EL CHIMBORAZO (2) BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT  (1769-1859)

Chimborazo  (6,263 m - 20,549  ft)

Ecuador

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

The mountain

Chimborazo  (6,263 m -20,548 ft) is a currently inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes ans the highest mountain in Ecuador and the Andes north of Peru ; it is higher than any more northerly summit in the Americas. Chimborazo is not the highest mountain by elevation above sea level, but its location along the equatorial bulge makes its summit the farthest point on the Earth's surface from the Earth's center.

Chimborazo is at the main end of the Ecuadorian Volcanic Arc, north west of the town of Riobamba. Chimborazo is in la Avenida de los Volcanes (the Avenue of Volcanoes) west of the Sanancajas mountain chain. Carihuairazo, Tungurahua, Tulabug, and El Altar are all mountains that neighbor Chimborazo.  The closest mountain peak, Carihuairazo, is 5.8 mi (9.3 km) from Chimborazo. There are many microclimates near Chimborazo, varying from desert in the Arenal to the humid mountains in the Abraspungo valley.

Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around A.D. 550. 

Until the beginning of the 19th century, it was thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth (measured from sea level), and such reputation led to many attempts on its summit during the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 1746, the volcano was explored by French academicians from the  French Geodesic Mission. Their mission was to determine the sphericity of the Earth. Their work along with another team in Lapland established that the Earth was an oblate spheroid rather than a true sphere. They did not reach the summit of Chimborazo.

In 1802, during his expedition to South America, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montufar, tried to reach the summit. From his description of the mountain, it seems that before he and his companions had to return suffering from altitude sickness they reached a point at 5,875 m, higher than previously attained by any European in recorded history. (Incans had reached much higher altitudes previously). In 1831, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault and Colonel Hall reached a new "highest point", estimated to be 6,006 m.

On 4 January 1880, the English climber Edward Whymper reached the summit of Chimborazo. The route that Whymper took up Chimborazo is now known as the Whymper route. Edward Whymper, and his Italian guides Louis Carrel and Jean-Antoine Carrel, were the first Europeans to summit a mountain higher than 20,000 feet. As there were many critics who doubted that Whymper had reached the summit, later in the same year he climbed to the summit again, choosing a different route (Pogyos) with the Ecuadorians David Beltrбn and Francisco Campaсa.

The cartographer 

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

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

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

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

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

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MONTE ROSA BY JEAN-FRANÇOIS ROFFIAEN

JEAN-FRANÇOIS ROFFIAEN ( 1820-1898) 

Pointe Dufour / Dufourspitze  (4,634 m - 7,103ft) 

Switzerland- Italy border  

In Sunrise on Monte Rosa seen from Riffelsee, Zermatt, oil on canvas  (72.5 x 118cm), 1871, Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London 

About the painting 
In 1845 Roffiaen saw two paintings by Alexandre Calame at the Salon de Bruxelles. He was so impressed by them that the young Belgian was awarded a place to train in his new mentor’s Geneva studio for six months. His style and subject matter remained close to Calame’s throughout his life, but he travelled further afield to the Mediterranean. Roffiaen’s work was admired and collected by the royal families of Europe and this magnificent dawn view of Monte Rosa is probably the prototype version for a large two-and a half metre canvas, dated 1875, now in the Brussels museum together with several other pictures by him.

The mountain 
The  Pointe Dufour (4,634 m - 7,103ft), in german Dufourspitze, is the highest peak of Monte Rosa, (Mont Rose) a huge ice-covered mountain massif in the Alps. Dufourspitze is the highest mountain peak of both Switzerland and the Pennine Alps and is also the second-highest mountain of the Alps and Europe outside the Caucasus. It is located between Switzerland (Canton of Valais) and Italy (Piedmont and Aosta Valley). Following a long series of attempts beginning in the early nineteenth century, Monte Rosa's summit, then still called Hцchste Spitze, was first reached on 1 August, the Swiss National celebration day, in 1855 from Zermatt by a party of eight climbers led by three guides: Matthдus and Johannes Zumtaugwald, Ulrich Lauener, Christopher and James Smyth, Charles Hudson, John Birkbeck and Edward Stephenson.
The name Pointe Dufour or Dufour Spitze  replaced the former name Höchste Spitze (English: Highest Peak) that was indicated on the Swiss maps before the Federal Council, on January 28, 1863, decided to rename the mountain in honor of Guillaume-Henri Dufour. Dufour was a Swiss engineer, topographer, co-founder of the Red Cross and army general who led the Sonderbund campaign. This decision followed the completion of the Dufour Map, a series of military topographical maps created under the command of Dufour.
The point just 80 m (260 ft) east of the Dufourspitze and only 2 metres lower, the Dunantspitze, was renamed in 2014 in honor of Henry Dunant, the main founder of the Red Cross.

The painter 
Jean François Xavier Roffiaen was a Belgian landscape painter who specialized in painting Alpine landscapes. He followed his artistic studies at the Academy of Brussels (1839–1842), notably under the famous vedutiste, François Bossuet (1789–1889) who was responsible for teaching him perspective and who was the authority on landscapes and city views.
The years 1850–1860 were those of Roffiaen's  greatest success, including numerous sales in Belgium, in Great Britain and in the United States, having works acquired by the Shah of Persia, by the Belgian and British royal houses, a study tour of Scotland commissioned by Queen Victoria, but which unfortunately never took place because of the sudden death of Albert, Prince Consort.  His painting, constructed according to indefinitely repeated formulae and each year becoming a little more tired, finished however by wearying the art chroniclers : « Critics of the press have often reproached him for the bias he shows in his painting. M Roffiaen has ignored them, he has continued to accumulate landscapes of Belgium, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, what do I know, combing them without rest, using the same formula, making do with the same sky, the same trees, the same rocks, unconcerned by the latitudes, according to the taste of a special public, who buy all of that and pay him handsomely. Leave M. Roffiaen alone, gentlemen of the press, he paints his little nature scenes one demands of him and knows well the reason why. » 
(G. H., L’Organe de Namur et de la Province, 1874).
François Roffiaen is equally illustrious in the domain of natural sciences, to which Jules Colbeau (1823–1881) introduced him in his youth. While children the two companions already took delight in observing nature in the little property that Colbeau’s parents owned in the suburbs of Namur. Once adult, they took a journey together to Switzerland (1852) where they collected insects, butterflies and molluscs.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT KATAHDIN (2) BY MARSDEN HARTLEY

MARSDEN HARTLEY (1877-1943)

Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267ft)

United States of America (Maine)  

In Mount Katahdin, First Snow, oil on canvas

The mountain  

Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267 feet)  is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Maine and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. The mountain, being a mile above sea level, towers above the comparatively low Maine lakes and forests. Named Katahdin by the Penobscot Indians, which means "The Greatest Mountain", Katahdin is the centerpiece of Baxter State Park.  The official name is "Mount Katahdin" as decided by the US Board on Geographic Names in 1893. Among some Native Americans, Katahdin was believed to be the home of the storm god Pamola, and thus an area to be avoidedIt is a steep, tall mountain formed from a granite intrusion weathered to the surface. 

Katahdin was known to the Native Americans in the region, and was known to Europeans at least since 1689. It has inspired hikes, climbs, journal narratives, paintings, and a piano sonata. The area around the peak was protected by Governor Percival Baxter starting in the 1930s. Katahdin  is located near a stretch known as the Hundred-Mile Wilderness.

Katahdin is referred to 60 years after Field’s climb of Agiokochuk (Mount Washington) in the writings of John Gyles, a teenage colonist who was captured near Portland, Maine in 1689 by the Abenaki. While in the company of Abenaki hunting parties, he traveled up and down several Maine rivers including both branches of the Penobscot, passing close to “Teddon”. He remarked that it was higher than the White Hills above the Saco River.

The first recorded climb of "Catahrdin" was by Massachusetts surveyors Zackery Adley and Charles Turner, Jr. in August 1804.[14] In the 1840s Henry David Thoreau climbed Katahdin, which he spelled "Ktaadn"; his ascent is recorded in a well-known chapter of The Maine Woods. A few years later Theodore Winthrop wrote about his visit in Life in the Open Air. Painters Frederic Edwin Church and Marsden Hartley are well-known artists who created landscapes of Katahdin. 

In the 1930s Governor Percival Baxter began to acquire land and finally deeded more than 200,000 acres (809 km2) to the State of Maine for a park, named Baxter State Park after him. The summit was officially recognized by the US Board on Geographic Names as "Baxter Peak" in 1931.

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.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOTTARONE PAINTED BY MASOLINO DA PANICALE

MASOLINO DA PANICALE (1383-1447)

Mottarone (1,491 m - 4,892 ft)

Italy 

 In Paesaggio, Castiglione Olona, Laggo Maggiore, 1435, Fresco,  Palazzo Branda Castiglione

The painting 
This geographical representation of a landscape supposed to be that of the mountains around Lake Maggiore (Italy) and in particular of the town of Castiglione Olona (near Varese), is quite surprising for that time.  The painter wants to reproduce with accuracy the mountains peaks he can see from the shores of Lake Maggiore, which is not usual at that time, even if in Europe, the accuracy of the geographical representation  becomes  more and more a preoccupation  for painters. One can see examples, almost contemporary, in paintings by Enguerrand Quarton or by  Konrad Witz. 
Here we can recognize (among others we can't !), the Mottarone (left of the frame) with, in the distance, the view of the Alps and the Monte Rosa massif and its many peaks. The village of Castigione Olona  is planted in the middle of a kind of descending waterfall that does not exist on Lake Maggiore ! This is not geographically accurate, but it reflects at least the concerns and research about perspective of Masolino da Panicale, who was the first painter to make use of a central "Vanishing point" and probably the first artist to create oil paintings in the 1420s...

One of the mountains 
Mount Mottarone (1,491 m - 4,892 ft)  is located between Lake Maggiore and Lake Orta. The Mottarone is nowadays a place famous for its ski resort, its hiking possibilities and its views of Lake Maggiore, Orta and the Alps (Monte Rosa, Monviso ...).
Monte Rosa massif and Point Dufour peak : 
Full Wandering vertexes entry  =>

The Painter 
Masolino da Panicale (nickname of Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini)  was an Italian painter. His best known works are probably his collaborations with Masaccio: Madonna with Child and St. Anne (1424) and the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel (1424–1428).
Masolino was probably the first painter to make use of a central Vanishing point in his 1423 painting St. Peter Healing a Cripple and the Raising of Tabitha.
He may have been the first artist to create oil paintings in the 1420s, rather than Jan van Eyck in the 1430s, as was previously supposed.
This very innovative and inventive painter spent many years traveling, including a trip to Hungary from September 1425 to July 1427 under the patronage of Pipo of Ozora, a mercenary captain. He was selected by Pope Martin V (Oddone Colonna) on the return of the papacy to Rome in 1420 to paint the altarpiece for his family chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, and later by Cardinal Branda da Castiglione to paint the Saint Catherine Chapel in the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE MONT BLANC PAINTED BY GUSTAVE-EUGÈNE CASTAN

GUSTAVE-EUGÈNE CASTAN (1823-1892)  

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m - 15,776.7 ft)
 France, Italy border

In Climbers ascending Mont Blanc via the Grands Mulets Glacier, Chamonix, France, 

oil on paper laid on canvas (38 x 57cm) signed, circa 1885 

Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London  

Notice from the John Mitchell Gallery's catalogue : 
Only a handful of glacier scenes exist by this classically trained Swiss painter, academician and printmaker. This fine study, made in oils on paper en plein air, is as fascinating as it is rare. Born in Geneva, Castan was a direct contemporary of Gabriel Loppé when they were both students of Alexandre Calame between 1844 and 1846. After an apprenticeship with Rodolphe Töpffer in Geneva, Castan travelled to Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland to study landscape with Calame. Castan’s friendship with Loppé lasted beyond those two summers and, in all likelihood, it was Loppé who took him up to the Grands Mulets to paint this scene. Having established himself as a regular participant at the Paris Salon between 1855 and 1882 Castan became a successful landscape painter inspired by Corot and Daubigny and is better known today for his views of the Normandy coastline. Indeed, there are no Salon records of any similar high Alpine scenes by him and this painting was surely done as a record of his expedition to the flanks of Mont Blanc. The spidery figures were perhaps a later addition by the painter even if their scale is in proportion to their surrounding glaciers and crevasses.

The painter  
The Swiss lithographer, landscape painter and engraver Gustave- Eugène Castan was   trained in the studio of Alexandre Calame, whom he accompanied in Italy in 1844, then, the following year, in the Bernese Oberland. During his studies, he became friends with the French painter Eugène Castelnau and followed him to Paris in 1849. In 1850, he visited France and met the painter Auguste Ravier and, in 1852, Corot, which has a decisive influence on him. In 1856, he was mobilized in the context of the Neuchâtel affair and drew current events. In 1857, he went to the Paris Salon, which he visited with Corot, then traveled through Brittany and Normandy. He then divides his life between Switzerland and France and often goes to the Berry where he becomes a familiar of George Sand. It is during one of these visits that she makes him discover the landscapes of the Creuse. He then goes there every year during the summer months and contributes to the birth of the "Valley of painters" and the Crozant school.
In 1865, Castan was a founding member of the Swiss Society of Painters and Sculptors, of which he was president in 1887.
 The emperor Napoleon III bought his painting A morning autumn, making Castan definitely famous.  He presented landscapes of Belgium, Normandy, Brittany, Dauphiné and Creuse. He also participated in the Vienna International Exhibition in 1873 and the Jubiläumsausstellung in Munich in 1888.

The mountain 
 Full Wandering Vertexes entry for Mont Blanc = > 

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT WHITNEY PAINTED BY GUY ROSE

GUY ROSE  (1867-1925) 

Mount Whitney  (4,421 m - 14,505 ft)

United States of America (California) 

 In Gathering Storm, High Sierra,  oil on canvas, circa 1916 , The  Crocker Art Museum,  Sacramento

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 
The American Impressionist painter Guy Orlando Rose  was a California resident who received national recognition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His father was a prominent California senator. He and his wife raised their large family on an expansive Southern California ranch and vineyard – the San Gabriel Valley town of Rosemead bears the family name.
 In 1876 young Guy Rose was accidentally shot in the face during a hunting trip with his brothers. While recuperating he began to sketch and use watercolors and oil paints. He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1884 and moved to San Francisco where he studied art between 1885 and 1888 at the School of Design with Virgil Williams, Warren E. Rollins, and the Danish-born artist Emil Carlsen.  On September 12, 1888, Rose enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris and studied with Benjamin-Constant, Jules Lefebvre, Lucien Doucet and Jean-Paul Laurens while in Paris. In 1888-89, he won a scholarship at the Académie Delacluse and contributed religious and figural studies as well as landscapes to the Paris Salons in 1890, 1891, 1894, 1900, and 1909. He met fellow students Frank Vincent and Frederick Melville at the Académie Julian – Frank Vincent and Guy Rose were to remain lifelong friends.
Rose lived in New York, New York in the 1890s and illustrated for Harper's, Scribners, and Century. Choosing to return to France in 1899, he and his wife Ethel Rose bought a cottage at Giverny. In 1900 he resided in Paris and spent the winter in Briska, Algeria where he painted three known paintings. From 1904 to 1912 husband and wife lived in Giverny and his works from this period show the influence of "the master" Claude Monet, who became his friend and mentor.
Full wikipedia entry  =>

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SEMIEN MOUNTAINS BY HENRY SALT

HENRY SALT (1780-1827)

Ras Dejen (4,550  m - 14,927 ft)

Mounts Biuat (4,437 m - 14,557 ft)

Kidis Yared (4,453 m - 14,609ft)

Ethiopia

In  Near the village of Asceriah in Abbyssinia,  hand colored aquatints, 1809 

 The mountains
Ras Dejen (4,550 m), Mounts Biuat (4,437 m) and Kidis Yared (4,453 m) are part of the Semien Mountains , in northern Ethiopia, north east of Gondar in Amhara region, are part of the Ethiopian Highlands. They are a World Heritage Site and include the Simien Mountains National Park.
The mountains consist of plateaus separated by valleys and rising to pinnacles.
Because of their geological origins, the mountains are almost unique, with only South Africa's Drakensberg having been formed in the same manner and thus appearing similar. Notable animals in the mountains include the walia ibex, gelada, and caracal. There are a few Ethiopian wolves.
The Semien Mountains were formed prior to the creation of the Rift Valley, from lava outpourings between 40 and 25 million years ago during the Oligocene period. The volcano is believed to have spread over more than 5000 m2 and resulted in a thick sequence of basaltic lava some 3,000-3,500 m thick that was deposited on Precambrian crystalline basement. The major part of the Semien Mountains consists of remnants of a Hawaiian-type shield volcano. The Kidus Yared peak is situated near the center of the shield volcano. Ras Dejen (4,533 m), Bwahit (4,430 m) and Silki (4,420 m) were formed from the outer core of this ancient volcano.
The extreme escarpment in Semien appears to be a precondition for the formation of the extended uplift of the whole mountain massif 75 million years ago. The dramatic views are due to this volcanic activity. Especially of note is the 2,000 m high escarpment extending in a southwest-northeast direction.
There are different types of soils as a result of the difference in geological formation, glaciations, topography, and climate. The Humic Andosol is the dominant soil type which is mainly found at an altitude of 3,000 m. The other types of soil are shallow Andosols, Lithosols, and Haplic Phaeozems that are mainly common in the area between 2,500 and 3,500 m. The Semien Mountains are highly eroded as a result of human land use practices and as a result of the topography of the area.

The artist 
 Henry Salt  was an English artist, traveller, collector of antiquities, diplomat, and Egyptologist.
After a  time as a portrait painter, Salt was permitted to travel with the English nobleman George Annesley, Viscount Valentia as his secretary and draughtsman after being recommended by Thomas Simon Butt. They started on an eastern tour in June 1802, traveling on the British East India Company's extra (chartered) ship Minerva to India via the Cape Colony. In 1805, Valentia sent Salt on a journey into the Abyssinian area (now Ethiopia) to meet with the ras of Tigré to open up trade relations on behalf of the English.  While visiting there, Salt gained the respect of the ras. He returned to England on 26 October 1806. His journey home took him through Egypt where he met the pasha Mehmet Ali. Salt's paintings from the trip were used in Valentia's Voyages and Travels to India, published in 1809. The originals of all the drawings were kept by Valentia, as also the copper plates after Salt's death. The format and style of the plates is similar to Thomas and William Daniell's work, "Oriental Scenery" (1795-1808).
Salt returned to Ethiopia in 1809 on a government mission to explore trade and diplomatic links with the Tigrayan warlord Ras Wolde Selassie. Upon arrival, he was unable to meet with the king due to unrest in the country, so instead he went to stay with his friend the ras of Tigré. During this venture, Salt took on the side mission of verifying and correcting the information about the region reported by the Scottish traveler, James Bruce many years earlier.  Salt came back to England in 1811 with numerous specimens of both plants and animals.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MONT THALETAT BY FRANCISQUE NOAILLY

FRANCISQUE NOAILLY (1855-1942) 

Thaletat (1,638m -5,374ft)
Algeria

In Montagnes de Kabylie , oil on canvas, 1908 

The mountain 

Thaletat (1,638m -5,374ft) ) is one of the Djurdjura peaks in Kabylie (Algeria). Thaletat is located in the Akouker Massif which occupies the center of the Djurdjura range. To the north, its rocks drop almost a single jet on the valley of Timeghras. To the south, it is dominated by the Lalla-Khadidja cone, the highest peak of the Tellian Atlas. The word Thaletat means "auricular" in Kabyle. The French gave the mountain the name "Hand of the Jew" because, according to the natives, its appearance of a six-fingered hand. According to legend, the mount was the place of prayer of a Jewish ascetic.

The painter 
Louis François Marie Noailly, known as Francisque Noailly, was born in Marseille in 1855. After studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, he studied with William Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
From 1875, he performed his military service in Algeria in the Zouaves regiment. He gets married in Algiers and installs his workshop in the district of La Redoute.From its wide windows, the view stretched from Bouzaréah to Cape Matifou and plunged into the port which he could look at without ever being dazzled except by the beauty of the view.
Landscapes, portraits and especially scenes typical of Algerian life are treated with the same talent. The port, the city, the streets of the Algiers' Kasbah, the indigenous interiors and the Jebel are the frames. Vendor of donuts, child guiding a blind man, women returning from the source to their mechta, odalisques in a Moorish court, small trades ... these are his subjects. In his paintings, oil or watercolors, he plays with shadows, light and against the light: dockers unloading a swing or woman weaving a carpet.
He taught for many years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, rue des Généraux Morris, and was responsible, as director and professor, for the School of Decorative and Industrial Arts. A contemporary of Rochegrosse, Deshayes, Etienne Dinet and many others, he was part of the Orientalist painters' society and in 1935 received the first painting prize, Léon Cauvy, awarded by the Artistic Union of North Africa.
Francisque Noailly died in his house in Algiers, surrounded by his family, and left the memory of a right and sensitive man who hide his feelings under a grumpy aspect.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

NEREIDUM MONTES BY ESA MARS EXPRESS

ESA MARS EXPRESS (2003-2020?) 

Nereidum Mons (no elevation data)  

 MARS  (Argyre quadrangle) 

The Mountains 
The Nereidum Montes is a mountain range on planet Mars. It stretches 3,677 km, northeast of Argyre Planitia. It is in the Argyre quadrangle. The mountains are named after a Classical albedo feature.
There is a crater at 45.1°S, 55.0°W on the Nereidum Montes that is similar to Galle in that it also has a smiley face pattern on the crater. However, it is much smaller than Galle itself.
A hummocky relief resembling Veiki moraines has been found in Nereidum Montes. The relief is hypothesized to result very much like Veiki moraines from the melting of a martian glacier.

The mission 
Mars Express is a space probe of the European Space Agency (ESA) launched on June 2, 2003 to study the planet Mars. This is the first exploration mission of another planet in the solar system launched by the European Agency.  Mars Express is developed in a relatively short period of time by partially taking over the architecture of the Rosetta probe while five of the seven instruments were developed for the Soviet Mars 96 probe.
It was launched on June 2, 2003 by a Soyuz rocket and is in orbit around Mars on December 25 of the same year.  Mars Express has obtained many scientific results: determination of the nature of polar ice caps and estimation of the volume of stored water, composition of the Martian atmosphere and its interactions with the solar wind, observation of the seasonal cycle of water , three-dimensional mapping of the reliefs, detection of hydrated minerals proving the presence of water in the past over long periods on the surface and mapping of the regions concerned, detection of the presence of water in the liquid state under the ice cap of the South Pole . The mission of an initial duration of 23 months has been extended several times and must now be completed by the end of 2020.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

TSURUGI SAN / TOKUSHIMA / 剣山 BY HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博

HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博 (1876-1950),

Mount Tsurugi or Tokushima / 剣山  (1,954m - 6, 413ft)

Japan 

In Tsurugi san,  woodblock Print,  c. 1936 

The mountain
Mount Tsurugi   or Tokushima  (1,954m - 6, 413ft)  ( in japanese 剣山 Tsurugi-san), meaning sword, is a mountain on the border of Miyoshi, Mima and Naka in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. This mountain is one of the 100 Famous Japanese Mountains. Mount Tsurugi is the second highest mountain on the island of Shikoku, and also the second highest mountain west of Mount Haku, which is on the border of Ishikawa and Gifu prefectures in central Japan.
Mount Tsurugi is an important object of worship in this region and one of the centers of Shugendō, a sect of mixture of Shintoism and Buddhism. On the top of the mountain, there is a small shrine called ‘Tsurugi Jinja’. The area around Mount Tsurugi is a major part of Tsurugi Quasi-National Park.

The painter 

Hiroshi Yoshida / 吉田 博(not to be confused with Toshi Yoshida) was born in 1876. He began his artistic training with his adoptive father in Kurume, Fukuoka prefecture. Around the age of twenty, he left Kurume to study with Soritsu Tamura in Kyoto, subsequently moving to Tokyo and the tutelage of Shotaro Koyama. Yoshida studied Western-style painting, winning many exhibition prizes and making several trips to the United States, Europe and North Africa selling his watercolors and oil paintings. In 1902, he played a leading role in the organization of the Meiji Fine Arts Society into the Pacific Painting Association. His work was featured in the exhibitions of the state-sponsored Bunten and Teiten. While highly successful as an oil painter and watercolor artist, Yoshida turned to printmaking upon learning of the Western world’s infatuation with ukiyo-e.

Following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Yoshida embarked on a tour of the United States and Europe, painting and selling his work. When he returned to Japan in 1925, he started his own workshop, specializing in landscapes inspired both by his native country and his travels abroad. Yoshida often worked through the entire process himself: designing the print, carving his own blocks, and printing his work. His career was temporarily interrupted by his sojourn as a war correspondent in Manchuria during the Pacific War. Although he designed his last print in 1946, Yoshida continued to paint with oils and watercolors up until his death in 1950.

Yoshida was widely traveled and knowledgeable of Western aesthetics, yet maintained an allegiance to traditional Japanese techniques and traditions. Attracted by the calmer moments of nature, his prints breathe coolness, invite meditation, and set a soft, peaceful mood. All of his lifetime prints are signed “Hiroshi Yoshida” in pencil and marked with a jizuri (self-printed) seal outside of the margin. Within the image, most prints are signed “Yoshida” with brush and ink beside a red “Hiroshi” seal.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

TRANGO TOWERS BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943)

Trango Towers  (6,286 m - 23, 871ft) 

Pakistan

1. In The Baltoro Tower 1909's Himalaya expedition, photo, Vittorio Sella Foundation. 

The Mountain 
The Trango Towers (6,286 m - 20,623 ft) are a family of rock towers situated in Gilgit-Baltistan, in the north of Pakistan. The Towers offer some of the largest cliffs and most challenging rock climbing in the world, and every year a number of expeditions from all corners of the globe visit Karakoram to climb the difficult granite. They are located north of Baltoro Glacier, and are part of the Baltoro Muztagh, a sub-range of the Karakoram range. The highest point in the group is the summit of Great Trango Tower at 6,286 m (20,623 ft), the east face of which features the world's greatest nearly vertical drop.

Full Wikipedia  entry  =>

The photographer

Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club.  He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888).

He took part in various expeditions outside Italy:

- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name;

- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897

- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899

- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Rwenzori

- Recognition at K2  and Mustagh Tower in 1909

- In Morocco in 1925.

During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram (K2-Chogolisa), he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.

Full Wandering Vertexes entry  =>

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT EREBUS (3) BY EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON

                                                 EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (1872-1912) 

Mount Erebus (3, 794 m - 12, 448ft)

Antarctica

  In Mount Erebus from Hut Point, March 1911, Watercolour, 
 Royal Geographical Society Museum, London

The mountain 
Mount Erebus (3, 794 m - 12, 448ft), not to be confused with Mount Elbrus is the second-highest volcano in Antarctica (after Mount Sidley) and the southernmost active volcano on Earth. It is the sixth highest ultra mountain on an island, located on Ross Island, which is also home to three inactive volcanoes:  Mount Terror, Mount Bird, and Mount Terra Nova.
The volcano has been active since c. 1.3 million years ago and is the site of the Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory run by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
Mount Erebus was discovered on January 27, 1841 (and observed to be in eruption) by polar explorer Sir James Clark Ross who named it and its companion, Mount Terror, after his ships, Erebus and Terror (which were later used by Sir John Franklin on his disastrous Arctic expedition). Erebus is a dark region in Hades in Greek mythology. Present with Ross on the Erebus was the young Joseph Hooker, future president of the Royal Society and close friend of Charles Darwin. Erebus was an Ancient Greek primordial deity of darkness, the son of Chaos.
Mount Erebus is classified as a polygenetic stratovolcano. The bottom half of the volcano is a shield and the top half is a stratocone. The composition of the current eruptive products of Erebus is anorthoclase-porphyritic tephritic phonolite and phonolite, which are the bulk of exposed lava flow on the volcano.  Erebus is the world's only presently erupting phonolite volcano.
Researchers spent more than three months during the 2007–08 field season installing an unusually dense array of seismometers around Mount Erebus to listen to waves of energy generated by small, controlled blasts from explosives they buried along its flanks and perimeter and to record scattered seismic signals generated by lava lake eruptions and local ice quakes. By studying the refracted and scattered seismic waves, the scientists produced an image of the uppermost (top few km) of the volcano to understand the geometry of its "plumbing" and how the magma rises to the lava lake. These results demonstrated a complex upper-volcano conduit system with appreciable upper-volcano magma storage to the northwest of the lava lake at depths hundreds of meters below the surface.

The artist
Edward Adrian Wilson,  nicknamed "Uncle Bill" was an English physician, polar explorer, natural historian, painter and ornithologist. Wilson took part in two British expeditions to Antarctica, the Discovery Expedition (1901-1904)  and the tragic Terra Nova Expedition (1907-1912), both under the leadership of Scott.
Dr. Edward A. Wilson  is widely regarded as one of the finest artists ever to have worked in the Antarctic. Sailing with Captain Scott aboard 'Discovery' (1901-1904), he became the last in a long tradition of 'exploration artists' from an age when pencil and water-colour were the main methods of producing accurate scientific records of new lands and animal species. He combined scientific, topographical and landscape techniques to produce accurate and beautiful images of the last unknown continent. Such was the strength of his work that it also helped to found the tradition of modern wildlife painting. In particular Wilson captured the essence of the flight and motion of Southern Ocean sea-birds on paper.
Returning with Captain Scott aboard 'Terra Nova' (1910-1913) as Chief of Scientific Staff, he continued to record the continent and its wildlife with extraordinary deftness. Chosen to accompany Captain Scott to the South Pole, his last drawings are from one of the most famous epic journeys in exploration history. Along with his scientific work, Wilson's pencil recorded the finding of Roald Amundsen's tent at the South Pole by Captain Scott. Wilson died, along with the other members of the British Pole Party, during the return journey, in March 1912. The drawings and paintings were created at considerable personal cost in the freezing conditions in which Wilson worked. He often suffered severely from the cold whilst sketching and also from snow-blindness, or sunburn of the eye. They provide a remarkable testament to one of the great figures of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. The book has been produced as a companion volume to 'Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks' by two of Wilson's great nephews, to mark the centenary of his death.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes..

Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE JUNGFRAU BY EDGARD BOUILLETTE

EDGARD BOUILLETTE (1872-1960)

The Jungfrau (4,158 m-13,642 ft)

Switzerland

The mountain 

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.
Full  Wandering Vertexes entry =>

The artist 
Alphonse Henri Edgard Bouillette is a French painter best known for his mountain painting.
Born in Paris, he spent  his childhood there. Brilliant subject, he studied law and also passed a doctorate of science and a doctorate of letters. He began a legal career as a trainee lawyer at the Paris Court d'Appel but will quickly abandon it for an artistic career that will lead parallel to an intense activity of mountaineer.
He stayed for a long time in Chamonix, where he had a chalet built, from where he often went on errands with the great guide Joseph Ravanel "Le Rouge". It also frequents the massifs of Oisans and Pyrenees. He is mobilized for the Great War and fights in the trenches of the Yser.
After giving up his early career as a lawyer, he trained as a painter with Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1836-1911), Jean-André Rixens (1846-1924) and Tony Robert-Fleury (1837-1911). He was admitted to the Society of Mountain Painters in 1904, became general secretary in 1938, vice-president in 1949 and president from 1955 to 1962. He is also a member of the Independents, the French Artists and the Salon d'hiver.
He becomes one of the first members of the French Alpine Club and is vice-president of the Chamonix section. He leads many collective races in the mountains.
He died in Chamonix at the age of 89.
Edgard Bouillette has dedicated his artistic career to the representation of the mountain, especially the peaks of the Chamonix valley (Mont Blanc, Les Drus, the Bossons glacier, etc.)
He is well known for his etchings but also made oil paintings and watercolors.
Some of his works are visible in the Alpine Museum of Chamonix, the mountain museum of Les Houches and the Museum of Annecy (France)

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

LES DIABLERETS BY DIRK FILARSKI

DIRK FILARSKI (1885-1964) 

Les Diablerets (3, 210m - 10, 531ft)

Switzerland

The mountain 
Les Diablerets (3, 210m - 10, 531ft) are a mountain range of the Bernese Alps, located on the borders of the cantons of Vaud, Valais and Bern. From west to east, it is composed of the following main summits: the Culan (2,789 m), the Tête Ronde  (3,037 m), the summit of Diablerets (3,210 m), the Sex Rouge (2,971 m), the  Ttoldenhorn or Becca d'Audon (3, 123 m), the Sanetschhore or Mount Brun (2 924 m), the Gstellihorn (2, 820 m), the Schluchhore (2, 579 m) and the Mittaghore (2, 334 m). The Oldenhorn, the Scex Rouge and the summit of the Diablerets seen from the north-west, from the peak Chaussy. It is possible to ski there, not only in winter but also in summer on the Tsanfleuron glacier, connected to the village of Diablerets by a cable car, inaugurated in 1964 on the occasion of the National Exhibition and replaced in 1999.

The painter 
Dirk Herman Willem Filarski  was a Dutch painter belonging to the Bergen School. In 1912, Filarski left for Switzerland . He lived in Clarens with the musician Nico Ebels, who was married to Lien Smorenberg, the sister of his friend. Dirk Smorenberg also stayed with the Ebels family. In the period 1912-1914 Filarski and Smorenberg painted mountain landscapes with striking color accents (purple, pink, lilac blue, light and dark green). With this use of color, Filarski belonged to the movement of the moderns (the 'Blauwen') within the Artists ' Association Sint Lucas .
Filarski stayed between 1912 and 1917 for longer periods in Switzerland and Italy (Lago Maggiore). In 1913 he returned to the Netherlands by the death of his mother. After her funeral, he worked for some time in Drenthe . In 1915 and 1916 he was working in Amsterdam, Bergen and Schoorldam. In 1917 he wandered through the Bernese Oberland and painted dozens of mountain landscapes in which dark colors (like above)  became more dominant compared to the works from the period 1912-1914.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT BURGESS & EMERALD LAKE BY SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874-1965), 

Mount Burgess (2,599 m - 8,527 ft)

Canada

In  Emerald Lake, Canada, oil on canvas, Private owner 

The Mountain 

Mount Burgess (2,599 m - 8,527 ft) is a mountain in Yoho National Park and is part of the Canadian Rockies. It is located in the southwest buttress of Burgess Pass in the Emerald River and Kicking Horse River Valleys.  It was named in 1886 by Otto Koltz after Alexander MacKinnon Burgess, the Deputy Minister of the Interior at the time.

In 1892, James J. McArthur was the first to ascend this mountain. He was completing a survey of the lands adjacent to the Canadian Pacific Railway.

In 1909, geologist Charles D. Walcott discovered the Burgess Shale deposit of fossils with fine details on Mount Burgess. The Burgess Shale is a black shale fossil bed (Lagerstätte) named after nearby Burgess Pass, in which are found new and unique species, many in fact constituting entire new phyla of life, and even today some of these unique species have proven impossible to classify. The fossils are especially valuable because they include appendages and soft parts that are rarely preserved.

The mountain has two summits. The lower north summit was named Walcott Peak in his honour.

Between 1954 and 1971, Mount Burgess was featured on the back of the Canadian ten-dollar bill. It is still informally called the "Ten Dollar Mountain" as a result.

In 1984, UNESCO declared the area a World Heritage Site.

The painter
Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was 40 before he discovered the pleasures of painting. The compositional challenge of depicting a landscape gave the heroic rebel in him temporary repose. He possessed the heightened perception of the genuine artist to whom no scene is commonplace. Over a period of forty-eight years his creativity yielded more than 500 pictures. His art quickly became half passion, half philosophy. He enjoyed holding forth in speech and print on the aesthetic rewards for amateur devotees. To him it was the greatest of hobbies. He had found his other world -- a respite from crowding events and pulsating politics....
Full Wandering vertexes entry  =>

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT SOPRIS BY CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS

CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS (1858 -1942)

Mount Sopris ( 3,952 m - 12, 965 ft)

United States of America 

In Mount Sopris, oil on canvas, 1915

The mountain 

Mount Sopris ( 3,952 m - 12, 965 ft)  is a twin-summit mountain in the northwestern Elk Mountains range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The 12,965-foot (3,952 m) mountain is located in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness of White River National Forest, 6.6 miles (10.7 km) north by northeast (bearing 30°) of the community of Redstone in Pitkin County, Colorado, United States...

Full wikipedia entry  =>

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.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

HEUKUPPE & THE RAX BY KONRAD PETRIDES

KONRAD PETRIDES  (1864-1944)

Heukuppe (2,007m - 6,585ft) 

Austria

 In Rax mountain- Rax Schneeber -Gruppe, oil on canvas

The mountain 

 The Heukuppe (2,007 m) is the  highest peak of the Rax,  a mountain range in the Northern Limestone Alps on the border of the Austrian federal provinces of Lower Austria and Styria

The Rax, together with the nearby Schneeberg, are a traditional mountaineering and mountain walking area, and are called the Wiener Hausberge. They are separated by the deep Höllental.

A cable car, the Raxseilbahn, starting at Hirschwang at the north-eastern foot of the mountains and the first in Austria (construction began in 1925), takes visitors to the extensive, high plateau of the Rax at a height of about 1,500 m. This area is a particular favourite with hikers from Lower Austria and Vienna. The steep sides of the plateau offer climbing tours of various difficulty. These steige (mountain trails) and the hütten, alpine huts offering basic accommodation, were built and are maintained kept by various Austrian Alpine Clubs. They were erected in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The artist 
Konrad Petrides  was a Viennese landscape and stage painter in the studio Hermann Burghart, where the painters Anton Brioschi, Josef Kautsky, Georg Jany and Leopold Rothaug also worked. He also painted many veduras, especially from Lower Austria and East Tyrol. Petrides was a member of the Dürer League, in whose exhibitions he participated and whose silver medal he received in 1919. In 1904 he also received the gold medal at the World's Fair in St. Louis, USA.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

ZAWRAT PASS BY ALEKSANDER MROCZKOWSKI

ALEKSANDER MROCZKOWSKI (1850-1927)

Zawrat  pass  (2,159 m - 7,083ft) 

Poland 

 In  Zawrat Mountain, 1905, oil on canvas,  Tatra Museum, Zakopane.

The mountain 

Zawrat  (2,159 m - 7,083ft) is  a narrow pass  in the long eastern ridge of Świnica in the High Tatras separating Zawratowa Turnia (2,247 m) from Mały Goat Wierch ( 2,226 m). It is one of the two extreme points of the Orla Perci (western) route .

Zawrat is available for tourists directly from Świnica or from valleys lying on both sides of the ridge: Dolina Pięciu Stawów Polskich and Dolina Gąsienicowa. 

The name Zawrat and its diminutive - Zawracik are quite often found in the Tatra nomenclature (for example, Zawracie near Wołowiec or Przełęcz nad Zawratami in the ridge of Roháče). They usually mean steep passes, switches or other similar, steep objects. 

Zawrat was already from Zakopane to the Sea Eye in the 19th century. The first recorded tourist crossings: Jakub Krauthofer and Jan Para in August 1842.  The first winter crossing (with the participation of a woman, which was rare at the time): Jan Grzegorzewski, Miss Stanisława Pisarzewska and her brother-in-law, landowner from Mazovia Leon Józef Marian Duczymiński with guides: Bartłomiej Obrochta , G. Rojana and Józef Trzebunia - January 21, 1894. In the nineteenth century, the passage through Zawrat was considered difficult, it was a test of tourist skills. On Zawrat, there were m.in. Stanisław Witkiewicz (his tour from 1888 described in Na przełczy ), Stefan Żeromski (1892), Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Jan Kasprowicz, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, and Włodzimierz Lenin.

By 2012, 17 fatal accidents occurred in Zawrac.

The painter 

Aleksander Mroczkowski was a Polish painter who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow in the studio of Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, Feliks Szynalewski and Leon Dembowski, and then in 1873-1877 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich  in the studio of A. Wagner and O. Seitz.

He created in a realistic style, he often took up the subject of Tatra landscapes and rural landscapes, such as Landscape with a homestead (1878, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź ) and W harvestwa (1882, National Museum in Warsaw). He also painted portraits, genre scenes, historical and sacred compositions, he also dealt with decorative painting.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT TARAWERA / PINK TERRACES BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mount Tarawera (1, 111m - 3,645ft) 

 New Zealand

In The pink terraces, Mount Tarawera, oil on canvas

The mountain 
Mount Tarawera (1, 111m - 3,645ft) is the volcano responsible for one of New Zealand's largest historic eruptions. Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua in the North Island, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured down the middle by an explosive basaltic eruption in 1886, which killed an estimated 120 people. These fissures run for about 17 kilometres northeast-southwest.
The volcano's component domes include Ruawahia Dome, Tarawera Dome and Wahanga Dome. It is surrounded by several lakes, most of which were created or drastically altered by the 1886 eruption. These lakes include Lakes Tarawera, Rotomahana, Rerewhakaaitu, Okataina, Okareka, Tikitapu (Blue Lake) and Rotokakahi (Green Lake). The Tarawera River runs northeastwards across the northern flank of the mountain from Lake Tarawera.
Main eruptions 
- 1315 : Mount Tarawera erupted for the fist time on modern history. The ash thrown from this event may have affected temperatures around the globe and precipitated the Great Famine of 1315–17 in Europe.
- 1886 : Shortly after midnight on the morning of 10 June 1886, a series of more than 30 increasingly strong earthquakes were felt in the Rotorua area and an unusual sheet lightning display was observed from the direction of Tarawera. At around 2:00 am a larger earthquake was felt and followed by the sound of an explosion. By 2:30 am Mount Tarawera's three peaks had erupted, blasting three distinct columns of smoke and ash thousands of metres into the sky (see painting above). At around 3.30 am, the largest phase of the eruption commenced; vents at Rotomahana produced a pyroclastic surge that destroyed several villages within a 6 kilometre radius, and the Pink and White Terraces appeared to be obliterated.
The eruption was heard clearly as far away as Blenheim and the effects of the ash in the air were observed as far south as Christchurch, over 800 km away. In Auckland the sound of the eruption and the flashing sky was thought by some to be an attack by Russian warships.
Although the official contemporary death toll was 153, exhaustive research by physicist Ron Keam only identified 108 people killed by the eruption. Much of the discrepancy was due to misspelled names and other duplications. Allowing for some unnamed and unknown victims, he estimated that the true death toll was 120 at most.  Some people claim that many more people died.
The eruption also buried many Māori villages, including Te Wairoa which has now become a tourist attraction (Buried Village of Te Wairoa) and the world-famous Pink and White Terraces were lost. A small portion of the Pink Terraces was rediscovered under Lake Rotomahana 125 years later. Approximately 2 cubic kilometres of tephra was erupted, more than Mount St. Helens ejected in 1980. Many of the lakes surrounding the mountain had their shapes and areas dramatically altered, especially the eventual enlargement of Lake Rotomahana, the largest crater involved in the eruption, as it re-filled with water.
Legend
One legend surrounding the 1886 eruption is that of the phantom canoe. Eleven days before the eruption, a boat full of tourists returning from the Terraces saw what appeared to be a war canoe approach their boat, only to disappear in the mist half a mile from them. One of the witnesses was a clergyman, a local Maori man from the Te Arawa iwi. Nobody around the lake owned such a war canoe, and nothing like it had been seen on the lake for many years. It is possible that the rise and fall of the lake level caused by pre eruption fissures had freed a burial waka (canoe) from its resting place. Traditionally dead chiefs were tied in an upright position. A number of letters have been published from the tourists who experienced the event.
Though skeptics maintained that it was a freak reflection seen on the mist, tribal elders at Te Wairoa claimed that it was a waka wairua (spirit canoe) and was a portent of doom. It has been suggested that the waka was actually a freak wave on the water, caused by seismic activity below the lake, but locals believe that a future eruption will be signaled by the reappearance of the canoe.

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.

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

UNDOOLYA (1) BY ALBERT NAMATJIRA

ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902-1959)

Undoolya (794 m - 2,606 ft)

Australia (Northern Territory) 

In  The Grandeur, Mount Undoolya, watercolor on paper,  c.1950

The mountain 

Undoolya or Mount Undoolya (794 m- 2,606 ft)  is located in the MacDonnell region and the Northern Territory state, in the central part of Australia, 1,900 km north-west of Canberra is the nation's headline. 

The ground around Mount Undoolya is usually flat, but on the east it is the hills.  The surrounding area has an altitude of 871 meters and 14.8 km north of Mount Undoolya.  Nor more than 2 people per square kilometer around Mount Undoolya.  No city around.

Mount Undoolya is surrounded by lakes. The climate is warm. 

The Painter 

Albert Namatjira  born Elea Namatjira, was a Western Arrernte-speaking Aboriginal artist from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. As a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was the most famous Indigenous Australian of his generation.
Born and raised at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, Namatjira showed interest in art from an early age, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32), under the tutelage of Rex Battarbee, that he began to paint seriously. Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting. He became a household name in Australia—indeed, reproductions of his works hung in many homes throughout the nation—and he was publicly regarded as a model Aborigine who had succeeded in mainstream society.
Although not the first Aboriginal artist to work in a European style, Albert Namatjira is certainly the most famous. Ghost gums with luminous white trunks, palm-filled gorges and red mountain ranges turning purple at dusk are the hallmarks of the Hermannsburg school. Hermannsburg Mission was established by Lutheran missionaries in 1877 on the banks of the Finke River, west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Namatjira learnt watercolour technique from the artist, Rex Battarbee.
More about  Albert Namatjira 

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau