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

ADRAR SAGRO PAINTED BY PAUL-JEAN FLANDRIN

PAUL-JEAN FLANDRIN (1811-1902)
Adrar Sagro  (2,712m - 8,897ft)
Morocco 

 In   "Les Gorges de l'Atlas, " 1843, oil on canvas, 1843, Private collection

The mountain
Adrar Saghro or Jebel Saghro (2,712m - 8,897ft) is a mountain in southern Morocco, located east of Ouarzazate, 70 km south of the central High Atlas, dominating the Drâa valleys to the west and south, and that of Dades to the north. It constitutes the eastern part of the Anti-Atlas. Jebel Saghro is the driest area of the Anti-Atlas range. Unlike the areas located further west, it does not benefit from a high enough air humidity due to the remoteness of the Atlantic Ocean. Annual precipitation does not exceed 100 mm in the south and 300 mm on the summits. Jebel Saghro is oriented along a southwest / northeast axis, and extends towards Jebel Ougnat east of Wadi Alnif and the Tizi n'Boujou pass. It borders the Dades valley and the High Atlas to the north and links the Drâa valley to the south. Lunar landscape of plateaus, peaks, canyons crossed by wadis, forests, all dominated by basalt peaks. Oleanders, junipers, mountain flowers ... occupy the valley bottoms. The north-south crossings are made by three passes crossed by difficult and very spectacular tracks: the Tazazert pass (2,283 m), the Kouaouch pass (2,592 m), and the Tagmout pass (1,919 m). The highest point of the mountain is Amalou n Mansour (2,712 m) which is located to the south-east of the village of Iknioun.
Charles de Foucauld, still only in search of adventure, is one of the first Western travelers to have described his crossing of Jebel Saghro (Reconnaissance au Maroc published in 1888 in Paris). It completes its description with a topographic survey. Jebel Saghro was also later the setting for fierce fighting linked to the progression of the French army within the framework of the protectorate, the battle of Bougafer (February-March 1933), in which the French troops allied to those of the Sultan of Morocco faced an impressive and heroic resistance from the Aït Atta tribes led by Sheikh Assou Oubasslam. It is in this massif that the famous captain Henry de Bournazel, one of the protagonists of this war, was killed in the fight against the Berbers, while assaulting the rocky dome.

 
The painter
Paul-Jean Flandrin is a French painter, younger brother of the painters Auguste Flandrin and Hippolyte Flandrin. he first received advice from the landscape and animal painter Antoine Duclaux, as well as from the sculptor Jean-François Legendre-Héral, before joining the École des beaux-arts de Lyon, then that of Paris and the workshop by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
He failed twice in the Prix de Rome competition but nevertheless joined at his own expense his brother Hippolyte in Italy. They stayed in Rome for four years, during which Paul specialized in landscape painting. He carried out studies from nature which he used to undertake historical compositions which he presented at the Parisian Salons. He also regularly collaborates on the landscapes of his older brother's paintings. Flandrin continued until late in the nineteenth century this tradition of classical landscape of which he was one of the best representatives, alongside Édouard Bertin or his father-in-law Alexandre Desgoffe. He combines this with a sense of line and ideal inherited from the lessons of his master Ingres. Charles Baudelaire thus accuses him of wanting to “Ingriser” (painted like Ingres) the landscape, a criticism that will long be associated with it. 

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ODORAY MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY J.E.H. MACDONALD

J.E.H. MACDONALD (1873-1932)
Odoray mountain (3,137 m- 10,292 ft)
Canada (British Columbia)

In Mont Odoray, 1930, Huile sur carton, 21,6 x 26,7cm, Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa

The mountain
Odaray Mountain (3,137-m - 10,292 ft) is a summit located west of Lake O'Hara in the Bow Range of Yoho National Park, in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. Its nearest higher peak is Mount Huber, 3.86 km (2.40 mi) to the east. The standard climbing route follows the southeast glacier and ridge starting from Elizabeth Parker hut. Pronunciation sounds like the two words "ode array". Odaray Mountain is composed of sedimentary rock laid down during the Precambrian to Jurassic periods. Formed in shallow seas, this sedimentary rock was pushed east and over the top of younger rock during the Laramide orogeny. The first ascent of the mountain was made in 1887 by James J. McArthur, and he named it Odaray which is the expression for "many waterfalls" in the Stoney language. Other reports have it being named in 1894 by Samuel Evans Stokes Allen for the Stoney Indianword for "cone". However, it is possible that McArthur only ascended the lesser secondary summit cone (2965 m) now known as Little Odaray which is southeast of the true summit. The mountain's current name became official in 1952 when the Geographical Names Board of Canada rescinded the name Mount Odaray.

The artist
James Edward Hervey MacDonald RCA was an English-Canadian artist who initiated the first major Canadian national art movement. He was the father of the illustrator Thoreau MacDonald. n 1895, MacDonald took a position as a commercial designer at Grip Ltd, an important commercial art firm, where he further developed his design skills. In the coming years, he encouraged his colleagues—including future artist Tom Thomson—to develop their skills as painters. In 1920, MacDonald co-founded the Group of Seven, which dedicated itself to promoting a distinct Canadian art developed through direct contact with the Canadian landscape. The other founding members were Frederick Varley, A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and Franklin Carmichael. MacDonald had worked with Lismer, Varley, Johnston, and Carmichael at the design firm Grip Ltd. in Toronto. Together they initiated the first major Canadian national art movement, producing paintings directly inspired by the Canadian landscape. Every summer beginning in 1924, MacDonald travelled to the Canadian Rockies to paint the mountainous landscapes that dominated his later work. By this time he had become somewhat alienated from the rest of the Group of Seven, as many of the younger members were beginning to paint in a more abstract manner.  Today, MacDonald is viewed with general admiration for his art, with one writer commenting, "no Canadian landscape painter possessed a richer command of colour and pigment than J. E. H. MacDonald ... His brushwork is at once disciplined and vigorous. His best on-the-spot sketches possess an intensity and freshness of execution not dissimilar from Van Gogh."

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LONGS PEAK PAINTED BY THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE

THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE (1820-1910)
Longs Peak (4,346 m - 14, 259 ft)
United States of America (Colorado)

In Longs Peak (Colorado), oil on canvas, c1870, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

The mountain
Longs Peak (4,346 m - 14, 259 ft) is a high and prominent mountain summit in the northern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. This fourteener is located in the Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness, 9.6 miles (15.5 km) southwest by south (bearing 209°) of the town of Estes Park, Colorado, United States. Longs Peak is the northernmost fourteener in the Rocky Mountains and the highest point in Boulder County and Rocky Mountain National Park. The mountain was named in honor of explorer Stephen Harriman Long and is featured on the Colorado state quarter. Longs Peak can be prominently seen from Longmont, Colorado, as well as from most of the northern Front Range Urban Corridor, being is one of the most prominent mountains in Colorado, rising 9,000 feet (2,700 m) above the western edge of the Great Plains. The peak is named for Major Stephen Long, who is said to be the first to spot the great mountains on behalf of the U.S. Government on June 30, 1820. Together with the nearby Mount Meeker, the two are sometimes referred to as the Twin Peaks (not to be confused with a nearby lower mountain called Twin Sisters). As the only fourteener in Rocky Mountain National Park, the peak has long been of interest to climbers. The easiest route is not "technical" during the summer season. It was probably first used by pre-Columbian indigenous people collecting eagle feathers.

The first recorded ascent was in August 23, 1868 by the surveying party of John Wesley Powell via the south side. The East Face of the mountain is 1,675 feet steep and is surmounted by a 1,000 feet steep sheer cliff known as "The Diamond" (so-named because of its shape, approximately that of a cut diamond seen from the side and inverted - see image at right).  The oldest person to summit Longs Peak was Rev. William "Col. Billy" Butler, who climbed it on September 2, 1926, his 85th birthday. In 1932, Clerin “Zumie” Zumwalt summited Longs Peak 53 times.
Longs Peak has one remaining glacier named Mills Glacier. The glacier is located around 12,800 feet (3,900 m) at the base of the Eastern Face, just above Chasm Lake. A permanent snowfield, called The Dove, is located north of Longs Peak. Longs Peak is one of fewer than 50 mountains in Colorado that have a glacier.

The painter
Thomas Worthington Whittredge was an American artist of the Hudson River School. Whittredge was a highly regarded artist of his time, and was friends with several leading Hudson River School artists including Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Robinson Gifford. He traveled widely and excelled at landscape painting, many examples of which are now in major museums. He served as president of the National Academy of Design from 1874 to 1875 and was a member of the selection committees for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and the 1878 Paris Exposition, both important venues for artists of the day.  Whittredge journeyed across the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains in 1865 with Sanford Gifford and John Frederick Kensett. The trip resulted in some of Whittredge's most important works—unusually oblong, sparse landscapes that captured the stark beauty and linear horizon of the Plains. Whittredge later wrote in his autobiography, "I had never seen the plains or anything like them. They impressed me deeply. I cared more for them than for the mountains... Whoever crossed the plains at that period, notwithstanding its herds of buffalo and flocks of antelope, its wild horses, deer and fleet rabbits, could hardly fail to be impressed with its vastness and silence and the appearance everywhere of an innocent, primitive existence."
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ROMAN KOCH / CRIMEAN MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY ISAAC LEVITAN

ISAAC LEVITAN (1860-1900)
The Roman-Koch (1,545 m - 5, 069 ft)
Ukraine (de jure) / Russia (de facto) 

From  In the Crimean Mountains, oil on canvas,  1886,  Tretyakov Gallery Moscow

The mountain
The Roman-Koch (1545m- ) or Mountain of the Romans is the highest peak of the Crimean mountain. Its name recalls the ancient Roman prefecture of the East of Cherson. This natural space is protected by the Crimean Nature Reserve. The Crimean Mountains form the Crimean extension of the Greater Caucasus. At its feet, along the Black Sea, lie the towns of Sevastopol, the largest port in Crimea, and Yalta, a seaside resort famous for agreements signed in 1945. Archaeologists have found the oldest anatomically modern human in Europe at the Buran-Kaya site in the Crimean Mountains. The fossils are 32,000 years old with artefacts related to Gravettian culture.

The painter
Isaac Ilyich Levitan (Исаа́к Ильи́ч Левита́н) was a classical Russian landscape painter who advanced the genre of the "mood landscape". Levitan's work was a profound response to the lyrical charm of the Russian landscape. Levitan did not paint urban landscapes; with the exception of the View of Simonov Monastery (whereabouts unknown), mentioned by Nesterov, the city of Moscow appears only in the painting Illumination of the Kremlin. During the late 1870s he often worked in the vicinity of Moscow, and created the special variant of the "landscape of mood"(see above), in which the shape and condition of nature are spiritualized, and become carriers of conditions of the human soul. During work in Ostankino, he painted fragments of the mansion’s house and park, but he was most fond of poetic places in the forest or modest countryside. Characteristic of his work is a hushed and nearly melancholic reverie amidst pastoral landscapes largely devoid of human presence. Fine examples of these qualities include The Vladimirka Road, 1892, Evening Bells, 1892, and Eternal Rest, 1894, all in the Tretyakov Gallery. Though his late work displayed familiarity with Impressionism, his palette was generally muted, and his tendencies were more naturalistic and poetic than optical or scientific. 

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE NGORONGORO CRATER PAINTED BY A. G. CARRICK / H.M KING CHARLES III

A. G. CARRICK / H.M KING CHARLES III former PRINCE OF WALES (bn.1948)
The Ngorongoro Crater ( -600m / - 1968ft)
Tanzania

 In  Ngorongoru from Hugo Hill, Serengeti plains, Tanzania, 1997, watercolor on paper, 

 
The volcano
The Ngorongoro Crater is a large circular caldera over twenty kilometers in diameter located in the heart of the Ngorongoro massif in northern Tanzania, in the eastern branch of the Great Rift Valley. This crater, now extinct, was formed following the collapse of a volcano on itself when its magma chamber emptied during a volcanic eruption. Ngorongoro is the largest intact and unsubmerged caldera in the world1 with 326 km2 in area. It is located in the Ngorongoro conservation area, a World Heritage protected area. Hotels are located on the edges of the crater and organize day and night excursions there to observe wildlife.Four hundred species of birds inhabit the crater.The forest lining the inner wall of the caldera descends sparingly to the meadows where herbivores graze. Trees store moisture during the rainy season and release it in the dry season.

The painter
Arthur George Carrick is actually H.M. the King Charles III, former Prince of Wales.
When he began showing his paintings, he was too nervous to display his name so displayed under a pseudonym. Arthur George are two of his names (Charles Phillip Arthur George) and one of his titles is Earl of Carrick. King Charles III is an experienced watercolourist.  He has been painting for most of his adult life, during holidays or when his official diary allows. King Charles' interest began during the 1970s and 1980s when he was inspired by Robert Waddell, who had been his art master at Gordonstoun in Scotland. In time, King Charles met leading artists such as Edward Seago, with whom he discussed watercolour technique, and received further tuition from John Ward, Bryan Organ and Derek Hill.
The Royal Family has a tradition of drawing and painting, and King Charles’ work first came to public notice at a 1977 exhibition at Windsor Castle at which other Royal artists included Queen Victoria, The Duke of Edinburgh and The Duke of York.
King Charles paints in the open air, often finishing a picture in one go and his favourite locations include The Queen's estate at Balmoral in Scotland and Sandringham House in Norfolk, England. Sometimes King Charles  III paints during his skiing holidays, and during overseas tours when possible.
The copyright of King Charles' watercolours belongs to A. G. Carrick Ltd, a trading arm of The King's Charities Foundation. Over the years King Charles III has agreed to exhibitions of his watercolours and of lithographs made from them, on the understanding that any income they generate goes to The Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation.
Money from the sale of the lithographs also goes to the Foundation but the paintings themselves are never for sale.
In the 1980s King Charles III, then Prince of Wales,  began inviting young British artists to accompany him on official tours overseas and record their impressions, a tradition that has continued to this day.
Reference :
- The prince of Wales paintings 

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT ZEIL /URLATHERRKE PAINTED BY PETER TAYLOR TJUTJATJA

PETER TAYLOR TJUTJATJA (1940-2014)
Mount Zeil ot Urlatherrke (1,531 m - 5,023 ft)
Australia

In Glenn Helen / Yapalpe, 74 x 69 cm Watercolor, Private collection

The mountain 

Mount Zeil (1,531m - 5,023ft)  Urlatherrke  in aboriginal naming,  is a mountain situated in the western MacDonnell Ranges in Australia's Northern Territory. It is the highest peak in the Northern Territory, and the highest peak on the Australian mainland west of the Great Dividing Range. The others peaks of MacDonell Ranges are:  Mount Liebig (1,524m - 5,000 ft), Mount Edward  (1,423m - 4,669 ft), Mount Giles (1,389m - 4,557 ft) and Mount Sonder (1,380m - 4,530 ft). 

It is believed that Mount Zeil was named during or following Ernest Giles' 1872 expedition, probably after Count Zeil, who had recently distinguished himself with geographic explorations in Spitzbergen; a footnote in Giles' published journal implies that the naming was instigated by his benefactor, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller.

The MacDonnell Ranges, a mountain range and an interim Australian bioregion, is located in the Northern Territory, comprising 3,929,444 hectares (9,709,870 acres). 

Glen Helen is called by the Aboriginal traditional owners, the Arrernte people as Yalalpe. It is said long time ago in the Dreamtime there lived in a waterhole of Yapalpe a rainbow serpent. The Aboriginal people did not camp close to waters edge, as the serpent might take them and drown them. This waterhole is a sacred place, as the serpent might still be lying there (The Rainbow Serpent story). Yapalpe was also a favourite place of Albert Namatjira and depicted the landscape in this work. Yapalpe is often a meeting place for the Aboriginal people from the West and Central MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia.

The painter
Peter Taylor Tjutjatja was born c. 1940 at Oodnadatta, south-east of Alice Springs, in the Simpson Desert. As a small boy he travelled with his father often by camel or horse, to Horseshoe Bend Station, where his father worked as a station-hand. From there they travelled north working from station to station until they came to Hermannsburg, a Western Arrernte community in the MacDonnell Ranges, west of Alice Springs.
Hermannsburg in central Australia is the homeland of Albert Namatjira - the most famous Aboriginal painter of all time. Peter, as a small boy living in Hermannsburg was influenced by Albert Namatjira's central desert landscapes. While attending school in Adelaide, Peter showed an interest in drawing and his skills were further developed by his art teacher Trevor Clare.
Peter attended an exhibition of Albert Namatjira in Adelaide, which made him very homesick for his old beloved homeland. Peter returned to Alice Springs in his twenties, where he sat with Keith Namatjira and Clem Abbott to paint landscapes in watercolours which was later purchased in 1995 by Peter's tribal group Pwerte Marnte Marnte.
Peter travelled to Shanghai in 2013 as part of a Desart program and his work is exhibited in numerous private collections and important galleries. Peter was commissioned by Princess Anne to paint five landscapes of Central Australia.
Sadly in November 2014 Peter was involved in a car accident and tragically passed away. Out of respect of Aboriginal culture and Peter’s family Central Art has removed his photograph. Naming Aboriginal people who have passed away was traditionally forbidden. Traditionally you are required to avoid referring to the deceased directly by name as a sign of respect. This has also come to include photographs, filming and voice recordings as technology has grown. Central Art acknowledges that we have named Peter on our website however it is linguistically difficulty to promote his works without naming him.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONTE BIANCO PAINTED BY CESARE MAGGI

 

 CESARE MAGGI (1881-1962)
The Mont Blanc (4,808.13 m - 15,776.7 ft)
France - Italy border

In  A view of Monte Bianco from Entrèves, Oil on canvas, 70x100 cm,  Private collection 

 

The painter
The italian painter Cesare Maggi was born into a family of actors, Maggi embarked on classical studies at his father’s wish but also took up painting at a very early age His debut in Florence at the Esposizione Annuale della Società di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1898 was followed by a short trip to Paris to catch up with the latest developments.
The crucial turning point in Maggi’s art came in 1889 with the posthumous show of work by Giovanni Segantini held by the Milanese Society of Fine Arts, which prompted a definitive shift to landscape painting of a Divisionist character. After a short stay in the Engadin, he returned to Milan before finally settling in Turin. Commercial collaboration with Alberto Grubicy until 1913 enabled Maggi to establish himself quickly as one of the leading representatives of the second generation of Divisionist painters in Italy. He painted a repertoire of readily comprehensible mountain landscapes focusing primarily on aspects of the visual perception of the reflection of light and colour but lacking the deep spirituality of Segantini’s work. He took part in the major Italian and European exhibitions and the Venice Biennale devoted an entire room to his work at the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte of Venice in 1912. After an interlude devoted to portrait painting in the same decade, the artist’s mature work focused on greater simplification of subject matter, mostly in landscapes.
Maggi obtained the chair in painting at the Albertina Academy, Turin, in 1936.

The mountain
Mont Blanc (in French) or Monte Bianco (in Italian), both meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe after the Caucasus peaks. It rises 4,808.73 m (15,777 ft) above sea level and 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 summit, (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. In article 4 of this treaty it says: "The border between the Sardinian kingdom and the departments of the French Republic will be established on a line determined by the most advanced points on the Piedmont side, of the summits, peaks of mountains and other locations subsequently mentioned, as well as the intermediary peaks, knowing: starting from the point where the borders of Faucigny, the Duchy of Aoust and the Valais, to the extremity of the glaciers or Monts-Maudits: first the peaks or plateaus of the Alps, to the rising edge of the Col-Mayor". This act further states that the border should be visible from the town of Chamonix and Courmayeur. However, neither the peak of the Mont Blanc is visible from Courmayeur nor the peak of the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur is visible from Chamonix because part of the mountains lower down obscure them. A Sardinian Atlas map of 1869 showing the summit lying two thirds in Italy and one third in France.
After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna restored the King of Sardinia in Savoy, Nice and Piedmont, his traditional territories, overruling the 1796 Treaty of Paris. Forty-five years later, after the Second Italian War of Independence, it was replaced by a new legal act. This act was signed in Turin on 24 March 1860 by Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, and deals with the annexation of Savoy (following the French neutrality for the plebiscites held in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, against the Pope's will). A demarcation agreement, signed on 7 March 1861, defines the new border. With the formation of Italy, for the first time Mont Blanc is located on the border of France and Italy.
The 1860 act and attached maps are still legally valid for both the French and Italian governments. One of the prints from the 1823 Sarde Atlas positions the border exactly on the summit edge of the mountain (and measures it to be 4,804 m (15,761 ft) high). The convention of 7 March 1861 recognises this through an attached map, taking into consideration the limits of the massif, and drawing the border on the icecap of Mont Blanc, making it both French and Italian.Watershed analysis of modern topographic mapping not only places the main summit on the border, but also suggests that the border should follow a line northwards from the main summit towards Mont Maudit, leaving the southeast ridge to Mont Blanc de Courmayeur wholly within Italy.
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 

VOLCAN PUNTIAGUDO PHOTOGRAPHED IN 1932 BY ROBERT GERSTMANN

ROBERT GERSTMANN (1896-1960)
Volcàn Puntiagudo (2, 493 m - 8, 179ft)
Chile

In Volcàn Puntiagudo, photograph,1932, Private collection

The volcano
Volcàn Puntiagudo (2, 493 m - 8, 179ft) also called Cerro Cenizas or Cerro Puntiagudo is a volcano in Chile remarkable for its volcanic chimney released by erosion and forming a summit neck. Puntiagudo is located in central Chile, in the Andes mountain range, between the Rupanco lakes to the north and Todos Los Santos to the south. Administratively, it is located on the border between the provinces of Llanquihue and Osorno of the Region of Lakes. Puntiagudo is an andesitic stratovolcano whose flanks have been eroded by glaciers, especially in their upper par1. Its summit is thus made up of a neck by the release of the volcanic chimney. This physiognomy makes it resemble Corcovado, another Chilean volcano located further south. Cordón Cenizos is a group of fissures and volcanic cones, stretches from Puntiagudo to the northeast. Puntiagudo began to be built at the end of the Pleistocene. However, its last eruption occurred on an unknown date.


The photographer
Robert Gerstmann was a photographer very famous in South America. Gerstmann was a Vienna born electrical engineer who, as a young man, developed an interest in photography. In 1924, he immigrated to Chile and from there traveled to Bolivia, where he made some 5000 photographs, a selection of which appear as photogravures in his Bolivia, 150 Grabados en Cobre (1928), which was reissued in 1996 by the Fundación Quipus in La Paz. Gerstmann ranged far, photographing the altiplano from La Paz south to the Argentine border, west to the Chilean border, and east to the Yungas, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, and the lowlands along the Ríos Beni and Mamoré. Only Tarija and the Chaco escaped his lens. Five of his photographs illustrate Stewart E. McMillan's "The Heart of Aymara Land" National Geographic Magazine (February 1927), and several appear in Gustavo-Adolfo Otero's Bolivia (Guía Sinóptica) 1929. Gerstmann settled in Santiago in 1929. He published other photo albums, including Chile: 280 grabados en cobre (1932), Colombia: 200 grabados en cobre (1951), and Chile en 110 cuadros (1960?), and dabbled in film-making in Bolivia. He is thought to have died in Santiago ca. 1960. Several thousand of his glass plates are said to be at a university in Antofagasta.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CEMBA VELLEY PAINTED BY ALBRECHT DÜRER

ALBRECHT  DÜRER (1471-1528)
Cemba Valley (200 m - 656 ft)
Italy

 In Landscape near Segonzano in the Cembra Valley (1495), Watercolour on paper, 21 x 31.2 cm.
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

About this watercolor
Dürer called this landscape watercolor, which was created during his second Italian journey, "wehlsch pirg" (Italian hills). Its topographical location was long disputed. The most convincing suggestion is that this is a depiction of the Cembra Valley near Segonzano. The free manner in which the scene is captured, with the relaxed light brushstrokes in the foreground while the background is recorded with a naturalistic delicacy, makes it understandable why Dürer's watercolor technique at this time has been compared with that of Paul Cézanne. Watercolours by Dürer mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium.


The valley
Trentino Alto Adige is the northernmost Italian region and is overwhelmingly mountainous, marked by the steep and picturesque shapes of the Dolomites, with the exception of the Adige Valley and the Dei Laghi Valley, both located below 200 m altitude and therefore considered as a plain. These valleys include large flat areas such as Piana Rotaliana and Piana dell'Alto Garda. While in the southern part of the region, on the shores of Lake Garda, the altitude drops to 65m, the highest mountain ranges peak at over 3,900m. The topographic prominence thus reaches almost 4,000 m. The region is bordered to the east and southeast by Veneto, to the west and southwest by Lombardy, to the north and northeast by the Austrian Land of Tyrol and Salzburg, and to the north -west with the Swiss canton of Graubünden 2. Predoi is the northernmost municipality in the region and in Italy; the municipality is the only one in Italy to be located further north than the 47th parallel.
The region lies between the central and eastern Alps, while to the south the border is delimited by Lake Garda and the Vicentine Pre-Alps.

The artist
Within three months of his marriage, Dürer left for Italy, alone, perhaps stimulated by an outbreak of plague in Nuremberg. He made watercolour sketches as he traveled over the Alps. Some have survived and others may be deduced from accurate landscapes of real places in his later work, for example his engraving Nemesis. In Italy, he went to Venice to study its more advanced artistic world. Through Wolgemut's tutelage, Dürer had learned how to make prints in drypoint and design woodcuts in the German style, based on the works of Schongauer and the Housebook Master. He also would have had access to some Italian works in Germany, but the two visits he made to Italy had an enormous influence on him. He wrote that Giovanni Bellini was the oldest and still the best of the artists in Venice. His drawings and engravings show the influence of others, notably Antonio Pollaiuolo, with his interest in the proportions of the body; Lorenzo di Credi; and Andrea Mantegna, whose work he produced copies of while training. Dürer probably also visited Padua and Mantua on this trip.  Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Dürer established his reputation and influence across Europe in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in contact with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 was patronized by Emperor Maximilian I. Dürer's vast body of work includes engravings, his preferred technique in his later prints, altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits, watercolours and books. The woodcuts series are more Gothic than the rest of his work. His well-known engravings include the three Meisterstiche (master prints) Knight, Death and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia (1514). Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective, and ideal proportions.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

LA TETE D'AUGUSTE PAINTED BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)

La Tête d'Auguste (278m
 - 912ft)
France (Bouche du Rhône)


In Au fond du ravin, L’Estaque, 1882 Huile sur toile, 73 x 54 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

 

The Hill
The Tête d'Auguste (278m - ) is the highest point of the Chaîne de l'Estaque or the Nerthe chain, a massif of white limestone hills around 28 kilometers long which extends from L'Estaque to Martigues. The Estaque chain is part of the Pyrenean-Provençal chain, a former massif which stretched continuously before the Oligocene, from the Pyrenees to the Estaque massif, in place of the current Gulf of Lion. Nowadays, it forms a sort of isthmus about 8 kilometers wide between the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Etang de Berre to the north.
The coastline of the Estaque range forms the Côte Bleue with its steep shores cut into deep creeks. The railway line from Miramas to Estaque runs along the coast clinging to the side of the massif. The Estaque range is also home to several gray limestone quarries, two of which are exploited for the manufacture of lime, the others for the general and aggregates and other quarry products (Lafarge).



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 ! but he diddn't painted only the Sainte Victoire... others landscape and mountains of Provence were in his mind too... 
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.


 
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT VESUVIUS PAINTED BY CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DE LA CROIX DE MARSEILLE

CHARLES-FRANÇOIS DE LA CROIX DE MARSEILLE (1700-1782)
Mount Vesuvius (1,281m - 4,203ft)
Italy

In Eruption du Vésuve en 1770, oil on canvas, Private collection
 

The volcano
Mount Vesuvius (1,281 meters- 4,203 ft at present) is one of those legendary and mythic mountains the Earth paid regularly tribute. Monte Vesuvius or 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.  Since the eruption of AD 79, Vesuvius has erupted around three dozen times.
It erupted again in 203, during the lifetime of the historian Cassius Dio.
In 472, it ejected such a volume of ash that ashfalls were reported as far away as Constantinople (760 mi.; 1,220 kms).
The eruptions of 512 were so severe that those inhabiting the slopes of Vesuvius were granted exemption from taxes by Theodoric the Great, the Gothicking of Italy.
Further eruptions were recorded in 787, 968, 991, 999, 1007 and 1036 with the first recorded lava flows. The volcano became quiescent at the end of the 13th century and in the following years it again became covered with gardens and vineyards as of old. Even the inside of the crater was moderately filled with shrubbery.
Vesuvius entered a new phase in December 1631, when a major eruption buried many villages under lava flows, killing around 3,000 people. Torrents of lahar were also created, adding to the devastation. Activity thereafter became almost continuous, with relatively severe eruptions occurring in 1660, 1682, 1694, 1698, 1707, 1737, 1760, 1767, 1779, 1794, 1822, 1834, 1839, 1850, 1855, 1861, 1868, 1872, 1906, 1926, 1929, and 1944.  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 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
Charles François Grenier de Lacroix, called Charles Francois Lacroix de Marseille, was a French painter
reknown for his landscapes and marines, in the style of Claude Joseph Vernet, Jean-Joseph Kapeller and Henry of Arles. He was a pupil and imitator of Joseph Vernet, and stayed in Rome in 1754. From 1776, he exhibited with great success and spent a good part of his life between Italy and Provence. In 1780, he published an ad to welcome students in his studio in Paris. Jean-Jacques Le Veau and Noël Le Mire engraved some of his paintings.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT SINAI / JABAL MUSA PAINTED BY JAN ASSELIJN

Jan Asselijn (c.1610 – October 1, 1652)
Mount Sinaï / Jabal Musa (2,285 m - 7,496ft)
Egypt

In Flight into Egypt, c. 1640, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

 

About the painting 

Flight into Egypt used to be a very popular subject. Hundreds of canvas were painted on this subject between the 14th and 19th centuries, showing Mary with the baby on a donkey, led by Joseph, borrowing older iconography from the rare Byzantine journey to Bethlehem. Nevertheless, Joseph sometimes holds the child on his shoulders. Prior to about 1525, it was generally part of a larger cycle, whether it was the Nativity, the Life of Christ, or the Life of the Virgin. The background of these scenes generally (until the Council of Trent tightened up on such additions to the Scriptures) included a number of apocryphal miracles and provided an opportunity for the emerging genre of landscape painting.  The mountain deputed is supposed to be Mount Sinaï,  each painter giving his own vision of the sacred mountain or taking inspiration from what had already been painted in the past. The painted mountain  has generally very little to do with what Mount Sinaï really is.

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.

The painter

Asselijn was born at Dieppe from a French Huguenot family as Jean Asselin. He received instruction from Esaias van de Velde (1587–1630), and distinguished himself particularly in landscape and animal painting, though his historical works and battle pieces are also admired. He traveled in France and Italy, and modeled his style after Bamboccio (Pieter van Laer), also a member of the Bentvueghels. Nicolaes de Helt Stockade and Asselijn married two sisters in Lyons in 1645, both daughters of Houwaart Koorman of Antwerp. According to Houbraken, he heard this story from Abraham Genoels, who in turn heard it from Laurens Frank, an artist who was staying in the Koorman household with Artus Quellinus in Lyons at the time. Their marriages brought both Asselijn and Helt-Stockade back to the Netherlands after their travels. Asselijn had a withered hand and was small of stature, which gave him the nickname in France of petit Jean Hollandois, and which gave him the nickname Krabbetje (little claw) in the Bentvueghels. He seems to have befriended Rembrandt. In the etching that Rembrandt made of him, Asselijn appears in some states to be standing before an easel. His hands are not shown. Frederick de Moucheron, another Italianate landscape painter, was his pupil. He was one of the first Dutch painters who introduced a fresh and clear manner of painting landscapes in the style of Claude Lorrain, and his example was speedily followed byer artists. Asselijn's pictures were in high estimation at Amsterdam, and several of them are in the museums of that city. Twenty-four, painted in Italy, were engraved. One of his paintings, The Threatened Swan, which portrays a swan aggressively defending its nest, became a symbol of Dutch national resistance, although it is unknown if Asselijn intended it to be so.  The painting has been dated to the 1640s. It is considered to be Asselijn's most famous work  and was the Rijksmuseum's first acquisition.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau