland

 In Garten am Thuner See, oin on canvas  

The mountains 
The Jungfrau (4,158 m - 13,642 ft) ("The virgin" in german) is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps, located between the northern canton of Bern and the southern canton of Valais, halfway between Interlaken and Fiesch. Together with the Eiger and Mönch, the Jungfrau forms a massive wall overlooking the Bernese Oberland and the Swiss Plateau, one of the most distinctive sights of the Swiss Alps. It is one of the most represented by artists summits with the  Matterhorn and the Mont Blanc.

The Mönch  (4,107 m - 13,474 ft) is a mountain in the Bernese Alps, in Switzerland.  The Mönch lies on the border between the cantons of Valais and Bern, and forms part of a mountain ridge between the Jungfrau and Jungfraujoch to the west, and the Eiger to the east. It is west of Mцnchsjoch, a pass at 3,650 metres (11,980 ft), Mцnchsjoch Hut, and north of the Jungfraufirn and Ewigschneefдld, two affluents of the Great Aletsch Glacier. The north side of the Mцnch forms a step wall above the Lauterbrunnen valley. The peak was first climbed 159 years ago in 1857 on August 15, ascended by Christian Almer, Christian Kaufmann, Ulrich Kaufmann and Sigismund Porges.


The Eiger (3,970 m- 13,020 ft) is located in the  Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mцnch to the Jungfrau, constituting one of the most emblematic sights of the Swiss Alps. While the northern side of the mountain rises more than 3,000m -10,000 ft above the two valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, the southern side faces the large glaciers of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, the most glaciated region in the Alps. The most notable feature of the Eiger is its 1,800-metre-high - 5,900 ft north face of rock and ice, named Eigerwand or Nordwand, which is the biggest north face in the Alps. This huge face towers over the resort of Kleine Scheidegg at its base, on the homonymous pass connecting the two valleys.

The painter 
August Macke was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He lived during a particularly innovative time for German art: he saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements which were forming in the rest of Europe. Like a true artist of his time, Macke knew how to integrate into his painting the elements of the avant-garde which most interested him.

MOUNT WASHINGTON PAINTED BY AARON DRAPER SHATTUCK

AARON DRAPER SHATTUCK (1832-1928)

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

United States of America  (New Hampshire)

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

The artist 
Aaron Draper Shattuck was an American painter of the White Mountain School. He was born in Francestown, New Hampshire. A second-generation artist affiliated with the Hudson River School, Shattuck differed from most of his contemporaries in that he never studied abroad, and appears to have spent his entire life in New England.
Shattuck studied portrait painting with Alexander Ransom in Boston in 1851, and in 1852 was a student at the National Academy of Design in New York City. In 1854 he first painted in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  The following year he exhibited for the first time at both the National Academy and the Boston Athenaeum. In 1856 he was elected an associate of the National Academy, and was made a full Academician in 1861.
From 1856 to 1870 Shattuck worked at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City.  In 1883 he invented a canvas stretcher bar key which was used by artists of the era, and which contributed to Shattuck's considerable wealth.
In 1888 Shattuck suffered the effects of a serious illness, after which he ceased to paint. After recovering he followed other agrarian and creative pursuits, raising sheep, experimenting with apple tree grafts, and making violins.  Prior to his death in 1928 at the age of 96 he was the oldest living member of the National Academy of Design.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau,  #wandering-silent-vertexes

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY NAGASAWA ROSETSU / 長沢芦雪

NAGASAWA  ROSETSU / 長沢芦雪  (1754–1799)

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

 In  Cranes Flying Past Mount Fuji, 1794.  Hanging scroll; ink and light color on silk, 

Courtesy Museum Rietberg, Zurich  

The artist

Nagasawa Rosetsu / 長沢芦雪 was an 18th-century (Edo period) Japanese painter of the Maruyama School, known for his versatile style. He was born to the family of a low-ranking samurai. He studied with Maruyama Ōkyo in Kyoto.

 Upon establishing himself as an artist, he changed his name from Uesugi to Nagasawa. He moved to Kyoto in 1781, where he became a student of Maruyama Ōkyo.

Rosetsu's early period works are in the style of Maruyama Ōkyo, although critics agree that the pupil's skill quickly surpassed his master's. Finally, they had a falling out and Rosetsu left the school. After the break, he worked under the patronage of the feudal lord of Yodo and accepted commissions at several temples.

Rosetsu's paintings fall into two very clearly defined categories, with no halfway stage in between. On the one hand, there are those of studied finish, and on the other, those--the great majority--that were clearly the work of a very few minutes of intense activity, whatever the preliminary thought and calculation. We are inclined to think of the first type as early and even untypical, but in fact Rosetsu seems to have executed carefully finished paintings at all stages of his career.

He incorporated aspects of Western realism into Japanese themes. In his work, which is reminiscent of earlier Zen painting, while the moon is left white, the night sky, mountains, and pine trees are depicted with gradations of India ink.

His work was extensively forged in the Meiji period.

The mountain 

This is the legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山).

It is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). Several names are attributed to it:  "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san".  The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji,  have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳／富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.

Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.

Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.

Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.

It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

MONTE CAVO PAINTED BY SIMON DENIS

SIMON DENIS (1755-1813) 

Monte Cavo (950 m - 3,120 ft)

Italy 

In Paysage avec les collines d'Alban et le Monte Cavo,  1790, oil on canvas, Private collection 

About this painting 

Monte Cavo is the sacred Mons Albanus of the Italic people of ancient Italy who lived in Alba Longa (the Albani), and other cities, and therefore a sacred mountain to the Romans; there they built the temple of Jove (Jupiter) Latiaris, one of the most important destinations of pilgrimage for all Latin people in the centuries of Roman domination. On the Mons Albanus, between January and March, the "Latin Festivals" were held. The newly chosen Consuls had to sacrifice to Jupiter Latiaris and to announce the Latin Holidays.
In 531 BC, King Tarquinius Superbus built here a temple shared with the Latins, the Hernici and the Volsci, where every year celebrations in honor of Jupiter Latiaris were held.
After being a temple, a monastery and an  hotel,  the structure became, in the post-war era, a telecommunications station. Nowadays, access is prohibited to unauthorized persons. A few blocks of the ancient temple are still visible behind the fenced area.

 

The mount 
Monte Cavo (950 m - 3,120 ft) or less occasionally, "Monte Albano," is the second highest mountain of the complex of the Alban Hills, near Rome, Italy. An old volcano extinguished around 10,000 years ago, it lies about 20 km (12 mi) from the sea, in the territory of the comune of Rocca di Papa. It is the dominant peak of the Alban Hills. The current name comes from Cabum, an Italic settlement existing on this mountain.Volcanic activity under king Tullus Hostilius on the site was reported by Livy in his book of Roman history: "...there had been a shower of stones on the Alban Mount..."

The painter 

Simon-Joseph-Alexandre-Clément Denis was a Belgian painter active primarily in Italy. Denis first studied in his native city of Antwerp, with the landscape and animal painter H.-J. Antonissen.
He moved to Paris in the 1780s, and soon gained the patronage of genre painter and art dealer Jean-Baptiste Lebrun, whose support allowed him to move to Rome in 1786. His paintings there attracted favorable attention, and in 1787 he married a local woman. He remained close to the Flemish community in Rome, and in 1789 was elected to head the Foundation St.-Julien-des-Flamands. He also developed ties within the French artistic community; Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun stayed with him for some days in 1789 and that same year he and she traveled with François-Guillaume Ménageot to visit Tivoli. François Marius Granet sought his advice when he arrived in Rome in 1802.
In 1803, he was elected to the Accademia di San Luca; in 1806 he settled for good in Naples, becoming court painter to Joseph Bonaparte.   His wonderful Landscape near Rome during a Storm (1786–1806) an oil on paper probably representating Monte Cavo as well,  is now visible at The MET in New York city.

HOHER DACHSTEIN BY RUDOLF SWOBODA THE ELDER

RUDOLF SWOBODA THE ELDER  (1819-1859) 

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

 In Festlicher Almabtrieb im Hochgebirge, oil on canvas, 1840,  Private collection

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.

The painter  
Rudolf Swoboda the elder or Senior (1819-1859) was a landscape and animal painter, coming from a Vienna family of artists  with his niece Josefine Swoboda (1861-1924) ans his nephew Rudolf Swoboda the younger or Junior (1859-1914) famous to have painted Indian portraits for Queen Victoria. Rudolf Swoboda the elder  received numerous orders from the Austrian imperial house and other noble houses in Vienna which made him one of the most active Vienna landscapists.  His landscapes often includes  scenes with farmers playing music and dancing or animals depictions in a gentle and naive atmosphere.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau