MOUNT FUJI / 富士山 BY KAMISAKA SEKKA / 神坂 雪佳

KAMISAKA SEKKA / 神坂 雪佳 (1866 - 1942)

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

 Japan 

In  Fuji - From Momoyogusa (A World of Things), 1909-1910   

The  New York Public Library Digital Collections 

The artist

Kamisaka Sekka / 神坂 雪佳,was an important artistic figure in early twentieth-century Japan. 

Born in Kyoto to a Samurai family, his talents for art and design were recognized early. He eventually allied himself with the traditional Rinpa school of art. He is considered the last great proponent of this artistic tradition. Sekka also worked in lacquer and in a variety of other media.

As traditional Japanese styles became unfashionable (such as Rimpa style), Japan implemented policies to promote the country's unique artistic style by upgrading the status of traditional artists who infused their craft with a dose of modernism. 

In 1901, Sekka was sent by the Japanese government to Glasgow where he was heavily influenced by Art Nouveau. He sought to learn more about the Western attraction to Japonism, and which elements or facets of Japanese art would be more attractive to the West. Returning to Japan, he taught at the newly opened Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts, experimented with Western tastes, styles, and methods, and incorporated them into his otherwise traditional Japanese-style works. While he sticks to traditional Japanese subject matter, and some elements of Rimpa painting, the overall effect is very Western and modern. He uses bright colors in large swaths, his images seeming on the verge of being patterns rather than proper pictures of a subject; the colors and patterns seem almost to "pop", giving the paintings an almost three-dimensional quality. 

His vision of MountFuji  (above) is quite in this style.

The mountain
The legendary Mount Fuji (富士山) 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" or simply "Fuji."
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. 

Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day. 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.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

SAKURAJIMA / 桜島 BY TOSHIRO MAEDA / 前田敏郎

TOSHIRO MAEDA / 前田敏郎  (1904-1990)

Sakurajima / 桜島 (1, 117 m - 3,665 ft)

Japan 

In  Sakurajima in the morning light,  Kageshima, Kyushu, v. 1935-1942. print

The volcano
Sakurajima / 桜島 (1, 117 m - 3,665 ft) which means "Cherry blossom Island" is an active composite volcano and a former island in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, Japan. Sakurajima is a stratovolcano with 3 peaks : Kita-dake (northern peak), Naka-dake (central peak) and Minami-dake (southern peak) which is active now. Kita-dake is Sakurajima's highest peak.
The mountain is located in a part of Kagoshima Bay known as Kinkō-wan. The former island is part of the city of Kagoshima. The surface of this volcanic peninsula is about 77 km2 (30 sq mi).
The lava flows of the 1914 eruption connected it with the Osumi Peninsula.
The volcanic activity still continues nowadays, dropping volcanic ash on the surroundings, making of this volcanoes one of the most active in the world with, at least, a daily minor eruption. Earlier eruptions built the white sands highlands in the region. On September 13, 2016 a team of experts from Bristol University and the Sakurajima Volcano Research Centre in Japan suggested that the volcano could have a major eruption within 25 years.

The artist 
Toshiro Maeda / 前田敏郎 was born in 1904 in Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. In 1927 he graduated from Kobe School of Commerce. His first job was as a commercial illustrator in Osaka, working in the advertising section of a Department Store. While working for the department store company, he began to pursue his own artistic career as a self-taught artist. He taught himself linocut and later woodlock printmaking from a book written by the sosaku hanga artist and teacher Unichi Hiratsuka, Hanga no giho (Wood-block Printmaking Techniques). After he had finished his service in the army, Maeda Toshiro joined a number of artist groups in Osaka where he lived.
In 1929 he exhibited with the sosaku hanga group Shunyo-kai. In 1932 he became a member of the Japanese Print Association. In 1940, Maeda Toshiro contributed to the series One Hundred New Views to Japan.
After the end of the Pacific war, the Japanese artists opened themselves rapidly towards the international art scene with worldwide exhibitions, but also by venturing into Western printmaking techniques. Maeda Toshiro did both. He exhibited in Paris and Mexico. After 1950 he was an internationally established artist. Also his style changed. He began to integrate abstract and cubist elements into his artworks. Toshiro Maeda participated in the International Print Biennales in 1957, 1960 and 1962.
Maeda Toshiro died in 1990 in Osaka.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

COPAHUE VOLCANO PAINTED BY ONOFRE JARPA-LABRA

ONOFRE JARPA-LABRA (1849 - 1940)  

 Copahue volcano (2,997 m - 9,833 ft)

Chile, Argentina border

In En la Cordillera de Chillan, Quebrada el Manzano 1893, oil on canvas, 200 x1 31cm, 

 Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile

The volcano
Copahue  (2,997 m  - 9,833 ft) is a stratovolcano in the Andes on the border of Bío Bío Region, Chile and Neuquén Province, Argentina. There are nine volcanic craters along a 2 km (1.2 mi) line, the easternmost of which is historically the most active, and contains a 300 m (1000 ft) wide crater lake. Eruptions from this crater lake have ejected pyroclastic rocks and chilled liquid sulfur fragments. Although the lake emptied during the 2000 eruption, it later returned to its previous levels. Copahue means "sulphur waters" in Mapuche.
The modern structure is an elongated shield volcano, with a maximum thickness of 22 km and a minimum of 8 km. It has erupted ten times since 1900, most recently in March 2016.[
 On 27 May 2013, it was reported that a red alert had been issued and the evacuation of around 2,000 people was to begin.

The painter 
 The  Chilean landscape painter  Onofre Jarpa Labra was a Romantic style painter and an essayist on various artistic topics. His education began at the Instituto Nacional, a prestigious school that has produced many of Chile's presidents. He continued his studies at the Academia de Bellas Artes, directed by the conservative Italian painter Alejandro Ciccarelli, who resigned in 1869 and was replaced by the German painter, Ernesto Kirchbach, who took a progressive approach that was more amenable to Jarpa's temperament.
In 1875, he won second prize at an international exhibition in Santiago and, six years later, received a government grant to study in Europe, where he visited Spain, Rome and Paris. In Spain, he worked with Francisco Pradilla, who had a major influence on his style. His most important period, however, came during his stay in Venice, where his style became more Naturalistic and he began producing still-lifes. He also became devoted to painting en plein air. After his European tour, he visited the Holy Land, where he painted scenes from the River Jordan and Mount Carmel.
Upon returning to Chile, he became a teacher. Among his best-known students were José Tomás Errázuriz, Alberto Valenzuela Llanos and the caricaturist Jorge Délano Frederick.  He resisted the trends toward French Impressionism, represented by his former classmate, Juan Francisco González, although he was on good terms with the Grupo Montparnasse and the Generación del 13.
In addition to his landscapes and still lifes, he painted several portraits of notable public figures. A quiet, deeply religious man, he continued to paint almost until the day of his death. Most of his works are now in private collection.

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2019 - Men Portraits 
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

CERRO ACONCAGUA PAINTED BY ANTONIO SMITH

ANTONIO SMITH (1832–1877)

Cerro Aconcagua (6, 961m - 22,838ft) 

Argentina 

In Santiago de Chile desde Peñalolen, oil on canvas, 1875, Private collection

The mountain
Cerro Aconcagua (6,961 meters -22,838 ft) is the highest mountain outside of Asia and by extension the highest point in both the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. The origin of the name is contested; it is either from the Mapuche "Aconca-Hue", which refers to the Aconcagua River, the Quechua "Ackon Cahuak", meaning "Sentinel of Stone", or Quechua "Anco Cahuac", meaning "White Sentinel" or the Aymara "Janq'u Q'awa" meaning "White Ravine", "White Brook".
Aconcagua is located in the Andes mountain range, in the Mendoza Province, Argentina, and lies 112 kilometers (70 mi) northwest of its capital, the city of Mendoza and 108 km (67 mi) from Santiago de Chile (the capital of Chile). The summit is in fact located about 5 kilometers from San Juan Province and 15 kilometers from the international border with Chile; its nearest higher neighbor is Tirich Mir in the Hindu Kush, 16,520 kilometers (10,270 mi) away.
Aconcagua is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven continents.  The 7 summits (which are obviously 8 !)... are :
Mt Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m), Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Vinson Massif (4,892m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko (2,228m).

Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass.  Aconcagua was created by the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate during the geologically recent Andean orogeny; but it is not a volcano. It is bounded by the Valle de las Vacas to the north and east and the Valle de los Horcones Inferior to the west and south. The mountain and its surroundings are part of the Aconcagua Provincial Park. The mountain has a number of glaciers. The largest glacier is the Ventisquero Horcones Inferior at about 10 km long, which descends from the south face to about 3600 m altitude near the Confluencia camp. Two other large glacier systems are the Ventisquero de las Vacas Sur and Glaciar Este/Ventisquero Relinchos system at about 5 km.

The painter
Miguel Antonio Smith Irisarri was a Chilean landscape painter, engraver, caricaturist and art teacher.
His father, Jorge, was a native of Scotland and served as the consul in Santiago. His mother, Carmen, was the daughter of independence leader Antonio José de Irisarri and the sister of poet Hermógenes Irisarri. His family wanted him to be a lawyer. With his own money, he purchased brushes and paints, but they were thrown away.
The failure of the Revolution of 1859 forced him to emigrate. He decided to go to France and, after a short time, became reasonably successful. However, the Bohemian lifestyle he had adopted caused him to squander his money, so he had to go to the United States to seek financial assistance from his grandfather, Antonio José, who at that time was a diplomat in New York. He then went to Italy, where he spent a year working with the landscape painter Carlo Marco. After that, he decided to return to Chile, despite the dangers involved in sea travel during the Chincha Islands War.
In 1866, following a difficult six-month voyage, he landed at San Antonio and joined a group of firefighters from Santiago, although he did not remain with them for long. Serious cultural reforms were sweeping the country, but he was amazed to see how little had changed at the Academy. That is, Ciccarelli was still in charge, so Smith established his own teaching workshop. In 1869, Ciccarelli was replaced by Ernst Kirchbach, a German painter who was more amenable to Smith, and they began sharing students. Some of his best-known students include Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma, Pedro Lira, Alberto Orrego Luco, Onofre Jarpa and Cosme San Martín.
Although an excellent teacher, he was very disorganized, painting when the mood struck him. As a result, many of his works were done quickly or left unfinished. His many imitators often make it difficult to assign authorship with certainty. The majority of his paintings are in private collections.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE CASTKILLS PAINTED BY DEWITT CLINTON BOUTELLE

DEWITT CLINTON BOUTELLE (1820-1884)

Catskill Mountains (1,279 m - 4,180 ft) 

United States of America (New York State)

In Sunset in the Catskills, Oil on canvas, circa 1866, 50.8 x 76.2 cm , Private collection

The mountains
The Catskill Mountains (1,279 m - 4,180 ft) also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas close to or within the borders of the Catskill Park, a 700,000-acre (2,800 km2) forest preserve forever protected from many forms of development under New York state law.
Geologically, the Catskills are a mature dissected plateau, a once-flat region subsequently uplifted and eroded into sharp relief by watercourses. The Catskills form the northeastern end of the Allegheny Plateau (also known as the Appalachian Plateau).
The Catskills are well known in American culture, both as the setting for many 19th-century Hudson River School paintings and as the favored destination for vacationers from New York City in the mid-20th century. The region's many large resorts gave countless young stand-up comedians an opportunity to hone their craft. In addition, the Catskills have long been a haven for artists, musicians, and writers, especially in and around the towns of Phoenicia and Woodstock.

The painter
DeWitt Clinton Boutelle was a self-educated artist but began painting under the obvious influence of Thomas Cole and Asher Brown Durand at an early age. Both men who influenced him were well known Hudson River School members. 

The year that Boutelle started working is unknown but records show that he was painting in New York City by 1846..
In 1855 he moved to Philadelphia. From the time Boutelle began painting to about 1857,  he painted almost entirely in the Hudson River Valley, Catskills, New Jersey, and along the Susquehanna. 

He did paint some subjects outside of this region, like Niagara Falls, but for the most part, he seldom left it.
In 1858, Boutelle moved one final time to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and settled there for good. He also became a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1862.

 Boutelle exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design (from 1846 to 1874). Between 1854 and 1869, his work could be seen at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Boutelle’s work was also displayed in the Boston Athenaeum (1854-61), the Washington Art Association (1857-59), and the American Art-Union (1845-52). On November 5, 1884, DeWitt Clinton Boutelle died after a nomadic life and career. 

His paintings can be found today in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, the High Museum of Art, and the Newark Museum, among other institutions.

TELEGRAPH HILL PAINTED BY CHILDE HASSAM

CHILDE HASSAM (1859-1935)

Telegraph Hill (84 m- 275 ft)  

United Sates od America (California)  

In Telegraph Hill, Oil on canvas, 1914 

The hill 
Telegraph Hill (84 m- 275 ft) is a hill and surrounding neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills".
Originally named Loma Alta (High Hill) by the Spaniards, the hill was then familiarly known as Goat Hill by the early San Franciscans and became the neighborhood of choice for many Irish immigrants. From 1825 through 1847, the area between Sansome and Battery, Broadway and Vallejo streets was used as a burial ground for foreign non-Catholic seamen.
The hill owes its name to a semaphore, a windmill-like structure erected in September 1849, for the purpose of signaling to the rest of the city the nature of the ships entering the Golden Gate.
The pole-and-arm signals on the Telegraph Hill semaphore became so well known to townspeople that, according to one story, during a play in a San Francisco theater, an actor held his arms aloft and cried, "Oh God, what does this mean?", prompting a rogue in the gallery to shout, "Sidewheel steamer!", which brought down the house.
Telegraph Hill is primarily a residential area, much quieter than adjoining North Beach with its bustling cafés and nightlife. Aside from Coit Tower, it is well known for its gardens flowing down Filbert Street down to Levi Plaza.
Today Telegraph Hill is known for supporting a flock of feral parrots, primarily red-masked parakeets (Aratinga erythrogenys), descended from escaped or released pets. The flock was popularized by a book and subsequent documentary (2003), both titled The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.
The birds, known in the bird trade as cherry-headed conures, are native to Peru and Ecuador; they have established a breeding colony, with the support of some residents, as reported in the film The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, and through the help of volunteers with Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue.  They range widely, including along The Embarcadero and in the Presidio.

The painter
Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.
In 1904 and 1908, he traveled to Oregon and was stimulated by new subjects and diverse views, frequently working out-of-doors with friend, lawyer and amateur painter Colonel C. E. S. Wood.
He produced over 100 paintings, pastels, and watercolors of the High Desert, the rugged coast, the Cascades, scenes of Portland. As usual, he adapted his style and colors to the subject at hand and the mood of place, but always in the Impressionist vein. With the art market now eagerly accepting his work, by 1909 Hassam was enjoying great success, earning as much as $6,000 per painting. His close friend and fellow artist J. Alden Weir commented to another artist : "Our mutual friend Hassam has been in the greatest of luck and merited success. He sold his apartment studio and has sold more pictures this winter, I think, than ever before and is really on the crest of the wave. So he goes around with a crisp, cheerful air."
The most distinctive and famous works of Hassam's later life comprise the set of some 30 paintings known as the "Flag series". He began these in 1916 when he was inspired by a "Preparedness Parade" (for the US involvement in World War I), which was held on Fifth Avenue in New York (renamed the "Avenue of the Allies" during the Liberty Loan Drives of 1918).Thousands participated in these parades, which often lasted for over twelve hours.
Being an avid Francophile, of English ancestry, and strongly anti-Germany, Hassam enthusiastically backed the Allied cause and the protection of French culture.
In 1919, Hassam purchased a home in East Hampton, New York. Many of his late paintings employed nearby subjects in that town and elsewhere on Long Island. In 1920, he received the Gold Medal of Honor for lifetime achievement from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and numerous other awards through the 1920s. Hassam traveled relatively little in his last years, but did visit California, Arizona, Louisiana, Texas, and Mexico. 

He died in East Hampton in 1935, at age 75.
He denounced modern trends in art to the end of his life, and he termed "art boobys" all the painters, critics, collectors, and dealers who got on the bandwagon and promoted Cubism, Surrealism and other avant-garde movements. Until a revival of interest in American Impressionism in the 1960s, Hassam was considered among the "abandoned geniuses". As French Impressionist paintings reached stratospheric prices in the 1970s, Hassam and other American Impressionists gained renewed interest and were bid up as well.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT HADDINGTON BY CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH

CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH (1776-1859),

Mount Haddington (1,630 m - 5,350 ft) 

Antarctica  (Ross Island) 

In Mount Haddington and Cape Gage from Views of Polar region, Watercolor and graphite, 
Yale Center for British Arts

The mountain 
Mount Haddington  (1,630 m - 5,350 ft) is a massive  high shield volcano comprising much of James Ross Island in Graham Land, Antarctica.  Mount Haddington was discovered on December 31, 1842 by the Ross expedition, a voyage of scientific exploration of the Antarctic from 1839 to 1843 led by James Clark Ross. Ross named the mountain after the Earl of Haddington, then First Lord of the Admiralty.
Mount Haddington is 60 km (37 mi) wide and has had numerous subglacial eruptions throughout its history, forming many tuyas. Some of its single eruptions were bigger in volume than a whole normal-sized volcano. Old eruption shorelines are widespread on the volcano's deeply eroded flanks.
Haddington formed along the Larsen Rift dominantly during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs but more recent eruptions have produced tuff cones on its slopes. The youngest tuff cones and pyroclastic cones on the eastern slope are situated below the summit icecap and may have formed in the last few thousand years. Effusive eruptions have created large deltas composed of hyaloclastite breccia and lava flows.

The artist 
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith,  was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier, and... spy as well !. His military career began in 1787, when he studied at the Austrian academy for artillery and engineers at Mechelen and Leuven in Belgium (his native country). Although his military service, which ended in 1820 and included the Napoleonic Wars, saw him travel extensively (including the West Indies, Canada, United States, Southern and Northern Europe and ...Antarctica).
As a prolific self-taught illustrator (over 38,000 drawings!) He left quite an important number of books of  beautifully watercolored landscapes taken all around the world. those nooks of watercolors are nowadays in the collections of  the Yale Center From British Art. Among them  :

- Views of France, Volume I (81 watercolors), Views of France, Volume II (93 watercolors), 

- Views of England and Wales, Volume I (82  watercolors),  Views of England and Wales, Volume II (74  watercolors),

- Views of Northern Europe, Volume I (68watercolors) , Views of Northern Europe, Volume II (78)  watercolors),  

- Views of Polar Regions (75  watercolors) (see above) 

- Views of Spain, Volume I (69 watercolors), Views of Spain, Volume II (72 watercolors), 

But one of his noteworthy achievements was an 1800 experiment to determine which color should be used for military uniforms.  He is also known in military history circles for Costume of the Army of the British Empire, produced towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and an accurate depiction of contemporary British uniform.

As an antiquarian, he also produced, in collaboration with Samuel Rush Meyrick, Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Islands, 1815, and The Ancient Costume of England, with historical illustrations of medieval knights, ladies, shipsm and battles. 

He also wrote on the history of the Seven Years' War and TheNatural history of dogs.

Quite a productive fellow ! 

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

RIESENGEBIRGE AND SZRENICA PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)

Szrenica (1,362 m - 4,469 ft)

Poland - Czech Republic border

In Riesengebirge - View of the Small Sturmhaube from Warmbrunn, 1810, Oil on canvas, 45 x 58 cm Puškin State Museum of Fine Arts., Moscow

The mountain
Szrenica (1,362 m - 4,469 ft) is a mountain peak situated in the western part of Karkonosze on Polish and Czech border within the Karkonosze National Park. Its name originates from the Polish word szron (frost). There is a weather station situated close to the summit. The peak is deforested, both the southern and the northern parts are used intensively for skiing. The elevation gain compared to the main range is approximately 60 m. Szrenica Is part of the Giant Mountains range (Riesengebirge in german) frequently painted by the  most famous romantic german painter Caspar David Friedrich.

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

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE LEVANNA CENTRALE PAINTED BY CESARE MAGGI

CESARE MAGGI (1881–1962) 

The Levanna centrale (3,619 m -11,873ft) 

France- Italy border 

In Dintorni di Ceresole Reale, oil on canvas 

The mountain
The Levanna centrale (3,619 m -11,873ft) is a mountain of Grian Alps at the border  between Savoy(France) and Piedmonte (IOtazly) . The Levanna consists of three vertices connected by the same ridge: the western Levanna (3,593 m - 11,794ft) ), the central Levanna ((3,619 m -11,873ft)  and the eastern Levanna (3,555 m- 11, 663ft)). From the Italian side, Levanna overlooks the Lanzo Valley and the Orco Valley; from the French side, it dominates Maurienne.
Ceresole Reale occupies the upper Orco Valley, which separates the Gran Paradiso massif from the Levanna Massif. It reaches its maximum altitude at the highest point of this last massif, Levanna Centrale. It is bordering on the east with the municipality of Noasca, in the south with that of Groscavallo, both in the province of Turin (Piedmont), in the west with the French municipalities of Val d'Isère and Bonneval-sur-Arc and in the North with the towns of Rhêmes-Notre-Dame and Valsavarenche, in the Aosta Valley. The Nivolet pass (2,612 m), on the territory of the municipality and at the limit of the Aosta Valley, is accessible by the SP50 road, which, in about twenty kilometers, crosses an altitude difference of nearly 1,000 m, but do not go down to the Aosta Valley.

The painter 
The italian painter Cesare Maggi was born into a family of actors, Maggi embarked on classical studies at his father’s wish but also took up painting at a very early age His debut in Florence at the Esposizione Annuale della Società di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1898 was followed by a short trip to Paris to catch up with the latest developments.
The crucial turning point in Maggi’s art came in 1889 with the posthumous show of work by Giovanni Segantini held by the Milanese Society of Fine Arts, which prompted a definitive shift to landscape painting of a Divisionist character. After a short stay in the Engadin, he returned to Milan before finally settling in Turin. Commercial collaboration with Alberto Grubicy until 1913 enabled Maggi to establish himself quickly as one of the leading representatives of the second generation of Divisionist painters in Italy. He painted a repertoire of readily comprehensible mountain landscapes focusing primarily on aspects of the visual perception of the reflection of light and colour but lacking the deep spirituality of Segantini’s work. He took part in the major Italian and European exhibitions and the Venice Biennale devoted an entire room to his work at the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte of Venice in 1912. After an interlude devoted to portrait painting in the same decade, the artist’s mature work focused on greater simplification of subject matter, mostly in landscapes. 

Maggi obtained the chair in painting at the Albertina Academy, Turin, in 1936.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

DARIAL GORGE AND MOUNT KAZBEK BY IVAN AIVAZOVZKY

IVAN AIVAZOVSKY (1817-1900)

Darial Gorge (1,447m - 4,747 ft) 

Mount Kazbek (5,047m - 16, 558ft)

Russia - Georgia border 

In Darial Gorge and Mount Kazbek in the background, 1862,  oil on canvas

The mountain and gorge
The Darial Gorge (1, 447m - 4,747 ft) is a river gorge on the border between Russia and Georgia. It is at the east base of Mount Kazbek, south of present-day Vladikavkaz. The gorge was carved by the river Terek, and is approximately 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) long. The steep granite walls of the gorge can be as much as 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) tall in some places.
Mount Kazbek (5,047m - 16, 558ft)  is a dormant stratovolcano and one of the major mountains of the Caucasus located in the Kazbegi District of Georgia, just south of the border with Russia. It is the third highest peak in Georgia (after Mount Shkhara and Janga) and the seventh highest summit in the Caucasus Mountains. Kazbek is also the second highest volcanic summit in the Caucasus, after Mount Elbrus. The summit lies directly to the west of the town of Stepantsminda and is the most prominent geographic feature of the area. Mount Kazbek is the highest peak of Eastern Georgia.
The region is highly active tectonically, with numerous small earthquakes occurring at regular intervals. An active geothermal/hot spring system also surrounds the mountain.
Kazbek is a potentially active volcano, built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 1,770 m (5,800 feet). Kazbek is the highest of the volcanic cones of the Kazbegi volcanic group which also includes Mount Khabarjina (3,142 m).
Owing to the steepness of its slopes, the glaciers of Kazbek are not very large. The total combined area of all of Kazbek's glaciers is 135 kmІ. The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak (Devdaraki), which creeps down the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level of 2,295 meters (7,530 feet). Kazbek's other glaciers include the Mna, Denkara, Gergeti, Abano, and Chata. The recent collapse of the Kolka Glacier, located in a valley between Mt. Jimara and Kazbek in the year 2002 was attributed to solfatara volcanic activity along the northern slope of the mountain, although there was no eruption. In addition to the 2002 event, a massive collapse of the Devdaraki Glacier on the mountain's northeastern slope which occurred on August 20, 2014, led to the death of seven people. The glacier collapse dammed the Terek River in the Daryal Gorge and flooded the Georgian Military Highway.

The painter
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (Ива́н Константи́нович Айвазо́вский) was a Russian Romantic painter. Despite he is considered one of the greatest marine artists in history, he painted a few mountains landscapes. Aivazovsky was born into an Armenian family in the Black Sea port of Feodosia and was mostly based in his native Crimea. Following his education at the Imperial Academy of Arts, Aivazovsky traveled to Europe and lived briefly in Italy in the early 1840s. He then returned to Russia and was appointed the main painter of the Russian Navy. Aivazovsky had close ties with the military and political elite of the Russian Empire and often attended military maneuvers. He was sponsored by the state and was well-regarded during his lifetime. The saying "worthy of Aivazovsky's brush", popularized by Anton Chekhov, was used in Russia for "describing something ineffably lovely." One of the most prominent Russian artists of his time, Aivazovsky was also popular outside Russia. He held numerous solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States. During his almost 60-year career, he created around 6,000 paintings, making him one of the most prolific artists of his time. The vast majority of his works are seascapes, but he often depicted battle scenes, Armenian themes, and portraiture. Most of Aivazovsky's works are kept in Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian museums as well as private collections.

Full biography entry = >

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE HÖHER GÖLL PAINTED BY CARL ROTTMANN

CARL ROTTMANN (1797-1850)

Höher Göll (2,522 m (8,274 ft) 

Germany- Austria Border  

In "Hoher Göll im Alpenglühen ", 1846, Oil on canvas, 88 × 112 cm 

Nuremberg Germanisches Nationalmuseum

The  mountain 
The Höher Göll is a 2,522 m (8,274 ft) mountain in the Berchtesgaden Alps, the highest peak of the Göll massif, which straddles the border between the German state of Bavaria and Salzburg, Austria.
Rising above Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, the massif is situated between the Königssee and the Königsseer Ache in the west, opposite the Watzmann, and the Salzach Valley of the Tennengau region in the east. Neighbouring peaks include Hohes Brett, Jenner and the Kehlstein spur with the famous Kehlsteinhaus, linked with the Hoher Göll via the Mannlgrat ridge.
The first documented ascent was made by the ordinand Valentin Stanič from Bodrež in Gorizia and Gradisca, who at that time studied theology at the nearby University of Salzburg and had also climbed the Watzmann peak.
A wide variety of routes lead to its summit, ranging from UIAA Grade I on a Klettersteig up the Mannlgrat ridge to UIAA Grade VIII up the West face.  The Kehlsteinhaus is located on the German side, at 1,834 m. A trail leads from it to the Mannlgrat, the easiest route to the top.
Another popular round-trip ascent of the Hoher Göll is from the Purtschellerhaus mountain hut up to the summit and down to the Stahl-Haus.

The painter
Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann was a German landscape painter and the most famous member of the Rottmann family of painters. Rottmann belonged to the circle of artists around the Ludwig I of Bavaria, who commissioned large landscape paintings exclusively from him. He is best known for mythical and heroising landscapes. The landscape painter Karl Lindemann-Frommel belonged to his school. Rottmann received his first drawing lessons from his father, Friedrich Rottmann, who taught drawing at the university in Heidelberg. He formed himself chiefly through the study of nature and of great masterworks. In his first artistic period, he painted atmospheric phenomena. After gaining prominence with Heidelberg at Sunset (a water color), and Castle Eltz, he settled in Munich in 1822 and devoted himself to Bavarian scenery. Here his second period began, and in 1824 he married Friedericke, the daughter of his uncle, Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, who served as an attendant at court. Through this connection, he made the acquaintance of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who in 1826/27 sponsored his travels in Italy in order to widen his repertoire, which up to that point consisted solely of domestic, German, landscapes. In Italy, Rottmann made sketches for the 28 Italian landscapes in fresco which he was commissioned to paint in the arcades of the Hofgarten at Munich. The cycle, completed in 1833, gave visual expression to Ludwig’s alliance with Italy, and raised the genre of landscape painting to the height of history painting, the preferred mode of the King’s other great commissions for monumental painting. The frescos unfortunately deteriorated under climatic influences. The cartoons for them are in the Darmstadt Gallery.
In 1834 Rottmann traveled to Greece to prepare for a commission from Ludwig for a second cycle; one might mark here the beginning of his third period. At first also intended for the Hofgarten arcade, the 23 great landscapes (of which the one above) were eventually installed in the newly built Neue Pinakothek where they were given their own hall.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT TABOR BY CORNELIUS DE BRUYN

CORNELIUS DE BRUYN (1652-1726)

Mount Tabor  (575 m -1,886 ft)

Israel  (Galilee)

 In Montagne de Thabor, Voyages au levant, 1714

The mountain 
Mount Tabor  (575 m - 1,886 ft), (not to be confused with Mount Thabor int he French Alps ) is located in Lower Galilee, Israel, at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, 11 miles (18 km) west of the Sea of Galilee.  Mount Tabor is a Inselberg : an isolated hill or small mountain rising abruptly from gently sloping or level surrounding land, and is not volcanic.
In the Hebrew Bible (Joshua, Judges), Mount Tabor is the site of the Battle of Mount Tabor between the Israelite army under the leadership of Barak and the army of the Canaanite king of Hazor, Jabin, commanded by Sisera.
In Christian tradition, Mount Tabor is the site of the Transfiguration of Jesus.
Mount Tabor is shaped almost like half a sphere, suddenly rising from rather flat surroundings and dominating  the town in the plain below, Kfar Tavor. At the top of the mountain are two Christian monasteries, one Greek Orthodox on the northeast side and one Roman Catholic on the southeast side. The Catholic church at the top is easily visible from afar.
At the base it is almost fully surrounded by the Arab villages of Daburiyya, Shibli, and Umm al-Ghanam. Mount Tabor is located off Highway 65, and its summit is accessible by road via Shibli. A hiking tracks starts from the Bedouin village Shibli and is about five kilometers long. It is part of the Israel National Trail.

The artist
Cornelius de Bruyn, (also called Cornelis de Bruijn) was a Dutch artist and traveler. He made two large tours and published illustrated books with his observations of people, buildings, plants and animals.
During his first tour, he visited Rome. He travelled in Egypt and climbed to the top of a pyramid where he left his signature. De Bruijn made secret drawings of Jerusalem, then part of the Ottoman Empire. His drawings of Palmyra are copies. De Bruijn reached Cyprus and stayed among the Dutch merchants in Smyrna and Constantinople.

From 1684 he worked in Venice with the painter Johann Carl Loth, returning in 1693 to The Hague, where he sold his souvenirs. In 1698 he published his book with drawings, which was a success and was translated in several languages. Two examples have colored illustrations, the first color prints in history. Among his drawings were the first pictures of the interior of the Great Pyramid and Jerusalem that became known in Europe.
In 1701 he headed for Archangelsk. During his second tour he visited the Samoyeds in northern Russia. In Moscow he became acquainted with emperor Peter the Great: de Bruijn painted his nieces, and the paintings were sent to possible candidates for marriage.
In late April 1703, De Brujin left Moscow along with the party of an Armenian merchants from Isfahan whose name he recorded as Jacob Daviedof.  De Bruijin and the Armenians sailed down the Moscow River, the Oka and the Volga, eventually reaching Astrakhan. Thanks to de Bruijn's short stopover in Nizhny Novgorod during the Easter holidays, we now have his description of that major center of the Russian Volga trade as it existed in 1703, with its Kremlin, stone churches, and a lively bar (kabak) scene.
Leaving the borders of the Russian state, de Brujin arrived to Persia, where he made drawings of towns like Isfahan and Persepolis (1704–1705). He continued to Java and returned to Persia, Russia, and ultimately the Netherlands.
His drawings of Persepolis, a city destroyed by Alexander the Great, caused a sensation. The mayor of Amsterdam Nicolaes Witsen and a member of the Royal Society probably asked him to draw the city famous for its 40 columns. For a century, they were the best prints available to western scholars. De Bruijn was accused of plagiarism and his second book, Reizen over Moskovie was not such a success. From Amsterdam he fled to Vianen.
De Bruijn died in Utrecht. It is not known when and where he was buried.
De Bruijn, who had read every Greek and Latin source he had been able to obtain, displays a convincing knowledge of subjects, at times going into the humorous. In Persia, he obtained a copy of Firdausi's Shahnamê, which he summarized and made accessible to the west.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT GILES BY ALBERT NAMAJIRA

A

ALBERT NAMATJIRA (1902-1959)

Mount Giles (1, 389 m - 4, 557 ft)

Australia (Northern territory)

1. In Mount Giles, 1947, watercolor

The mountain 

Mount Giles (1, 389 m - 4, 557 ft) is one of the highest mountains in the Northern Territory, Australia. It lies along the MacDonnell Ranges, dominating Ormiston Pound, in the West MacDonnell National Park, approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Alice Springs. It can be visited via the celebrated Larapinta Trail and has views of Mount Sonder, Ormiston Gorge and Pound, and the surrounding range. Climbing the mountain requires a hard two- or three-day hike.

The MacDonnell Ranges is located in the Northern Territory, comprising 3,929,444 hectares (9,709,870 acres). The range is a 644 km (400 mi) long series of mountains located in the centre of Australia, and consist of parallel ridges running to the east and west of Alice Springs. The mountain range contains many spectacular gaps and gorges as well as areas of Aboriginal significance.
The ranges were named after Sir Richard MacDonnell (the Governor of South Australia at the time) by John McDouall Stuart, whose 1860 expedition reached them in April of that year. The Horn Expedition investigated the ranges as part of the scientific expedition into central Australia. Other explorers of the range included David Lindsay and John Ross.
The MacDonnell Ranges are famous to have been often depicted in the paintings by Albert Namatjira.

The  painter 

Albert Namatjira  born Elea Namatjira, was a Western Arrernte-speaking Aboriginal artist from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia. As a pioneer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, he was the most famous Indigenous Australian of his generation.
Born and raised at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, Namatjira showed interest in art from an early age, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32), under the tutelage of Rex Battarbee, that he began to paint seriously. Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting. He became a household name in Australia—indeed, reproductions of his works hung in many homes throughout the nation—and he was publicly regarded as a model Aborigine who had succeeded in mainstream society.
Although not the first Aboriginal artist to work in a European style, Albert Namatjira is certainly the most famous. Ghost gums with luminous white trunks, palm-filled gorges and red mountain ranges turning purple at dusk are the hallmarks of the Hermannsburg school. Hermannsburg Mission was established by Lutheran missionaries in 1877 on the banks of the Finke River, west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Namatjira learnt watercolour technique from the artist, Rex Battarbee.
Initially thought of as having succumbed to European pictorial idioms – and for that reason, to ideas of European privilege over the land – Namatjira’s landscapes have since been re-evaluated as coded expressions on traditional sites and sacred knowledge. Ownership of country is hereditary, but detailed knowledge of what it ‘contains’ is learnt in successive stages through ceremony, song, anecdote and contact. Namatjira’s father’s country lay towards Mount Sonder and Glen Helen Gorge, in the MacDonnell Ranges, and his mother’s country was in the region of Palm Valley in Central Australia. In Namatjira’s paintings, the totemic connections to his country are so indelible that, for example, Palm Valley the place and Palm Valley, c.1940s, the painting seem to intersect, detailing Namatjira’s artistic, cultural and proprietorial claim on the land.
 One of his first landscapes from 1936, Central Australian Landscape, shows a land of rolling green hills. Another early work, Ajantzi Waterhole (1937), shows a close up view of a small waterhole, with Namatjira capturing the reflection in the water. The landscape becomes one of contrasting colours, a device that is often used by Western painters, with red hills and green trees in Red Bluff (1938). Central Australian Gorge (1940) shows detailed rendering of rocks and reflections in the water. In Flowering Shrubs Namatjira contrasts the blossoming flowers in the foreground with the more barren desert and cliffs in the background. Namatjira's love of trees was often described so that his paintings of trees were more portraits than landscapes, which is shown in the portrait of the often depicted ghost gum in Ghost Gum Glen Helen (c.1945-49). Namatjira's skills at colouring trees can be clearly seen in this portrait. Namatjira was fully aware of his own talent, as was shown when he was describing another landscape painter to William Dargie: "He does not know how to make the side of a tree which is in the light look the same colour as the side of the tree in shadow...I know how to do better."
Namatjira's skills kept increasing with experience as is shown in the highly photographic quality of Mt Hermannsburg (1957), painted only two years before he died.
 In 1957, Namatjira became the first Aboriginal person to be granted conditional Australian citizenship. This entitled him to limited social freedoms and to live in Mparntwe, although he was prohibited from purchasing land. His relations, including his children, were not permitted the same privileges.
After an incident in 1958 that didn’t directly involve the artist, Namatjira was charged with supplying alcohol to members of the Aboriginal community – at the time, it was illegal for all Aboriginal people, except Namatjira, to possess and consume alcohol. Namatjira was sentenced to six months labour at Papunya and this, exacerbated by the authorities’ refusal to allow him to purchase the land of his ancestors, caused him profound despair. He served only two months, and died shortly after.
The more recent, dramatic success of the nearby Papunya Tula movement must be read against the history of its predecessor, the Hermannsburg school, which has endured for over half a century. In 2002, the centenary of Namatjira’s birth was celebrated with a major retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT TARAWERA / PINK TERRACES BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mount Tarawera (1, 111m - 3,645ft) 

New Zealand

In Mount Tarawera with Maori Figures Camping in the Foreground, oil on canvas

The mountain
Mount Tarawera (1, 111m - 3,645ft) is the volcano responsible for one of New Zealand's largest historic eruptions. Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua in the North Island, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured down the middle by an explosive basaltic eruption in 1886, which killed an estimated 120 people. These fissures run for about 17 kilometres northeast-southwest.
The volcano's component domes include Ruawahia Dome, Tarawera Dome and Wahanga Dome. It is surrounded by several lakes, most of which were created or drastically altered by the 1886 eruption. These lakes include Lakes Tarawera, Rotomahana, Rerewhakaaitu, Okataina, Okareka, Tikitapu (Blue Lake) and Rotokakahi (Green Lake). The Tarawera River runs northeastwards across the northern flank of the mountain from Lake Tarawera.
One legend surrounding the 1886 eruption is that of the phantom canoe. Eleven days before the eruption, a boat full of tourists returning from the Terraces saw what appeared to be a war canoe approach their boat, only to disappear in the mist half a mile from them. One of the witnesses was a clergyman, a local Maori man from the Te Arawa iwi. Nobody around the lake owned such a war canoe, and nothing like it had been seen on the lake for many years. It is possible that the rise and fall of the lake level caused by pre eruption fissures had freed a burial waka (canoe) from its resting place. Traditionally dead chiefs were tied in an upright position. A number of letters have been published from the tourists who experienced the event.
Though skeptics maintained that it was a freak reflection seen on the mist, tribal elders at Te Wairoa claimed that it was a waka wairua (spirit canoe) and was a portent of doom. It has been suggested that the waka was actually a freak wave on the water, caused by seismic activity below the lake, but locals believe that a future eruption will be signaled by the reappearance of the canoe.

The Painter
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London, Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit. His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT HOOD / WY' EAST PAINTED BY ALBERT BIERSTADT

ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902)

Mount Hood / Wy 'east (3,429m - 11, 249ft)

United States of America (Oregon) 

In Indians crossing the Columbia river with Mt Hood in the distance, 1867

oil on canvas, 60.3 x 90.8 cm. Private collection (Sotheby's London)

Catalogue note about this painting 

Albert Bierstadt’s dramatic views of the majestic American West earned him broad popularity as one of the country's most distinguished artists of the mid-nineteenth century. He was among the greatest American painters to fully capture the splendor of the landscape and to record the many moods of its climate and terrain. Bierstadt was one of the very few artists to have traveled in the western territories and his views were eagerly anticipated and met with curiosity and wonder. His idealized interpretations of the western landscape brought to life the image of the fabled frontier for many who would never travel there.
It was on his second journey west in 1863 with the writer Fitz Hugh Ludlow that Bierstadt first beheld Mount Hood. The party traveled up from California into the Pacific Northwest on horseback and then by steamer and rail up the Columbia River from near Mount Hood. According to Patricia Junker, “Mount Hood was an almost continual presence as the two men made their way up the Columbia, and we know from Ludlow that Bierstadt studied it intently, seeing it from different perspectives, from the northeast and the northwest, and in the changing light of different times of day. At Dalles City Bierstadt paid an ‘old Indian interpreter and trapper’ to guide him to a high point southwest of town that offered the most imposing view of the mountain in the rising sun, and there he spent most of a morning making oil studies of the opaline peak. ‘His work upon this mountain was in some respects the best he ever accomplished,’ Ludlow offered, ‘being done with a loving faithfulness hardly called out by Hood’s only rival, the Peak of Shasta’” 

Albert Bierstadt: Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast, Seattle, Washington, 2011, p. 38).
As is typical of his distinctive aesthetic, Bierstadt presents a heroic vision of the Oregon landscape in Indians on the Columbia River. Suffused with a rosy golden light, the snowcapped, rocky peak of Mount Hood rises proudly above the Columbia River where a group of Indians row their boat across its crystalline waters towards the shore. Emanating tranquility and serenity, this Edenic vision of wilderness demonstrates Bierstadt’s response to the national desire for renewal and a return to peace in the aftermath of the Civil War. However, works such as Indians on the Columbia River additionally attest to Bierstadt’s desire to adapt the European ideal of the sublime – the ability of the natural world to elicit awe and wonder – to an explicitly American landscape. The dramatic geological features he found throughout the West lent themselves well to this endeavor, but this preoccupation deepened during his travels in the Pacific Northwest; for the first time Bierstadt found volcanoes that rivaled those of South America such as Cotopaxi, which had already been famously portrayed on several occassions by Bierstadt’s contemporary, Frederic Edwin Church

The mountain
Mount Hood / Wy'east (3,429m-11,249ft) is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc of northern Oregon. It was formed by a subduction zone on the Pacific coast and rests in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located about 50 miles (80 km) east-southeast of Portland, on the border between Clackamas and Hood River counties. In addition to being Oregon's highest mountain, it is one of the loftiest mountains in the nation based on its prominence.
The height assigned to Mount Hood's snow-covered peak has varied over its history.
The peak is home to 12 named glaciers and snowfields. It is the highest point in Oregon and the fourth highest in the Cascade Range. Mount Hood is considered the Oregon volcano most likely to erupt, though based on its history, an explosive eruption is unlikely. Still, the odds of an eruption in the next 30 years are estimated at between 3 and 7 %, so the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) characterizes it as "potentially active", but the mountain is informally considered dormant.

The painter
Albert Bierstadt was a German-born American painter. He was brought to the United States at the age of one by his parents. He later returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. At an early age Bierstadt developed a taste for art and made clever crayon sketches in his youth.
In 1851, he began to paint in oils. He became part of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along this scenic river. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School. 

Full Wandering Vertextes entry  =>

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

CERRO PEDERNAL (3) BY GEORGIA O' KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887-1986)

Cerro Pedernal (3,006 m - 9,862 ft)

United State of America (New Mexico) 

In Red Mesa, watercolor, 22,9 x30,5 cm, Private collection 

About thos watercolor 

Georgia O'Keeffe used to live for a time in this area (Ghost Ranch) and painted Cerro Pedernal more than 20 times. She referred to Pedernal as her "favorite mountain." Her ashes were scattered on its top.

The mountain
Cerro Pedernal (3,006 m - 9,862 ft) locally known as just "Pedernal", is a narrow mesa in northern New Mexico (U.S.A). The name is Spanish for "flint hill". The mesa lies on the north flank of the Jemez Mountains, south of Abiquiu Lake, in the Coyote Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest. Cerro Pedernal is essentially a high, long butte created by a volcanic process. Viewed along its East-West line, it appears as a tall point rising out of the New Mexico desert, but viewed along its North-South vantage, its true shape is more apparent as a long ridge.
Pedernal is the source of a chert used by the prehistoric Gallina people. The native peoples of the area used the rock around this mountain for arrowheads and other tools.
Its cliffs are popular with rock climbers. Despite Cerro Pedernal's history and beauty, she is seldom climbed. The high butte is ringed by a long, sheer cliff band that seems impossible to climb unroped. Perhaps this is why few see her summit. However, there is a weakness in the cliffs that offers a short Class 4 scramble to the top. From the summit of Cerro Pedernal, you are afforded uncommon views. The Sangre de Cristo range is visible from Colorado to New Mexico. The Colorado 14er Culebra Peak is easily visible, as well as New Mexico's highest point, Wheeler Peak. On a clear day, the southern San Juan range in Colorado is visible, and even the La Platas around Durango. Ringing Cerro Pedernal is the Jemez range, which are mostly rolling mountains with lush greens. To the West is high desert landscape of deep red sandstone, blue rivers, and the tans and browns of the high desert. The summit of Cerro Pedernal is quite a spectacular spot.

The painter
Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.
Born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years, while she taught art in South Carolina and west Texas. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.
O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.
In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.
In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below.
Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.”
Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art. In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.
Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT OXFORD PAINTED BY ROBERT SELDON DUNCANSON

ROBERT SELDON DUNCANSON (1821-1872)

Mount Oxford (4,316 m- 14,160 ft ) 

United States of America (Colorado) 

The painter 

Robert Seldon Duncanson  was a nineteenth century American artist of European and African ancestry known for his contributions to landscape painting. Inspired by famous American landscape artists like Thomas Cole, Duncanson created renowned landscape paintings and is considered a second generation Hudson River School artist.  Duncanson spent the majority of his career in Cincinnati, Ohio and helped develop the Ohio River Valley landscape tradition. As a free black man in antebellum America, Duncanson utilized the white abolitionist community in America and England to support and promote his work. 

Duncanson is considered the first African-American artist to be internationally known. 

He operated in the elite cultural circles of Cincinnati, Detroit, Montreal, and London. The primary art historical debate centered on Duncanson concerns the role that contemporary racial issues played in his work. Some art historians, like Joseph D. Ketner, believe that Duncanson used racial metaphors in his artwork, while others, like Margaret Rose Vendryes, discourage viewers from approaching his art with a racialized perspective.

Landscape painting was a particularly important genre from the 1830s to the 1900s. Duncanson was intrigued by landscape painting.  In 1851, Duncanson's created one most well-known landscape paintings from this time period, Blue Hole, Flood Waters, Miami River. 

In 1853, Duncanson embarked on the traditional "grand tour" of Europe, completed by many contemporary artists, which exposed him to the art world and provided inspiration for many of his future landscape works.  In 1861, Duncanson created his "greatest work"—Land of the Lotus Eaters. This painting was Duncanson's most widely acclaimed work. Moreover, Duncanson intended for the work to receive this tremendous acclaim. He planned to exhibit the work on a European tour before he even began painting it.

The mountain 
Mount Oxford (4,316 m- 14,160 ft ) is a high mountain summit of the Collegiate Peaks in the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The 14,160-foot (4,316 m) fourteener is located in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness of San Isabel National Forest, 14.2 miles (22.9 km) northwest (bearing 311°) of the Town of Buena Vista in Chaffee County, Colorado, United States. The mountain was named in honor of the University of Oxford.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau