GUNUNG SEMERU BY ERNEST DEZENTJE

ERNEST DEZENTJE (1885- 1972) 

Gunung Semeru  (3, 676m - 12, 060ft) 

Indonesia 

The mountain 

Mount Semeru - Gunung Semeru or Gunung Mahameru indonesian - (3, 676m - 12, 060ft)  is an active volcano located in East Java, Indonesia. It is the highest mountain on the island of Java. This stratovolcano is also known as Mahameru, meaning 'The Great Mountain. The name derived from the Hindu-Buddhist mythical mountain of Meru or Sumeru, the abode of gods.  Semeru is named from Sumeru, the central world-mountain in Buddhist cosmology and by extension Hinduism. As stated in legend, it was transplanted from India; the tale is recorded in the 15th-century East Javanese work Tantu Pagelaran. It was originally placed in the western part of the island, but that caused the island to tip, so it was moved eastward. On that journey, parts kept coming off the lower rim, forming the mountains Lawu, Wilis, Kelut, Kawi, Arjuno and Welirang. The damage thus caused to the foot of the mountain caused it to shake, and the top came off and created Penanggungan as well. Indonesian Hindus also hold a belief that the mountain is the abode of Shiva in Java.

Gunung Semeru or Mahameru is very steep rising abruptly above the coastal plains of eastern Java. Semeru lies at the south end of the Tengger Volcanic Complex.

Semeru's eruptive history is extensive.

Since 1818, at least 55 eruptions have been recorded (10 of which resulted in fatalities) consisting of both lava flows and pyroclastic flows. All historical eruptions have had a VEI of 2 or 3. Semeru has been in a state of near-constant eruption from 1967 to the present. At times, small eruptions happen every 20 minutes or so.

In 2014, there are as many as 25 non-native plants in Mount Semeru National Park, which threaten the endemic local plants. The foreign plants were imported by a Dutch botanist named Van Steenis, in the colonial era. They include Foeniculum vulgare mill, Verbena brasiliensis, chromolaena odorata, and Salvinia molesta.

Mud erosion from surrounding vegetable plantations are also making problem of silting of Ranu Pane Lake, which the lake becomes smaller and shallower. Research predicted the lake will disappear in about 2025, except the kind of vegetables plantation is replaced with more ecological plantations.

Semeru is regularly climbed by tourists, usually starting from the village of Ranu Pane to the north, but though non-technical it can be dangerous. mainly because of the  poisonous gases on Mount Semeru.

The painter

The ‘Indisch’- Indonesian landscape painter Ernest Regnard Leonce Dezentjé was an autodidact.  His career  (mostly local) began when first president of the Republic of Indonesia, Soekarno (1901-1970), - who declared the independence of the country in 1945, felt in love with his painting and decided to make him the  "court painter".  Dezentje was then labelled an impressionist of the early Indonesian School, being considered by critics and young artists as a  typical establishment artist.  Along his eminently nationalistic themas the mountains and volcanoes of Indonesia took a important place.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT WELLINGTON / KUNANYI BY WILLIAM CHARLES PIGUENIT

WILLIAM CHARLES PIGUENIT (1836-1914)

Mount Wellington - Kunanyi  (1, 269m - 4, 163ft)

Australia

In  Mount Wellington from Kangaroo Bay, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Australia  

The mountain 
Mount Wellington (1,269m - 4,163ft)  also known as Unghbanyahletta or Poorawetter or  Kunanyi in Aboriginal langage, is located in the southeast coastal region of Tasmania, Australia. The Palawa, the surviving descendants of the original indigenous Tasmanians, tend to prefer the latter name.  In 2013, a Tasmanian dual naming policy was announced and "Kunanyi - Mount Wellington" was named as one of the inaugural dual named geographic features.
The mountain is the summit of the Wellington Range on whose foothills is built much of the city of Hobart.  Mount Wellington is frequently covered by snow, sometimes even in summer, and the lower slopes are thickly forested, but criss-crossed by many walking tracks and a few fire trails. There is also a sealed narrow road to the summit, about 22 kilometres (14 mi) from Hobart central business district. An enclosed lookout near the summit provides spectacular views of the city below and to the east, the Derwent estuary, and also glimpses of the World Heritage Area nearly 100 kilometres (62 mi) west. From Hobart, the most distinctive feature of Mount Wellington is the cliff of dolerite columns known as the Organ Pipes.
The first recorded European in the area Abel Tasman probably did not see the mountain in 1642, as his ship was quite a distance out to sea as he sailed up the South East coast of the island - coming closer in near present-day North and Marion Bays. No other Europeans visited Tasmania until the late eighteenth century, when several visited southern Tasmania (then referred to as Van Diemens Land) including Frenchman Marion du Fresne (1772), Englishmen Tobias Furneaux (1773), James Cook (1777) and William Bligh (1788 and 1792), and Frenchman Bruni d'Entrecasteaux (1792–93).
In February 1836, Charles Darwin visited Hobart Town and climbed Mount Wellington. In his book "The Voyage of the Beagle", Darwin described the mountain thus;
"... In many parts the Eucalypti grew to a great size, and composed a noble forest. In some of the dampest ravines, tree-ferns flourished in an extraordinary manner; I saw one which must have been at least twenty feet high to the base of the fronds, and was in girth exactly six feet. The fronds forming the most elegant parasols, produced a gloomy shade, like that of the first hour of the night. The summit of the mountain is broad and flat, and is composed of huge angular masses of naked greenstone. Its elevation is 3,100 feet [940 m] above the level of the sea. The day was splendidly clear, and we enjoyed a most extensive view; to the north, the country appeared a mass of wooded mountains, of about the same height with that on which we were standing, and with an equally tame outline: to the south the broken land and water, forming many intricate bays, was mapped with clearness before us. ..."


The painter 
William Charles Piguenit also known as W.C. Piguenit or Bill Piguenit was an Australian landscape painter, amateur photographer, draughtsman and explorer, born in Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land. The family can be traced back to Pons, in the province of Saintonge, France, from which, as Huguenots, they escaped after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 to settle in Bristol, Somerset. William Charles attended Cambridge House Academy in Hobart; a school report of 18 December 1849 praises his 'mapping, particularly that of Van Diemen’s Land’. In September 1850, as an assistant draughtsman, he joined the Tasmanian Lands and Survey Department where much of his time was spent preparing maps of Tasmania.
When Piguenit exhibited at Melbourne in 1870, showing a watercolour sketch of Mount Wellington from the Huon Road, the Daily Telegraph of 20 July called him 'a young artist who gives promise of better things’. His love for the Tasmanian landscape and his improved artistic ability led to his being invited to accompany James R. Scott’s expedition to Arthur Plains and Port Davey in March 1871 as official artist. The results of the trip formed the basis for later illustrations in the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia and in R.M. Johnston’s Systematic Account of the Geology of Tasmania.
Having won another silver medal from the academy in 1875 for Mount Olympus, Lake St Clair, Tasmania (see above), Piguenit sent five of his Grose Valley oil landscapes to the academy’s 1876 exhibition and was awarded a certificate of merit for one, though the Sydney Mail critic was tepid in his praise: 'It would be enough to say that they are all very nicely painted and that all have about the same colour and tone’.
Regarded as the leading Australian-born landscape painter in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Piguenit was a founding committee member of the Art Society of New South Wales (elected Vice President in 1886) and regularly showed work in its exhibitions. He was represented in many major exhibitions, such as the 1880 Melbourne International, and he received many awards, including silver medals in 1874 and 1875 from the NSW Academy of Art, two second prizes at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition and gold medals from the 1883 Calcutta International and the 1888 Queensland Art Society and Tasmanian Juvenile Industries exhibitions. He was hung in the Paris Salon in 1893 and at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1894 (Scene on the Upper Nepean River, now AGNSW). A Tasmanian view near Prince of Wales Bay was presented by the Government House Literary Society to their founder and patron, Lady Hamilton, on her departure in 1892.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

PILLON DU ROY BY JOSEPH GARIBALDI

JOSEPH GARIBALDI (1863-1941)  

Pilon du Roy (710m - 2,329ft) 

France ( Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur) 

The mountain 
The Pilon du Roy (710m - 2,329ft)  is the most famous summit of the Massif de l'Etoile situated in the south of  France, north of Marseilles. This rocky tooth placed on a ridge, visible from far away, is a little reminiscent of Pierra Menta Beaufortain ... A sports trail leads to his foot, but its summit is reserved for climbers. Nice view of Marseille, Garlaban and Sainte-Victoire.
The first traces of human occupation date from the late Neolithic period (3000 BC, Baou Roux). The Early Bronze Age (2000 BC) and the Late Bronze Age (800 BC) show peaks of occupation in the north, as for the Iron Age (500 BC). C. about), then around 200 BC. J.-C.
Around 123 BC BC, the Roman consul Gaius Sextius Calvinus, swept over the region with his legions and shaves the oppida.
The beginning of Christianity saw the occupation of the many sites (caves, hermitages) by hermits and monks. Only numerous oratories, hermitages and buildings that have lost their vocation (Notre-Dame des Anges) and a recently established monastery (Sainte Lioba) in Simiane remain.
Restanques in ruins under the pines testify of abandoned crops more recently.

The painter
The French painter from Marseille, Joseph Garibaldi is known for his peaceful visions of Provence in which he spent his entire life. Son of an Italian employee of the firm Noilly Prat in Marseille, the talent of Joseph Garibaldi is detected by Louis Prat, boss of the company, which makes him enroll in the School of Fine Arts of this city. The coming to Marseilles painter Lyon Antoine Vollon  is decisive: under his influence and his advice, he exhibited at the Salon. Garibaldi becomes his devoted friend, it is he who in August 1900 will assist him in his last days. He will be friends with Alexis Vollon, the son of Antoine, but also with his classmates and colleagues from the Association of Marseille Artists (AAM).
Joseph Garibaldi exhibited at the Salon des artistes from 1884 to 1914 where he obtained an honorable mention in 1887 and a medal of second class in 1897. These are mainly views of sites and famous monuments, ports of the coast: Cassis, where he paints regularly between 1884 and 1899, La Ciotat, where he is hosted by Antoine Lumière, Bandol, Sanary and Toulon. But his specialty will remain the Old Port of Marseille.
Until 1905 he benefited from the patronage of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905), who, guided by the critic Paul Leroy, was very supportive of Vollon's students, bought his paintings and donated them to provincial museums.
Apart from two incursions to Venice (1895 and 1903) and Corsica (1889 and 1895), or trips to Savoy (1904) and Ariège (1906), he is attached to his district of Rive-Neuve. It was only after the First World War that, benefiting from a lodging in Fos-sur-Mer, he went there regularly to paint.
In the 1930s, he was affected by glaucoma and stopped painting.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

ANSERIS MONS BY NASA MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER

NASA MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER (2005-2015)

Anseris Mons (6,200 m -20,300 ft)

MARS 

The mountain

Anseris Mons (6,200 m -20,300 ft) is an isolated massif of mountains in the southern highlands of Mars, located at the northeastern edge of Hellas Planitia at longitude 86.65°E and latitude 29.81°S. The mountain is 58 km (36 mi) in diameter and lies in the southeastern quarter of the Iapygia quadrangle (MC-21), straddling the boundary with the adjoining Hellas quadrangle (MC-28) to the south.,Anseris Mons is named from Anseris Fons, a telescopic albedo feature mapped by Greek astronomer E. M. Antoniadi in 1930. The name was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1991.
Anseris Mons is not a volcano. Geologically, the massif is thought to be the eroded remnant of an ancient crustal block uplifted from depths of several kilometers in the formation of the Hellas impact basin during the period of heavy bombardment. Anseris Mons is the type area for a large set of rugged mountain blocks (>25 km across) that occur in a relatively continuous band 200 to 500 km wide around the western, northeastern, eastern, and southeastern rim of the Hellas basin. Many of the blocks, particularly along the western rim, are concentric with the basin and bounded by faults.
Rocks making up Anseris Mons and other massifs around Hellas are mapped as Noachian in age. However, work by Herbert Frey at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center using Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter (MOLA) data indicates that the southern highlands of Mars contain numerous buried impact basins that are older than the visible Noachian-aged surfaces and which pre-date the Hellas impact. He suggests that the Hellas impact should mark the beginning of the Noachian period (base of the Noachian system). If Frey is correct, then Anseris Mons bedrock is actually pre-Noachian in age, perhaps dating back to over 4.1 billion years ago.
The Anseris Mons massif has undergone a significant amount of erosion since it was uplifted. The flanks of the mountain have huge triangular re-entrants and associated spurs, which give the massif a broad, pyramidal shape. The re-entrants were likely produced through a variety of mass-wasting and periglacial/glacial processes. A large cirque-like re-entrant with channelized debris aprons or fans is present on the south side of the mountain.

MONTE BESSO PAINTED BY OTTO MÄLHY

OTTO MÄLHY (1869-1953) 

Monte Besso (3,667 m - 12, 034ft)

Switzerland

 In Monte Besso seen from Sorebois, Val d'Anniviers, Switzerland 

oil on canvas ( 88,5 x 72 cm) John  Mitchell Gallery, London 

The mountain 

Mount Besso (3,667 m - 12, 034ft) is a Swiss peak in the Pennine Alps valley. It is located on the edge of the Zinal valley.  The name Besso means 'twins' in the dialect of the Val d'Hérens and refers to the twin summits of the mountain.

The mountain is part of the so-called imperial crown , set of mountains that form a horseshoe: Les Diablons, the Bishorn (4,153 m), the Weisshorn (4,505 m), the Schalihorn (3,974 m), the Zinalrothorn (4,221 m), the Trifthorn (3,728 m), the Obergabelhorn (4,062 m), the Mont Durand (3,712 m), the Pointe de Zinal (3,790 m), the Dent Blanche (4,356 m), the Grand Cornier (3,961 m), the Pigne de la Lé (3.396 m), the Garde de Bordon (3.310 m), and at the center of this gigantic parable is Mount Besso (3.667 m).

The first ascent to the summit probably took place in 1862 by JB Epinay and J. Vianin. The normal ascent route to the summit starts from the Cabane du Grand Mountet. 

The painter 

 Otto Mähly was a Swiss artist who was born in 1869 in Basel. Otto Mähly's work has been offered at auction multiple times. Only one artwork sold; this was View of the Rigi, which realized $1,801 USD at Dobiaschofsky in 2017. The artist died in 1953.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MONTE CRISTALLO BY FRITZ PAPLHAM

 FRITZ PAPLHAM  (1888-1958) 

Monte Cristallo  (3,221m - 10, 568ft) 

 Italy 

In Monte Cristallo with  Lake of Landro, Dolomites, 

Albertina Museum, Vienna  

The mountain

Monte Cristallo  (3,221m - 10, 568ft) is a mountain in the Italian Dolomites, northeast of Cortina d'Ampezzo, in the province of Belluno, Veneto, northern Italy.  Cristallo is one of the major skiing areas in the surroundings of Cortina. It is a long, indented ridge with four summits higher than 3,000 m. The highest peaks of the Cristallo massif are  :
Monte Cristallo (3,221 m), Piz Popena (3,153 m), Cima di Mezzo (3,154 m), and Cristallino d'Ampezzo (3,008 m). Cima di Mezzo and Cristallino d'Ampezzo can be reached by via ferratas, while Monte Cristallo and Piz Popena both require climbing skills.
Cristallo is largely formed from the Upper Triassic dolomitic rock Dolomia principale. The mountain was formed during Cretaceous, as well as the rest of the Dolomites, due to the collision between the African and European continents.
During the World War I there was considerable military activity in the mountain. The front lines between Italian and Austrian troops went through the mountains. Remains of ladders and barracks are still found today, and transport lines (ferratas) have been restored.

The painter 
 The Austrian photographer and landscape painter Fritz Paplham starts photography in middle school. Then, he became a member of the group of photographers of the Austrian mountain association. In 1942 he received the bronze medal of society of the Photographic Society in Vienna for the year 1942 "for his great success in the field of color photography and pigmented slides ".
In the catalog of the exhibition of the society for light education in the Austrian mountain association 1912 appears a picture of it "Maria Gern".
In the 25th exhibition of the Society for Photographic Art in the Austrian Mountain Club 1931 in Vienna, he shows fruits and flowers, hand-colored stereo prints
As a painter, he preferred alpine landscape painting.
___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SURPRISE MOUNTAIN BY ARTHUR. P. COLEMAN

ARTHUR P. COLEMAN (1852-1939)

Surprise Mountain  (1,929m - 63,30ft) 

United States of America (Washington State) 

In Surprize Mountain, Showing Thalkessel, left side in shade, watercolor 

The mountain 
Surprise Mountain  (1,929m - 63,30ft) is an alpine peak nestled in the middle of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of Washington State. Perhaps appropriately, several alpine lakes are found near the mountain. The Deception Lakes are located at the south end of the mountain, and Glacier Lake and Surprise Lake are located northeast of the mountain. Views of surrounding peaks and valleys from the mountain are also far-reaching, including Mount Daniel and Glacier Peak. Surprise Mountain is located southeast of Spark Plug Mountain and southwest of Thunder Mountain.
In 1932, the U.S. Forest Service built a L-4 cab fire lookout on the summit of Surprise Mountain, due to its wide views of the Central Cascade Mountains. The U.S. Forest Service then decommissioned and destroyed the fire lookout during the 1950s. The only remnant of the lookout that remains today is a tall metallic pole at the mountain summit.

The painter 
Arthur Philemon Coleman was a Canadian a geologist, professor, minerals prospector, artist, Rockies explorer, backwoods canoeist, world traveller, scientist, popular lecturer, museum administrator, memoirist and...  one of Canada’s most beloved scientist.
Arthur Coleman is a fine example of that rare bird, a polished amateur artist whose drawings and paintings stand comfortably beside those of many professionals. He was active during the time when sketching and painting was ceding to photography the task of recording the visible world. Although he was also a photographer, painting was, for him, both a poetic and a descriptive pursuit, a way of wrapping an artistic expression around a phenomenon he was interested in or moved by. Thus motivated, Coleman's paintings give much joy and command a good deal of respect. The more surprising, perhaps given that he used to introduced himself more as a geologist than a painter.
Coleman travelled throughout the United States for professional conferences as well as geological field work.  He visited many of the major American mountain ranges including: the American Cordillera Mountains (Washington, Oregon and California); the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California and Nevada); Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, Montana and Idaho); and the Appalachian Mountains (eastern United States). Pleistocene glaciation had extended in Northern Europe as far south as Berlin and London and covered an area of two million square miles. Coleman also visited such countries as India, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Scandinavia, Bolivia, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay. In his final years he made two expeditions to the Andes in Colombia, to mountains in Southern Mexico and to two mountains in Central America.  He achieved the first ascent of Castle Mountain in 1884, and in 1907, he was the first white man to attempt to climb Mount Robson. He made a total of eight exploratory trips to the Canadian Rockies, wholly four of them looking for the mythical giants of Hooker and Brown.
 "Mount Coleman" and "Coleman Glacier" in Banff National Park are named in his honor.
He was awarded the Penrose Medal in 1936.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT SIR SANDFORD BY JOHN ARTHUR FRASER

JOHN ARTHUR FRASER  (1838–1898) 

Mount Sir Sandford  (3,519 m -11,545 ft)

Canada (British Columbia)

 In At the Rogers Pass, Selkirk mountains, 1885, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

The mountain 

Mount Sir Sandford   (3,519 m -11,545 ft) is the highest mountain of the Sir Sandford Range and the highest mountain in the Selkirk Mountains of southeastern British Columbia, Canada. It is the 12th highest peak in the province. The mountain was named after Sir Sandford Fleming, a railway engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway.

The Selkirk Mountains are a mountain range spanning the northern portion of the Idaho Panhandle, eastern Washington, and southeastern British Columbia which are part of a larger grouping of mountains, the Columbia Mountains. They begin at Mica Peak near Spokane and extend approximately 320 km north (200 miles) from the border to Kinbasket Lake, at the now-inundated location of the onetime fur company post Boat Encampment. The range is bounded on its west, northeast and at its northern extremity by the Columbia River, or the reservoir lakes now filling most of that river's course.  The Selkirks were named after Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk.

The painter 

John Arthur Fraser was a British artist, photography entrepreneur and teacher. He undertook various paintings for the Canadian Pacific Railway. He is known for his highly realistic landscapes of Canada and the United States, many of them watercolors. Fraser's early work as a tinter of small head and shoulders studies for Notman is skillful and sensitive, giving the impression of miniature paintings. One his first known landscapes was the picturesque and romantic Crossing the ice at Pointe de Lévy in Quebec City (1866), which showed that he was already an accomplished artist. It has a dramatic sky and lighting, and meticulous detail in the foreground.  Two of his oils from 1873, September afternoon, Eastern Townships and A shot in the dawn, Lake Scugog resemble the work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters popular in Britain at the time. They have strong and original composition and colour, with photographic clarity and detail. His 1878 New Brunswick landscapes are larger and more original both in composition and in use of colour than his earlier landscape. Most of Fraser's paintings were watercolours. His work was praised for its photographic realism, attention to detail and mastery of colour and light.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

PARINACOTA AND POMERAPE BY RAMOS CATALAN

RAMOS CATALAN (1888-1961)

El Parinacota  (6,380 m (20,930 ft)

El Pomerape (6,282 m -20,610 ft) 

Chile - Bolivia border 

The mountains
El Parinacota  (6,380 m (20,930 ft) or Parina Quta or Parinaquta is a dormant stratovolcano on the border of Chile and Bolivia. Together with Pomerape it forms the Nevados de Payachata volcanic chain. Part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its summit reaches an elevation of 6,380 metres (20,930 ft) above sea level. The symmetrical cone is capped by a summit crater with widths of 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) or 500 metres (1,600 ft). Farther down on the southern slopes lie three parasitic centres known as the Ajata cones. These cones have generated lava flows. The volcano overlies a platform formed by lava domes and andesitic lava flows.
The volcano started growing during the Pleistocene and formed a large cone. At some point between the Pleistocene and the Holocene, the western flank of the volcano collapsed, generating a giant landslide that spread west and formed a large, hummocky landslide deposit. The avalanche crossed and dammed a previously existing drainage, impounding or enlarging Lake Chungará; numerous other lakes now forming the headwaters of the Rio Lauca sprang up within the deposit. Volcanic activity rebuilt the cone after the collapse, cancelling out the collapse scar.
Parinacota had numerous effusive and explosive eruptions during the Holocene, the latest about 200 years ago. While there are no recorded eruptions, legends of the local Aymara people imply that they may have witnessed one eruption. Renewed activity at Parinacota is possible in the future, although the relatively low population density in the region would limit the amount of damage that could occur. Some towns and a regional highway between Bolivia and Chile are potentially exposed to the effects of a new eruption.
El Pomerape  (6,282 m -20,610 ft) is a stratovolcano is part of the Payachata complex of volcanoes, together with Parinacota Volcano to the south. The name "Payachata" means "twins" and refers to their appearance.  It hosts glaciers down to elevations of 5,300–5,800 metres (17,400–19,000 ft), lower on the northern slope.
Pomerape is a complex of lava domes, accompanied by lava flows which were emplaced atop of the domes.  It was active about 200,000 years ago.  The lava domes formed first and were later buried by the actual volcanic cone, which unlike the rhyolitic-dacitic domes is formed by hornblende andesite.  The "Chungará Andesites" and lava dome complex of Parinacota were laid down at this time. Pomerape is associated with an adventive vent that has erupted mafic magmas. The main cone was last active 106,000 +- 7,000 years ago, the adventive vent is dated to 205,000 ± 24,000 years ago.

The painter 
Benito Ramos Catalán (1888-1961) was a chilean  painter who used to sign "Ramos Catalan". Known for his marines and landscapes of the Andes and Chile, and most particularly for his mountains paintings. Most of them have the same title: "Mountains of Chile" or  "Mountains landscapes of Andes", making quite difficult to know which mountain was exactly depicted, in a country which has quite a lot of summits ! To add to the difficulty, he used to paint the most famous mountains of his country under very unusual angles or with proportions that do not correspond exactly to their real size... making even more difficult to recognize and identify them for experts ! That is why today, 55 years after his death, some of these mountains paintings are not clearly identified and presented, in the public sales, as 'possibly' a particular summit of Chile or Andes...
His works are in many Chilean institutions like Viña del Mar Fine Art Museum, O'Higginiano Fine Art Museum in Talca, Valparaiso Fine Art Museum, and Navy  Schools in Valparaiso and Talcahuano, Ranos.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

EL ALTAR / CAPAK URCU BY RAFAEL TROYA

RAFAEL TROYA  (1845-1920)

El Altar / Capak Urcu (5,319 m (17,451 ft)

Ecuador 

 In El volcano Altar, Riobamba, Oil on canvas, Private collection 

The mountain 
El Altar or Capac Urcu   (5,319 m - 17,451 ft)  is an extinct volcano on the western side of Sangay National Park in Ecuador, 170 km (110 mi) south of Quito. Spaniards named it so because it resembled two nuns and four friars listening to a bishop around a church altar. In older English sources it is also called The Altar.
The mountain consists of a large stratovolcano of Pliocene-Pleistocene age with a caldera breached to the west. Inca legends report that the top of Altar collapsed after seven years of activity in about 1460, but the caldera is considered to be much older than this by geologists. Nine major peaks over 5,000 metres (16,400 ft) form a horseshoe-shaped ridge about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) across, surrounding a central basin that contains a crater lake at about 4,200 m (13,800 ft), known as Laguna Collanes or Laguna Amarilla.
El Altar is perhaps the most technically demanding climb in Ecuador.

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.

_____________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau

BAZGO GOMPA BY NICHOLAS ROERICH

NICHOLAS ROERICH (1874-1947)

Basgo or Bazgo Gompa (3,292 m - 10 800 ft))

India

In Himalayas (Bazgo. Ladakh), oil on canvas, 1940

The site

Basgo or Bazgo Gompa (3,292 m - 10 800 ft  refers to a Buddhist monastery located in the city of Basgo or Bazgo, 40 km east of Leh, the capital of Ladakh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India. The monastery is strategically located at the top of a hill at 3,292 m above sea level. It overlooks the remains of the ancient city.

It was built by the rulers of Namgyal in 1680. The sovereign Delegs Namgyal (1675-1705) having undertaken an expansion of the territory and the dissemination of his lineage, intended to protect his country Mongolian armies of Tibet.

Bazgo is deeply rooted in the origins of Ladakh.

It was once an important cultural and political center, which is frequently mentioned in the Ladakhi Chronicles. The monastery is also famous for the Buddha statue which stands in a precarious position on the cliffs 300 meters above the village.

Since 1993, the Basgo Welfare Committee has made great efforts to save the three sanctuaries of Chamchung, Chamba Lakhang and Serzang temples dedicated to the Maitreya Buddhas, which are kept in spectacular enclosures. Maitreya is a Mahābodhisattva who would be the next Buddha to come when the Dharma, the teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha, will have disappeared.

Since UNESCO has listed Basgo among the top 100 most endangered sites in the world in 2001, the Basgo Welfare Committee has taken steps to safeguard the monument by housing it in a richly decorated structure. The complex also includes murals.

The painter 

Nicholas Roerich known also as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (Никола́й Константи́нович Ре́рих) is quite an important figure of mountain paintings in the early 20th century.  He was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, perceived by some in Russia as an enlightener, philosopher, and public figure. In his youth was he was quite influenced by a movement in Russian society around the occult and was interested in hypnosis and other spiritual practices. His paintings are said to have hypnotic expression.

Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, he lived in various places around the world until his death in Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, India. Trained as an artist and a lawyer, his main interests were literature, philosophy, archaeology, and especially art. After the February Revolution of 1917 and the end of the czarist regime, Roerich, a political moderate who valued Russia's cultural heritage more than ideology and party politics, had an active part in artistic politics. With Maxim Gorky and Aleksandr Benois, he participated with the so-called "Gorky Commission" and its successor organization, the Arts Union (SDI).

Full Wandering Vertexes entry  =>

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

IGLOO SPUR /CAPE CROZIER BY EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON

EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (1872-1912)

Igloo Spur (160 m -520 ft)

Antarctica  (Cape Crozier) 

In  Cape Crozier,  Terra nova Scott's Last Expedition, watercolor, 1910

The hill 
Igloo Spur (160 m -520 ft) is a a small, isolated spur,  extendsing southeast from Bomb Peak (805 m- 2,640 ft) situated  West of Cape Crozier (Antarctica). Both were mapped and named by the New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition, 1958–59. Igloo Spur was named for the stone igloo built by Dr. E. A. Wilson and his party there during the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13.
Captain Scott seriously considered Cape Crozier as the base for his second Antarctic expedition.  On the previous trip, the Discovery had been frozen into its McMurdo Sound berth for nearly two years, and had barely escaped in February 1904, a circumstance that had led to an expensive relief operation and some opprobrium for Scott. There would be no chance of the Terra Nova being icebound in the open seas off Cape Crozier, but the unsheltered location would make landings of stores and personnel difficult, the shore base would be at the mercy of rough weather, and the land route to the Barrier surface was problematic. Scott decided to return to McMurdo Sound for his base, though to a more northerly anchorage (Cape Evans).

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

JING TING MOUNTAIN / 敬亭山 BY SHITAO / 石濤

SHITAO / 石濤 (1642-1707) 

Jing Ting Mountain / 敬亭山) (300m - 980ft)

China 

 In Paysage à la cascade, Les monts Jingting  en automne, rouleau, 1671, Musée Guimet, Paris


About this roll 
This roll, faithful to the traditional Chinese perspective rendered in successive plan layouts, presents a landscape of wooded rocky massifs, in the center, a waterfall flows into a stream. Drowned in the abundance of foliage, a man near a pavilion contemplates the spectacle. In a colophon the painter relates the circumstances of the creation: "There I saw in turn authentic paintings of Nizan and Huang Gongwang. My days, from then on, were according to the impressions that I preserved ". The strangeness of this landscape with the dark mountain cluttered with white clouds, is reinforced by the rapid and nervous brush stroke. This painting depends on Chinese aesthetics essentially concerned with "the natural" and whose appreciation is not about the finished result of the plot but the quality of the gesture that made it, enhancing the simplicity.
Constructed by firm rings that are endowed with an infinity of touches and ink values, this landscape uses a technique with brush and ink on paper.

The mountain 
The Jing Ting Mountain / 敬亭山) (300m - 980ft) is in the northern suburbs of Xuancheng City, Anhui province, China. Before the Jin Dynasty, the mountain was known as Zhao Ting Mountain. In 266 AD, its name was changed to Jing Ting Mountain (Jingting shan) to avoid the name taboo of the emperor, Sima Zhao.
Jing Ting Mountain and the scenery therein has been the frequent subject of poetry and artwork. The poems written by Xie Tiao (464–499) of the Southern Qi Dynasty brought it a widespread reputation. From then on, the area was visited frequently by many poets. The famous Chinese ancient poet Li Bai (699-762) said that "only Jing Ting Mountain can keep attracting you without boredom." 
Over 1,000 poems were written about Jing Ting Mountain and, therefore, it is regarded as the "Mountain of Poetry" in China.

The artist 
The chinese landscape painter Shitao or Shi Tao ( 石濤), was a descendant of the Ming imperial family born into the Ming dynasty imperial clan as Zhu Ruoji (朱若極), in the early Qing Dynasty (1644–1911).
Shitao is one of the most famous individualist painters of the early Qing years. The art he created was revolutionary in its transgressions of the rigidly codified techniques and styles that dictated what was considered beautiful. Imitation was valued over innovation, and although Shitao was clearly influenced by his predecessors (namely Ni Zan and Li Yong), his art breaks with theirs in several new and fascinating ways.
His formal innovations in depiction include drawing attention to the act of painting itself through his use of washes and bold, impressionistic brushstrokes, as well as an interest in subjective perspective and the use of negative or white space to suggest distance. Shi Tao's stylistic innovations are difficult to place in the context of the period. In a colophon dated 1686, Shitao wrote: "In painting, there are the Southern and the Northern schools, and in calligraphy, the methods of the Two Wangs (Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Xianzhi). Zhang Rong (443–497) once remarked, 'I regret not that I do not share the Two Wangs' methods, but that the Two Wangs did not share my methods.' If someone asks whether I [Shitao] follow the Southern or the Northern School, or whether either school follows me, I hold my belly laughing and reply, 'I always use my own method!'"
The poetry and calligraphy that accompany his landscapes are just as beautiful, irreverent, and vivid as the paintings they complement. His paintings exemplify the internal contradictions and tensions of the literati or scholar-amateur artist, and they have been interpreted as an invective against art-historical canonization.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE SAINTE VICTOIRE (4) BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
The Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur) 

In La Tranchée avec la montagne Sainte-Victoire, ca. 1870, 

Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen / Die Pinakotheken, Munchen

The mountain

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.

The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians....

Full wanderingvertexes entry 

The Painter  

The mount Sainte-Victoire (1011 m) appears to have been the subject of a true love story with  the  painter (Paul Cezanne).  He painted  this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings!...

Full wanderingvertexes entry 

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE PAIN DE SUCRE BY GUSTAVE-EUGÈNE CASTAN

GUSTAVE-EUGÈNE CASTAN (1823-1892)

Le Pain de Sucre  (3, 208m - 10, 525 ft)

France - Italy border 

 In  Pain du Sucre as seen from the St BernardPass, 1892, oil on canvas, Courtesy  John Mitchell Gallery, London 

The mountain
The Pain de Sucre (Sugar Loaf  not to be confused with the one in Brazil) is a summit of the massif of Escreins. It is located on the Franco-Italian border. It is easy to access for any hiker of medium level and being well equipped. It is necessary to climb before the Vieux pass (2 806 m) on the GR 58. From the top of the Sugar Loaf, marked by a small cross, we can clearly see Mount Viso.

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.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

SENTINEL DOME & JEFFREY PINE BY ANSEL ADAMS

ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984) 

Sentinel Dome  (2,477m - 8,127ft)

United States of America (California)  

In Jeffrey Pine, Sentinel Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1940

The mountain  and the pine 

Sentinel Dome  (2,477m - 8,127ft) is a granite dome in Yosemite National Park, United States. It lies on the south wall of Yosemite Valley, 0.8 miles (1.3 km) southwest of Glacier Point and 1.4 miles (2.3 km) northeast of Profile Cliff.

Sentinel Dome is known for a Jeffrey Pine that grew from its peak (see photograph above). The pine was photographed as early as 1867 by Carleton Watkins, and was the subject of the well-known photograph above  by Ansel Adams. The pine died during the drought of 1976, but remained standing until August 2003.

The original Native American name of Sentinel Dome, in the Southern Sierra Miwok language, was "Sakkaduch". The Bunnell survey named it "South Dome", but the Whitney survey renamed it Sentinel Dome (from its likeness to a watch-tower). The view from the top offers a 360 degree view of Yosemite Valley and surroundings. One can see Half Dome,Yosemite Falls, El Capitan,  North Dome, Basket Dome, and much more. 

The trail to the base of Sentinel Dome is a relatively easy 1.1-mile (1.8 km) hike. The trailhead, the same as the Taft Point trailhead, is located 6 miles (9.7 km) from Bridalveil Creek on the Glacier Point road. Once at the base, hikers traverse the less imposing northeast granite slope to the summit.In winter, Sentinel Dome can be reached from Badger Pass by a 10-miles ski tour.

The photographer 
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist.
His black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, books, and the internet. Adams and Fred Archer developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs. He primarily used large-format cameras because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images. Adams founded the photography group known as Group f/64, along with fellow photographers Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham.
In September 1941, Adams contracted with the Department of the Interior to make photographs of National Parks, Indian reservations, and other locations for use as mural-sized prints for decoration of the Department's new building. Part of his understanding with the Department was that he might also make photographs for his own use, using his own film and processing. Although Adams kept meticulous records of his travel and expenses, he was less disciplined about recording the dates of his images, and neglected to note the date of Moonrise, so it was not clear whether it belonged to Adams or to the U.S. Government. But the position of the moon allowed the image to eventually be dated from astronomical calculations, and it was determined that Moonrise was made on November 1, 1941, a day for which he had not billed the Department, so the image belonged to Adams. The same was not true for many of his other negatives, including The Tetons and the Snake River, which, having been made for the Mural Project, became the property of the U.S. Government.
When Edward Steichen formed his Naval Aviation Photographic Unit in early 1942, he wanted Adams to be a member, to build and direct a state-of-the-art darkroom and laboratory in Washington, D.C. In February 1942, Steichen asked Adams to join. Adams agreed, with two conditions: He wanted to be commissioned as an officer, and he also told Steichen he would not be available until July 1. Steichen, who wanted the team assembled as quickly as possible, passed Adams by, and had his other photographers ready to go by early April.
Adams was distressed by the Japanese American Internment that occurred after the Pearl Harbor attack. He requested permission to visit the Manzanar War Relocation Center in the Owens Valley, at the foot of Mount Williamson. The resulting photo-essay first appeared in a Museum of Modern Art exhibit, and later was published as Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese-Americans. He also contributed to the war effort by doing many photographic assignments for the military, including making prints of secret Japanese installations in the Aleutians. " It was met with some distressing resistance and was rejected by many as disloyal." Adams was the recipient of three Guggenheim fellowships during his career, the first in 1946 to photograph every National Park. This series of photographs produced memorable images of Old Faithful Geyser, Grand Teton (above), and Mount McKinley....
Full entry Wanderingvertexes

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

LALLA KHEDIDJA PAINTED BY LÉON CARRÉ

LÉON CARRÉ  (1878-1942) 

Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft)

Algeria

 In Paysage du Djurdjura, 1926, Private collection

The mountain 

Lalla Khedidja (2,308 m -7,572 ft) in the Jurjura Range is the  highest summit of the Tell Atlas, a mountain chain over 1,500 km (932 mi) in length, belonging to the Atlas mountain ranges in North Africa, stretching from Morocco, to Tunisia through Algeria. The ranges of this system have average elevations of about 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and form a natural barrier between the Mediterranean and the Sahara.  Several large cities such as the Algerian capital, Algiers and Oran lie at the base of the Tell Atlas. The Algerian city Constantine lies 80 km inland and directly in the mountains at 650 meters in elevation. A number of smaller towns and villages are situated within the Tell; for example, Chiffa is nestled within the Chiffa gorge.

The Tell Atlas runs parallel to the Mediterranean coast. Together with the Saharan Atlas to the south it forms the northernmost of two more or less parallel ranges which approach one another towards the east, remaining quite distinct from one another in Western Algeria and merging in Eastern Algeria. At the western end, it ends at the Rif and Middle Atlas ranges in Morocco. The Tell Atlas are also a distinct physiographic section of the larger Atlas Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger African Alpine System physiographic division.  The Tell Atlas and the Saharan Atlas form two natural barriers, the first against the Mediterranean and the second against the Sahara. Between them lies the valley of the Chelif and various lesser rivers.  

The artist
The French orientalist painter and illustrator Léon Carré entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, then he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 1896 thanks to Léon Bonnat. He was the double winner of the Chenavard prize. He exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in 1900 and, in 1905, at the Salon des Independants, and made a first trip to Algeria in 1907.
He exhibited at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts from 1911, and at the Autumn Fair.
Winner of the Villa Abd-el-Tif scholarship in 1909, he settled in Algiers. Orientalist painter, he practices oil, gouache and pastel. In 1927, Léon Carré helped decorate the Ile-de-France liner for the Transatlantic Company, and designed numerous posters for the PLM Company (including the centenary of Algeria in 1930).
 He also drew the 50 franc banknote issued by the Bank of Algeria in 1942.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY TAKEUCHI SEIHO / 竹内 栖鳳

TAKEUCHI SEIHO / 竹内 栖鳳 (1864-1942)

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

In Mount Fuji from distant hills,  Private collection 

The mountain 

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

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

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

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

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

It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality.... 

Full Wandering vertexes  entry 

The artist 
Takeuchi Seihō (竹 内 栖鳳) is the artist's name of a Japanese dowering painter of the nihonga genre who was active in the Meiji era in the Shōwa era. His work spans half a century and is considered one of the masters of the pre-war circle of Kyoto painters.
His real name is Takeuchi Tsunekichi.
Very young, Seihō, who was born in Kyoto, likes to draw and wants to become an artist. He is then a student of Shijō School of Traditional Painting.
In 1882, two of his paintings were awarded at Naikoku Kaiga Kyoshinkai, one of the first modern painting competitions in Japan, which launched his career.
During the Universal Exhibition of 1900 in Paris, he traveled to Europe where he studied Western art. After returning to Japan, he created a unique style, combining the realistic techniques of traditional Japanese Shijō-Maruyama schools with Western forms of realism borrowed from Turner and Corot techniques. The result of this meeting becomes one of the main styles of modern ni-honga. His favorite subjects are animals, often in fun poses like a monkey riding a horse. He is also noted for his landscapes.
 In 1909, he became a teacher at the Kyoto Municipal Painting College and also founded his own private school, Chikujokai.
In 1913, Seihō was appointed court painter to the Imperial Agency and in 1919 to the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts (Teikoku Bijutsuin). He is one of the first people to be awarded the Order of Culture when this distinction is made in 1937.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE DENTS DU MIDI BY GUSTAVE COURBET

GUSTAVE COURBET (1819-1877)

 Les Dents du Midi (3,114 m to 3,257 m -10,216 ft to10,685 ft) 

Switzerland 

1. In Le Château de Chillon signed (lower left) oil on canvas (54 x 64.8 cm.)
Painted circa 1874-1875. Private collection (sold by Christie's)
2.  In Le Château de Chillon signed (lower left) oil on canvas
Painted circa 1874-1875. Private collection.

About  the paintings 

Gustave Courbet painted many times the Castle of Chillon by which he was fascinated. He has painted it from different angles which, as in these two examples, show the Dents du Midi in the distance ... or not. In all these representations, a common element: a sailboat on the lake passing near the castle. During his exile in Switzerland, Courbet repeated the variations on the same themes, panicked by the threat of having to pay the exorbitant costs of rebuilding the Column Vendôme in PAris. This bulimia of production prompted many counterfeiters to take advantage of the situation and, already during the artist's lifetime, the art market was invaded by works attributed to Courbet, whose originality is difficult to appreciate.

In this unfavorable context, Courbet nevertheless has the strength to produce landscapes largely painted  like Le Leman au coucher de soleil (Jenisch Museum in Vevey and the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Gallen), a good dozen of Château de  Chillon (including  the two above and the one in the Gustave-Courbet Museum in Ornans). His health deteriorated at the end of 1876.
 In 1877, he sat down in anticipation of the World Expo the following year, to a Grand Panorama of the Alps (The Cleveland Museum of Art) remained partially incomplete.
Courbet still refused to return to France. His will was respected, and his body was buried in La Tour-de-Peilz in Switzerland on January 3, 1878, after his death on December 31, 1877, during New Year's Eve, his heart having let go.

The painter 

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.

Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death.

Courbet  painted a few mountains in his life : the Juras mountains around Ornans ( France) and a few  mountains in Switzerland during his exil. Like many painters of the 19th Century, Courbet didn't name the mountain he painted; he liked to give a description of the general atmosphere rather than  a precise geographical location.  

 "I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty."

The mountain 

See  The Dents du midi already posted in this blog...

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MIHARA-YAMA / 三原山 BY SHINSUI ITO / 新水伊藤

SHINSUI  ITO  / 新水伊藤 (1898-1972)

Mihara-yama / 三原山  (764 m - 2,507 ft) 

Japan 

In Mihara-yama in Summer, Block print,  1937, Private collection 

The volcano 

Mihara-yama / 三原山  (764 m - 2,507 ft)  is an active volcano on the Japanese isle of Izu Ōshima. Although the volcano is predominantly basaltic, major eruptions have occurred at intervals of 100–150 years. Mihara-yama's major eruption in 1986 saw lava fountains up to 1.6 kilometres (1.0 mi) high. The eruption had a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 3, and involved a central vent eruption, radial fissure eruption, explosive eruption, lava flows, and a lava lake eruption. There was also a 16 km high subplinian plume. All of the island's 12,000 inhabitants were evacuated by dozens of vessels consisting of both the military and civilian volunteers.

In the novel Ring by Koji Suzuki and its subsequent film adaption, Shizuko Yamamura, the mother of Sadako, predicted that Mount Mihara would someday erupt using her psychic abilities. After a failed psychic demonstration which resulted in Sadako psychically murdering a reporter, Shizuko became depressed and ultimately insane and committed suicide by leaping into the crater of Mount Mihara.

From a vantage point near the top of the cone it was once possible to leap into the crater. As a result, the volcano became a popular venue for suicides. Beginning in the 1920s, several suicides occurred in the volcano every week; more than six hundred people jumped in 1936. Authorities eventually erected a fence around the base of the structure to curb the number of suicides.

The artist

Shinsui Itō / 伊東 深水 was the pseudonym of a Nihonga painter and ukiyo-e woodblock print artist in Taishō - and Shōwa-period Japan. He was one of the great names of the shin-hanga art movement, which revitalized the traditional art after it began to decline with the advent of photography in the early 20th century. His real name was Itō Hajime (伊東 一).

Itō's early landscape series, Eight Views of Lake Biwa inspired Kawase Hasui.

In the post-war period Itō came to be regarded as one of the best known and respected personalities in Japanese society, and received several important honors during his lifetime. In 1952 the "Commission for the Protection of Cultural Properties" (Bunkazai Hōgō Iinkai) declared his woodblock designing talent to be of "intangible cultural properties" (mukei bunkazai) which was then the equivalent of being declared a Living National Treasure. In 1958, he became a member of the Japan Art Academy. In 1970, he received the Order of the Rising Sun.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau