AORAKI / MOUNT COOK BY EDWYN TEMPLE

EDWYN TEMPLE (1835-1921)

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

New Zealand

 In Mount  Cook and the Old Hermitage, watercolor, Private Collection 

The mountain 

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

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

The artist 
 Edwyn Temple, or 'The Captain' as he was referred to by his friends and family, was born in England in 1835, the son of Lieutenant Colonel John Temple and the grandson of Grenville Temple-Temple 9th Baronet of Stowe.  Educated at Rugby School, he entered the military services in 1853. During a brief period in Italy a relative, Princess Pondalfina, recognised his ability and engaged a tutor to teach him the rudiments of painting.
Temple was ensigned in 1854 and became a Captain in the 55th Foot (Westmoreland) Regiment in 1858. He later served in the Crimea and in India from 1864 to 1866. By that time he had married and the first of a family of nine children had been born. It was more than nine years after retiring from the army that he decided to emigrate with his wife and family to New Zealand, arriving in Lyttelton on 25 October 1879.
Full Wandering vertexes  entry  =>

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT SPEKE BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943), 

Mount Speke  (4,890m -16, 040ft)  

Uganda

In Mount Speke from Edward Peak, gelatine photo, 1908,  from the book  Ruwenzori, 

The Library  of Santa Barbara  College of The University of California  

The mountain

Mount Speke (4,890m -16, 040ft) lies in the Ruwenzori Mountains National Park in Uganda and is the second highest mountain in this range. Together with Mount Stanley and Mount Baker, it forms a triangle enclosing the upper Bujuku Valley. The nearest peak is Mount Stanley, which is 3.55 kilometres (2.21 mi) to the south-southwest.  

The mountains lie within an area called 'The Mountains of the Moon'.

All mountains in this range consist of multiple jagged peaks. Mount Speke's summits are Vittorio Emanuele (4,890 m -16,040 ft); Ensonga  (4,865 m - 15,961 ft); Johnston (4,834 m -15,860 ft); and Trident (4,572 m- 15,000 ft). The names were chosen in respect for the Italian royal family in the memory of the  Duke of the Abruzzi  (future King of Italy) who climbed all the peaks in the Rwenzori range.

The people living on the mountains call the 'Rwenzori', which means 'rain maker' or 'rain mountains' in the Bakonjo language. The Baganda, who could see the mountains from far, used to call them 'Gambaragara', which means 'My Eyes Pain', a reference to the shining snow. The Bakonjo had their own names for the peaks in the Rwenzori range, however, as they had never climbed them, it was difficult to clarify which peak was which. For example, they had names for the three main peaks: Kiyanja, Duwoni and Ingomwimbi. The fact is that for the Bakonjo the high Rwenzori is the home of Kitasamba, the god who resides at the high altitudes and cannot be accessed.

Early European explorers visited the region in the search for the source of the Nile. This mountain was named after John Speke. While he never climbed this peak, Speke mapped the source of the White Nile in 1862.  All the mountain in this region are named after similar early explorers.

Due to the large amount of rainfall Mount Speke receives, it is criss-crossed by many rivers and streams. The vegetation tends to be quite thick. There is also a variety of wildlife, including elephants, chimpanzee, monkeys, leopards and antelope.

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  =>

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MILNER PEAK BY HUGO NAUDÉ

HUGO NAUDÉ (1869-1941)  

Milner peak  (1,995 m- 6,545ft)  

South Africa

In Audensberg, Worcester, oil on canvas, 1911

The mountain 
 Milner Peak (1,995 m) is on of the  two peaks of  the Hex River Mountains,  the second highest mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa and are located 120 kilometres (75 miles) north-east of Cape Town. They form part of a large anticline in the Cape Fold Belt mountain system and form a north-east, south-west trending mountain system forming the core of the Cape Syntaxis between the towns of Worcester and De Doorns. They are mostly composed of Table Mountain sandstone and most peaks reach 2,000 metres (6,562 feet) in height or more. The highest mountain is Matroosberg (2,249 m -7,379 ft), making it the second tallest peak in the province after Seweweekspoort Peak in the Swartberg Mountain Range.
The vegetation is primarily montane fynbos and the mountains fall within the Cape's Mediterranean climate. The mountains provide some rudimentary snow-skiing opportunities in winter, with the Western Cape's heaviest snowfalls occurring in and around these ranges. The surrounding valleys support intensive deciduous fruit cultivation, mostly in the form of cherries and table grapes.
Block streams and terraces found in the near the summit of Matroosberg evidences past periglacial activity, which occurred likely during the Last Glacial Maximum.

 The painter

Hugo Naudé was South Africa’s pioneer impressionist painter. He received his professional art education at the Slade School of Fine Art in London (1889 -1890) and the Kunst Akademie in Munich (1890 -1894) and spent a year amongst the Barbizon painters in Fontainebleau near Paris.

Born and raised in the Boland town of Worcester, Naudé became South Africa’s first professional artist, establishing “Cape Impressionism”, an adaptation of European Impressionism, in conjunction with the artists Pieter Wenning, Nita Spilhaus, Ruth Prowse and Strat Caldecott. After his European training, Naudé had to adapt to the sunlit brilliance of the African landscape and as “plein-airste” gradually loosened the bonds of his formal training - pioneering a truly South African style which has been maintained by a second and third generation of artists.

When Hugo Naudé returned to South Africa in 1896, after 6 years of formal art training and study in Europe (1889-1895) he initially tried to establish himself as a portrait painter for which he had received expert training from the great Franz von Lenbach in Munich. The prevailing artistic climate proved this idea to have been too optimistic, and thus began a gradual transition in subject matter from portrait to landscape.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

BARRE DES ECRINS BY CHARLES-HENRI CONTENCIN

CHARLES-HENRI CONTENCIN (1898-1955)

The Barre des Écrins (4,102 m - 13, 458ft)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur)

 In The Barre des Ecrins seen from above the Glacier Blanc Massif des Ecrins, France- 46 x5 6cm, oil on canvas, Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery London 

The mountain,

The Barre des Écrins (4,102 m) is a mountain in the French Alps with a peak at 4102m altitude. It is the highest peak of the Massif des Écrins and the Dauphiné Alps and the most southerly alpine peak in Europe that is higher than 4,000 m. It is the only 4,000 m mountain in France that lies outside the Mont Blanc Massif. Before the annexation of Savoy in 1860 it was the highest mountain in France.

The Barre des Écrins is the highest peak in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region including all of Occitania and the Southern Alps. It is located in the commune of Pelvoux and is situated near the Drainage divide between the Durance and the Vénéon. This divide passes 250 metres west of the summit, along the ridge that leads to the summit of the sub-peak Dôme des Écrins (4,088 m). The south face of the mountain is rocky while the north face is ice as it is the starting point of the Glacier Blanc. The mountain is surrounded by four glaciers: to the north-west is the Bonne Pierre glacier, to the north-east the Glacier Blanc, to the south-west the Glacier du Vallon de la Pilatte, and finally in the south-east the Glacier Noir. It is separated from the Snow Dome of Écrins (4,015 m) by the Lory Gap (3974 m) to the west, the Barre Noir (3,751 m) by the Écrins Gap (3, 661 m) to the north-east and by Fifre (3,699 m) via the Col des Avalanches (3,499 m) to the south.

The Écrins were discovered by geographers belatedly in the 19th century when they were the highest point in France.

The Englishmen A. W Moore, Horace Walker, and Edward Whymper, guided by Michel Croz from Chamonix and Christian Almer from Switzerland, made the first ascent of the Barre des Écrins on 25 June 1864. They cut steps on the north face of the Barre until they reached the top of the eastern edge via the Whymper corridor. They then reached the top of this high ridge which was composed of very unstable rocks. Edward Whymper described the ascension in his book Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69.

William Auguste Coolidge made the first direct climb up the north face of the Barre des Ecrins in July 1870 by cutting 500 steps.

The first ascent without a guide is credited to Frederick Gardiner in 1878 accompanied by Charles and Lawrence Pilkington.

The southern face was climbed for the first time in 1880 by Pierre Gaspard together with Henri Duhamel. The south pillar, a part of the Black glacier ending at the top, was climbed for the first time in 1944 by the famous couple of climbers Jeanne and Jean Franco.

The painter 

Charles-Henri Contencin (1898-1955), is a French painter who painted many landscapes of mountain and high mountain of the great Alpine peaks, Mont Blanc and Massif and the Écrins mainly. His palette is characteristic. He particularly used the effects of sunrise or sunset over snow or glaciers.

Raised in the Bernese Oberland to the age of 10-12 years, it was a lifelong mountain lover. Good climber, he was a member of the French Alpine Club, where he made the connection with the Mountain Painters Society (SPM). He made the First World War in the infantry and he received the War Cross. He then worked in an architectural office and at the Compagnie des chemins de Fer du Nord before joining the french national railways company, the SNCF, where he was responsible for engineering structures.
In addition to his professional designs it is also author of posters and handbills for the railways under the pseudonym "Charles-Henri." He is best known for its mountain paintings and leaves an important work.
__________________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MALIGNE MOUNTAIN BY LAWREN S. HARRIS

LAWREN S. HARRIS (1885-1970)

Maligne Mountain  (3,200m -10,500-ft)  

Canada (Alberta)

 In Mountains East of Maligne Lake, Maligne Mountain,  oil on canvas, 1925

The mountain 
Maligne Mountain  (3,200m -10,500-ft)  is multi-peak massif located east of Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park, in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, Canada. Maligne Mountain is surrounded by glaciers, and its nearest higher peak is Monkhead, 7.83 kilometres (4.87 miles) to the south.
The peak was first named by Mary Schäffer in 1911 because she thought one peak should bear the name of Maligne Lake. Mary "discovered" Maligne Lake and she named many of the mountains around it, including Mount Charlton, Mount Unwin, and Mount Warren. The mountain's name was officially adopted in 1946 by the Geographical Names Board of Canada.
The first ascent of Maligne Mountain was made in 1930 by W.R. Hainsworth, J.F. Lehmann, M.M. Strumia, and N.D. Waffl.
Based on the Köppen climate classification, Maligne Mountain is located in a subarctic climate with cold, snowy winters, and mild summers.Temperatures can drop below −20 degrees Celsius (−4 degrees Fahrenheit) with wind chill factors below −30 °C (−22 °F).

The painter 

Lawren Stewart Harris  was a leading landscape canadian painter, imbuing his paintings with a spiritual dimension. An inspirer of other artists, he was a key figure in the Group of Seven and gave new vision to representations of the northern Canadian landscape. During the 1920s, Harris's works became more abstract and simplified, especially his stark landscapes of the Canadian north and Arctic.  He also stopped signing and dating his works so that people would judge his works on their own merit and not by the artist or when they were painted.

In 1924, a sketching trip with A.Y. Jackson to Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies marked the beginning of Harris' mountain subjects, which he continued to explore with annual sketching trips until 1929, exploring areas around Banff National Park, Yoho National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park. In 1930, Harris went on his last extended sketching trip, travelling to the Arctic aboard the supply ship SS. Beothic for two months, during which time he completed over 50 sketches.  "We are on the fringe of the great North and its living whiteness, its loneliness and replenishment, its resignations and release, tis call and answer, its cleansing rhythms. It seems that the top of the continent is a source of spiritual flow that will ever shed clarity into the growing race of America."(Lawren S. Harris, 1926)

In 1969, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Harris died in Vancouver in 1970, at the age of 84, as a well-known artist.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

CERRO ESCORIAL BY PEDRO LIRA

 PEDRO LIRA (1845-1912) 

Cerro Escorial  (5,451m - 17, 884ft)

Argentina / Chile border

 In  Paisaje Cordillerano, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Chile   

The mountain 
Cerro Escorial  (5,451m - 17, 884ft) is a stratovolcano at the border of Argentina and Chile. It is part of the Corrida de Cori volcanic group and its youngest member. A well-preserved 1-kilometre-wide (0.6 mi) crater forms its summit area. Lava flows are found on the Chilean and smaller ones on the Argentinian side, the former reaching as far as 3–4 kilometres (1.9–2.5 mi) from the volcano. One of these is dated 342,000 years ago by argon-argon dating.
A Plinian eruption on Escorial was the source of the dacitic Escorial ignimbrite.  Pulsed changes in the magma supply during the eruption generated a radial ignimbrite structure which was deposited in various flows. The source magma underwent significant crustal contamination and contains quartz veins, indicating that the ignimbrite interacted with a buried hydrothermal system. Lithic clasts including basement material are also present. The ignimbrite has a volume of about 0.6 cubic kilometres (0.14 cu mi) and was erupted 460,000±10,000 years ago.
A sulfur mine lies 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) southwest of Escorial. Mining ceased about 1983.

The painter 
Pedro Francisco Lira Rencoret known as Pedro Lira  was a Chilean painter and art critic,  best known for his eclectic portraits of women ans a few landscapes.
He lived in France from 1873 to 1884 and was influenced by Eugène Delacroix, many of whose paintings he copied. Later, he received an "honorable mention" at the Salon, where little recognition was generally given to Latin American artists. But, despite his successes, he decided to return to Chile, as the time appeared ripe to create an artistic milieu comparable to that in Paris.
Soon after his arrival, he organized the first exposition devoted exclusively to Chilean painters. Together with the sculptor José Miguel Blanco, he founded the "Unión Artística", an organization devoted to promoting more exhibitions and, ultimately, creating the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Chile, which was originally located on the second floor of the National Congress Building. He also created a Salon, similar to the one in Paris, and helped establish a museum in the Quinta Normal, where expositions were held until 1910.
In 1892, he was appointed Director of the "Escuela de Bellas Artes", a position he held until his death. While there, he was a mentor for promising new artists. Among the best known painters whose careers he supported are Pablo Burchard, Pedro Reszka Moreau and Celia Castro, the first Chilean woman to become a notable artist. He also compiled Chile's first "Biographical Dictionary of Painters" and translated Hippolyte Taine's Philosophy of Art. Several historical paintings of his have been used on Chilean banknotes.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

EAGLE PEAK BY ABBY WILLIAMS HILL

ABBY WILLIAMS HILL (1861-1943)

Eagle Peak (2,372 m - 7,783ft) 

United States of America  

 In  Eagle Peak, Yosemite park, oil on canvas,  University of Puget Sound 

The peak
Eagle Peak is the highest of the Three Brothers (Eagle Peak  the uppermost "brother"-,  Middle and Lower Brothers), a rock formation, above Yosemite Valley in California.
Eagle peak is an independent peak is located just east of El Capitan. John Muir considered the view from the summit to be "most comprehensive of all the views" available from the north wall.
Eagle Peak can be reached by following the Upper Yosemite Falls and Eagle Peak trails. The hike is 6.0 miles (9.7 km) one way with a climb of over 3,500 feet (1,100 m). The trailhead is at Camp 4 near Yosemite Village. It passes near Yosemite Falls and affords many views of the valley.
The peak can also be reached form the Tamarack Flat Campground located off the Tioga Pass Road. The hike, which follows the El Capitan trail most of the way, is 7.7 miles (12.4 km)  but the trailhead is at about 6,400 feet (2,000 m). Another route starts at Yosemite Creek Campground at an elevation of 7,200 feet (2,200 m). This trailhead is at the end of a very rough, single lane, 4-mile (6.4 km) road.

The Painter 
Abby Williams Hill was an American plein-air painter most known for her landscapes of the American West. Hill also advocated for children's rights, attended the 1905 Congress of Mothers in Washington, D.C., and founded the Washington (state) Parent-Teacher Association.
In the early 1900s, the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway commissioned Hill to paint landscapes of the northwestern United States to promote tourism. The commission required that Hill produce 22 paintings in just 18 weeks, and that she produce them en plein air.  Accompanied by her four children, Abby Hill took prolonged camping trips for the purpose of painting scenery in places such as Yosemite National Park and Yellowstone National Park.  Her works were exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland. Over the course of her career, Hill achieved her goal of painting in every national park in the Western United States.
Her husband became incapacitated by psychotic depression in 1911, so the family moved to the small isolated community of Laguna Beach, California, for the benefit of the mild, sunny climate.
Abby Hill was one of several early-20th-century American artists who built studios in Laguna Beach and transformed it into an artist community. She became a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association.
Following the death of her husband in 1938, Abby Hill became bedridden. She died in Laguna Beach in 1943.
A permanent collection of her works and papers is held by the University of Puget Sound.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE BLUEMLISALPHORN BY P. VON THUN

P. VON THUN (19th century)

Blüemlisalphorn (3,661m -12,011 ft) 

Switzerland

In  Kandersteg with the Blümlisalp range in the background Bernese Oberland.-Oil on  canvas, 56x79 cm  Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London 

The mountain
 Blüemlisalphorn (3,661 m) is the highest peak of the Blüemlisalp  massif in the Bernese Alps, in the territory of the municipalities of Kandersteg and Reichenbach im Kandertal.
The Blüemlisalp forms a ridge of great height, cut away in precipices on the southeast side, surmounted by four principal peaks, in the following order, reckoning from east to west: Morgenhorn (3,623 m), Wyssi Frau (3,648 m), the Blüemlisalphorn (3,661 m) and the Oeschinenhorn (3,486 m). To the southwest of the last peak, and between it and the Doldenhorn, is a minor summit — the Fründenhorn (3,369 m). In front of the main ridge, as seen from the northwest, e. g. from the Dündenhorn, are seen three minor peaks which project as steep islets of rock from the great glacier-fields that cover that side of the mountain. These are the Wildi Frau (3,260 m), the Ufem Stock (3,221 m), and the Blümlisalp Rothhorn (3,297 m).
The two main feeders of the Blüemlisalp Glacier  flow downwards through the openings between the three last-named summits, but a short branch from the ice-stream that descends between the Wildi Frau and the Ufem Stock turns to the north, and flows into the head of the Kiental.
The highest peak was ascended in 1860 by Leslie Stephen, accompanied by R. Liveing and J.K. Stone, with Melchior Anderegg and Pierre Simond of Argentière as guides.

The Painter
Not a lot of details about the life and work of P. von Thun who appears to be  a Swiss artist born in
XIX th century. The oldest auction result ever registered  for an artwork by this artist is a painting sold in 2010, at Dobiaschofsky Auktionen AG (Bern), and the most recent auction result is a painting sold in 2016. Artprice.com's price levels for this artist are based on 2 auction results.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

IZALCO VOLCANO IN VINTAGE STAMPS 1890

VINTAGE STAMPS 1890 

 Izalco Volcano (1,950m - 6,398ft)

El Salvador

In Volcan de Izalco, faro de la America Central, 1 cents stamp, 1890,  

Columbian Bank Note Company 

The volcano
The Izalco Volcano (1,950m -  is the youngest of the volcanoes in El Salvador and one of the youngest in the Americas.   The name of Izalco has its origin in the Nahuatl language (Itshalco) and means: "Place in the obsidian sands or Place in the black sands".
According to the popular version, it originated in the year 1770 when a hole in the skirt of the Santa Ana Volcano began to emit smoke and ashes. However, the historian Jorge Lardé and Larín indicates that its origins go back to March 19, 1722 when "a new crater was formed where it vomited fire, lava and ashes", 1 which made an important eruption in 1745 .
For 196 years the volcano erupted almost ceaselessly, so much that its flames could be seen until the ocean , this gave rise to that it was known with the nickname of Lighthouse of the Pacific . Its activity was such that a cone of 650 meters was formed on the neighboring plain (1,952 msnm), with a crater of 250 meters in diameter. Its last regular eruption occurred in 1958 , although in 1966 it awoke from its inactivity with a small lateral eruption. 2 Since then, there has been a gradual decrease in activity and temperature of its fumaroles.

The stamps
Correos de El Salvador is a dependency of the Ministry of the Interior in charge of offering postal services with national and international coverage. By constitutional mandate, it is up to the Salvadoran State to provide these services by itself or through autonomous institutions, and to monitor this activity when it is provided by private companies.
On March 1, 1867 stamps were mandatory in the country. These stamps were oval in shape and showed the figure of the San Miguel volcano surrounded by eleven stars representing the eleven departments in which the republic was divided at that time.
The Philatelic Society of El Salvador was founded in the city of San Salvador on January 5, 1940, at the initiative of Enrique Patiño, Antonio Pinto Lima and Ciro Rusconi. Patiño was its first president and the first meeting of the society brought together sixteen philatelists. Also in the United States The El Salvador Collectors Club was formed on May 3, 1975, which was incorporated into the Jack Knight Collectors Club, and later changed its name to Associated Collectors of El Salvador .
Both associations joined in 2004 to create the Philatelic Society of El Salvador - ACES , dedicated to the online study of stamps and postal history of El Salvador.
The institution has a quarterly online magazine called El Salvador Filatélico - El Faro.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MONTE CORNETTO BY SALVADOR SALI

SALVADOR DALI (1904-1989)

Monte Cornetto  (2, 179m - 7, 149 ft)

Italy

In  Lago de Garda, 1949, watercolour, Private collection 

The mountain 

Monte Cornetto   (2, 179m - 7, 149 ft) is part of the fifteen mountains  that surrounds Lake Garda and forms a Southern Eastern Alps massif whose Mont Caldria  is the highest point.  They rise in Italy (border between Trentino-Alto Adige, Lombardy and Veneto).The mountains are oriented north-south around the basin formed by Lake Garda and are surrounded by the Adamello-Presanella massif to the west, the Brenta massif to the north and the Vicentine Prealps to the east.

The climate of the mountains around Lake Garda is very mild because of its southern location within the Alps and the influence of the Mediterranean Sea. In the Sarche Valley and on the shores of the lake, snow rarely falls during the spring and fall, when temperatures are often measured between 15 and 20 ° C.

The massif is bordered by the Adige (including Val Lagarina) to the east.

The painter 

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí de Púbol, known professionally as Salvador Dalí, was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain.
Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work,  The Persistence of Memory (above) was completed in August 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media. Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors. Dalí was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem, and to the irritation of his critics.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MONTE SAN VALENTIN BY ANTONIO SMITH

ANTONIO SMITH (1832-1877)

Monte San Valentin  (4,058 m - 13,314 ft)

Chile

 In  Paisaje cordillerano y laguna, oil on canvas, Pinacoteca Universidad de Concepción,  Chile 

The mountain 
Monte San Valentin  (4,058 m - 13,314 ft) , also known as Monte San Clemente, is the highest mountain in Chilean Patagonia  and the highest mountain south of 37°S outside Antarctica. It stands at the north end of the North Patagonian Icefield.
There is some confusion about the elevation. It was originally estimated at 3,876m by Nordenskjold in 1921 but later thought to be 4,058m. The latter is the most commonly quoted elevation and is quoted here. A French group that climbed the San Valentin in 1993 included two surveyors, who calculated an elevation of 4,080±20 m by using a GPS.  In 2001 a Chilean group measured 4,070±40 m, also using GPS.  SRTM and ASTER GDEM data also support an elevation in excess of 4,000 metres. However, Chilean IGM mapping gives only 3,910 metres. ChIGM maps are usually accurate and reliable,[citation needed] but the summit is uniformly white, which may have created problems for the cartographers.
Monte San Valentin can be climbed from Lago Leones, to the south east, or from Laguna San Rafael, to the west. The ascent is long and is particularly subject to bad weather. The accident and fatality rate is high.

The painter 
Painter and caricaturist Chilean, Antonio Smith is  considered the first satirico-politico artist of his country and one of the first truly contemporary painters, mainly cultivated the romantic landscape and exerted a considerable influence on later artists like Pedro Lira.
Son of an English father and Spanish mother, Antonio Smith studied at the National Institute of the Chilean capital, and then entered the Academy of fine arts, directed at that time by the Italian Alejandro Ciccarelli. During this time, the lessons taught in the Centre were subordinate to the rigid rules of pictorial academicism, inspired in turn by neoclassicism; This environment wasn't the young artist, who because of his disagreements with Ciccarelli, became the first student that would disappear from the Academy before the end of the studies. His eternal spirit of rebellion also led him to abandon the military career (1857), which had initiated in the cavalry squadron of grenadiers, to begin a life of dissident and 'Bohemian' artist, and frequent the most critical intellectual circles with the ruling classes of the country; then dedicated themselves to publishing cartoons in the pages of the literary mail that ridiculed to various public figures of the era, including, as not, the own Ciccarelli. The increasingly critical tone that was acquiring finally forced him to leave the country and go to Europe; This European stage, during which he/she worked in several Italian and French, painting workshops was crucial in defining its pictorial style and the definitive removal of academicism. In 1866 he/she returned to Chile, where he/she developed the rest of his career.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT EARNSLAW / PIKIRAKATAHI BY JOHN TURNBULL THOMSON

EDWYN TEMPLE (1835-1921)

Mount Earnslaw / Pikirakatahi (2,819m -9,249 ft)

New Zealand

 In  Mount Earnslaw-Lake Wakatipu 1883 oil on canvas - Private collection New Zealand 

The Mountain 

Mount Earnslaw, (2,819m -9,249 ft) also named Pikirakatahi by Māori is located on New Zealand's South Island. It is named after Earnslaw (formerly Herneslawe) village in the parish of Eccles, Berwickshire, hometown of the surveyor John Turnbull Thomson's father.

Mount Earnslaw is within Mount Aspiring National Park at the southern end of the Forbes Range of New Zealand's Southern Alps. It is located 25 kilometres north of the settlement of Glenorchy, which lies at the northern end of Lake Wakatipu.

The painter 
 Edwyn Temple, or 'The Captain' as he was referred to by his friends and family, was born in England in 1835, the son of Lieutenant Colonel John Temple and the grandson of Grenville Temple-Temple 9th Baronet of Stowe.  Educated at Rugby School, he entered the military services in 1853. During a brief period in Italy a relative, Princess Pondalfina, recognised his ability and engaged a tutor to teach him the rudiments of painting.
Temple was ensigned in 1854 and became a Captain in the 55th Foot (Westmoreland) Regiment in 1858. He later served in the Crimea and in India from 1864 to 1866. By that time he had married and the first of a family of nine children had been born. It was more than nine years after retiring from the army that he decided to emigrate with his wife and family to New Zealand, arriving in Lyttelton on 25 October 1879.
Within a very short time of his arrival, he was established and developed a network of ex-military friends in Christchurch. Some of these were among the group that got together in June 1880 to form the Canterbury Society of Arts. Temple's role in its formation cannot be overstated and, in acknowledgment of this, he was elected to the key role of Secretary/Treasurer of the Society.
In 1882 he moved to Geraldine to a property, 'Castlewood', which he had purchased the previous year. There he lived and farmed for almost three decades, a Justice of the Peace from 1883, but mostly concentrating on painting before retiring to live in Timaru in the 1900s.
There is no question that Temple had an inner drive. He was a compulsive sketcher who drew on any piece of paper readily at hand as the mood took him; letters, ledgers, telegrams, envelopes, even wrapping paper were all targets for his pen, pencil or brush. His imagination was fertile and, coupled with a sardonic wit, resulted in many lively and amusing drawings and paintings. Though he was not considered to be a professional artist in the accepted sense, he was serious in his endeavours with painting and his approach was nothing short of professional. To have spent the time to produce such a quantity of work, of which those in this exhibition are only a small representation, shows that he was not just engaged in a diverting pastime.
Between 1880 and 1892, which was his most active period as an artist in New Zealand, Temple made many trips over the South Island with his relative and friend James Dupré Lance of Horsley Down Station. He also travelled with the government Surveyor John H. Baker. It was during these trips that he made sketches that were later developed into more major paintings, many of which he regularly showed at either the Canterbury Society of Arts, or the Otago Art Society annual exhibitions where they often received favourable notice from contemporary reviewers.
Temple also exhibited beyond New Zealand, first in 1880 in Melbourne, then in 1886 at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition London. He was also represented at the New Zealand Industrial Exhibition in Wellington in 1885 and the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition held in Dunedin in 1889–90.
He made return trips to England in 1892 and 1909 during which he made many landscape paintings.
Although the landscape was dominant in Temple's work, it was the alpine region of the South Island that particularly interested him and made him recognised in Canterbury as a specialist in this genre. Lakes Wanaka and Wakatipu were of special interest and these locales formed the backdrop to his imagery. From an early age Temple had visited Switzerland and the Lake District where several of his uncles had established themselves as gentry around Lake Ullswater and, in a sense, he had found a New Zealand equivalent to this experience. At the time of his death in 1920 Temple had amassed a considerable body of work that included paintings and drawings from his imagination that were pure fantasy as well as landscape, caricature and narrative subjects. Today, many hundreds of works are held by Temple's descendants scattered throughout the world but he is also represented in collections held by the National Library of Australia, Canberra; Hocken Library, Dunedin; Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; Centre of Contemporary Art (incorporating Canterbury Society of Arts) Christchurch; as well as the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.
=> Courstesy Christchurch Art Gallery / Te Puna o Waiwhetū
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT TACOMA/ MOUNT RAINIER BY ABBY WILLIAMS HILL

ABBY WILLIAMS HILL (1861-1943) 

Mount Tacoma / Mount Rainier (4,392 m-14,411 ft)

United States of America  (Washington State)

In Mount Rainier from Eunice Lake, 1904, University of Puget Sound 

The mountain
Mount Rainier,  Mount Tacoma, or Mount Tahoma (4,392 m-14,411 ft) is the highest mountain of the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, and the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a large active stratovolcano located 54 miles (87 km) south-southeast of Seattle. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc.
Mount Rainier was first known by the Native Americans as Talol, or Tacoma or Tahoma. One hypothesis of the word origin is  ("mother of waters"), in the Lushootseed language spoken by the Puyallup people. Another hypothesis is that "Tacoma" means "larger than Mount Baker" in Lushootseed: "Ta", larger, plus "Koma", Mount Baker. Other names originally used include Tahoma, Tacobeh, and Pooskaus.
The current name was given by George Vancouver, who named it in honor of his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. The map of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806 refers to it as "Mt. Regniere".
With 26 major glaciers and 36 sq mi (93 km2) of permanent snowfields and glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each more than 1,000 ft (300 m) in diameter, with the larger east crater overlapping the west crater. Geothermal heat from the volcano keeps areas of both crater rims free of snow and ice, and has formed the world's largest volcanic glacier cave network within the ice-filled craters, with nearly 2 mi (3.2 km) of passages. A small crater lake about 130 by 30 ft (39.6 by 9.1 m) in size and 16 ft (5 m) deep, the highest in North America with a surface elevation of 14,203 ft (4,329 m), occupies the lowest portion of the west crater below more than 100 ft (30 m) of ice and is accessible only via the caves. The Carbon, Puyallup, Mowich, Nisqually, and Cowlitz Rivers begin at eponymous glaciers of Mount Rainier. The sources of the White River are Winthrop, Emmons, and Fryingpan Glaciers. The White, Carbon, and Mowich join the Puyallup River, which discharges into Commencement Bay at Tacoma; the Nisqually empties into Puget Sound east of Lacey; and the Cowlitz joins the Columbia River between Kelso and Longview.

The Painter 
Abby Williams Hill was an American plein-air painter most known for her landscapes of the American West. Hill also advocated for children's rights, attended the 1905 Congress of Mothers in Washington, D.C., and founded the Washington (state) Parent-Teacher Association.
In the early 1900s, the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway commissioned Hill to paint landscapes of the northwestern United States to promote tourism. The commission required that Hill produce 22 paintings in just 18 weeks, and that she produce them en plein air.  Accompanied by her four children, Abby Hill took prolonged camping trips for the purpose of painting scenery in places such as Yosemite National Park and Yellowstone National Park.  Her works were exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland. Over the course of her career, Hill achieved her goal of painting in every national park in the Western United States.
Her husband became incapacitated by psychotic depression in 1911, so the family moved to the small isolated community of Laguna Beach, California, for the benefit of the mild, sunny climate.
Abby Hill was one of several early-20th-century American artists who built studios in Laguna Beach and transformed it into an artist community. She became a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association.
Following the death of her husband in 1938, Abby Hill became bedridden. She died in Laguna Beach in 1943.
A permanent collection of her works and papers is held by the University of Puget Sound.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

EL CAYAMBE BY RAFAEL TROYA

RAFAEL TROYA (1845-1920) 

Cayambe  (5,790 m -19,000 ft)

 Ecuador

In Vista tomada de Sannicolas, Pva. de Imbabura,  oil on canvas ,1913, 75 x 95 cm. 

Courtesy Colección Alicia Troya-Kennedy

The mountain 
Cayambe or Volcбn Cayambe (5,790 m -19,000 ft) is the name of a volcano located in the Cordillera Central, a range of the Ecuadorian Andes. It is located in Pichincha province some 70 km (43 mi) northeast of Quito. It is the third highest mountain in Ecuador.
Cayambe, which has a permanent snow cap, is a Holocene compound volcano which last erupted in March 1786. At 4,690 metres (15,387 ft) on its south slope is the highest point in the world crossed by the Equator and the only point on the Equator with snow cover. The volcano and most of its slopes are within the Cayambe Coca Ecological Reserve.  Studies conducted since 1995 by a joint team of Ecuadorian and French researchers have shown that during the last 4000, the Cayambe has experienced periods of intense eruptive activity about 700 years alternating with rest periods of 500 to 600 years. The resumption of eruptions must be considered.
Moreover, the region is home to numerous flower plantations for export; however, the non-secure management and toxic effects of these crops have caused serious damage to the environment and create health problems among employees of the plantations.

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

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE WATZMANN BY EDWARD T. COMPTON

EDWARD T. COMPTON (1849-1921) 

The Watzmann (2, 713m - 8, 901ft) 

Germany 

In The Watzmann seen from the Hotel Post in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, watercolour, 26 x 23, 5cm) 

Courtesy William Mitchell Gallery, London 

The mountain
The Watzmann (2,713m - 8,901ft) is a mountain in the Bavarian Alps south of the village of Berchtesgaden. It is the third highest in Germany, and the highest located entirely on German territory. Three main peaks array on a N-S axis along a ridge on the mountain's taller western half: Hocheck (2,651 m), Mittelspitze (Middle Peak, 2,713 m) and Sьdspitze (South Peak, 2,712 m).
The Watzmann massif also includes the 2,307 m Watzmannfrau (Watzmann Wife, also known as Kleiner Watzmann or Small Watzmann), and the Watzmannkinder (Watzmann Children), five lower peaks in the recess between the main peaks and the Watzmannfrau.
The entire massif lies inside Berchtesgaden National Park.
The Watzmann Glacier is located below the famous east face of the Watzmann in the Watzmann cirque and is surrounded by the Watzmanngrat arête, the Watzmannkindern and the Kleiner Watzmann. The size of the glacier reduced from around 30 hectares (74 acres) in 1820 until it split into a few fields of firn, but between 1965 and 1980 it advanced significantly again and now has an area of 10.1 hectares (25 acres). Above and to the west of the icefield lie the remains of a transport-bomber that crashed in October 1940.
Amongst the other permanent snow and icefields the Eiskapelle ("Ice Chapel") is the best known due to its easy accessibility from St. Bartholomä. The Eiskapelle may well be the lowest lying permanent snowfield in the Alps. Its lower end is only 930 metres high in the upper Eisbach valley and is about an hour's walk from St. Bartholomä on the Königssee. The Eiskapelle is fed by mighty avalanches that slide down from the east face of the Watzmann in spring and accumulate in the angle of the rock face. Sometimes a gate-shaped vault forms in the ice at the point where the Eisbach emerges from the Eiskapelle. Before entering there is an urgent warning sign that others have been killed by falling ice.
In the east face itself is another icefield in the so-called Schöllhorn cirque, called the Schöllhorneis, which is crossed by the Kederbach Way (Kederbacher-Weg). The cirque and icefield are named after the Munich citizen, Christian Schöllhorn, who was the first victim on the east face. On 26 May 1890 he fell at the upper end of the icefield into the randkluft and was fatally injured. Another small nameless snowfield is located several hundred metres below the Mittelspitze also in the east face.


The painter
Edward Theodore Compton, usually referred to as E. T. Compton was an English-born, German artist, illustrator and mountain climber, not to be confused with his son Edward Harrison Compton, also a mountain painter. He is well known for his paintings and drawings of alpine scenery, and as a mountaineer made 300 major ascents including no fewer than 27 first ascents.

Initially painting in the English romantic tradition, Compton later developed a more realistic representation of nature, being guided by his true artistic ideas while retaining topographical accuracy. Even his early watercolors show the great importance of brightness and light and his work is also remarkable for its portrayal of the elements such as water and air, including ascending mist and fog. He can be regarded as an impressionist.
He attended various art schools, including, for a time, the Royal Academy in London, but otherwise he was mainly self-taught in art. In 1867, wanting the best education for their artistically-talented son, and due to the high cost of schooling in England, the family decided to emigrate to Germany settling in Darmstadt. The city at that time was the seat of the Grand Duchy of Hesse under Grand Duke Ludwig III, and a community of artists had sprung up there. Entries in Compton's diary show that both he and his father were art teachers - Alice, the Princess of Hesse numbered amongst Edward's students.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

USHAS MONS BY NASA MAGELLAN MISSION

MAGELLAN MISSION (1989-1994)

Ushas Mons (2,000 m / 2 km - 6,561ft/1.25 mile)  

VENUS

The mountain 
Ushas Mons (2,000 m / 2 km - 6,561ft/1.25 mile) is a volcano in the southern hemisphere of Venus at 25 degrees south latitude, 323 degrees east longitude. Its name is derived from vedic goddess of dawn Ushas .The volcano is marked by numerous bright lava flows and a set of north-south trending fractures, many of which appear to have formed after the lavas were erupted onto the surface. In the central summit area, however, younger flows remain unfractured. An impact crater can be seen among the fractures in the upper center of the image. The association of faulting and volcanism is common on this type of volcano on Venus, and is believed to result from a large zone of hot material upwelling from the Venusian mantle, a phenomenon known on Earth as a "hotspot."


The mission
Magellan was launched on May 4, 1989, at 18:46:59 UTC by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from KSC Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis during mission STS-30. Once in orbit, the Magellan and its attached Inertial Upper Stage booster were deployed from Atlantis and launched on May 5, 1989 01:06:00 UTC, sending the spacecraft into a Type IV heliocentric orbit where it would circle the Sun 1.5 times, before reaching Venus 15 months later on August 10, 1990.
Originally, the Magellan had been scheduled for launch in 1988 with a trajectory lasting six months. However, due to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, several missions, including Galileo and Magellan, were deferred until shuttle flights resumed in September 1988. Magellan was planned to be launched with a liquid-fueled, Centaur-G upper-stage booster, carried in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle. However, the entire Centaur-G program was canceled after the Challenger disaster, and the Magellan probe had to be modified to be attached to the less-powerful Inertial Upper Stage. The next best opportunity for launching occurred in October 1989.
Further complicating the launch however, was the launching of the Galileo mission to Jupiter, one that included a fly-by of Venus. Intended for launch in 1986, the pressures to ensure a launch for Galileo in 1989, mixed with a short launch-window necessitating a mid-October launch, resulted in replanning the Magellan mission. Weary of rapid shuttle launches, the decision was made to launch Magellan in May, and into an orbit that would require one year, three months, before encountering Venus.
On August 7, 1990, Magellan encountered Venus and began the orbital insertion maneuver which placed the spacecraft into a three-hour, nine minute, elliptical orbit that brought the spacecraft 295-kilometers from the surface at about 10 degrees North during the periapsis and out to 7762-kilometers during apoapsis
On September 9, 1994, a press release outlined the termination of the Magellan mission. Due to the degradation of the power output from the solar arrays and onboard components, and having completed all objectives successfully, the mission was to end in mid-October. The termination sequence began in late August 1994, with a series of orbital trim maneuvers which lowered the spacecraft into the outermost layers of the Venusian atmosphere to allow the Windmill experiment to begin on September 6, 1994.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

KILIMANDJARO (2) BY ROBERT MC LELLAN-SIM

ROBERT MC LELLAN-SIM  (1907-1985)

Kilimandjaro (5,885m - 19,340ft) 

Tanzania

The mountain 
Mount Kilimanjaro (5,885m - 19, 340ft) is a dormant volcano in Tanzania composed of three volcanic cones, "Kibo", "Mawenzi", and "Shira.  The Kilimandjaro is the highest mountain in Africa. The first recorded ascent to the summit  was by Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller in 1889.
The mountain is part of the Kilimanjaro National Park and is a major climbing destination. The mountain has been the subject of many scientific studies because of its shrinking glaciers, especially since 200.
The origin of the name "Kilimanjaro" is not precisely known, but a number of theories exist. European explorers had adopted the name by 1860 and reported that "Kilimanjaro" was the mountain's Kiswahili name. The 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia also records the name of the mountain as "Kilima-Njaro", as well as the title of the watercolor above. Johann Ludwig Krapf wrote in 1860 that Swahilis along the coast called the mountain Kilimanjaro. Although he did not support his claim, he claimed that "Kilimanjaro" meant either "mountain of greatness" or "mountain of caravans". Under the latter meaning, "Kilima" meant "mountain" and "Jaro" possibly meant "caravans". Jim Thompson claimed in 1885, although he also did not support his claim, that the term Kilima-Njaro "has generally been understood to mean" the Mountain (Kilima) of Greatness (Njaro). Though not improbably it may mean the "White" mountain. "Njaro" is an ancient Kiswahili word for "shining". Others have assumed that "Kilima" is Kiswahili for "mountain".
In the 1880s, the mountain became a part of German East Africa and was called "Kilima-Ndscharo" in German following the Kiswahili name components.
On 6 October 1889, Hans Meyer reached the highest summit on the crater ridge of Kibo. He named it "Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze" ("Kaiser Wilhelm peak").
That name apparently was used until Tanzania was formed in 1964, when the summit was renamed "Uhuru", meaning "Freedom Peak" in Kiswahili.The mountain
Mount Kilimanjaro (5,885m - 19, 340ft) is a dormant volcano in Tanzania composed of three volcanic cones, "Kibo", "Mawenzi", and "Shira.  The Kilimandjaro is the highest mountain in Africa. The first recorded ascent to the summit  was by Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller in 1889.
The mountain is part of the Kilimanjaro National Park and is a major climbing destination. The mountain has been the subject of many scientific studies because of its shrinking glaciers, especially since 2000....
Full wandering Vertexes entry  =>


The painter 
Robert McLellan-Sim (also known as RMS) was a prolific artist, and during his time in East Africa (he travelled throughout Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar) he completed as many as 40 paintings a year. His work was in great demand, and over a period of some fifteen years he held ten One Man Exhibitions, mostly in Kenya, but at least one in England while on leave.
His work was purchased by many eminent people and was extremely popular as an official gift or a farewell present. The Colony of Kenya presented a McLellan-Sim painting to HM The Queen on the occasion of her Coronation in 1953, and HM The Queen Mother was presented with another to commemorate her Visit to Kenya in 1959. Many a departing dignitary at the time of independence received a McLellan-Sim painting as a farewell gift. Both Jake Fletcher and Amoeba Walker took McLellan-Sim works of art home with them to England when they left the Prince of Wales School. The Kenya Regiment presented a McLellan-Sim painting to Sir Patrick Renison as their departing Commander-in -Chief when he retired as Governor of Kenya in 1961.
RMS was a successful commercial artist, with his clients including the East African Tobacco Company, the East African Standard and the Uganda Tourist Board. His public works included the murals for the Kenya Agricultural Stand in the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition of 1952 in Bulawayo, the Nakuru Railway Station murals of 1957 and the 1960 mural for the National Assembly Building in Nairobi.
RMS designed the 1954 blue 10 shilling postage stamp depicting the Royal Lodge at Sagana, a signed mint copy of which has been presented by the McLellan-Sim family to The British Library. This is the one that caught my eye and got me started on this article in the first place.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THABANA NTLENYANA PAINTED (2) BY JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEFF

JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF (1886-1957)

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

South Africa, Lesotho 

In Maluti Mountains at Ficksburg , oil on canvas, 1910

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

The painter 
Jacobus Hendrik (Henk) Pierneef (usually referred to as Pierneef)  was a South African landscape artist, generally considered to be one of the best of the old South African masters. His distinctive style is widely recognized and his work was greatly influenced by the South African landscape.
Most of his landscapes were of the South African highveld, which provided a lifelong source of inspiration for him. Pierneef's style was to reduce and simplify the landscape to geometric structures, using flat planes, lines and colour to present the harmony and order in nature. This resulted in formalised, ordered and often-monumental view of the South African landscape, uninhabited and with dramatic light and colour.
Pierneef's work can be seen worldwide in many private, corporate and public collections, including the Africana Museum, Durban Art Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, King George VI Art Gallery, Pierneef Museum and the Pretoria Art Gallery.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

AIGUILLE DU DRU BY PIERRE TAIRAZ

PIERRE TAIRAZ (1933-2000) 

L'aiguille du Dru  (3,754 m -12,316 ft) 

France 

In L'Aiguille du Dru, Chamonix, France, Silver gelatin print  (140 x 30cm)
Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery London 

The peak 
The Aiguille du Dru  (3,754 m -12,316 ft) (also called Les Drus in French) is a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif in the French Alps. It is situated to the east of the village of Les Praz in the Chamonix valley. "Aiguille" means "needle" in French.
The mountain's highest summit is:
- Grande Aiguille du Dru (or the Grand Dru)
- Petite Aiguille du Dru (or the Petit Dru) 3,733 m.
The two summits are located on the west ridge of the Aiguille Verte (4,122 m) and are connected to each other by the Brèche du Dru (3,697 m). The north face of the Petit Dru is considered one of the six great north faces of the Alps. The southwest "Bonatti" pillar and its eponymous climbing route were destroyed in a 2005 rock fall.

The photographer 
Born in Chamonix, Pierre Tairraz, son, grandson and great-grandson of photographers, adheres very young to this instinct of the mountain and to this fabulous means of expression that the photography is. In the 50s, Pierre Tairaz studied at the Ecole Nationale de la Photographie Vaugirard (Paris) and also learns cinema at IDHEC (Paris). Following the family line, he continues photography, devotes himself to the profession of guide and also embarks on the footsteps of his father with the cinema at altitude. He takes part in many shootings. His career, starring an impressive number of high-altitude film shoots and photographic expeditions, continues to bring him closer to the mountain. Why photograph the mountain? "To testify of another world," answers Pierre Tairraz, "no artifice can match the creative power of nature." 
In this quest for harmony, each image becomes a symbol, the dream of an ideal architecture, a fantastic and grandiose utopia.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

OBSERVATION HILL BY EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON

EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (1872-1912), 

Observation Hill (230m -754 ft) 

Antarctica  (Hut Point Peninsula)

 In Hut Point Midnight March 7, 1911- Terra nova expedition  Scott's Last Expedition", 

watercolor, 1913

The hill 

Observation Hill  (230m -754-ft) is a steep  hill adjacent to McMurdo Station in Antarctica and commonly called "Ob Hill." It is frequently climbed to get good viewing points across the continent. Regular clear skies give excellent visibility. 

Observation Hill is a lava dome and one of many volcanoes comprising the Hut Point Peninsula,  a long, narrow peninsula from 3 to 5 km (2 to 3 mi) wide and 24 km (15 mi) long, projecting south-west from the slopes of Mount Erebus on Ross Island, Antarctica. McMurdo Station (US) and Scott Base (NZ) are Antarctic research stations located on the Hut Point Peninsula.

After their deaths in early 1912, the last members of Robert Falcon Scott's party were found by a search party led by the surgeon Edward L. Atkinson. The relief party took their photographic film, scientific specimens, and other materials. They had to leave Scott and his men in their tent, and later parties could not locate the campsite, since that area had been covered in snow. A century of storms and snow have covered the cairn and tent, which are now encased in the Ross Ice Shelf as it inches towards the Ross Sea. In 2001 glaciologist Charles R. Bentley estimated that the tent with the bodies was under about 75 feet (23 m) of ice and about 30 miles (48 km) from the point where they died; he speculated that in about 275 years the bodies would reach the Ross Sea, and perhaps float away inside an iceberg.
The search party returned to their base camp in McMurdo Sound to await the relief ship. After it arrived, they worked to build a memorial – a nine-foot wooden cross (see above), inscribed with the names of the fatal party and the final line of the Alfred Tennyson poem "Ulysses", which reads "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." On 22 January 1913, after a difficult two-day sledge journey, the cross was erected on the summit of Observation Hill, overlooking the camp and facing out towards the "Barrier" – the Ross Ice Shelf, on which Scott's party had died. In 1972, the cross was declared as one of the initial Historic Sites and Monuments in Antarctica by the Antarctic Treaty signatories, as HSM-20.

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