PUIG MAJOR PAINTED BY SANTIAGO RUSIÑOL I PRATS

SANTIAGO RUSIÑOL I PRATS (1861-1931)

Puig Major de son Torella (1, 445m - 4,741 ft)

Spain, Balearic Islands (Majorca) 

In Serra de Tramuntana, oil on board, Municipal Museum of Valldemossa 

The mountain
The Puig Major (1, 445m - 4,741 ft) is the highest peak of the island of Majorca and the Balearic Islands in Spain. Its southern spur is called the Penyal des Migdia. In Majorcan, Puig means "peak" or "summit". "Major" indicates that this is the highest mountain in the range called the Serra de Tramuntana. the complete denomination of the mountain is Puig de son Torrella or Puig Major de son Torrella. This mountain is located on the eastern segment of the Serra de Tramuntana, between Soller and Pollença. It is less than five kilometers from the sea. Like the entire Serra de Tramuntana, the Puig Major appeared between the Paleozoic and the Miocene. It is the northeastern prolongation in the Mediterranean of the Betic Cordilleras which appeared on the peninsula.
It is a karst formation where limestone dominates.
In 1936, the Spanish Civil War halted the construction of a funicular. The engineer Antoni Parietti Coll (Palma, 1899-1979) designed the project in 1934, from Cals Reis to the summit, for the construction of an astronomical observatory. In the early 1950s, this project competed with another, of a military nature. Since 1953, a radar of the Ejercito del Aire, the Spanish air force, has taken the top of the mountain and forbidden access to it, from its base, where there is a military ground. Originally, the United States installed the first radar, in order to give NATO air traffic control capabilities in the western Mediterranean. In 1958, an asphalt road leads from the base to the top.
The facilities were modernized in 2000.
In 2011, the Serra de Tramuntana, a chain of mountains among which the Puig Major dominates, is registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Given the military destination of the place, hikes are practically prohibited. However, the Air Force agrees to derogations. The military site also includes a botanical observatory.

The painter
The spanish painter Santiago Rusiñol i Prats was also poet and playwright. He was one of the leaders of the Catalan modernisme movement. He influenced Pablo Picasso as a modern artist, and also left a number of modernist buildings in Sitges (Catalonia). Much of his work in Paris belonged to the Symbolism painting style. While there, he also attended the Gervex Academy, where he discovered his love for modernism. After returning to Spain, he settled in Sitges, founding a studio/museum named Cau Ferrat. When back in Barcelona, he was a frequent client of the café Els Quatre Gats, noted for its association the young Pablo Picasso. He went to Mallorca with the painter Joaquin Mir Trinxet, where they met the mystic Belgian painter William Degouve de Nuncques in 1899.
He was most known for his plays, landscape and garden paintings.
Rusiñol was born in Barcelona to a family of industrialists in textiles with origins in Manlleu. Despite the fact that he was the heir to the family's lucrative operations, by the time he was a teenager Rusiñol already showed a strong interest in painting and travel.
His training as painter started at Centro de Acuarelistas de Barcelona under the direction of Tomás Moragas. Like so many artists of the day, he travelled to Paris in 1889, living in Montmartre with Ramon Casas and Ignacio Zuloaga.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

LA SOUFRIÈRE BY AUGUSTE LACOUR

AUGUSTE LACOUR (1805-1869)

La Soufrière (1, 467m - 4, 813ft)

France - Guadeloupe

In La Soufrière - Histoire de la Guadeloupe, Basse-terre, 1857

The mountain 

La Soufrière (1, 467m - )  in Guadeloupean Creole "vié madanm la", (literally "the old lady" in French) is a volcano in activity located on the territory of the commune of Saint-Claude in Guadeloupe, in the national park of the same name, in the south of the island of Basse-Terre. 

It is the only active volcano on the island, since the last 10,000 years, currently in a state of eruptive rest.The Soufrière is part of a volcanic ensemble comprising several eruptive mouths.  Surrounding the main eruptive mouth, other structures formed during eruptions. These are lava domes (Morne Amic, Morne Dongo, Madeleine), volcanic cones (Le Morne Carmichael, La Citerne, L'Echelle, La Grande Découverte, Le Gros Fougas, Le Morne Lenglet) and small craters on the main dome (Amic, gouffres Dupuis et Tarissan, Le cratère Napoléon)

The summit of LA Soufrière is called La Découverte ; it is the highest peak of Guadeloupe and the Lesser Antilles. This lava dome takes the form of a truncated cone 900 meters in diameter at its base. There is no real crater but several eruptive mouths, chasms from which sulphurous vapors escape and deep gashes. The landscape is rocky and chaotic, almost lunar, bristling with pitons. 

It is often covered with mists. 

Several marked trails run through the volcanic summit.

It is an active volcano of the Pelican type - explosive with fiery clouds -, therefore very dangerous, and of recent formation (100 000 to 200 000 years). Its activity is marked by fumaroles, sulphurous vapors and hot springs on different points of the summit. 

The first explosive magmatic eruption of the Soufrière is established around the fifteenth century2,4 or perhaps around 1530 with more or less 30 years of uncertainty5.

The first description of the Soufrière is the fact of the father Jacques Du Tertre in The General History of the Antilles inhabited by the François published in 1667-1671.

In 1797, an important phreatic eruption took place. It can not be ruled out that this eruption was also that of a captive sheet and not of a water table, that is to say put at atmospheric pressure. 

An other minor phreatic eruption occurred in 1956.

The last eruption of the Soufrière dates from 1976; it was a phreatic eruption. It led to the evacuation of the southern part of Basse-Terre and the prefecture, 73,600 people over three and a half months. No deaths were deplored.

The artist

Born in Guadeloupe, Auguste Lacour studied law in Paris and obtained a degree in September 1828. He entered the magistracy and was appointed provisional auditor judge, at Basse-Terre, on October 2, 1830. He held, in turn, the functions of public prosecutor, lieutenant of judge at Marie-Galante and Martinique.  In 1839 he returned to Basse-Terre as a Royal judge.

Under the Second Empire, he was appointed advisor to the Imperial Court of Guadeloupe.

Between 1855 and 1860, Auguste Lacour took advantage of the leisure hours left to him by his duties as Imperial Court Adviser to write and illustrate with unpublished documents, a "Histoire de  Guadeloupe", in four volumes, since the time of its discovery until 1830.

This work was needed, and, in publishing it, Auguste Lacour rendered a true service to his country. Today one always consult with interest those volumes which, with time, have become very rare.

 "L'Impremerie du gouvernement"  (nowadays "Imprimerie Nationale")  in France was responsible for publishing the book in 1857 with some remarquables illustrations including the one above. 

Auguste Lacour obtained, in August 1864, the Corix de Chevalier de la Legion d'HOnneur (Knight's Cross of the Legion of Honor).  

He died at the age of sixty-four,  in Guadeloupe,  leaving manuscripts that his heirs refused to publish.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

WUYI MOUNTAINS / 武夷山 BY TSUKIOKA YOSHITOSHI / 月岡 芳年

TSUKIOKA YOSHITOSHI / 月岡 芳年 (1839-1892) 

Wuyi Mountains  / 武夷山   (2,158 m - 7,080 ft) 

China

In Rising Moon over Mt Nanping, Series 100 Views of the Moon, Woodblock print, c.1885

The mountains 
The Wuyi Mountains (2,158 m - 7,080 ft) in Chinese 武夷山, also known as Bohea Hills in earlier Western documents are a mountain range located in the prefecture of Nanping, in northern Fujian province near the border with Jiangxi province, China.
The highest peak in the area is Mount Huanggang on the border of Fujian and Jiangxi, making it the highest point of both provinces; the lowest altitudes are around 200 metres (660 ft). Many oolong and black teas are produced in the Wuyi Mountains, including Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe) and most famous Lapsang souchong.
Human settlement on the slopes of Mount Wuyi can be traced back 4,000 years by archeological remains. During the Western Han Dynasty, the ancient city of Chengcun was the capital of the Minyue kingdom. In the 7th century, the Wuyi Palace was built for emperors to conduct sacrificial activities, a site that tourists can still visit today. The mountains were an important center of Taoism and later Buddhism. Remains of 35 academies erected from the era of the Northern Song to the Qing Dynasty and more than 60 Taoist temples and monasteries have been located. However, most of these remains are very incomplete. Some of the exceptions for which authentic remains are preserved are the Taoyuan Temple, the Wannian Palace, the Sanqing Hall, the Tiancheng Temple, the Baiyun temple, and the Tianxin temple. The area is the cradle of Neo-Confucianism, a current that became very influential since the 11th century.
Mountain call and Mountain open are ceremonies held in the Wuyi imperial tea garden. The County magistrate used to take the chair of the Mountain Call ceremony on Jingzhe Day.  In the formal ceremony, tea planters call out together “tea, tea, sprout”. By doing this, they pray for the blessings in the tea harvest.

The mountains have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for cultural, scenic, and biodiversity values since 1999.

The artist
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi /月岡 芳年) also named Taiso Yoshitoshi / 大蘇 芳年 was a Japanese artist.
He is widely recognized as the last great master of the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock printing and painting. He is also regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras – the last years of Edo period Japan, and the first years of modern Japan following the Meiji Restoration. Like many Japanese, Yoshitoshi was interested in new things from the rest of the world, but over time he became increasingly concerned with the loss of many aspects of traditional Japanese culture, among them traditional woodblock rinting.
By the end of his career, Yoshitoshi was in an almost single-handed struggle against time and technology. As he worked on in the old manner, Japan was adopting Western mass reproduction methods like photography and lithography. Nonetheless, in a Japan that was turning away from its own past, he almost singlehandedly managed to push the traditional Japanese woodblock print to a new level, before it effectively died with him.
His reputation has only continued to grow, both in the West, and among younger Japanese, and he is now almost universally recognized as the greatest Japanese artist of his era.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

ADAM PEAK / SAMANALA BY CONSTANCE GORDON-CUMMING

CONSTANCE GORDON-CUMMING (1837–1924)

Adam Peak (2,243 m - 7360 ft)

Sri Lanka

In Adam's Peak in Ceylon, 1873, watercolor heightened with white and gum arabic 58.7 x 80.5 cm. Private collection 

The mountain
Adam Peak (2,243 m - 7360 ft) called in singhalese Sri Pada or Samanala, is one of the most important summits of the island of Sri Lanka. Conical, it is considered a holy place by Shaivite Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims.
It is located southwest of the island in Ratnapura district, about 40 kilometers north-east of Ratnapura. The small town of Nuwara Eliya, in the neighboring district, is often used as a base for its ascent.
Hindu pilgrims climb the thousands of steps that lead to the summit so as to reach for the sunrise and see the triangular shape of its shadow sweep the surrounding countryside. This climb lasts several hours and is usually done in April.
At the summit of the mountain is found, hollowed out in the rock, a cavity of almost two meters, supposed to be a footprint. Hindus see the trace of the passage of Vishnu or Shiva. For Muslims it is the footprint of Adam's foot, when he left the Garden of Eden, whose island of Ceylon is very symbolically close, and fell on Earth, which explains the name given to the mountain. For Buddhists it is the footprint of Buddha, and there are other origins, which attribute the imprint to Shiva or even to St. Thomas.
Ibn Battuta is the first author to record his rise, in the fourteenth century, he confirms the presence of iron chains installed as a handrail and which had been described by Marco Polo.
The peak of Adam is however not the highest point of the island, which is Mount Pidurutalagala, with 2,524 m.

The painter
Constance Frederica “Eka” Gordon-Cumming was a noted Scottish travel writer and painter. Born in a wealthy family, she travelled around the world and painted described scenes and life as she saw them.
Constance Gordon-Cumming was a prolific landscape painter, mostly in Asia and the Pacific. She painted over a thousand watercolors and worked with a motto to ‘never a day without at least one careful-coloured sketch’ starting her day at 5 am while in India. Places she visited include Australia, New Zealand, America, China, and Japan.
She arrived in Hilo, Hawaii in October 1879, and was among the first artists to paint the active volcanoes. Her Hawaii travelogue, Fire Fountains: The Kingdom of Hawaii, was published in Edinburgh in 1883. She had several dangerous moments but her travel ended in 1880 when the Montana that she was on ran into rocks at Holyhead. While most of the passengers took the lifeboat, she stayed on last along with the captain to save her paintings and was rescued many hours later. She returned to live at Crieff with her widowed sister Eleanor and continued to write books.
Her best known books are At Home in Fiji and A Lady's Cruise on a French Man-of-War. The latter book resulted from an invitation to join a French ship put into service for the Bishop of Samoa so that he could visit remote parts of his far-flung diocese.
Miss Gordon-Cumming received much criticism from male writers of the era, perhaps because she did not fit in the traditional Victorian role of women, as she often traveled alone and unaided.
In any case, her landscape drawings and watercolors seem to be universally admired.

_________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LUSHAN / 庐山 PAINTED BY WANG YUANQUI / 王原祁

WANG YUANQUI / 王原祁  (1642-1715)

Lushan / 庐山 or Mount Lu (1,474m- 4,834ft) 

China

In Lu shan, National Palace Museum, Taipei

The mountain
Mount Lu or Lushan (庐山) is situated in the northern part of Jiangxi province in southeastern China, and is one of the most renowned mountains in the country. Mount Lushan is one of the spiritual centres of Chinese civilization. Buddhist and Taoist temples, along with landmarks of Confucianism, where the most eminent masters taught, blend effortlessly into a strikingly beautiful landscape which has inspired countless artists who developed the aesthetic approach to nature found in Chinese culture.
The oval-shaped mountains are about 25 km long and 10 km wide, and neighbors Jiujiang city and the Yangtze River to the north, Nanchang city to the south, and Poyang Lake to the east. Its highest point is Dahanyang Peak (1,474m- 4,834ft) and is one of the hundreds of steep peaks that towers above a sea of clouds that encompass the mountains for almost 200 days out of the year. Mount Lu is known for its grandeur, steepness, and beauty, and is part of Lushan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, and a prominent tourist attraction, especially during the summer months when the weather is cooler.
Lushan was a summer resort for Western missionaries in China. Absalom Sydenstricker, the father of Pearl Buck was one of the first five missionaries to acquire property in the Kuling Estate on the mountain.
Mount Lu was once dubbed the xiadu ("summer capital") of the Republic of China. Chiang Kai-Shek, China's leader at the time, would frequently spend his summers here. In June 1937, Zhou Enlai, then a major leader in the Communist Party, met with Chiang on the mountain to discuss a united front against the Japanese invasion. In July 1937, Chiang Kai-shek announced his intention for a full mobilization for war against Japan from Mount Lu. In 1946, following the war, the U.S. special diplomatic mission led by General George C. Marshall met with Chiang Kai-Shek to discuss the role of post-WWII China.
Mao Zedong convened three large conferences of senior party officials at Mount Lu, in 1959, 1961, and 1970. The 1959 conference became known as the Lushan Conference. The meeting saw the purge of decorated Chinese Civil War and Korean War general Peng Dehuai, who was critical of Mao's Great Leap Forward policies. The 1970 Lushan Conference took place during the Cultural Revolution, and marked the increasing antagonism between those loyal to Mao and those loyal to his chosen successor Lin Biao.
Mount Lushan has rich cultural and natural heritage, which authentically preserve the unique elements and characteristics of Mount Lushan’s creation, development and inheritance, including cultural, historical and natural elements such as ancient monuments and sites, villas, ancient stone inscriptions, paintings and poems dating to different historic periods, and streams and waterfalls, peaks and valleys. Temporary or partial damage of the ecological environment can be quickly and effectively restored. Restoration and intervention have followed principle of retaining the historic condition of the heritage in terms of design, materials, methods, and techniques. Thus, the property retains its historical authenticity, which permanently preserves the value of this “famous cultural mountain”.
In 1982, Mount Lushan became one of the first National Scenic Areas and one of the First Class National Nature Reserves, with the property area and buffer zone delimited. All attributes of Mount Lushan are effectively protected by the laws and regulations pertaining to the management of national scenic areas, and to the protection of cultural heritage and its setting. Any measures and projects that may significantly impact the heritage value must be authorized by the relevant national authorities.
The Lushan Scenic and Historic Interest Administrative Bureau focused on sustainable development of the property, and made increased investments in conservation and management. Both mid-term and long-term master plans for protecting the property have been made. Special attention has been placed on protecting the cultural heritages and their settings as a whole, and how to protect them more scientifically. Additional efforts have been made towards researching rational use of the property. Broad cooperation and exchanges have been undertaken. Conservation measures are strictly carried out. Environmental management and development projects are being tightly controlled. The right balance between heritage conservation and tourism development has been maintained, making it possible for the sustainable development of the property.

The painter
Wang Yuanqi / 王原祁 was a Chinese painter of the Qing dynasty. Wang was born in Taicang in the Jiangsu province and tutored in painting by his grandfather Wang Shimin (1592–1680). His style name was ' Mao-ching ' and his sobriquet was ' Lu-t'ai '. Wang is a member of the Six Masters of the early Qing period, also known as the 'Four Wangs, a Wu and a Yun'. They are also often regarded as the principal figures of the 'Orthodox School' of Chinese landscape painting.
Wang Yuanqi was two years old when the New Qing Dynasty was founded (1644). He rose to prominence as a court official and eventually was appointed curator of the imperial collection during the reign of the Qing Emperor Kangxi. He remained a court official throughout his long career and died at age 73 in 1715.
His landscapes followed the model of the Yuan Dynasty artists who broke away from the Northern Song tradition of rendering landscapes "real enough to walk through" to more personal abstractions. His style and technique demonstrates influences from, for example, the artist Huang Gongwang, especially in the use of dry brush strokes and ink washes and his use of colour, often making "colour patterns a component of his dense compositional structure, complementing the force of abstract design with the rhythmic flow of colour." His 1711 ink and color-on-silk painting, Landscape in the Style of Huang Gongwang, is in Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum collection and his version of Wang Wei's (now lost) eighth century hand scroll, The Wang River Villa, also painted in 1711, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

__________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

TROLLTINDENE PAINTED BY PEDER BLAKE

PEDER BALKE (1804-1887)

Trolltindene  or Seven Sisters (1,072 m - 3,517 ft)

Norway 

In Mountain Range Trolltindene, oil on canvas, 30.8 x 41.9 cm, c. 1840, 

Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø, Norway

About the painting
One of Peder Balke's earliest surviving paintings of the coast is the romantic and dramatic Mountain Range Trolltindene  (or Seven Sisters) from about 1840. Its carefully framed clear patch in the clouds reveals this part of a mountain chain rising to over 1000 m, at the western edge of the great Rondane National Park in central Norway.

The mountains 
Trolltindene  or Seven Sisters (1,072 m - 3,517 ft)  is a mountain range on the island of Alsten in Alstahaug Municipality in Nordlandcounty, Norway.The mountain range consists of seven peaks on the southeastern half of the island. whicg are (listed from northeast to southwest):

- Botnkrona (1,072 m - 3,517 ft)
- Grytfoten (1,019 m - 3,343 ft)
- Skjæringen (1,037 - 3,402 ft)
- Tvillingene (980 m- 3,220 ft)
- Breitinden  (910m - 2,990 ft)
The range is popular with hikers and offers scenic views over the surrounding area. On clear days visitors can truly understand why the surroundings are called "The kingdom of the thousand isles" by the locals.

The painter 
Peder Balke is a Norwegian painter that was even barely known in his home country, until recently. He didn’t encounter success during his lifetime. Having difficulties to sell his paintings, he abandoned his career to focus on social projects and politics but he continued to paint for his own pleasure. Once delivered from the pressure of making a living from his paintings, his style changed to become more personal, more modern.
During the summer 1832, Peder Balke, who was in love with the Norwegian landscapes, decided to go and seek for its most remote, its most desolate and its most distant points by sailing up the west coast of Norway as far as he could go. He went up to the inhospitable and barely accessible far-northern region of Finnmark. He reached the North Cape, the northernmost part of Norway, which was even more impressive at that time because it was the further north you could go, the final limit to knowledge and exploration – beyond it lies nothing (explorers only reached the North Pole in the late 1900s, two decades after his death).

Peder Balke wrote in his memoirs: “I can’t begin to describe how elated I was at having seen and re-tread the land, once again, after satisfying my deep longing to see the northern provinces. No easier is it for me to pen my thoughts on which sublime and mesmerizing impressions the wealth of natural beauty and unrivaled settings leave upon the mind of an observer. These impressions not only overwhelmed me for a brief moment, but they, too, influenced my entire future since I never yet, neither abroad nor other places in our country, have had the occasion to gaze at something so awe-inspiring and exciting as that which I observed during this journey to Finnmark. Unsurpassed in the norther provinces is the beauty of nature, while humans – nature’s children – play but a minor role, in comparison”.

The 1832 journey had a momentous effect upon his development as an artist; the eerie, isolated, dramatic and gloomy Arctic landscapes became a leitmotiv as he continued to paint them from his memory for the rest of his life. 

Peder Blake’s early paintings are quintessentially romantic, the product of a man awed by nature, overwhelmed by the often-horrifying beauty of his own land.

Long forgotten, Peder Balke is today increasingly recognized as an important precursor of modern painters.

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MONT BLANC IN SUMMER BY GABRIEL LOPPÉ

GABRIEL LOPPÉ (1825-1913)

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

France, Italy border

In  Le Mont-Blanc et la Vallée de Chamonix en été, huile sur carton, (15 x 24 cm) John Mitchell Fine paintings,  London

The mountain 
The Mont Blanc (4,808.73 m -15,777 ft) or Monte Bianco, both meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe after the Caucasus peaks. It is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence. The Mont Blanc is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass. The 7 highest summits, (which are obviously 8 with 2 in Europe !) are :
Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m), Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Mount Vinson (4,892m) and Mount Kosciuszko (2,228m) in Australia.
The mountain lies in a range called the Graian Alps, between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France. The location of the summit is on the watershed line between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy and the valleys of Montjoie, and Arve in France. The Mont Blanc massif is popular for mountaineering, hiking, skiing, and snowboarding.
The three towns and their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valley, Italy, and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and Chamonix in Haute-Savoie, France. A cable car ascends and crosses the mountain range from Courmayeur to Chamonix, through the Col du Géant. Constructed beginning in 1957 and completed in 1965, the 11.6 km (7¼ mi) Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two countries and is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes.
Since the French Revolution, the issue of the ownership of the summit has been debated.
From 1416 to 1792, the entire mountain was within the Duchy of Savoy. In 1723 the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, acquired the Kingdom of Sardinia. The resulting state of Sardinia was to become preeminent in the Italian unification.[ In September 1792, the French revolutionary Army of the Alps under Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou-Fézensac seized Savoy without much resistance and created a department of the Mont-Blanc. In a treaty of 15 May 1796, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France. A Sardinian Atlas map of 1869 showing the summit lying two thirds in Italy and one third in France.
Although the Franco-Italian border was redefined in both 1947 and 1963, the commission made up of both Italians and French ignored the Mont Blanc issue. In the early 21st century, administration of the mountain is shared between the Italian town of Courmayeur and the French town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, although the larger part of the mountain lies within the commune of the latter.

The painter 
Toussaint Gabriel Loppé was a French painter, photographer and mountaineer. He became the first foreigner to be made a member of the Alpine Club in London. His father was a captain in the French Engineers and Loppé's childhood was spent in many different towns in south-eastern France. Aged twenty-one Loppé climbed a small mountain in the Languedoc and found a group of painters sketching on the summit. He had found his calling and subsequently went off to Geneva where he met the reputed leading Swiss landscapist, Alexandre Calame (1810 -1864). Loppé took up mountaineering in Grindelwald in the 1850s and made friends easily with the many English climbers in France and Switzerland. Although he was frequently labelled as a pupil of Calame and his rival François Diday, Loppé was almost an entirely self-taught artist. He became the first painter to work at higher altitudes during climbing expeditions earning the right to be considered the founder of the peintres-alpinistes school, which became established in the Savoie at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Notable followers of Loppé include, Charles Henri Contencin (1875-1955) and Jacques Fourcy (1906-1990). Together with the first ascent of Mt Mallet in Chamonix’s Grandes Jorasses range, Loppé made over 40 ascents of Mont Blanc during his climbing career, which lasted until the late 1890s. He frequently made oil sketches from alpine summits, including a panorama of the view from the summit of Mont Blanc.
His paintings became celebrated for their atmosphere and spontaneity and he soon found himself taking part in many exhibitions in London and in Paris.
By 1896 Loppé had spent over fifty seasons climbing and painting in Chamonix. As the valley’s unrivalled ‘Court painter’ his work was in constant demand with the majority of his pictures going to English climbers and summer tourists.
In his later years, Loppé became fascinated with photography and was quite an innovator in this field too. His long exposure photograph of the Eiffel Tower struck by lightning, now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris remains one of his iconic images.
_______________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE DÔME DE NEIGE DES ECRINS BY CHARLES-HENRI CONTENCIN

CHARLES-HENRI CONTENCIN (1898-1955)

The Dôme de Neige des Ecrins (4,009 m - 13, 154ft) 

France (Dauphiné)

In The Dôme de Neige des Ecrins, Dauphin Alps, France, oil on panel, 33 x 41 cm, 

 John Mitchell Fine paintings London 

The mountain
The Dôme de neige des Ecrins ( The Ecrins Snow Dome) (4,009 m - 13, 154ft) is an alpine peak at the foot of the Écrins Bar, at the border between the French departments of Isère and Hautes-Alpes in the Dauphiné region. The Blanc glacier is surrounded by peaks allowing you to get acquainted with the high mountains before the ascent of this "4000" and acclimatize your body to the altitude. The climb is usually from the Ecrins refuge (3,170 m) and takes three to four hours for trained alpinists. It is a glacial race without technical difficulty, except for the crossing of the summit rimaye, random.
The current climb record is 1 h 57 from the Carle yard (1,874 m), made by Mathéo Jacquemoud in June 2011; it improves the record of Kílian Jornet dating from 2005. The record for round-trip skiing in mountain is 2 h 46 from the meadow of Madame Carle, directed by Steven Blanc in May 2014.

The painter 
Charles-Henri Contencin (1898-1955) is a French painter who painted many landscapes of mountains and high mountains of the great Alpine peaks (mainly Mont Blanc and Massif and the Écrins). His palette is very 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 left an important work. After many years of contempt coming mainly from parisian critics and intelligentsia, Contencin is now recognized worldwide as one of the major mountain painters of the 20th century. 

__________________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LES PLEÏADES BY JONH RUSKIN

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

 Les Pleïades (1,306 m - 4,285 ft) 

 Switzerland 

 In Morning in Spring, with North-East Wind, at Vevey,  

watercolour and bodycolour over graphite, c. 1849-1869, Ashmolean Museum Oxford

The mountain 
Les Pleïades (1,306 m - 4,285 ft)  is the name of a Swiss mountain and a tourist resort in the canton of Vaud, located near Lake Geneva and Vevey. Its former name is the Pleiaux, probably referring to either the word Pleyau (gift in kind to the local lord) or to a deformation of the term Laplayau, which indicated the place where horses are spliced ​​after the wood felled.
The current name was given by Philippe Bridel in reference to the Pleïade of Greek mythology.
The Pleïades are the beginning of the chain of pre-Alps from the west. From the summit (where there is a relay for radioamateur transmissions), one can see Lake Geneva, the rocks of Naye, the plain of the Rhone and the Dents du Midi.
Access by car to the top of the Pleiades is not possible. The narrow road from Blonay stops at the hamlet of Lally, about 20 minutes walk from the resort. The Vevey-Blonay-Les Pléiades cogwheel train, belonging to the MOB group, joins the summit directly from the Vevey station.
The Pleiades are home to a nearby ski area, whose lifts belong to the towns of Blonay and Saint-Légier-La Chiésaz.

The painter
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
He was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century, and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.
About mountains he painted quite a lot of times, Ruskin wrote: "They are the great cathedrals of the earth, with their portals of rock, the mosaics of clouds, the choirs of torrents, and the altars of snow, sometimes with purple sparkling stars." and "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery."

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

ARSIA MONS BY NASA MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR

NASA MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR (1996-2007) 

Arsia Mons (17, 761 m  17 / - 58, 721ft / 11 mi)

MARS 

1. In Arsia Mons Spiral Cloud, June 19, 2001 

2. In Possible caves of Arsia Mons, HiRISE image, Laszlo P. Keszthelyi, August 9, 2007  

The mountain
Arsia Mons (20,000 m / 20 km - 63, 360ft / 12mi) is the southernmost of three volcanos with Ascraeus Mons, and Pavonis Mons (collectively known as Tharsis Montes) on the Tharsis bulge near the equator of the planet Mars, the tallest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, is to its northwest. Arsia Mons was named by Giovanni Schiaparelli after the legendary Roman forest of Arsia Silva.
Arsia Mons is a shield volcano with a relatively low slope and a massive caldera at its summit. It is  large enough to cover the state of New Mexico.

The caldera of Arsia Mons was formed when the mountain collapsed in on itself after its reservoir of magma was exhausted. There are many other geologic collapse features on the mountain's flanks.
The caldera floor formed around 150 millions years ago.
One of the benefits of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Extended Mission is the opportunity to observe how the planet's weather changes during a second full martian year. The picture  of Arsia Mons  (photo 1 above) was taken June 19, 2001  southern spring equinox occurred the same day. On this particular day (the first day of Spring), the MOC wide angle cameras documented an unusual spiral-shaped cloud within the 110 km (68 mi) diameter caldera- the summit crater- of the giant volcano. Because the cloud is bright both in the red and blue images acquired by the wide angle cameras, it probably consisted mostly of fine dust grains. The cloud's spin may have been induced by winds off the inner slopes of the volcano's caldera walls resulting from the temperature differences between the walls and the caldera floor, or by a vortex as winds blew up and over the caldera. Similar spiral clouds were seen inside the caldera for several days; we don't know if this was a single cloud that persisted throughout that time or one that regenerated each afternoon. Sunlight illuminates this scene from the left/upper left.

Dark pits on some of the Martian volcanoes have been speculated to be entrances into caves . A HiRISE image (cf. photo 2 above), looking essentially straight down, saw only darkness in this pit. This time the pit was imaged from the west. Since the picture was taken at about 2:30 p.m. local (Mars) time,  August 9, 2007, the sun was also shining from the west. We can see the eastern wall of the pit catching the sunlight. This confirms that this pit is essentially a vertical shaft cut through the lava flows on the flank of the volcano. Such pits form on similar volcanoes in Hawaii and are called "pit craters." They generally do not connect to long open caverns but are the result of deep underground collapse. From the shadow of the rim cast onto the wall of the pit NASA could calculate that the pit is at least 178 meters - 584 feet deep. The pit is 150 x 157 meters (492 x 515 feet) across. 

The mission
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was an American robotic spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 7, 1996. Mars Global Surveyor was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface. As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed monitoring relay for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and it helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry.
It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2 November 2006, the spacecraft failed to respond to messages and commands. A faint signal was detected three days later which indicated that it had gone into safe mode. Attempts to recontact the spacecraft and resolve the problem failed, and NASA officially ended the mission in January 2007.
The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science investigation used 3 instruments: a narrow angle camera that took (black-and-white) high resolution images (usually 1.5 to 12 m per pixel) and red and blue wide angle pictures for context (240 m per pixel) and daily global imaging (7.5 km per pixel). MOC returned more than 240,000 images spanning portions of 4.8 Martian years, from September 1997 and November 2006.[6] A high resolution image from MOC covers a distance of either 1.5 or 3.1 km long. Often, a picture will be smaller than this because it has been cut to just show a certain feature. These high resolution images may cover features 3 to 10 km long. When a high resolution image is taken, a context image is taken as well. The context image shows the image footprint of the high resolution picture. Context images are typically 115.2 km square with 240 m/pixel resolution.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

ONE TREE HILL PAINTED BY AUGUSTUS EARLE

AUGUSTUS EARLE (1793-1838)

One Tree Hill (1, 112m - 3, 648ft)

Australia 

 In Blue Mountains, watercolor on paper, 1820,  National Library of Australia.

The mountain 
 One Tree Hill (1,112m -  3, 648ft) is the highest point of The Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, about 100 kilometers west of Sydney It is a  sandstone mountain range and form part of the Australian Cordillera that runs roughly east and southeast of the Australian coast for about 3,000 kilometers. The name "Blue Mountains" also refers to the City of Blue Mountains (or Blue Mountain Communal Council), a local government in the chain; or at the Blue Mountains National Park. The Blue Mountains are deep gorges, up to 1,000 meters. They occupy an area of ​​1 436 km2.
The Blue Mountains are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000.
The Blue Mountains were considered impenetrable by early settlers in Sydney, and were only crossed in 1813 by Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson. Rather than following the rivers, like previous explorers, who ultimately found only vertical cliffs, they decided to follow the ridges and high parts of the plateau. The first crossing of the Blue Mountains is generally considered one of the major steps in the opening of New South Wales to European settlers. However, there were already important areas accessible near the coast. The fact that the Blue Mountains have been a major impediment to settler expansion is largely myth.
A road, completed in early 1815, to cross the region was built in just 27 weeks by William Cox, on the orders of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, employing 30 convicts and 8 guards.
Coal and oil were mined near Katoomba until the Second World War.

The artist
Augustus Earle was a London-born travel artist...
- Augustus Earle (short biography)
- Augustus Earle (complete biography)

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MITRE PEAK / RAHOTU BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mitre Peak / Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) 

New Zealand (South Island)

2. In Mitre Peak from Milford Sound, watercolour, 1870 

About the works
During his years in New Zealand, from 1860 to 1879, John Barr Clark Hoyte travelled around the country searching for dramatic landscapes to paint.
The watercolours of Mitre Peak are thought to date from the 1870s.

The mountain
Mitre Peak/ Rahotu (1,683m - 5,522 ft) is an iconic mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, located on the shore of Milford Sound. It is one of the most photographed peaks in the country. The distinctive shape of the peak in southern New Zealand gives the mountain its name, after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. It was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of the HMS Acheron.
Part of the reason for its iconic status is its location. Close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island, it is a stunning sight. The mountain rises near vertically from the water of Milford Sound, which technically is a fjord.
The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, with Mitre Peak not even the tallest one, however from most easily accessible viewpoints, Mitre Peak appears as a single point.
Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94, in itself one of the most scenic roads in New Zealand.
Climbing
Mitre Peak is difficult to climb and not many people do so. The first attempt was made in 1883, but was aborted due to bad weather. The next attempt was on 13 March 1911 by JR Dennistoun from Peel Forest. People did not believe Dennistoun, who claimed to have built a cairn on the peak to which he had fixed his handkerchief. Those facts were confirmed by the next successful climbers in 1914. There are six routes up to Mitre Peak, and most climbers start by getting a boat to Sinbad Bay.

The painter
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London, the son of Samuel Hoyte, a landowner. His mother's name is not known, nor are any details of his childhood. From 1856 to 1859 he was employed as a planter in Demerara, Guyana, after which he returned to England. On 1860, at Leamington, Warwickshire, he married Rose Esther Elizabeth Parsons, daughter of an iron merchant. Within three months they sailed on the Egmont for Auckland, New Zealand, where they were to live for 16 years. Three daughters were born in Auckland, and the couple may also have had a son. A brother of John Hoyte emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in the 1870s.
Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. In January 1866 he exhibited views from Whangarei, Coromandel, Auckland, Waikato, the Wellington region and Nelson, although some of these pictures were not painted from the subject. In the 1870s he travelled each summer, progressively adding the thermal region, Taranaki, Nelson, Christchurch, Arthur's Pass, Banks Peninsula and Otago to his repertoire between 1872 and 1876.
His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
The success of the art unions of his work shows that the subjects he painted were in harmony with public taste. Despite the exceptional landscapes which appear so frequently in his production – geysers, the Pink and White Terraces, fiords, mountains and lakes – it appears that his preference was for a more gentle, picturesque mode of landscape art rather than the heightened tensions of the sublime. The Otago Guardian in 1876 described 'the aspect of repose which usually characterises Mr Hoyte's illustrations of native landscapes'. A comparison of Fiordland subjects painted by Hoyte and John Gully shows that Hoyte eschewed the manipulation of the viewer's emotions which the latter exploited so regularly. Even in his pastoral subjects Gully could be relied on to introduce an epic element which Hoyte usually avoided. Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT STANLEY / SAVOIA PEAK PHOTOGRAPHED BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943)

Mont Stanley / Savoia Peak (4,977 m - 16, 330 ft)

Congo - Uganda border 

In Mt Stanley from lake Bujuku, 1906, The Georgian Museum of Photography

The mountain
Mount Stanley (5,109 m -16,762 ft) is located in the Rwenzori range and is the highest mountain of both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and the third highest in Africa, after Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 m -19,340ft) and Mount Kenya (5,199 m - 17,057ft). The peak and several other surrounding peaks are high enough to support glaciers. Mount Stanley is named for the journalist and explorer, Sir Henry Morton Stanley. It is part of the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, a UNESCO world Heritage Site.
Mt. Stanley consists of two twin summits and several lower peaks which are :
Margherita Peak (5,109m - 16,763ft), Alexandra Peak (5,091m - 16,703ft), Albert Peak (5,087m - 16,690ft), Savoia Peak (4,977m - 16,330ft), Ellena Peak (4,968m -16,300ft), Elizabeth Peak (4,929m - 16,170 ft), Phillip Peak (4,920m - 16,140ft), Moebius Peak (4,916m - 16,130 ft) and Great Tooth (4,603m - 15,100ft).
Mt. Stanley was first climbed in 1906 by the Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia , Duke of the Abruzzi, (1873-1933), J. Petigax, C. Ollier, and J. Brocherel. He is known as well for his Arctic explorations and for his mountaineering expeditions, particularly to Mount Saint Elias (Alaska–Yukon) and K2 (Pakistan–China). Margherita Peak is named after Queen Margherita of Italy the prince's cousin.
The Rwenzori Mountains National Park is considered a model for integration of cultural values into the Protected Area Management framework as an innovative approach to resource management, the first of its kind in Africa. As a result the local communities have embraced collaborative resource management initiatives. Given its significance as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Albertine Rift, various local and international NGOs have supported the management and conservation of the property. A General Management Plan guides management operations on-site. Key challenges to address include illegal felling of trees, snow recession due to global warming, human population pressure adjacent to the property and management of waste generated through tourism operations. UWA is addressing the above threats through resource protection, community conservation education, research and ranger-based monitoring, ecotourism and transboundary initiatives with the DRC. The long-term maintenance of the integrity of the property will be achieved through sustainable financing, ecological monitoring, continued collaboration with key stakeholders and regional cooperation.

The artist
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 in 1909;
- In Morocco in 1925.
During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram (K2), he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.
Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II. His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.
His photos mountain are still considered today to be among the finest ever made.
Jim Curran believes that "Sella remains probably the greatest photographer of the mountain. His name is synonymous with technical perfection and aesthetic refinement. "
The quality of the pictures of Vittorio Sella is partly explained by the use of a view camera 30 × 40 cm, despite the difficulty of the transportation of such a device, both heavy and fragile in places inaccessible; to be able to transport it safely, he had to make special pieces that can be stored in saddle bags. His photographs have been widely distributed, either through the press or in the galleries, and were unanimously celebrated; Ansel Adams, who was able to admire thirty-one in an exhibition that was organized at Sella American Sierra Club, said they inspired him "a religious kind of sense of wonder." Many of his pictures were taken in the mountains for the very first time in the History, which give them a much artistic, historical but also scientific value ; for example, one could measure the decline in the Rwenzori glaciers in Central Africa.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

JEBEL KSEL PAINTED BY EUGENE FROMENTIN

EUGÈNE FROMENTIN (1820-1876) 

Jebel Ksel (2, 008 m - 6, 588ft )

Algeria 

In Un Campement dans les Montagnes de l'Atlas, oil on canvas, (150 x 190 cm), ca. 1865,

The Walters Art Museum

About this painting 
Prosper Dorbec in "L'Hellénisme d'Eugène Fromentin" in the "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"   (1924)  singled out Fromentin as a classicist among Orientalists. For the painter-writer, according to Dorbec, the desert and the ramparts of Aïn Mahdy became the plains of Ilium. In this spacious view, characteristic of the artist's production in the mid-sixties, the bold silhouettes of the horsemen, their generalized treatment and the essentially static composition reaffirm the classical character of Fromentin's painting. Shown are a group of Arabs examining a horse being displayed for sale.

A rather similar composition, "Horse Market in Algeria" 1867, appeared on the New York art market in 1913. Related studies include a view similar to the group of would-be purchasers in this scene, "Five Standing Arabs" 1874, The William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center; a smaller subject sold in the Verdé-Delisle Collection, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, May 29, 1879, no. 35; and a three-figured composition sold at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 12, 1943, no. 26.
The painting above was acquired by William T. Walters, between 1878 and 1884

The mountain 

Jebel Ksel (2.008 m - 6,588ft) ) is the highest of the six peaks of the Amour Range, located in the Algerian Atlas, which are  Guern Arif, Mount Sidi Okba, Mount Gourou,  Oum El Guedour, Kef Sidi Bouzid. Jebel Ksel summit is located 400 km south of Algiers, in the province of El Bayadh, in the north of the country. The largest city  around  is El Bayadh, located 13.2 km west of Djebel Ksel.

The Amour Range is a mountain range in Algeria, which comprises part of the Saharan Atlas of the Atlas Mountain System.
The Amour Range is located in the central area of the Saharan Atlas, with the Ksour Range in the western end and the Ouled-Naïl Rangein the eastern end.
The town of Aflou, one of the highest municipalities in Algeria and also one of the coldest, is located in the range at an elevation of 1,426 m. There are about 35,000 people living in the area of the Amour.  

The painter 

Brilliant student from a bourgeois family of La Rochelle, Eugene Fromentin is moving towards a career as a magistrate. In order not to disappoint paternal ambitions, he studies law in Paris. At the same time, he showed a great interest in the arts, notably painting and literature. In 1845, he even published a brilliant review of the Salon of 1845 in "The Organic Review of the West" a literary journal of his friend Emile Beltremieux, as well as some poems. It then becomes obvious to the young man that law is not his vocation. Assisted by Charles Michel, a family friend, he manages to convince his father to let him follow artistic studies.

He thus enters the studio of Joseph Remond before integrating the following year that of Louis-Nicolas Cabat. Fromentin flourishes beside his new master, who introduces him to landscape painting. However, the young artist who wants to paint more exotic panoramas decides to visit Algeria. He arrived in Algiers in 1846, accompanied by his friend Armand du Mesnil, then went to Blida nicknamed "the city of roses". The artist is captivated by the charm of a warm and colorful nature.

Returning to Paris in 1847, he exhibited for the first time three paintings at the Salon of French Artists "Les  Gorges de la Chiffa", " Une Mosquée près d'Alger" and " Une ferme dans les environs de  La Rochelle" which immediately attract attention of connoisseurs and critics. Two years later, he received his first medal with the "Place de la Breche, Constantine", and in 1850 he exhibited eleven paintings, memories of his trip to Biskra. In 1852, he returned to Algeria accompanied by his wife, and this time he went to the desert to settle in Laghouat. During this stay, he made more than a hundred studies that will be the source of a fruitful production of orientalist works.

In 1857, he published his travelogues "Une année au Sahel" and "Un été au Sahara" in the Revue de Paris. This is the dedication for Fromentin who is recognized as a painter of talent but also as a great writer. After the publication of these two volumes, Theophile Gauthier writes "M. Fromentin has a privilege that I have not yet seen anyone possess to an equal degree! He has two muses: he is a painter in two languages. He is not an amateur in one or the other, he is the artist, conscientious, stern and fine in both ".

The mailings to the Salon of French Artists follow one another so much the work of the painter is prolix. The artist obtained many medals between 1859 and 1867. Classified out of competition and elevated to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1869, Eugène Fromentin is recognized as one of the greatest Orientalist artists of his time.

In a jury report, Mr. Cador said: "M. Fromentin triumphs ... he has created a new genre in painting, as much as to say that he has discovered a world, his paintings falling under no tradition, no school; it is an original talent, in the good sense of the word, full of ardor and brilliance, which attracts and captivates by the powerful charm of its color, the grace of the details, by the poetic sentiment which overflows of all its compositions " .

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE POPOCATEPETL PAINTED BY DIEGO RIVERA

DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957) 

The Popocatépetl (5,426 m -17,802 ft) 

Mexico

In   The Threshing Floor (La era), oil on canvas, 100 x 114.6 cm, 1904,  

Museo Casa Diego Rivera, Guanajuato.

The mountain
Popocatépetl (5,426 m - 17,802 ft) is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca (it smokes) and tepētl (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity. By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.
Magma erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.

The painter
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican mural movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Rivera had a volatile marriage with fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
In 1926, Rivera became a member of AMORC, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, an occult organization founded by American occultist Harvey Spencer Lewis. In 1926, Rivera was among the founders of AMORC's Mexico City lodge, called Quetzalcoatl, and painted an image of Quetzalcoatl for the local temple.  In 1954, when he tried to be readmitted into the Mexican Communist Party from which he had previously been excluded because of his support of Trotsky, Rivera had to justify his AMORC activities. The Mexican Communist Party at that time excluded from its ranks members of Freemasonry, and regarded AMORC as suspiciously similar to Freemasonry.  Rivera answered that, by joining AMORC, he wanted to infiltrate a typical “Yankee” organization on behalf of Communism. However, he also claimed that AMORC was “essentially materialist, insofar as it only admits different states of energy and matter, and is based on ancient Egyptian occult knowledge from Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti.”

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT DISCOVERY (2) BY EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON

EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (1872-912)

Mount Discovery (2, 681m - 8,796 ft)

Antarctica

In The Last Sight of Mount Discovery, watercolour on paper (12.1 x 20.6cm.), 1904, Private owner 

About this painting
"And so that night [19 February 1904], running swiftly through the water with a howling gale behind, we saw the last of the McMurdo Sound. It was a fine scene, for although the wind blew with great force, the sky was comparatively clear. Away to the south-west behind the ragged storm clouds could be seen the deep red of the setting sun, against which there stood in sharp outline the dark forms of the western mountains and the familiar cone of Mount Discovery. On our right in a gloomy threatening sky rose the lofty snow-clad slopes of Erebus and the high domed summit of Cape Bird. For the last time we gazed at all these well-known landmarks with feelings that were not far removed from sadness...'
(R.F. Scott, The Voyage of the 'Discovery', London: 1907, II, pp.274-5).

The mountain
Mount Discovery (2, 681m - 8,796 ft) is a conspicuous, isolated stratovolcano, lying at the head of McMurdo Sound and east of Koettlitz Glacier, overlooking the NW portion of the Ross Ice Shelf. It forms the center of a three-armed mass of which Brown Peninsula is one extension to the north; Minna Bluff is a second to the east; the third is Mount Morning to the west. It was discovered by the Discovery British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-1904) and named for their expedition ship Discovery.

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.

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

FUJIYAMA FROM ISAWA / 富士山 BY KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI / 葛飾 北斎

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI / 葛飾 北斎 (1760 - 1849)

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft) 

Japan 

In  Fuji seen from Isawa, Kai Province at daybreak rising out of the mists.

Woodblock print-  Ashmolean Museum. Oxford University 

The mountain 

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft) is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan. Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707-08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

The artist
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji " both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. In this series, Mt Fuji is painted on different meteorological conditions, in different hours of the days, in different seasons and from different places.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau