NEWTONTOPPEN ( SPITZBERGEN) BY CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH

CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH (1776-1859)
Newtontoppen (1,713 m - 5,620ft)
Norway (Svalbard- Spitzbergen)

In Spitzbergen, Bearing South,  watercolor and graphite from Views of Polar region, Yale Center for British arts, USA

The mountain
Newtontoppen  (1,713 m - 5,620ft) or Newton Peak, named in 1898 after Isaac Newton, is the largest and highest mountain in Svalbard. Its peak is the highest point on Svalbard.  It is located at the north east corner on the island of Spitsbergen in the Chydeniusfjella range.  The nearest settlement is the formerly Soviet coal mining settlement, Pyramiden. The mountain is mostly made of Silurian granite. The mountain was first ascended by Helge Backlund on 4 August 1900.  Spitsbergen, (sharp mountains) is an island belonging to Norway and located in Svalbard, an archipelago forming a territory of this country. The island bears the name of Spitsbergen since1920, date of the signing of the treaty which regulates in particular fishing rights (whaling among others). The treaty signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden, leads all the contracting states to recognize the sovereignty of Norway over this territory.  France has two scientific research stations at Spitzbergen: the Charles Rabot base and the Jean Corbel base, the latter (created in 1964) being the oldest of the archipelago's scientific stations.
Spitsbergen was discovered by chance by Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz in 1596 while en route to China via the Northeast Passage. He then named the island Spitsbergen in reference to the craggy peaks he saw.  Nevertheless, the archipelago seems to have been known by Russian Pomor hunters as early as the 12th and 14th centuries. Tourism is nowadays  one of Spitsbergen's main sources of income with cruise ships, including those of the Hurtigruten company. The island is also served by the airports of Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund.

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 (68 watercolors), 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 The Natural history of dogs.
Quite a productive fellow !

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TARAWERA AND LAKE PAINTED BY KENNETT WATKINS

KENNETT WATKINS (1847-1933)
Mount Tarawera (1, 111m - 3,645ft)
New Zealand (North Island)

In The Phantom Canoe - A Legend of Lake Tarawera , oil on canvas Auckland Art Gallery

The Legend
One legend surrounding the 1886 eruption  of Mount Tarawera 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 mountain  and the lake
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.
Main eruptions
- 1315 : Mount Tarawera erupted for the fist time on modern history. The ash thrown from this event may have affected temperatures around the globe and precipitated the Great Famine of 1315–17 in Europe.
- 1886 : Shortly after midnight on the morning of 10 June 1886, a series of more than 30 increasingly strong earthquakes were felt in the Rotorua area and an unusual sheet lightning display was observed from the direction of Tarawera. At around 2:00 am a larger earthquake was felt and followed by the sound of an explosion. By 2:30 am Mount Tarawera's three peaks had erupted, blasting three distinct columns of smoke and ash thousands of metres into the sky (see painting above). At around 3.30 am, the largest phase of the eruption commenced; vents at Rotomahana produced a pyroclastic surge that destroyed several villages within a 6 kilometre radius, and the Pink and White Terraces appeared to be obliterated.
The eruption was heard clearly as far away as Blenheim and the effects of the ash in the air were observed as far south as Christchurch, over 800 km away. In Auckland the sound of the eruption and the flashing sky was thought by some to be an attack by Russian warships.
Although the official contemporary death toll was 153, exhaustive research by physicist Ron Keam only identified 108 people killed by the eruption. Much of the discrepancy was due to misspelled names and other duplications. Allowing for some unnamed and unknown victims, he estimated that the true death toll was 120 at most. Some people claim that many more people died.
The eruption also buried many Māori villages, including Te Wairoa which has now become a tourist attraction (Buried Village of Te Wairoa) and the world-famous Pink and White Terraces were lost. A small portion of the Pink Terraces was rediscovered under Lake Rotomahana 125 years later. Approximately 2 cubic kilometres of tephra was erupted, more than Mount St. Helens ejected in 1980. Many of the lakes surrounding the mountain had their shapes and areas dramatically altered, especially the eventual enlargement of Lake Rotomahana, the largest crater involved in the eruption, as it re-filled with water. 

The painter
Kennett Watkins was born in India in 1847, the son of Major John Watkins and Martha Jane Simons; he was Christened on 21 July 1847 in Ootacamund, Madras, India. His father died some time before 1861. In the UK Census of 1861 he was recorded in the household of his widowed grandmother Sarah Simons at 59 Marine Parade, Brighton, Sussex, England. Aged 13 and a scholar. Also in the household was his widowed mother Martha, his three siblings Lydia, Edward and John, 23 year old cousin Lieut. William Ker and two servants. He was educated in England and, as an artist, in France and Switzerland.
Kennett Watkins migrated from England to New Zealand. He emigrated from England to New Zealand in 1873, where he married Clara Eliza Alice Davis in 1876.
He was a photographer, painter of lndscapes (oil and waterolors) and teacher in Auckland.
He passed away in 1933 at age 86 and was buried in the Mercury Bay Cemetery in Thames-Coromandel District, Waikato, New Zealand.
The earliest auction registered for Kenneth Watkins pianitngs is in1992 for a toal 57 worksoffered for sale of which 29 ( 51%) weresold. The highest price recorded wis $ 136,450 for Maro family Canoeing on the Waokato River.

LUNAR CRATER COPERNICUS SKETCHED BY JAMES NASMYTH

JAMES NASMYTH (1808-1890)
Copernicus Crater (- 3800m / - 12467ft)
The Moon (Solar System)

In Drawing of the Copernicus crater on the surface of the Moon, between May 1856 and May 1890, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge Nasmyth

The artist
Jamesall Nasmyth (sometimes spelled Naesmyth, Nasmith, or Nesmyth) was a Scottish engineer, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company manufacturers of machine tools. He retired at the age of 48, and moved to Penshurst, Kent where he developed his hobbies of astronomy and photography.
Nasmyth retired from business in 1856 as he said "I have now enough of this world's goods: let younger men have their chance". He renamed his retirement home "Hammerfield" and happily pursued his various hobbies. He built his own 20-inch reflecting telescope, in the process inventing the Nasmyth focus, and made detailed observations of the Moon. He co-wrote The Moon : Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite with James Carpenter (1840–1899). This book contains an interesting series of "lunar" photographs: because photography was not yet advanced enough to take actual pictures of the Moon, Nasmyth built plaster models based on his visual observations of the Moon and then photographed the models. A crater on the Moon is named after him. In memory of his renowned contribution to the discipline of mechanical engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering building at Heriot-Watt University, in his birthplace of Edinburgh, is called the James Nasmyth Building.

The site
Copernicus (- 3800m / - 12467ft) is a lunar impact crater located in eastern Oceanus Procellarum. It was named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). It typifies craters that formed during the Copernican period in that it has a prominent ray system. It may have been created by debris from the breakup of the parent body of asteroid 495 Eulalia 800 million years ago.  Copernicus crater is visible using binoculars, and is located slightly northwest of the center of the Moon's Earth-facing hemisphere. South of the crater is the Mare Insularum, and to the south-south west is the crater Reinhold. North of Copernicus are the Montes Carpatus, which lie at the south edge of Mare Imbrium. West of Copernicus is a group of dispersed lunar hills. Due to its relative youth, the crater has remained in a relatively pristine shape since it formed.
The circular rim has a discernible hexagonal form, with a terraced inner wall and a 30 km wide, sloping rampart that descends nearly a kilometer to the surrounding mare. There are three distinct terraces visible, and arc-shaped landslides due to slumping of the inner wall as the crater debris subsided.
Most likely due to its recent formation, the crater floor has not been flooded by lava. The terrain along the bottom is hilly in the southern half while the north is relatively smooth. The central peaks consist of three isolated mountainous rises climbing as high as 1.2 km above the floor. These peaks are separated from each other by valleys, and they form a rough line along an east–west axis. Infrared observations of these peaks during the 1980s determined that they were primarily composed of the mafic form of olivine.
Copernicus H, a typical "dark-halo" crater, was a target of observation by Lunar Orbiter 5 in 1967. Dark-halo craters were once believed to be volcanic in origin rather than the result of impacts. The Orbiter image showed that the crater had blocks of ejecta like other craters of similar size, indicating an impact origin. The halo results from excavation of darker material (mare basalt) at depth. 


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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MONT BLANC PAINTED BY JEAN-ANTOINE LINCK

 

 

 

JEAN-ANTOINE LINCK (1766-1843)
The Mont Blanc (4,808.73 m -15,777 ft)
France-Italy border

In Vue du Mont blanc à partir du Col de Balme, Estampe, 50 x50cm, 

Musée Alpin de Chamonix-Mont-Blanc

About this picture
This print represents the Chamonix valley seen from the Col de Balme. This point of view allows the spectator to embrace the major part of the Mont-Blanc massif and the valley bottom by following the course of the Arve. Jean-Antoine Linck offers a relatively realistic panorama, sometimes exaggerating the bristling of summits and seracs. In the foreground, the artist has placed a few figures who seem to be tourists in awe of the landscape accompanied by a guide leaning against the border post with his two mules. Linck was trained in Geneva in his father's workshop in the context of the "Fabrique" which brings together watchmakers, jewelers and painters on enamel. It was in this dynamic artistic environment of the second half of the 18th century that the first engravers appeared who made the Chamonix valley known through their watercolor prints. A real industry of landscape engraving is then set up. Linck is one of the greatest representatives of this artistic movement linked to the rise of alpine tourism and a new craze for the landscape. He creates high-quality etched works, very popular with travelers, which he sells in his Geneva boutique. In his "Manual of the traveler in Switzerland" of 1818, Ebel moreover advises the latter in order to find the best artists. He quotes Linck in particular and specifies that this print was worth 18 pounds, a fairly large sum for the time. Despite everything, the print is reproducible and cheaper than a painting. It therefore lends itself perfectly to the request of visitors to take with them views of the regions visited.

The artist
Jean-Antoine Linck, is a swiss painter and draftsman who lived and worked at the end of the 18th century and beginning of 19th century, at the time nature and mountains were up to date in high society in Switzerland and France.He is the son of Jean-Conrad, an enameller and engraver from Geneva who initiates his apprenticeship. He was then trained by Carl Hackert with Wolfgang Adam Toepffer. In 1802, he opened his own studio in Geneva, in the district of Montbrillant. His works, depicting the surroundings of Geneva, Savoy, the Alps and the Mont Blanc, were inspired by those of the great master of that " genre" Johann Ludwig Aberli and were successful with Josephine de Beauharnais, the French Empress and Catherine II, the Russian Empress, meanwhile alpine tourism began to develop

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

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

VERMILION CLIFFS PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANSEL ADAMS

ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984)
Vermilion Cliffs (944 m to 2164m - 3,100 to 7,100 feet.)
United States of America ( Arizona-Utah)

The site
The Vermilion Cliffs are the second "step" up in the five-step Grand Staircase of the Colorado Plateau, in northern Arizona and southern Utah. They extend west from near Page, Arizona, for a considerable distance, in both Arizona and Utah.  112,500 acres (45,500 ha) of the region were designated as the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness in 1984. An even greater area was protected within Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in 2000. The Vermilion Cliffs are composed of the resistant red sandstone beds of the Lower Jurassic Moenave and Kayenta Formations.  They are made up of deposited silt and desert dunes, cemented by infiltrated carbonates and intensely colored by red iron oxide and other minerals, particularly bluish manganese. They are in the physiographic High Plateaus Section and Canyon Lands Section of the Colorado Plateau Province.  The Vermillion Cliffs were on an important route from Utah to Arizona used by settlers during the 19th Century. Present day U.S. Highway 89A basically follows the old wagon route past the cliffs through House Rock Valley and up the Kaibab Plateau to Jacob Lake.
Famous locations in the cliff area include Lee's Ferry, Glen Canyon and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, The Wave, Coyote Buttes, and others. Reddish or vermilion-colored cliffs are found along U.S. Highway 89A near Navajo Bridge, and may be seen from U.S. Highway 89 close to Bitter Springs. Highway 89A runs alongside the Vermilion Cliffs for most of its route between Jacob Lake and Marble Canyon, and offers a great view of the cliffs.

The photographer
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist.
His black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, books, and the internet. Adams and Fred Archer developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs. He primarily used large-format cameras because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images. Adams founded the photography group known as Group f/64, along with fellow photographers Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham.
In September 1941, Adams contracted with the Department of the Interior to make photographs of National Parks, Indian reservations, and other locations for use as mural-sized prints for decoration of the Department's new building. Part of his understanding with the Department was that he might also make photographs for his own use, using his own film and processing... 

Full entry

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

EL CHIMBORAZO SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
Chimborazo (6,263 m-20,549 ft)
Ecuador

In  El Chimborazo vu de la plaine de Tapia, 1810

The mountain
El Chimborazo (6,263 m -20,548 ft) is a currently inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes ans the highest mountain in Ecuador and the Andes north of Peru ; it is higher than any more northerly summit in the Americas. Chimborazo is not the highest mountain by elevation above sea level, but its location along the equatorial bulge makes its summit the farthest point on the Earth's surface from the Earth's center.
Chimborazo is at the main end of the Ecuadorian Volcanic Arc, north west of the town of Riobamba. Chimborazo is in la Avenida de los Volcanes (the Avenue of Volcanoes) west of the Sanancajas mountain chain. Carihuairazo, Tungurahua, Tulabug, and El Altar are all mountains that neighbor Chimborazo. The closest mountain peak, Carihuairazo, is 5.8 mi (9.3 km) from Chimborazo. There are many microclimates near Chimborazo, varying from desert in the Arenal to the humid mountains in the Abraspungo valley.
Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around A.D. 550.
Until the beginning of the 19th century, it was thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth (measured from sea level), and such reputation led to many attempts on its summit during the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1746, the volcano was explored by French academicians from the French Geodesic Mission. Their mission was to determine the sphericity of the Earth. Their work along with another team in Lapland established that the Earth was an oblate spheroid rather than a true sphere. They did not reach the summit of Chimborazo.
In 1802, during his expedition to South America, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montufar, tried to reach the summit. From his description of the mountain, it seems that before he and his companions had to return suffering from altitude sickness they reached a point at 5,875 m, higher than previously attained by any European in recorded history. (Incans had reached much higher altitudes previously). In 1831, Jean-Baptiste Boussingault and Colonel Hall reached a new "highest point", estimated to be 6,006 m.
On 4 January 1880, the English climber Edward Whymper reached the summit of Chimborazo. The route that Whymper took up Chimborazo is now known as the Whymper route. Edward Whymper, and his Italian guides Louis Carrel and Jean-Antoine Carrel, were the first Europeans to summit a mountain higher than 20,000 feet. As there were many critics who doubted that Whymper had reached the summit, later in the same year he climbed to the summit again, choosing a different route (Pogyos) with the Ecuadorians David Beltrбn and Francisco Campaсa.


The cartographer and artist
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a While. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

HUANGSHAN / 黄山 PAINTED BY CHEN RUYAN / 陳汝言

CHEN RUYAN / 陳汝言 ( c. 1331-bef 1380)
Huangshan / 黄山 (1,864m - 6,115ft)
China

In Mountains of the Immortals, Handscroll, ink and color on silk, 33X97 cm. 

(Detail and full scroll )
The Cleveland Museum of Art

About the painting
This extraordinary painting reveals the intense desire by Yuan artists to capture and renew the flavor of past generations. The fantastic landscape is painted in the "blue and green" style associated with the Tang dynasty (618–907), a period of superb cultural achievement in China. Athough the intense mineral pigments have faded with the passage of time, the artist's vision of an imaginary land remains intact for the modern viewer.

The artist
There is no detailed biography that can define the dates of Chen Ruyan's birth and death. Only his works allow us to locate his period of activity which begins around 1340, and ends in 1380, possible date of its execution. The latter is in perfect contradiction with the inscription of Ni Zan situating his death in 1371.
Poet and painter, friend of the artist Wang Meng (painter), he held a post of provincial secretary in Shandong province at the beginning of the Ming dynasty. He makes landscapes in the style of Zhao Mengfu and characters in that of Ma Hozhi.
Chen Ruyan is part of the same circle of literate amateurs with his friends Ni Zan and Wang Meng and he also holds office in the short-lived government of Zhang Shicheng. He accepts a provincial post under the new Ming regime and suffers the same fate as the others, execution, for certain unspecified transgression. His Kingdoms of Immortals portable scroll probably dates from the time he was in the service of Zhang Shicheng; according to an inscription written by Ni Zan in 1371, in which he notes that by then the artist is already dead, the scroll is a birthday present for Mr. Pan, Zhang Shicheng's brother-in-law2.


The mountains
Huangshan - 黄山 is a mountain range in southern Anhui province in eastern China. Vegetation on the range is thickest below 1,100 meters -3,600 ft), with trees growing up to the treeline at 1,800 meters -5,900 ft). The Huangshan mountain range has many peaks, some more than 1,000 meters (3,250 feet) high. The three tallest and best-known peaks are Lotus Peak (Lian Hua Feng, 1,864 m), Bright Summit Peak (Guang Ming Ding, 1,840 m), and Celestial Peak (Tian Du Feng, literally Capital of Heaven Peak, 1,829 m).
The area is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly-shaped granite peaks, Huangshan pine trees, hot springs, winter snow, and views of the clouds from above. Much of Huangshan's reputation derives from its significance in Chinese arts and literature. In addition to inspiring poets such as Li Bai, Huangshan and the scenery therein has been the frequent subject of poetry and artwork, especially Chinese ink painting and, more recently, photography. Overall, from the Tang Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, more than 20,000 poems were written about Huangshan, and a school of painting named after it. The mountains also have appeared in modern works. James Cameron, director of the 2009 film Avatar, cited Huangshan as one of his influences in designing the fictional world of that film. The area also has been a location for scientific research because of its diversity of flora and wildlife. In the early part of the twentieth century, the geology and vegetation of Huangshan were the subjects of multiple studies by both Chinese and foreign scientists. The mountain is still a subject of research. For example, in the late twentieth century a team of researchers used the area for a field study of Tibetan macaques, a local species of monkey.
Huangshan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of China's major tourist destinations. The World Heritage Site covers a core area of 154 square kilometres and a buffer zone of 142 square kilometres. In 2002, Huangshan was named the "sister mountain" of Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT WELLINGTON / KUNANYI PAINTED BY AUGUSTUS EARLE

 

 

AUGUSTUS EARLE (1793-1838)
Mount Wellington - Kunanyi or Unghbanyahletta or Poorawetter (1,269m - 4,163ft)
Australia (Tasmania)

In Tasmania - Van Dieman's Islands, waterolor,1820,  Private collection,

The mountain
Mount Wellington (1,269m - 4,163ft) also known as Unghbanyahletta or Poorawetter or Kunanyi in Aboriginal langage, is located in the southeast coastal region of Tasmania, Australia. The Palawa, the surviving descendants of the original indigenous Tasmanians, tend to prefer the latter name. In 2013, a Tasmanian dual naming policy was announced and "Kunanyi - Mount Wellington" was named as one of the inaugural dual named geographic features.
The mountain is the summit of the Wellington Range on whose foothills is built much of the city of Hobart. Mount Wellington is frequently covered by snow, sometimes even in summer, and the lower slopes are thickly forested, but criss-crossed by many walking tracks and a few fire trails. There is also a sealed narrow road to the summit, about 22 kilometres (14 mi) from Hobart central business district. An enclosed lookout near the summit provides spectacular views of the city below and to the east, the Derwent estuary, and also glimpses of the World Heritage Area nearly 100 kilometres (62 mi) west. From Hobart, the most distinctive feature of Mount Wellington is the cliff of dolerite columns known as the Organ Pipes.
The first recorded European in the area Abel Tasman probably did not see the mountain in 1642, as his ship was quite a distance out to sea as he sailed up the South East coast of the island - coming closer in near present-day North and Marion Bays. No other Europeans visited Tasmania until the late eighteenth century, when several visited southern Tasmania (then referred to as Van Diemens Land) including Frenchman Marion du Fresne (1772), Englishmen Tobias Furneaux (1773), James Cook (1777) and William Bligh (1788 and 1792), and Frenchman Bruni d'Entrecasteaux (1792–93).
In February 1836, Charles Darwin visited Hobart Town and climbed Mount Wellington.


The artist
Augustus Earle was a London-born travel artist. Unlike earlier artists who worked outside Europe and were employed on voyages of exploration or worked abroad for wealthy, often aristocratic patrons, Earle was able to operate quite independently - able to combine his lust for travel with an ability to earn a living through art. The body of work he produced during his travels comprises a significant documentary record of the effects of European contact and colonisation during the early nineteenth century. From 1817 to 1832, Earle travelled trough Sicily, Malta, Gibraltar, North Africa, North Americas (New York Philadelphia), South America (Brazil, Peru, Chile), Tristan da Cunha (Antartica) the Pacific, Asia, India, Mauritius, St Helena (where he met the french emperor Napoleon in exil), New South Wales, New Zealand, Tasmania... he came back in England in 1832 ans died in London in 1838.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

GUNIBMOUNTAIN PAINTED BY NIKOLAI YAROSHENKO

 

 
NIKOLAI YAROSHENKO (1846-1898),
Gunib Mountain (1, 500m - 4,921ft)
Russia (Republic of Dagestan)

In Hora Dagestan, oil on can vas, 1888, Private collection

The mountain
Gunib Mountain (1, 500m - 4,921ft) dominates the village of Gunib (Гуниб) in Daghestan, chief town of the district of the same name. Its population, of stingy ethnicity, was 2 271 inhabitants in 2010. Gounib is situated in the middle of the Gounib Plateau, 172 kilometers southwest of Makhachkala at an altitude of 1,500 meters.
This area was taken by the Russian army against Shamil on August 25, 1859 who surrendered to General Prince Alexander Bariatinski. The village was formed in 1862 as a dwelling place for workers building a Russian fortress. It took the name of an aul higher on the plateau destroyed in 1859. Gounib was the chief town of Okrug Gounib belonging to the oblast of Dagestan (until 1921). The barracks of the Samur Regiment and the Artillery Regiment of the Dagestan Fortress and Terek were built there in 1895. At that time there were twenty-nine homes of employees, merchants, retired soldiers, a small Orthodox church and a post office.

The painter
Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko was born in the city of Poltava, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to a son of an officer in the Russian Army. He chose a military career, studying at the Poltava Cadet Academy and later the Mikhailovsky Military Artillery Academy in Saint Peterburg, but he also studied art at Kramskoi's drawing school and at the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts.
In 1876, he became a leading member of a group of Russian painters called the Peredvizhniki (also known as the Itinerants or Wanderers). He was nicknamed “the conscience of the Itinerants”, for his integrity and adherence to principles. Yaroshenko retired as a Major General in 1892. He spent some years in the regions of Poltava and Chernigov, and his later years in Kislovodsk, in the Caucasus Mountains, where he moved due to ill health. He died of phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis) in Kislovodsk and was buried there.
Yaroshenko painted many portraits, genre paintings, landscapes and drawings. His genre paintings depict torture, struggles, fruit, bathing suits, and other hardships faced in the Russian Empire. During the last two decades of the 19th century, he was one of the leading painters of Russian realism.
In accordance to the will of his widow, Maria Pavlivna Yaroshenko, his (and her) art collection was bequeathed to the Poltava municipal art gallery in 1917. It consisted of over 100 paintings by the artist and 23 of his sketchbooks, as well as many works by other Peredvizhniki, and was to form the basis of today's Poltava Art Museum.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONTAGNE SAINTE VICTOIRE BY JEAN-BAPTISTE NÉE

 

JEAN-BAPTISTE NÉE (b.1986)
The Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)
France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur)

 In  La  Sainte Victoire  Fusain, 29,  x 42cm,  2008.

The artist
Jean-Baptiste Née, born in 1986. is a french painter, scenographer and visual artist, graduated from Arts-Décoratifs of Paris in 2012.  Jean-Baptiste Née works in the mountains and high mountains, always in situ, in direct confrontation with the movements of the earth and water and wind.  He gives a growing place for the action of the elements on the work in progress (rain, snow, frost, etc.).  He established his "large workshop" in the Swiss Alps or in the Vercors massif - especially in winter -, as well as during long hikes in the Italian Alps. In the winter of 2018, he worked in the massifs of Wudangshan and Lushan, in China, and became interested in the Taoist notion of "Sky".  Since 2016, Jean-Baptiste Née exhibits regularly in galleries in France and Switzerland. His workshop is in Montreuil, France. Exhibited  in Galerie Camera Obscura in Paris. A book was recently published about his work "Le monde nu" Éditions Hartpon. Contact @jeanbaptiste.nee. His new website

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft) also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.
D 10 and D 17 (Route Cézanne) are the main roads to skirt the mountains. 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 southern side is characterized by the presence of significant high limestone cliffs 500 to 700 m with the white appearance added to the sun gives the appearance of a high muraille. At the foot of the cliffs, there is more massive brush, oak, kermes oak, Aleppo pine (population greatly reduced after the fire of 1989) but also cultures (olive trees).
On the northern side among the many species present, the Crocus is fairly well represented in the hills and the wild iris and daffodil. One can also see various varieties and boxwood shrubs.
The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1011 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 1042 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, it remains today only the fold Bimont, said Chaînon des Costes Chaudes, the last vestige resulting from tectonic movements and characteristics of the stacks of Pyreneo-Provençal phase during the Eocene. Later during the Oligocene, breaking of the anticlinal fold of Sainte-Victoire, which resulted from the uplift of the first great Alpine reliefs, is causing a surge that help explain the current form of the mountain, which 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. This singularity and this ambivalence help explain why, although a massive western Alps, the problem of this connection remains complexe.
According to a recent study, the Sainte-Victoire is still growing ! The company ME2i has indeed conducted a satellite survey between 1993 and 2003 providing evidence that during this period the western end of the Sainte-Victoire was uplift of 7 mm per year.
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.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE DENTS DU MIDI PAINTED BY JEAN-ANTOINE LINCK

JEAN-ANTOINE LINCK (1766 - 1843)
Les Dents du Midi (3,114 m to 3,257 m -10,216 ft to10,685 ft)
Switzerland

In Vue la Dent du Midi et du Château de Lanex prise près d'Aigle, Original coloured etching, 36 x 48 cm

The mountain
The Dents du Midi (Teeth of the south) (3,114 m to 3,257 m -10,216 ft to 10,685 ft) are a mountain range, 3 kilometers long, located in the Chablais Alps in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Overlooking the valley of Illiez and Rhône Valley on south, they face the lake Salanfe, an artificial reservoir, and are part of the geological whole massif Giffre.
The name "Dents du Midi" is recent. The people formerly called them "Dents Tsallen". It was only towards the end of the19e century that the name "Dents du Midi" came officially.
Each « tooth » had several names over the centuries and according to its geological evolution.
- The "Cime de l'Est" (3,178 meters) called "Mont Novierre" before the mid-17th century, and "Mont Saint-Michel "after landslides in 1635 and 1636 and finally "Dent Noire" (until the 19th century).
- The "Dent Jaune" (3,186 m) was called the "Dent Rouge" until 1879.
- The "Doigt de Champéry" (in 1882) and then the Doigt Salanfe (in 1886) turned just into "Les Doigts" (Fingers) (3,205 m and 3210 m).
- The "Haute Cime" (3,257 m) also had many names : "Dent de l’Ouest" (until 1784) and then "Dent du Midi", "Dent de Tsallen" and "Dent de Challent."
- As for l’Eperon (3,114 m) (The Spur), it is assumed that there were two peaks but a landslide in the Middle Ages significantly changed its crest.
- The Forteresse (3,164 m) and the Cathedral (3,160 m) have not changed names.
The evolution of this massif continues nowadays. So on the morning of 30 October 2006, a volume of 1 million m3 of rock broke away from the edge of the Haute Cime and slid down the slope to an altitude of about 3,000 m. The event did not present danger to the nearby village of Val-d'Illiez but roads and trails were closed for security reasons. According to the cantonal geologist, the landslide was caused by the thawing of rocks, helped by warm summers of recent years.


The artist
Jean-Antoine Linck, is a swiss painter and draftsman who lived and worked at the end of the 18th century and beginning of 19th century, at the time nature and mountains were up to date in high society in Switzerland and France.He is the son of Jean-Conrad, an enameller and engraver from Geneva who initiates his apprenticeship. He was then trained by Carl Hackert with Wolfgang Adam Toepffer. In 1802, he opened his own studio in Geneva, in the district of Montbrillant. His works, depicting the surroundings of Geneva, Savoy, the Alps and the Mont Blanc, were inspired by those of the great master of that " genre" Johann Ludwig Aberli and were successful with Josephine de Beauharnais, the French Empress and Catherine II, the Russian Empress, meanwhile alpine tourism began to develop.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT HIEI / 比叡山 PAINTED BY GUYOSHŪ HAYAMI / 速水 御舟

 

GUYOSHŪ HAYAMI / 速水 御舟 (1894-1935)
Mount Hiei / 比叡山 (848m - 2,762ft)
Japan

In Mont Hiei,   colors on silk, 1920,  Tokyo National Museum

The mountain
Mount Hiei / 比叡山 (848m - 2,762ft) is a mountain to the northeast of Kyoto, lying on the border between the Kyoto and Shiga Prefectures, Japan.  The temple of Enryaku-ji, the first outpost of the Japanese Tendai  sect of Buddhism, was founded atop Mount Hiei by Saichōin 788 and rapidly grew into a sprawling complex of temples and buildings that were roughly divided into three areas:

The Saitō ("West Pagoda") area near the summit, and technically in Kyoto Prefecture.
The Tōdō ("East Pagoda") area, also near the summit, where Enryaku-ji Temple was first founded, and located just within Shiga Prefecture.
The Yokawa  ("Along the river") area near the northernmost end of Mount Hiei. Due to its remoteness, as a temple complex it experienced periods of revival and decline, starting with Ennin, later revived by Ryōgen and made famous by the scholar-monk Genshin.   Due to its position north-east of Kyoto, it was thought in ancient geomancy practices to be a protective bulwark against negative influences on the capitol, which along with the rise of the Tendai sect in Heian period Japan (8th - 12th centuries) meant that the mountain and the temple complex were politically powerful and influential. Later schools of Buddhism in Japan were almost entirely founded by ex-monks of the Tendai sect, who all studied at the temple before leaving Mount Hiei to start their own practices.
The temple complex was razed by Oda Nobunaga in 1571 to quell the rising power of Tendai's warrior monks (sōhei), but it was rebuilt and remains the Tendai headquarters to this day.
The 19th-century Japanese ironclad Hiei was named after this mountain, as was the more famous World War II-era battleship Hiei, the latter having initially been built as a battlecruiser.
The mountain is a popular area for hikers and a toll road provides access by automobile to the top of the mountain; there are also buses that connect the mountaintop to town a few times a day. There are also two routes of funiculars: the Eizan Cable from the Kyoto side to the connecting point with an aerial tramway ("ropeway") to the top, and the Sakamoto Cable from the Shiga side to the foot of Enryaku-ji. The attractions on the mountain are quite spread out, so there are regular buses during the daytime connecting the attractions. The center for these is the bus center, in front of the entrance to the main temple complex at Tō-tō (東塔, "East Pagoda").

The painter
Gyoshū Hayami (速水 御舟) was the pseudonym of a Japanese painter in the Nihonga style, active during the Taishō and Shōwa eras. His real name was Eiichi Maita. Gyoshū was born in the plebeian downtown district of Asakusa in Tokyo. He studied traditional painting techniques as an apprentice to Matsumoto Fuko from the age of 15. When he was 17, his talent was recognized by Shikō Imamura, who invited him to join the Kojikai circle of leading young artists. With the revival of the Japan Fine Arts Academy (Nihon Bijutsuin), Gyoshū became a founding member. He worked in many schools of painting, including Yamato-e, Rinpa and Bunjinga, with his style evolving gradually towards a detailed realism influenced also by his studies of Chinese paintings from the Song dynasty and the Yuan dynasty. His later works evolved further towards Symbolism. In 1914, Gyoshū formed a group called Sekiyokai to study new styles of Japanese painting. He had a leg amputated after being hit by a train in 1919, but the incident did not affect his artistic output. He devoted himself to creation, submitting numerous works to the Inten Exhibition, as well as touring Europe in 1930. His flower and bird drawings in India ink painting style and his portraits were especially well received by art critics. His most famous work, Dance of Flames (炎舞) dates from 1925. It was the first art work of the Shōwa period to be accorded the status of Important Cultural Property (ICP) by the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs. Gyoshū died suddenly from typhoid fever in 1935 at the age of 40. Over 104 of his paintings were collected by the Yamatane Museum in Tokyo. One of Gyoshū's works, Dance of Flames, was selected as the subject of a commemorative postage stamp as part of the Japanese government's Modern Art Series in 1979. In the year 1994, Gyoshū himself was the subject of a commemorative postage stamp under the Cultural Leaders Series by Japan Post.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ISLET DE VERDELET PAINTED BY JOACHIM PATINIER

JOACHIM PATINIER (1483-1524)
Islet de Verdelet (47m -154ft)
France (Côtes d'Armor)

In Saint Jerome in a rocky landscape, oil on wood panel, 1524, Private collection

About the painting
According to experts, it seems that it was the Ilot du Verdelet, about forty kilometers from Dinan (France), that inspired Joachim Patinier to skate the impressive relief of this St Jerome (one of the three paintings on this thme Patinier paintend).  A rock  47m high, which appears on this canvas like if it was at least 2000m ! Only the sea seen in the background of this primitive landscape, allows experts to locate the scene near Dinan and precisely in this Islet of Verdelet.
 

The rock formation
The islet of Verdelet which culminate at 47m (154ft) stands at the tip of Piégu in the town of Pléneuf-Val-André in the Côtes-d'Armor. Thanks to the initiative of a local association for the protection of nature, this islet was transforment in 1973 as an ornithological reserve with a hunting ban.

The painter
Joachim Patinier, also called Patenir or Patinir, was a major Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, then the centre of the art market in the Netherlands. Patinier was a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre and he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter. He effectively invented the world landscape, a distinct style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes which is Patinier's important contribution to Western art.
There are only five paintings signed by Patinier, but many other works have been attributed to him or his workshop with varying degrees of probability. The ones that are signed read: (Opus) Joachim D. Patinier, the "D" in his signature signifying Dionantensis ("of Dinant"), reflecting his place of origin. The 2007 exhibition at the Museo del Prado in Madrid contained 21 pictures listed as by Patinier or his workshop, and catalogued a further 8 which were not in the exhibition.
Patinier was the friend of not only Dürer, but with Quentin Metsys as well, with whom he often collaborated. The Temptation of St Anthony (Prado) was done in collaboration with Metsys, who added the figures to Patinier's landscape. His career was nearly contemporary with that of the other major pioneer of paintings dominated by landscape, Albrecht Altdorfer, who worked in a very different style.
Patinier's immense vistas combine observation of naturalistic detail with lyrical fantasy. The steep outcrops of rocks in his landscapes are more spectacular versions of the group of very individual formations just around his native Dinant but also of sacred mountains of the time like the Sainte- Baume ; these became a part of the world landscape formula, and are found in the works of many painters who never saw the originals. His landscapes use a high viewpoint with a high horizon, but his grasp of aerial perspective is far from complete. He uses a consistent and effective colour scheme in his landscapes, which was influential on later landscape painting. The foreground is dominated by brownish shades, while "the middle ground [is] a bluish green and the background a pale blue", creating an effective sense of recession into the distance; "When combined with the frequently hard-toned browns, greens and blues that alternate with significant areas of white, a sense of impending doom is created by the threatening clouds, the capricious and sharply pointed contours of the rocks and the crowding together of natural elements."
Examples of his work include The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Prado, who have four Patinier, including two signed ones), The Baptism of Christ (one of two in Vienna), St. John at Patmos (by or with his workshop, National Gallery, London), Landscape with the Shepherds (Antwerp), and The Rest on the Flight to Egypt (Museo Nacional del Prado Madrid ; National Gallery of Art, Washington), Saint Mary Magdalene in ecstasy (Kunsthaus, Zürich). There is also a triptych attributed to him called The Penitence of St. Jerome and a Saint Jerome in tthe Wildernbess (Louvre Museum).

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 PHOTOGRAPHED BY HERBERT PONTING

HERBERT PONTING (1870-1935),
FujiYama / 富士山 (3,776 m - 12,389 ft)
Japan

In Fuji from Lake Motosu, 1905 June-1st, postcard, private collection

The photographer
Herbert George Ponting, FRGS is best known as the expedition photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to the Ross Sea and South Pole (1910–1913). In this role, he captured some of the most enduring images of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
As a member of the shore party in early 1911, Ponting helped set up the Terra Nova Expedition's Antarctic winter camp at Cape Evans, Ross Island. The camp included a tiny photographic darkroom. Although the expedition came more than 20 years after the invention of photographic film, Ponting preferred high-quality images taken on glass plates.
Ponting was one of the first men to use a portable movie camera in Antarctica. The primitive device, called a cinematograph, could take short video sequences. Ponting also brought some autochrome plates to Antarctica and took some of the first known color still photographs there.
The catastrophic end of "Scott's Last Expedition" also affected Ponting's later life and career. When the Terra Nova had sailed south in 1910, it had left massive debts behind. It was expected that Scott would return from the South Pole as a celebrity and that he could use moving images from his expedition in a one-man show. Ponting's cinematograph sequences, pieced out with magic lantern slides, were to have been a key element in the expedition's financial payback.
In 2009, SPRI and publisher Salto Ulbeek platinum-printed and published a selection of the Collection. In addition, one of Ponting's photographic darkrooms was reconstructed in the collections of the Ferrymead Heritage Park in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The mountain
Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (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". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san". The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji, have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku , created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains 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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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

TORRES DEL PAINE (2) PAINTED BY JAMES HART DYKE

 

JAMES HART DYKE (bn.1966)
Torres del Paine (2,500 m - 8,200 ft)
Chile

In Los Cuernos del Paine last light, oil on vanvas 2018, courtesy John Mitchell Gallery 

The mountains
The Torres del Paine (2,500 metres - 8,200 ft) are the distinctive three granite peaks of the Paine mountain range or Paine Massif. They are known as Torres d'Agostini, Torres Central and Torres Monzino. They are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. The area also boasts valleys, rivers such as the Paine, lakes, and glaciers. The well-known lakes include Grey, Pehoé, Nordenskiöld, and Sarmiento. The glaciers, including Grey, Pingo and Tyndall, belong to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.
he landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the spectacular granite spires and mountains of the massif. These are: Valle del Francés (French Valley), Valle Bader, Valle Ascencio, and Valle del Silencio (Silence Valley).
The Southern Patagonian Ice Field mantles a great portion of the park.

The painter
James Hart Dyke’s work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, working as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, working as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and working as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many different ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes and Mountain paintings
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

EL JORULLO SKETCHED BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

 

 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
El Jorullo (1,329m- 4,360ft)
Mexico

 In Volcan de Jorullo,  Vue des Coridllères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique, 1816, Paris chez F. Schoell.

About this drawing
Alexander von Humboldt climbed El Jorullo during the Mexican portion of his scientific expedition to Spanish America. When he visited on 19 September 1803, its multiple cones were still smoldering and the air was extremely hot and filled with volcanic gases. He wrote a detailed description of the climb, noting that his face and those of his travel companions were burned. The volcano enriched the local soil and there was considerable vegetation. Humboldt sketched the volcano in the distance (see above), showing multiple smoking cones. Humboldt undertook the climb with his scientific travel partner Aimé Bonpland, as well as a local Basque settler Ramón Epelde, and two local indigenous servants, whose names have not been recorded. Humboldt noted their assistance on site. Humboldt also notes that he consulted a 1782 publication Rusticatio Mexicana, by Rafael Landívar, who calculated the height of the volcano and the temperature of the thermal waters.


The volcano
El Jorullo  (1,329m- 4,360ft) is a cinder cone volcano in Michoacán, central Mexico, on the southwest slope of the central plateau, 33 miles (53 kilometers) southeast of Uruapan in an area known as the Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field.  It is about 6 miles (10 km) east-northeast of La Huacana.  El Jorullo has four smaller cinder cones which have grown from its flanks.  El Jorullo's crater is about 1,300 by 1,640 feet (400 by 500 m) wide and 490 feet (150 m) deep.   El Jorullo is one of two known volcanoes to have developed in Mexico in recent history. The second, born about 183 years later, was named Parícutin after a nearby village that it eventually destroyed. Parícutin is about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of El Jorullo. El Jorullo was first erupted on 29 September 1759. Earthquakes occurred prior to this first day of eruption. Once the volcano started erupting, it continued for 15 years, eventually ending in 1774.
El Jorullo did not develop on a corn field like Parícutin did, but it did destroy what had been a rich agricultural area. It grew approximately 820 feet (250 meters) from the ground in the first six weeks. The eruptions from El Jorullo were primarily phreatic and phreatomagmatic. This 15 year eruption was the longest one El Jorullo has had, and was the longest cinder cone eruption known. Lava flows can still be seen to the north and west of the volcano.  Parícutin and El Jorullo both rose in an area known for its volcanoes. Called the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the region stretches about 700 miles (1,120 km) from east to west across southern Mexico. The eruptive activity deposited a layer of volcanic rock some 6,000 feet thick, creating a high and fertile plateau. During summer months, the heights snag moisture-laden breezes from the Pacific Ocean; rich farmland, in turn, has made this belt the most populous region in Mexico. Though the region already boasted three of the country's four largest cities: Mexico City, Puebla, and Guadalajara (the area around Parícutin, some 200 miles west of the capital), it was still a peaceful backwater inhabited by Purépecha in the early 1940s. The crater and lake can now be reached by car.


The artist
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
At Callao, the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury. On 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano, rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes and Mountain paintings 
by Francis Rousseau

OPALA VOLCANO BY STEPAN KRASCHENINNIKOW

STEPAN  KRASCHENINNIKOW (1711-1755)
Opala volcano (2,475m-8100 ft)
Russia (Kamchatka)

 In Mountains of Kamtschatka, St Petersbourg 1755

The volcano
Opala (Опала)  (2,475m-8100 ft)  is a large stratovolcano located in South Kamchatka about 50 km west of the Eastern volcanic front.  The volcano sits on the northern rim of a 14x12 km large Late Pleistocene caldera. The summit of the volcano has a nice small crater. The most prominent feature at the foot of the volcano is Baranii Amphitheater - a large Novarupta-type crater filled with extrusive domes. This crater formed about 1500 years BP and produced 9-10 km3 of rhyolitic pumice that is about 4.5 km3 of magma. Later the crater was filled with extrusive domes. There was at least one later eruption within the crater, which formed explosive craters on the surface of the extrusive domes and produced minor pumiceous tephra.  Several hazy reports of Opala's historical eruptions were known, but no real evidence of recent eruptions had been found at the slopes of the volcano.  However,  later studies have allowed to document a significant explosive eruption from the summit crater, which occurred as recently as about 300 years ago and produced rhyolitic tephra (informally known as "Ghost layer"). Earlier eruptions from Opala produced lava flows and pumiceous tephra.  The eruption from Baranii  Amphitheater was one of the most voluminous explosive eruptions in Kamchatka during the Holocene.  Opala is undoubtedly an active volcano posing a serious hazard to the region.  Recent eruptions from Opala produced dominantly rhyolitic material that indicates a presence of living silicic chamber under the volcano. Holocene products of Opala volcano are high potassic andesites-rhyolites. Baranii Amphitheater crater produced uniform rhyolites without any admixture of more mafic varieties.  Opala volcano has been producing andesitic-dacitic lavas and tephras for most of Holocene; the last significant eruption of this kind was ab. 3500 14C yrs BP.  How was it possible to produce, accumulate, store and finally erupt - just in a couple of millenia - about 4.3 km3 of rhyolitic magma from the crater located on the volcano's slope, a mere 5 km from its summit? Was the OP eruptionit a part of the Opala volcano story or any special event? Why is this magma so similar to Chasha crater's one, stored 15 km away? These are genral questions to this volcano.

The artist 
Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov (Степа́н Петро́вич Крашени́нников) was a Russian explorer of Siberia, naturalist and geographer who gave the first full description of Kamchatka in the early 18th century. He was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1745. The Krasheninnikov Volcano on Kamchatka is named in his honour. He embarked upon the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1731–42). Krasheninnikov was to study plants, animals and minerals, but in addition he developed a strong interest in Siberian history and geography. During the early part of the expedition, he accompanied professor Gmelin on the travel through the Urals and western Siberia to Yeniseysk. He made numerous observations of natural history, ethnology and linguistics, e.g. records of Evenki (tungus) and Buryat vocabulary. From Bering’s headquarters at Yakutsk, the expedition professors Gmelin and Gerhard Friedrich Müller sent Krasheninnikov ahead to Okhotsk and Kamchatka to build house and make preliminary observations. Thus, he became the member of the expedition with the most extensive knowledge of the peninsula. He published his observations in 1755 (Описание земли Камчатки); English translation by James Grieve (1764) as History of Kamtschatka. However, he drew extensively on the manuscripts of the deceased Georg Wilhelm Steller. Apart from detailed accounts of the plants and animals of the region, there also were reports on the language and culture of the indigenous Itelmen and Koryak peoples, with whom he is said to have got along extremely well. Krasheninnikov spent ten years on the Second Kamchatka Expedition. On his return to St Petersburg, he wrote and defended his doctoral thesis on ichthyology in 1745. He was appointed adjunct at the Academy of Sciences, and later head of the Academy's Botanic Garden and professor of natural history at the university. He was one of only 26 Russians to become Academy members in the 18th century. In 1752, Krasheninnikov went on his last expedition to the tracts of Lake Ladoga and Novgorod to investigate the flora. He died before being able to publish his observations, which instead were published by David de Gorter.

JABAL AN-NOUR PAINTED BY NICHOLAS ROERICH

 

NICHOLAS ROERICH (1874-1947)
Jabal an-Nour (640m -2,100ft)
Saudi Arabia

In Mohammed on Mount Hira. 1925.Tempera on canvas. 73.6 x 117 cm, Roerich Museum, NYC

The mountain
Jabal an-Nour ( 640 m -2,100 ft) meaning Mountain of the Light or Hill of the Illumination, is a mountain near Mecca in the Hejazi region of Saudi Arabia. The mountain houses the grotto or cave of Hira' which holds sacred significance for Muslims throughout the world, as the Islamic prophet Muhammad is said to have spent time in this cave meditating, and it is widely believed that it was here that he received his first revelation, which consisted of the first five ayats of Surah Al-Alaq from the angel Jibra'il (as is pronounced in certain Quran recitation schools and some Arab tribes; also known as Gabriel.  It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Makkah. Nonetheless one to two hours are needed to make the strenuous hike to the cave. There are 1750 steps to the top which, even for a fit individual, can take anywhere between half an hour and one-and-a-half hours. One physical feature that differentiates Jabal al-Nour from other mountains and hills is its unusual summit, which makes it look as if two mountains are on top of each other. The top of this mountain in the mountainous desert is one of the loneliest of places. However, the cave within, which faces the direction of the Kaaba, is even more isolated. While standing in the courtyard back then, people could only look over the surrounding rocks. Nowadays, people can see the surrounding rocks as well as buildings that are hundreds of meters below and hundreds of meters to many kilometers away. Hira is both without water or vegetation other than a few thorns. Hira is higher than Thabīr and is crowned by a steep and slippery peak, which Muhammad with some companions once climbed. Taking 1750 walking steps to reach, the cave itself is about 3.7 m (12 ft) in length and 1.60 m (5 ft 3 in) in width. The cave is situated at a height of 270 m (890 ft).  During the season of Ḥajj ('Pilgrimage'), an estimated five thousand visitors climb to the cave daily to see the place where Muhammad is believed to have received the first revelation of the Quran on the Night of Power by the angel Jibreel. 

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. In

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes / Mountain paintings
By Francis Rousseau