MOUNT SNOWDON FROM LLYN Y DDINAS BY SIDNEY RICHARD PERCY

SIDNEY RICHARD PERCY (1821-1886)
Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft)
United Kingdom (Wales)

In Llyn-y-Ddinas, North Wales, Mount Snowdon in the background (1873), Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 76 cm. Private Collection

 
The mountain
Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft),Yr Wyddfa in welsh, is the highest mountain in Wales and the highest point in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. A 1682 survey estimated that the summit of Snowdon was at a height of 1,130 m - 3,720 feet ; in 1773, Thomas Pennant quoted a later estimate of 1,088 m- 3,568 ft above sea level at Caernarfon. Recent surveys give the height of the summit as 1,085 m -3,560 ft. The name Snowdon is from the Old English for "snow hill", while the Welsh name – Yr Wyddfa – means "the tumulus" or "the barrow", which may refer to the cairn thrown over the legendary giant Rhitta Gawr after his defeat by King Arthur. As well as other figures from Arthurian legend, the mountain is linked to a legendary Afanc (water monster) and the Tylwyth Teg (fairies). Mount Snowdon is located in Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri) in Gwynedd. It has been described as "probably the busiest mountain in Britain", with approximately 444,000 people having walked up the mountain in 2016. It is designated as a national nature reserve for its rare flora and fauna. The rocks that form Snowdon were produced by volcanoes in the Ordovician period, and the massif has been extensively sculpted by glaciation, forming the pyramidal peak of Snowdon and the Arêtes of Crib Goch and Y Lliwedd. The cliff faces on Snowdon, including Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, are significant for rock climbing, and the mountain was used by Edmund Hillary in training for the 1953 ascent of Mount Everest.
The summit can be reached by a number of well-known paths, and by the Snowdon Mountain Railway, a rack and pinion railway opened in 1896 which carries passengers the 4.7 miles (7.6 km) from Llanberis to the summit station.

The painter
Sidney Richard Percy had his greatest success painting landscapes of grazing cattle, typically set against backgrounds of distant mountains and cloudy skies. The prevailing hues of his landscapes are earth tones and soft greens, accentuated by a variety of pastel hues. The detail in his work is part of its appeal, and "it was remarked that his rocks and stones were sufficiently accurate to have served as illustrations to the writings of Sir Roderick Murchison, the popular 19th-century geologist." Llyn-y-Ddinas, North Wales, (see above) one of his more popular works on the internet, displays these qualities. He also painted landscapes of farm fields, wheel-rutted country roads, and the occasional boat scene on a lake. Although he generally painted in oils, a number of small watercolors on cardboard exist, typically unsigned, that are his work. The family, and his son the painter Herbert Sidney Percy in particular, referred to these as "potboilers", meaning that they were quickly, and often crudely executed, yet easily and cheaply sold "to put food on the table" when working on larger, more time-consuming oils for exhibition, or commissions. Many of these watercolor "potboilers" were done in the field, and then brought back to the studio to refer to when executing a more formal oil on canvas.
Sidney Richard Percy was extremely popular during the early part of his career, which for a short time brought him a fair amount of income. Among his patrons during this time was Prince Albert the Royal consort who in 1854 gave Percy's landscape of A view of Llyn Dulyn, North Wales, which had just been exhibited at the Royal Academy, as a gift to his wife Queen Victoria. This painting still hangs today in the Royal Collection. Unfortunately Sidney Richard Percy outlived his popularity, and the art world was more excited about impressionism and other styles than landscapes when he died. Today though, his work is much sought after, and his better paintings bring much higher prices in auction than any of those of his brethren in the Williams family.
When the Athenaeum in 1886 (i. 592) ran an obituary for Sidney Richard Percy they called him, "the well-known and popular painter, founder of the so-called School of Barnes . . ." Although depending on the context of what is meant by the so-called Barnes School, this is a bit of an injustice to his father Edward Williams, whom it might be argued is the founder of the Barnes School of painters, but it illustrates the popularity that Sidney Richard Percy held with the art-buying public of his day.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes / Mountain paintings
By Francis Rousseau

MOUNT BURKE & BAY OF ISLANDS PAINTED BY FRANKLIN CARMICHAEL

FRANKLIN CARMICHAEL (1890–1945)
Mount Burke (1,270 m  - 4,167 ft)
Canada (British Columbia)

In Bay of Islands from Mt. Burke, 1931, oil on canvas, 101.6 x 122.0 cm, 

McMichael Canadian Art Collection

The mountain
Mount Burke (1,270 m (4,167 ft), is a mountain located in northeast Coquitlam, British Columbia, north of Port Coquitlam on the ridge system leading to Coquitlam Mountain. Most of the mountain is part of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park.   Mount Burke was named for Edmund Burke by Captain George Henry Richards of HMS Plumper while surveying Burrard Inlet in 1859.
The mountain was placed in Pinecone Burke Provincial Park on the park's creation in 1995.
Many people confuse Mount Burke, with the much higher and larger Burke Ridge, which is more commonly known as Burke Mountain, and in the 1920s Burke Ridge was more commonly known as Dollar Mountain, after the Canadian Robert Dollar Company, who logged the lower portions of the mountain.

The artist
Franklin Carmichael was a Canadian artist and member of the Group of Seven. Though he was primarily famous for his use of watercolours, he also used oil paints, charcoal and other media to capture the Ontario landscapes of which he was fond. Besides his work as a painter, he worked as a designer and illustrator, creating promotional brochures, advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and stylizing books. Near the end of his life, Carmichael taught in the Graphic Design and Commercial Art Department at the Ontario College of Art (today the Ontario College of Art and Design). The youngest original member of the Group of Seven, Carmichael often found himself socially on the outside of the group. Despite this, the art he produced was of equal measure in terms of style and approach to the other members' contributions, vividly expressing his spiritual views through his art.  Carmichael was a passionate landscape painter. Many of his paintings depict the trees, rocks, hills, and mountains of Ontario. His earlier works had flat juxtapositions of colour, but as he matured through the 1920s he emphasized depth and three dimensional space. Beyond simple representation of picturesque views, Carmichael attempted to capture contrast.  Contemporary Emily Carr wrote that Carmichael's work was, "A little pretty and too soft, but pleasant."Carmichael was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.  In 1952, Dr. Ann Curtin and Carmichael's widow founded the Franklin Carmichael Art Group, now located at 34 Riverdale Drive in Toronto.


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2021 - Wandering Vertexes / Mountain paintings
By F rancis Rousseau

NANGA PARBAT PAINTED BY NICHOLAS ROERICH

 

 

NICHOLAS ROERICH (1874-1947),
Nanga Parbat (8,126 m - 26,660 ft)
Pakistan

 In Nanga Parbat, oil on canvas, 1940, Nicolas Roerich  Museum, NYC

The mountain
Nanga Parbat (8,126 metres (26,660 ft) locally known as Diamer, is the ninth highest mountain in the world . Located in the Diamer District of Gilgit-Baltistan region, Pakistan, Nanga Parbat is the western anchor of the Himalayas. ] The name Nanga Parbat is derived from the Sanskrit words nagna and parvata which together mean "Naked Mountain".  The mountain is locally known by its Tibetan name Diamer or Deo Mir, meaning "huge mountain".
Nanga Parbat is one of the 14 eight-thousanders. An immense, dramatic peak rising far above its surrounding terrain, Nanga Parbat is known to be a difficult climb.   Nanga Parbat is one of only two peaks on Earth that rank in the top twenty of both the highest mountains in the world, and the most prominent peaks in the world, ranking ninth and fourteenth respectively. The other is Mount Everest, which is first on both lists.  Nanga Parbat along with Namcha Barwa on the Tibetan Plateau mark the west and east ends of the Himalayas.

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

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes / Mountain paintings
By F rancis Rousseau
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

VICTORIA PEAK PAINTED BY ERNEST CHARTON DE TREVILLE

ERNEST CHARTON DE TREVILLE (1816-1877)

Victoria Peak  (552 m -1,811 ft)

China (Hong Kong)

 

In Victoria Peak vu de la Baie de Hong Kong, Oil on canvas, Private collection 

The mountain
Victoria Peak (552 m -1,811 ft) or 太平山 (in Chinese) also locally called The Peak or Mount Austin an sa few others cantonese and Hong Kong Hakka names such as Taai Pen Saa or Deng or Saan Deng or Ce Kei Saan or Lou Fung... is a mountain in the western half of Hong Kong Island. It is the highest mountain on Hong Kong island, ranked 31 in terms of elevation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region ; Tai Mo Shan (957m) being the highest point in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.The summit is occupied by a radio telecommunications facility and is closed to the public. However, the surrounding areaf public parks and high-value residential land is the area that is normally meant by the name The Peak. During the19th century, the Peak attracted prominent European residents because of its panoramic view over the city and its relatively temperate climate compared to the sub-tropical climate in the rest of Hong Kong. The sixth Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Richard MacDonnell had a summer residence built on the Peak circa 1868. Those that built houses named them whimsically, such as The Eyrie, and the Austin Arm. These original residents reached their homes by sedan chairs, which were carried up and down the steep slope of Victoria Peak.

The painter
Ernest-Marc-Jules Charton Thiessen of Treville better known as Ernest Charton or Ernesto Charton was a French painter, famous for his pastel portraits and realistic- style customary paintings. He made most of his artistic career in South America - particularly in Argentina Chile and Ecuador -, a continent where his first name, as was customary at the time, was Castilianized, which is why he was known as Ernesto Charton.
He was initially established in Valparaíso (Chile), but in 1848 he moved to Santiago where he opened a studio neighboring that of Raymond Monvoisin, another French pioneer of Chilean painting and also belonging to traveling artists as was also at that time the watercolorist Carlos Wood.
Brother of Edouard Charton, director of the Parisian magazine Le Tour du Monde Ernesto was a typical adventurous artist of the nineteenth century in search of the most exotic expressions of unexplored nature, following in this aspect the motivation of numerous European painters of the time.  Many of his American experiences were reflected in the L'llustration, a magazine also directed by his brother and of which he was a correspondent, sending not only chronicles but also drawings, such as those he sent from the streets of Valparaíso before the bombing. He also sent a drawing of the bombing of Callao, which was recorded by Louis Le Breton and published on June 23.
Tempted by the gold rush in California he embarked on October 25, 1848 on the schooner Rosa Segunda, who arrived in the Galapagos Islands within two weeks to get water; when most of the passengers were ashore, the ship abandoned them to their fate. The painter, like his companions, lost everything, including his works.
Charton, who in 1862 would return to Ecuador, managed to settle in Quito with the help of the French consul. He taught drawing and painting at the University of that city; in addition, he directed the Miguel de Santiago Liceo of Painting, a direct antecedent of the School of Fine Arts of that country. As a result of his stay in Ecuador, he left a 48-watercolors album (cf. above)
He returned to France, but in 1855 he returned to Chile with his family; he gained fame as a portraitist, landscaper and teacher. In this last quality he had a famous controversy with the first director of the Academy of Painting of Santiago. ]
In 1870 he left Chile to Argentina, crossing the Andes. From that experience, his large oil painting was born the following year View of the Andes mountain range (115x197cm) that is today in the National Museum of Fine Arts of that country, in Buenos Aires, city where he settled until his death.
In addition to the countries mentioned, he travelled in Italy, Panama (when it was still part of Colombia) Peru and China (Hong Kong, Macao) (see above). 
As a Photographer, he used snapshots as a base for his paintings, portraying typical clothes, customs and parties that he then tracked to the web.
Charton's works are characterized by their vibrant color and the realistic expression of popular customs and motifs. He left among his students from Chile, Ecuador and Argentina this cultural vision of pictorial realism applied to the theme of each country, leaving aside religious, mythological or literally copied motifs of European models.
His paintings can be seen in museums in Argentina, Chile and Ecuador.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes / Mountain paintings
By F rancis Rousseau

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes
A blog by Francis Rousseau

HIGH ATLAS PAINTED BY JACQUES MAJORELLE

 

JACQUES MAJORELLE (1886-1962)
High Atlas (4,167 m - 2.589 mi - 13,678 ft)
Morocco  

 

In La kasbah d'Ammeniter et la Vallée d'Ounila, Oil on canvas, 1925,  Private collection

The mountain
High Atlas, also called the Grand Atlas is a mountain range in central Morocco, North Africa, the highest part of the Atlas Mountains. The High Atlas rises in the west at the Atlantic Ocean and stretches in an eastern direction to the Moroccan-Algerian border. At the Atlantic and to the southwest the range drops abruptly and makes an impressive transition to the coast and the Anti-Atlas range. To the north, in the direction of Marrakech, the range descends less abruptly. The range includes Jbel Toubkal, which at 4,167 m (2.589 mi; 13,671 ft) is the highest in the range and lies in Toubkal National Park. The range serves as a weather system barrier in Morocco running east–west and separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean and continental zones to the north and west. In the higher elevations of the massif, snow falls regularly, allowing winter sports. Snow lasts well into last spring in the High Atlas, mostly on the northern faces of the range. On the Western High Atlas, there is Oukaïmeden, one of three main ski stations in Morocco.
The High Atlas forms the basins for a multiplicity of river systems. The majority of the year-round rivers flow to the north, providing the basis for the settlements there. A number of wadis and seasonal rivers terminate in the deserts to the south and plateaux to the east of the mountains. The High-Atlas Mountains are inhabited by Berbers, who live from agriculture and pastoralism in the valleys. In the steppe zone of the High-Atlas, where precipitations are low, the locals created a smart technique in managing the low precipitations and the weak soil. They turn the rather semi-arid lands into fertile valleys called locally by Agdal (garden in Berber). This technique has intrigued many Western agriculturalists, in which they were impressed by the high efficiency of this agricultural system. Many scientists, particularly French scientists, make yearly expeditions to observe the community and their living system.

 

The painter  

Jacques Majorelle son of the celebrated Art Nouveau furniture designer Louis Majorelle, was a French painter. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nancy in 1901 and later at the Académie Julian in Paris with Schommer and Royer. Majorelle became a noted Orientalist painter, but is most remembered for constructing the villa and gardens that now carry his name, Les Jardins Majorelle in Marrakech.
In around 1917 he travelled to Morocco to recover from heart problems and after short period spent in Casablanca, he visited Marrakech, where he fell in love with the vibrant colours and quality of light he found there. Initially, he used Marrakech as a base for trips to Spain, Italy and other parts of North Africa, including Egypt. Eventually, however, he settled in Marrakech permanently.
He drew inspiration for his paintings from his trips and from Marrakesch itself. His paintings include many street scenes, souks and kasbahs as well as portraits of local inhabitants. He opened a handicrafts workshop in Marrakech and also designed posters to promote travel to Morocco.  His work was profoundly affected by his voyages around the Mediterannean and North Africa. He introduced a more coloured vision, bathed in light where the drawing disappears and the image emerges from large spots of colour laid flat. It seemed as if he had discoved the sun in these countries. His style exhibited more freedom and spontaneity.
In 1919, he married Andrée Longueville and the pair lived in an apartment near the Jemâa el-Fna Square (then at the palace of Pasha Ben Daoud). In 1923, Jacques Majorelle bought a four acre plot, situated on the border of a palm grove in Marrakech and in 1931, he commissioned the architect, Paul Sinoir, to design a Cubist villa for him. He gradually purchased additional land, extending his holding by almost 10 acres. In the grounds around the residence, Majorelle began planting a luxuriant garden which would become known as the Jardins Majorelle or Majorelle Garden. He continued to work on the garden for almost forty years. The garden is often said to be the his finest work.  Majorelle developed a special shade of the colour blue, which was inspired by the blue tiles prevalent in southern Morocco. This colour was used extensively in Majorelle's house and garden, and now carries his name; Majorelle Blue.
The garden proved costly to run and in 1947, Majorelle opened the garden to the public with an admission fee designed to defray the cost of maintenance.  He sold the house and land in the 1950s, after which it fell into disrepair.
Majorelle was sent to France for medical treatment in 1962 following a car accident, and died in Paris, later that year of complications from his injuries. He is buried in Nancy, the place of his birth.
During his lifetime, many of Majorelle's paintings were sold to private buyers and remain in private collections. Some of his early works can be found in Museums around his birthplace such as the Musée de l'Ecole de Nancy. Examples of his later work can be seen in the Mamounia Hotel, Marrakesch, the French Consulate of Marrakech and in the Villa at the Majorelle Gardens. 

 

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

 

MOUNT SINAÏ PAINTED BY JEAN-LÉON GERÔME

 

JEAN-LÉON GERÔME (1824-1904)
Mount Sinaï / Jabal Musa (2,285 m - 7,496ft)
Egypt

In La fuite en Egypte , oil and tempera on panel, 1897, Musée Georges Garret, Vesoul (France)

About the painting
Jean Leon Gérome painted Mount Sinai on several occasions and often for its historical religious content as on the canvas above or in his Moses at Mount Sinai. Each time the painter added details of miraculous appearances! Here, it is an white angel who guides in a halo of light Mary and Joseph on the way of the Flight into Egypt. The description of Mount Sinai (on the bacjground) and its surroundings, seen from above (from the point of view of the Angel) adds an additional element to the strangeness of this painting.


The painter
Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits, and other subjects, bringing the academic painting tradition to an artistic climax. He is considered one of the most important painters from this academic period. He was also a teacher with a long list of students.
In 1856, he visited Egypt for the first time. Gérômes recurrent itinerary followed the classic grand tour of most occidental visitors to the Orient; up the nile to Cairo, across to Fayoum, then further up the Nile to Abu Simbel, then back to Cairo, across the Sinai Peninsula through Sinai and up the Wadi el-Araba to the Holy land, Jerusalem and finally Damascus. This would herald the start of many orientalist paintings depicting Arab religion, genre scenes and North African landscapes. In an autobiographical essay of 1878, Gérôme described how important oil sketches made on the spot were for him: "even when worn out after long marched under the bright sun, as soon as our camping spot was reached I got down to work with concentration. But Oh! How many things were left behind of which I carried only the memory away! And I prefer three touches of colour on a piece of canvas to the most vivid memory, but one had to continue on with some regret.
He did not only gather themes, artefacts and costumes for his oriental scenes, but also made oil studies from nature for their backgrounds. Several of these quick sketches are filled with details that exceed his wished for three touches of colour.
Gérôme's reputation was greatly enhanced at the Salon of 1857 by a collection of works of a more popular kind : The Duel ; After the Masked Ball (Musée Condé, Chantilly); Egyptian Recruits crossing the Desert; Memnon and Sesostris and Camels Watering.

The mountain
Mount Sinaï (2,285 m - 7,496 ft) or Jabal Mūsā or Gabal Mūsā (in arab : "Moses' Mountain" or "Mount Moses"), also known as Mount Horeb or Jebel Musa (a similarly named mountain in Morocco), is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is a possible location of the biblical Mount Sinai. The latter is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus (and other books of the Bible) and the Quran. According to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition, the biblical Mount Sinai was the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Mount Sinai is a moderately high mountain near the city of Saint Katherine in the Sinai region.
It is next to Mount Katherine (2,629 m - 8,625 ft), the highest peak in Egypt.
Mount Sinai's rocks were formed in the late stage of the Arabian-Nubian Shield's (ANS) evolution. Mount Sinai displays a ring complex that consists of alkaline granites intruded into diverse rock types, including volcanics. The granites range in composition from syenogranite to alkali feldspar granite. The volcanic rocks are alkaline to peralkaline and they are represented by subaerial flows and eruptions and subvolcanic porphyry. Generally, the nature of the exposed rocks in Mount Sinai indicates that they originated from differing depths.
There are two principal routes to the summit. The longer and shallower route, Siket El Bashait, takes about 2.5 hours on foot, though camels can be used. The steeper, more direct route (Siket Sayidna Musa) is up the 3,750 "steps of penitence" in the ravine behind the monastery.
The summit of the mountain has a mosque that is still used by Muslims. It also has a Greek Orthodox chapel, constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th-century church, that is not open to the public. The chapel encloses the rock which is considered to be the source for the biblical Tablets of Stone. At the summit also is "Moses' cave", where Moses was said to have waited to receive the Ten Commandments.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

KLOOF CORNER/TABLE MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY NITA SPILHAUS

 

NITA SPILHAUS (1878-1967)
Kloof Corner in Table mountain / Hoerikwaggo (1,085 m - 3,558 ft) 
South Africa


In Klooof Corner, oil on canvas, 1920, Private collection

The mountain
Kloof Corner follows a prominent ridge the forms the right skyline of Table Mountain (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)   when viewed from the north – the iconic and best-known view of Table Mountain. The ridge terminates about 150 meters below the summit at the foot of sheer cliffs, from where you latch onto the India Venster route to gain the summit via a lengthy traverse to the back of the Table. As far as Table Mountain hiking goes, Kloof Corner is one of the more challenging routes. The route contains 3 chains to assist hikers up tricky rock bands; these should not be underestimated. A variation exists along the middle section, known as Kloof Corner Pinnacle and strictly adhering to the crest of the ridge to rejoin the original line further up. Great to do if you have time and want more scrambling and adventure.  A unique feature of the route is that it offers views towards the north (over the city) and the west (Camps Bay / Atlantic coast) at the same time at several points along the way. The ridge, known as Kloof Corner Ridge (a route name consisting of 3 nouns!) forms the great northwestern corner of the mountain, where the north and west sides meet. It’s one of the most conspicuous features on Table Mountain.
Table Mountain (1,085 m - 3,558 ft)  also called Hoerikwaggo is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa and forming part of the Table Mountain National Park. The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) from side to side, edged by impressive cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill, forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.

 The painter
Nita Spilhaus born Pauline Augusta Wilhelmina Spilhaus was a Portuguese-born South African painter, working in oil, watercolour and pastel. She is best known for her landscapes, paintings and etchings of trees, her portrayals of the Cape mountains, and depictions of the Malay Quarter.
Nita was raised by her grandfather in Lübeck, and her first training in drawing and etching took place at the Lübeck School of Art, then in Munich, where she attended a private art school run by Friedrich Fehr, the Dachau art colony just outside Munich under Adolf Hölzel, and copper engraving under Heinrich Wolff.
She moved to South Africa in 1907 because of the death of her grandfather in 1906, joining her brother Karl, and the family of her uncle Arnold Wilhelm Spilhaus.
She joined the 'South African Society of Artists' soon after her arrival. The Cape Times acknowledged her talent as a graphic artist by publishing a modest booklet of 12 etchings portraying scenes in and around Cape Town.
Working from a studio in Keerom Street in Cape Town she gradually became a leading member of Cape Town's art community. When Hugo Naudé visited Munich in 1913 she took over his art classes in Worcester.
Her oil paintings were Impressionist in style, her landscapes rich in atmosphere, while her flower studies are notable for their vivid colours. She had a particular affinity with trees and her striking images of the Stone Pines around Cape Town are a recurring theme in her work.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONT GAUSSIER (4) AND THE ALPILLES BY VINCENT VAN GOGH

 

 

 

 

 

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)

Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft)
France

In Mas au milieu des oliviers dans les Alpilles, St Rémy de Provence, oil on canvas, 1889, 

Private collection

About the painting
During his internment in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Van Gogh seized the surroundings to nourish his artistic geography. He tirelessly paints and draws new Provencal motifs: cypress trees, olive groves and hills. With the Alpilles chain and the Mont Gaussier rising behind the asylum buildings, the painter has the opportunity to represent this mountain range as well as the farms (Mas in french) nearby.  I this one the Mont Gaussier is in the background of the farm, probably situated on theVia Aurelia, the antique roman road going from St Rémy de Provence to Arles...  

The mountain
The Mont Gaussier (306 m -1,004 ft) is a summit of the Alpilles located south of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Today, the place of passage of many hikers who cross it by the GR6, Mount Gaussier was very early used as habitat by protohistoric populations, before having at its summit a medieval castle, nowadays disappeared. Mount Gaussier is made of crystalline limestone, white and hard. One finds in the soil the trace of many fossils. This type of summit is characteristic of the Alpilles range of mountains, especially on the north face.
The first traces of habitation on Mount Gaussier are ancient. In 1996, three sites dating from Protohistory were discovered at the summit and on the slopes. This is what emerges from the study of stones, tiles, ceramics and shards of amphora found on the premises. Moreover, the foundation of a wall was identified at the top during the same prospecting.
Most of the human activity of antiquity at Mount Gaussier nevertheless concentrated at the foot of it, since it was there that was built the Salyan city of Glanum (today Saint-Remy de Provence). Research carried out in 1996 and 1997 revealed that the well-preserved remains of a protohistoric rampart with towers have been cleared in several places, particularly on the ridges which dominate to the north-east and south-west the Saint-Clerg and at the foot of Mount Gaussier. The system of rampart which encircled the city in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. J.-C. leaned on the cliffs of the mount Gaussier which border it on a hundred meters. It is also believed that Mount Gaussier, by its situation, could be used as an acropolis because of its plateau surrounded by cliffs and that its access from Glanum was made possible by a narrow corridor.
If, according to the archaeologist Henri Rolland, some families occupied the Alpilles range, on the slopes of Mount Gaussier, between the first Iron Age and the end of Antiquity, but also in the High Middle Ages, only the foot and the summit of the mountain were occupied in the following centuries, especially in the 5th and 6th centuries. It was here that a part of the inhabitants of Glanum took up residence after the ruin of the ancient city in the alluvial deposits of the mountain.
Mount Gaussier, like Glanum, then in ruins, and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, became property of the church of Avignon at the end of the 9th century in a county of Provence powered by Count Thibert.
It is possible to reach the Mount Gaussier from the ruins of Glanum or from La Caume by the GR6 climbing previously metal ladders.

The painter
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He died by suicide at 37, following years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill health and solitude. He took up painting in 1881 having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter.
More about Vincent Van Gogh

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LA DENT DU GÉANT PAINTED BY MARCEL WIBAULT

 

 

MARCEL WIBAULT (1904-1998)
La dent du Géant (4,013 m -13,166 ft)
France - Italy

The mountain
The Dent du Géant (4,013 m -13,166 ft) (« Giant's tooth") is a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif in France and Italy. The Dent du Géant remained unclimbed during the golden age of alpinism, and was a much-coveted peak in the 1870s, repelling many parties who attempted it mostly from the Rochefort ridge. In 1880 the strong team of Albert F. Mummery and Alexander Burgener tried to force a passage via the south-west face but were repelled by a band of slabs, causing Mummery to exclaim 'Absolutely inaccessible by fair means!'
The mountain has two summits, (27m-88 ft) apart and separated by a small col :
- Pointe Sella (4,009 m), first ascent via the south-west face by Jean Joseph Maquignaz with son Baptiste Maquignaz and nephew, Daniel Maquignaz on 28 July 1882.
- Pointe Graham (4,013 m), first ascent by W. W. Graham with guides Auguste Cupelin and Alphonse Payot on 20 August 1882.


The artist
Marcel Wibault is a french painter known especially for his numerous paintings of mountains representing Mont-Blanc, Chamonix, the great peaks of the Alps and their "chalets". He made his débuts in art by ketching soldiers of the 60th Infantry Regiment of Besançon. Later he discovered, as a Member of the French Alpine Club, the Alps and its grandiose landscapes. At the start of the 1930s, he settled in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc and discovered, in these troubled times, the departments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie. Encouraged by his wife, Marcel Wibault painted the mountain and its surroundings. Living in Chamonix, he travels the surroundings with his painting equipment. He could produce works in one sitting. Commissioned by the Museum of Natural History and the city of Geneva in Switzerland, as a true knowledgeable geologist, he painted numerous rocks. In the 1960s, he also testified, through his painting, of the construction of the Mont-Blanc Tunnel. Marcel Wibault received many commissions from art lovers and was able to live in part from his art. He was also a teacher for his son Lionel Wibault who, too, is a painter. In his Chamonix chalet, Alpenrose, he made some of his furniture and sculpted many characters. 

 

 

 

TARANAKI / MOUNT EGMONT PAINTED BY LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON

 

 

LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON (1851-1912)
Taranaki /Mount Egmont (2,518 m - 8,261 ft)
New Zealand (Northen Island)

The mountain
Taranaki or Mount Egmont (2,518 m - 8,261 ft) is an active but quiescent stratovolcano in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. Although the mountain is more commonly referred to as Taranaki, it has two official names under the alternative names policy of the New Zealand Geographic Board. The mountain is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world. There is a secondary cone, Fanthams Peak or Panitahi in Māori (1,966 m - 6,450 ft), on the south side. Because of its resemblance to Mount Fuji, Taranaki provided the backdrop for the movie The Last Samurai.
For many centuries the mountain was called Taranaki by Māori. The Māori word tara means mountain peak, and naki is thought to come from ngaki, meaning "shining", a reference to the snow-clad winter nature of the upper slopes. It was also named Pukehaupapa and Pukeonaki by Iwi who live in the region in ancient times.
According to Māori mythology, Taranaki once resided in the middle of the North Island, with all the other New Zealand volcanoes. The beautiful Pihanga was coveted by all the mountains, and a great battle broke out between them. Tongariro eventually won the day, inflicted great wounds on the side of Taranaki, and causing him to flee. Taranaki headed westwards, following Te Toka a Rahotu and forming the deep gorges of the Whanganui River, paused for a while, creating the depression that formed the Te Ngaere swamp, then heading north. Further progress was blocked by the Pouakai ranges, and as the sun came up Taranaki became petrified in his current location. When Taranaki conceals himself with rainclouds, he is said to be crying for his lost love, and during spectacular sunsets, he is said to be displaying himself to her. In turn, Tongariro's eruptions are said to be a warning to Taranaki not to return.
Captain Cook named it Mount Egmont on 11 January 1770 after John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, a former First Lord of the Admiralty who had supported the concept of an oceanic search for Terra Australis Incognita. Cook described it as "of a prodigious height and its top cover'd with everlasting snow" surrounded by a "flat country ... which afforded a very good aspect, being clothed with wood and verdure".
When Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne made landfall off Taranaki on 25 March 1772 he named the mountain Pic Mascarin. He was unaware of Cook's earlier visit. It appeared as Mount Egmont on maps until 29 May 1986, when the Minister of Lands ruled that "Mount Taranaki" would be an alternative and equal official name. The Egmont name still applies to the national park that surrounds the peak and geologists still refer to the peak as the Egmont Volcano.
Taranaki is geologically young, having commenced activity approximately 135,000 years ago. The most recent volcanic activity was the production of a lava dome in the crater and its collapse down the side of the mountain in the 1850s or 1860s. Between 1755 and 1800, an eruption sent a pyroclastic flow down the mountain's northeast flanks, and a moderate ash eruption occurred about 1755, of the size of Ruapehu's activity in 1995/1996. The last major eruption occurred around 1655. Recent research has shown that over the last 9,000 years minor eruptions have occurred roughly every 90 years on average, with major eruptions every 500 years.

The painter
Laurence William Wilson emigrated to Auckland in 1877 and then travelled extensively to settle in Dunedin in 1884. He painted in both oils and watercolours, became a painting companion of George O'Brien and a teacher. One of his pupils was the Dunedin artist Alfred O'Keefe. In 1895, LW Wilson together with Grace Joel, Alfred O'Keefe, Jane Wimperis and Girolami Nerli formed the Easel Club , a breakaway from the Dunedin Establishment, which offered a programme of special classes and the introduction of a professional lady model for life drawing. In 1904 LW Wilson left Dunedin for Melbourne where he spent 5 months on a commissioned painting of the city before he set out for England, eventually returning to New Zealand via India and Africa. He exhibited with the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1882 and the Otago Art Society between 1994 and 1904. His work was included in the NZ and South Seas Exhibition Dunedin 1889-90 and at the St Louis Exposition in 1904. LW Wilson is represented in the collections of all the major public galleries in New Zealand.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT MARIVELES PAINTED BY FERNANDO AMORSOLO

 

FERNANDO AMORSOLO (1882-1972)
Mount Mariveles (1,388 m-4,554ft)
Philippines (Bataan)

In View of Bataan at sunset, from Manilla Bay, oil on canvas, 1952, 

Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation,. 

The volcano
Mount Mariveles (1,388 m-4,554ft) is a dormant volcano and the highest point in the province of Bataan in the Philippines. Mariveles and the adjacent Mount Natib comprise 80.9 percent of the total land area of the province] The mountain and adjacent cones lie opposite the city of Manila across Manila Bay, providing a beautiful setting for the sunsets seen from the city (as the painting above does!)
Mount Mariveles lies at the southern end of the Zambales Mountains in the Bataan Peninsula, west of Manila Bay. Bataan province belongs to the Central Luzon, of the Philippines.
Mount Mariveles is a massive stratovolcano topped with a 4-kilometre (2.5 mi) summit caldera which drains to the north. The Others peaks o of the Mariveles volcano-caldera complexe are Mounts Pantingan, Bataan, Tarak, and Vintana which has a base diameter of 22 kilometres ! Mount Samat on the northern slope, and Mount Limay on the eastern slope, are major, youthful-looking parasitic cones of the volcano.
Mariveles is still thermally active with the following hot springs located within the complex: Tiis Spring, Saysain Spring, and Pucot Spring.
There are no recorded historical eruptions from Mariveles caldera. However, archeologists report the last active eruption indicated by radiocarbon dating occurring around mid-Holocene or about 2050 BCE.

 

The painter
Fernando Cueto Amorsolo was one of the most important artists in the history of painting in the Philippines.Amorsolo was a portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes. He is popularly known for his craftsmanship and mastery in the use of light. After graduating from the Univeajor influences on his work. Amorsolo set up his own studio upon his return to Manila and painted prodigiously during the 1920s and the 1930s. His Rice Planting (1922), which appeared on posters and tourist brochures, became one of the most popular images of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Beginning in the 1930s, Amorsolo's work was exhibited widely both in the Philippines and abroad. His bright,optimistic, pastoral images set the tone for Philippine painting before World War II . Except for his darker World War II-era paintings, Amorsolo painted quiet and peaceful scenes throughout his career.
Amorsolo was sought after by influential Filipinos including Luis Araneta, Antonio Araneta and Jorge B. Vargas. Amorsolo also became the favourite Philippine artist of United States officials and visitors to the country. Due to his popularity, Amorsolo had to resort to photographing his works and pasted and mounted them in an album. Prospective patrons could then choose from this catalog of his works. Amorsolo did not create exact replicas of his trademark themes; he recreated the paintings by varying some elements.
His works later appeared on the cover and pages of children textbooks, in novels, in commercial designs, in cartoons and illustrations for the Philippine publications such The Independent, Philippine Magazine, Telembang, El Renacimiento Filipino, and Excelsior. He was the director of the University of the Philippine's College of Fine Arts from 1938 to 1952.
During the 1950s until his death in 1972, Amorsolo averaged to finishing 10 paintings a month. However, during his later years, diabetes, cataracts, arthritis, headaches, dizziness and the death of two sons affected the execution of his works. Amorsolo underwent a cataract operation when he was 70 years old, a surgery that did not impede him from drawing and painting.
After being confined at the St. Luke's Hospital in Quezon City for two months, Amorsolo died at the age of 79 on April 24, 1972. The volume of paintings, sketches and studies of Amorsolo is believed to have reached more than 10,000 pieces. Amorsolo was an important influence on contemporary Filipino art and artists, even beyond the so-called "Amorsolo school." Amorsolo's influence can be seen in many landscape paintings by Filipino artists, including early landscape paintings by abstract painter Federico Aguilar Alcuaz.
In 2003, Amorsolo's children founded the Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving Fernando Amorsolo's legacy, promoting his style and vision, and preserving a national heritage through the conservation and promotion of his works.

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY ALBERT MARQUET (3)

 

ALBERT MARQUET (1875–1947),
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 m- 4,203 ft at present)
Italy 

                     

                              In La Baie de Naples et le Vésuve, 1909, oil on canvas,  Tate London

About this painting

During his jounrey to Italy in 1909, Albert Marquet has painted Vesuvius several times, at different moment of the day  and, each time with the same title, which doen'st make their identificationn very easy ! Here are too others examples already pusblished in this blog : 

- La baie de Naples et le Vésuve, 1909, Pushkin museum, Moscow
- La baie de Naples et le Vésuve, 1909, Ermitage Museum, Sankt-Petersburg, Russia


The mountain
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 m - 4,203 ft at present) is one of those legendary and mythic mountains the Earth paid regularly tribute. Monte Vesuvio in Italian modern langage or Mons Vesuvius in antique Latin langage is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples (Italy) about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore.
It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure.
Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman antique cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and several other settlements. That eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ash, and fumes to a height of 33 km (20.5 mi), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing. At least 1,000 people died in the eruption. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.
Vesuvius has erupted many times since and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions (said Plinian eruptions). It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.
Vesuvius was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the oceanic African plate were pushed to hotter depths in the earth, the water boiled off and caused the melting point of the upper mantle to drop enough to create partial melting of the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak place at the Earth's surface it broke through, producing the volcano.
The area around Vesuvius was officially declared a national park on June 5, 1995. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors and there is a small network of paths around the mountain that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends.


The painter
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. In 1890 Marquet moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work. Marquet began studies in 1892 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris under Gustave Moreau, the famous symbolist artist. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the "Fauves", i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colours than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.
From 1907 to his death, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris (a city he painted a lot of times) and many parts of the European coast and in North Africa. He was most involved with Algeria and Algiers and Tunisia. He remained also impressed particularly with Naples and Venice where he painted the sea and boats, accenting the light over water. During his voyages to Germany and Sweden he painted the subjects he usually preferred: river and sea views, ports and ships, but also cityscapes.
Matisse said : "When I look at Hokusai, I think of Marquet—and vice versa ... I don't mean imitation of Hokusai, I mean similarity with him".

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

WICK MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY LAURENCE WILLIAM WILSON

 

LAURENCE WILLIAM  WILSON  (1851-1912),
Wick Mountains (993 m - 3,259 ft)
New Zealand

In Wick Mountains upper Arthur River, watercolor,  TePapa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand

The mountains
The Wick Mountains lie between the Arthur, Cleddau, and Clinton Valleys. This includes the peaks on the west of the Cleddau Valley, from Mt Moir to Sheerdown Peak. That is where they are provisionally placed on this site. The peaks near Homer Saddle – Mt Moir, Moir’s Mate, and the Mateʻs Little Brother – contain a wealth of classic rock routes on amazing diorite. The close proximity of this region to the road makes the routes accessible as day climbs from Homer Hut. Many routes lie on north to west faces, receiving their first rays of sun in the late morning.

The painter
Laurence William Wilson emigrated to Auckland in 1877 and then travelled extensively to settle in Dunedin in 1884. He painted in both oils and watercolours, became a painting companion of George O'Brien and a teacher. One of his pupils was the Dunedin artist Alfred O'Keefe. In 1895, LW Wilson together with Grace Joel, Alfred O'Keefe, Jane Wimperis and Girolami Nerli formed the Easel Club , a breakaway from the Dunedin Establishment, which offered a programme of special classes and the introduction of a professional lady model for life drawing. In 1904 LW Wilson left Dunedin for Melbourne where he spent 5 months on a commissioned painting of the city before he set out for England, eventually returning to New Zealand via India and Africa. He exhibited with the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1882 and the Otago Art Society between 1994 and 1904. His work was included in the NZ and South Seas Exhibition Dunedin 1889-90 and at the St Louis Exposition in 1904. LW Wilson is represented in the collections of all the major public galleries in New Zealand.

___________________________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT SPIK PAINTED BY MARCUS PERNHART

MARCUS PERNHART (1824-1871)
Mount Špik (2,472 m - 8,110 ft)
Slovenia

The mountain
Mount Špik (2,472 m - 8,110 ft) is a peak located in the Julian Alps, Slovenia. The mountain, which is part of the Triglav National Park, is one of the most important mountains in the park which rises to Mount Triglav at 2,864 meters.

The painter
Marcus  Pernhart was a Carinthian / Slovenian / Austrian painter. He is considered the first Slovene realistic landscape painter. He painted several times Triglav.
At barely 12 years, he painted the guest rooms of Krajcar Restaurant between Klagenfurt and Völkermarkt. The innkeeper made, the bishop's chaplain Henr. Hermann discovered the talented boys. At 15, he trained in painting first with Andreas Hauser in Klagenfurt. Hermann supported him further and introduced him to his patron, the Gorizia Archbishop Francis Xavier Luzhin. Through this he got contact with the Viennese art scene, particularly to Franz Steinfeld, who taught at the Academy of Fine Arts. It was forwarded to the Munich Academy, but soon returned to Carinthia. There he was promoted by his stage name Pernhart the famous landscape painter of his time.
When Pernharts drawing style had fully developed, he was asked by Max from Moro to draw all Castles Carinthia. The idea was to these buildings if they could often for financial reasons can not be obtained, at least to preserve the picture, thereby preserving from decay. Markus Pernhart does not disappoint its customers and held in pencil drawings smallest details of the well-preserved, but also the already partly decayed plants firmly. Already in 1853, he produced 40 drawings followed by 198 others, he property of the Historical Association for Carinthia. In 1855 he gave the Carinthian estates Empress Elisabeth, an album of 21 drawings to which Max Moro contributed. Entitled images from Carinthia appeared in 1863-1868 in deliveries as steel engravings with accompanying. After his death appeared 5 lithographic panoramic images (Klagenfurt in 1875 and 1889).
His entire painted oeuvre consists of approximately 1,200 paintings, drawings and enrgavings that delight even after his death a large appreciation.
Pernhart presented landscapes, preferably lakes and high mountain motifs or castles, but also animals and still life subjects, in an idyllic and pathetic style. His works can be seen against the background of an incipient leisure society, they lead before the regional status objects of his home.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT SAINTE VICTOIRE BY PAUL CEZANNE

 

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)
France (Provences-Alpes-Côte d'Azur)

In Le Mont Sainte-Victoire, c. 1897. watercolor  on paper, Prvate collection

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft) also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m).
The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1,011 m) near the eastern end of the chain, and not at the Croix de Provence (946 m) near the west end and visible from Aix. The Pic des Mouches is one of the highest peaks of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, behind the peak Bertagne which reached an altitude of 1,042 mètres and which is located on the massif of Sainte-Baume.
Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).
Indeed, from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, appeared 15 million years BCE.
Sainte-Victoire, whose calcareous sediments date back to the Jurassic, thus consists of both a Pyrenean-Provencal vestige and of an alpine geology.
The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.
The massive hosts several world-famous dinosaur eggs deposits including the Roques-Hautes / Les Grands-Creux on the town Beaurecueil.

The painter
The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter (Paul Cézanne). He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings !
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. IN the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.
A true love story…
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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE WETTERHORN PAINTED BY ALEXANDRE CALAME

ALEXANDRE CALAME (1810-1864)
The Wetterhorn (3,692m-12,113ft)
Switzerland

In "In het Berner Oberland" (1847) Oil on canvas, 78 x 100 cm , Amsterdam Museum

The Mountain
The Wetterhorn (3,692m-12,113ft) in the Bernese Alps, towers above the village of Grindelwald. Formerly known as Hasle Jungfrau, it is one of three summits of a mountain named Wetterhorn sensu lato, or the "Wetterhцrner", the highest summit of which is the Mittelhorn (3,704 m) and the most distant the Rosenhorn (3,689 m). The Mittelhorn and Rosenhorn are mostly hidden from view from Grindelwald. The Grosse Scheidegg Pass crosses the col to the north, between the Wetterhorn and the Schwarzhorn.
Climbing
The Wetterhorn summit was first reached on August 31, 1844, by the Grindelwald guides Hans Jaun and Melchior Bannholzer, three days after they had co-guided a large party organized by the geologist Edouard Desor to the first ascent of the Rosenhorn. The Mittelhorn was first summitted on 9 July 1845 by the same guides, this time accompanied by a third guide, Kaspar Abplanalp, and by Stanhope Templeman Speer. The son of a Scottish physician, Speer lived in Interlaken, Switzerland.
A September 1854 ascent by a party including Alfred Wills is much celebrated in Great Britain. Apparently believing to be the first ascendant, Wills' description of this trip in his book "Wanderings Among the High Alps" (published in 1856) helped make mountaineering fashionable in Britain and ushered in the systematic exploration of the Alps by British mountaineers, the so-called golden age of alpinism.  Despite several well-documented earlier ascents and the fact that he was guided to the top, even in his obituary in 1912 he was considered to be "certainly the first who can be said with any confidence to have stood upon the real highest peak of the Wetterhorn proper" (i.e. the 3,692 m summit).  In a subsequent corrigendum, the editors admitted two earlier ascents, but considered his still "the first completely successful" one.
In 1866, Lucy Walker was the first documented female ascendant of the peak.
The 24-year-old English mountaineer William Penhall and his Meiringen guide Andreas Maurer were killed by an avalanche high up on the Wetterhorn on 3 August 1882.
The famed guide and Grindelwald native Christian Almer climbed the mountain many times in his life, including on his first of many trips with Meta Brevoort and her nephew W. A. B. Coolidge in 1868. His last ascent was in 1898 at the age of 70 together with his wife to celebrate their golden anniversary on top.  Winston Churchill is also supposed  to have climbed the Wetterhorn in 1894.

The painter
Alexandre Calame was a Swiss painter. He was the son of a skillful marble worker in Vevey. His father lost the family fortune, and Alexandre Calame was forced to work in a bank at the age of 15. When his father fell from a building and then died, the young Calame provided for his mother.
In his spare time he began to practice drawing small views of Switzerland. In 1829 he met his patron, the banker Diodati, who made it possible for him to study under landscape painter François Diday. After a few months he decided to devote himself fully to art.
In 1835, he began exhibiting his Swiss-Alps and forest paintings in Paris and Berlin. He became quite well known, especially in Germany, although Calame was more a drawer than an illustrator. He is associated with the Dusseldorf school of painting. In 1842 he went to Paris and displayed his works Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, the Brienzersee, the Monte Rosa and Mont Cervin. He taught in Geneva, where Adolf Mosengel was one of his pupils.
He went to Italy in 1844 and brought back from Rome and Naples countless paintings, among them one of the ruins of Paestum (in the city museum in Leipzig). He showed that he was capable of understanding Italian nature; but the Alps remained his speciality.
The glaciers, emerald-green, white foaming mountain water, which split the trees during the storm, and the whipped clouds, the multi-colored rocks, half masked from fog, in the rays of the gleaming sun, are those things, which he knew to be true to nature.
One of his most ingenious works is the representation of the four seasons and times of the day in four landscapes, a spring morning in the south, a summer midday in the Nordic flatlands, an Autumn evening, and a winter night on a mountain. He became popular with these large works, and his popularity grew with smaller pieces and lithographies, namely 18 studies of Lauterbrunnen and Meiringen and the 24 sheets of Alpine passes. These were widespread in France, England, and Germany and are still today used to teach this style of painting.
He died in Menton, France in 1864. An exhibition featuring more than thirty of Calame's paintings was held at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 2006.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE ALPILLES MASSIF PAINTED BY ROGER FRY

ROGER FRY (1866 -1934)
Les Alpilles  / Les  Opies  (496 m-1,627ft)
France (Provence) 

In Les Alpilles - Provençal screen,  1913, Private collection  

The mountains   

The Alpilles massif is located in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region), about sixty kilometers north of Marseille. It extends along an east-west axis for about 25 km, from the Rhône valley to the Durance valley. Several summit areas make it up: - The main part of the massif, called the Alpilles (“Little Alps”), stretches from the Saint-Gabriel chapel in Tarascon to the road linking Aureille to Eygalières.

- Les Opies  (496 m-1,627ft) east of the Alpille, is made up of three small peaks: the crêtes des Opies, Mont Menu and Défends (municipalities of Eyguières, Lamanon and Aureille).
- The  Rochers de la Pène) are a narrow link stretching to the south of the massif from which it is separated by the departmental road 17 (Arles-Paradou) .
- Les Costières, located in the town of Saint-Martin-de-Crau, is a plateau that marks the southern limit of the massif. This one gains altitude as one progresses towards the north, and slopes steeply on the marshes of Baux, to the south of the rocks of Pène.
- Les Chainons are a set of low altitude peaks (around 50 meters) between Aureille and Montmajour characterized by the sets of valleys they shelter. The Caisses de Jean-Jean are perhaps the best known of those hills

- The Mont Gaussier (306m -1,004 ft), located south of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Today, the place of passage of many hikers who cross it by the GR6, Mount Gaussier was very early used as habitat by protohistoric populations, before having at its summit a medieval castle, nowadays disappeared. Mount Gaussier is made of crystalline limestone, white and hard. One finds in the soil the trace of many fossils. This type of summit is characteristic of the Alpilles range of mountains, especially on the north face.

The painter
Roger Eliot Fry was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism. He was the first figure to raise public awareness of modern art in Britain, and emphasised the formal properties of paintings over the "associated ideas" conjured in the viewer by their representational content. He was described by the art historian Kenneth Clark as "incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin ... In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry". The taste Fry influenced was primarily that of the Anglophone world, and his success lay largely in alerting an educated public to a compelling version of recent artistic developments of the Parisian avant-garde.
As a painter Fry was experimental (his work included a few abstracts), but his best pictures were straightforward naturalistic portraits, although he did not pretend to be a professional portrait - painter. In his art he explored his own sensations and gradually his own personal visions and attitudes asserted themselves. His work was considered to give pleasure, 'communicating the delight of unexpected beauty and which tempers the spectator's sense to a keener consciousness of its presence'. Fry did not consider himself a great artist, 'only a serious artist with some sensibility and taste'. 

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE FALAISES D'ETRETAT PAINTED BY GEORGES BRAQUE

 

GEORGES BRAQUE (1882-1963)
The Falaises d'Etretat (70 to 90 m - 230 to 300 ft)
France (Normandie)

 In Les Falaises d'Etretat, 1930, oil on canvas

The cliffs 

The Falaise d'Etretat (Etretat Chalk Complex), as it is known, consists of a complex stratigraphy of Turonian and Coniacian chalks. Some of the cliffs are as high as 90 metres (300 ft).  Etretat is best known for its chalk cliffs, including three natural arches and a pointed formation called L'Aiguille (the Needle), which rises 70 m- 230 ft above the sea.  L'arche et L'aiguille  (The Ark and the Needle) above.  An underground river, then marine erosion formed a natural arch and a estimated 55 meter to 70 meters  high needle, relic piece of the cliff. Maurice Leblanc describes it in these terms in his novel The Hollow Needle (1909) : "An enormous roach, more than eighty meters high, colossal obelisk, plumb on its granite base"  At his time, the site already attracted many tourists among them "lupinophiles" admirers of Arsene Lupine: American students came for the key to the cave, where the "gentleman burglar" had found the treasure of kings of France. 

The Painter
Georges Braque (1882-1963) was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most important contributions to the history of art were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he played in the development of Cubism. Braque's work between 1908 and 1912 is closely associated with that of his colleague Pablo Picasso. Their respective Cubist works were indistinguishable for many years, yet the quiet nature of Braque was partially eclipsed by the fame and  notoriety of Picasso. Braque believed that an artist experienced beauty "… in terms of volume, of line, of mass, of weight, and through that beauty [he] interpret[s] [his] subjective impression".   He described "objects shattered into fragments... [as] a way of getting closest to the object...Fragmentation helped me to establish space and movement in space”. He adopted a monochromatic and neutral color palette in the belief that such a palette would emphasize the subject matter.  Although Braque began his career painting landscapes, during 1908 he, alongside Picasso, discovered the advantages of painting still lifes instead. Braque explained that he “... began to concentrate on still lifes, because in the still-life you have a tactile, I might almost say a manual space... This answered to the hankering I have always had to touch things and not merely see them... In tactile space you measure the distance separating you from the object, whereas in visual space you measure the distance separating things from each other. This is what led me, long ago, from landscape to still-life”  A still life was also more accessible, in relation to perspective, than landscape, and permitted the artist to see the multiple perspectives of the object. Braque's early interest in still lifes revived during the 1930s.
During the period between the wars, Braque exhibited a freer, more relaxed style of Cubism, intensifying his color use and a looser rendering of objects. However, he still remained committed to the cubist method of simultaneous perspective and fragmentation. In contrast to Picasso, who continuously reinvented his style of painting, producing both representational and cubist images, and incorporating surrealist ideas into his work, Braque continued in the Cubist style, producing luminous, other-worldly still life and figure compositions. By the time of his death in 1963, he was regarded as one of the elder statesmen of the School of Paris, and of modern art.