Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft)
United Kingdom (Wales)
In Mount Snowdon, Afterglow, oil on canvas, 1800, Tate
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
The english painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was
considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as
the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence in the history
of painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also
one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded
as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.
In his thirties, Turner
travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802
and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many
visits to Venice. Turner's talent was recognized early in his life.
Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature
work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied
atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated
History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles:"
Turner was recognized as an artistic genius: influential English art
critic John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most
"stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature."
Turner's
major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of
Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber
Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The
idea was loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of
Truth), where Lorrain had recorded his completed paintings; a series of
print copies of these drawings, by then at Devonshire House, had been a
huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely
disseminated, and categorized the genre into six types: Marine,
Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic
Pastoral. His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum
is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in
1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner
prints.
Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to
indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent
scenes of people drinking or working or walking in the foreground), but
its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world
on the other. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a
natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God – a theme
that romanticist artists and poets were exploring in this period.
Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and
therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for
expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding
primarily to optical phenomena.
Turner used pigments like carmine in
his paintings, knowing that they were not long-lasting, despite the
advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a
result, many of his colours have now faded greatly.
John Ruskin
says in his "Notes" on Turner in March 1878 : "His true master was Dr
Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise
simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined
by him and companioned by Girtin, the healthy and constant development
of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the
power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate. "
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
