NEVADO HUASCARAN IN VINTAGE PRINTS 1908 & 1960

VINTAGE PRINTS 1908  & 1960

Nevado Huascaràn  (6,778m - 22,205ft) 

Peru 

1.  In The american alpinist Annie Smith Peck at the summit of Husacaràn Norte with Huascaràn Sur behind her, Archive photo,  September 2, 1908    

2.  In  Nevado Huascaran (Norte and Sur) seen from the Village Yungay, destroyed by an avalanche in 1970, Archive photo, 1960

The mountain 
Nevado Huascaràn is a mountain in the Peruvian province of Yungay, situated in the Cordillera Blanca range of the western Andes.  Nevado Huascaràn  is the highest point in Peru, the northern part of Andes (north of Lake Titicaca) and in all of the Earth's Tropics. Huascaràn is the fourth highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere and South America after Aconcagua, Ojos del Salado, and Monte Pissis.
The mountain has two distinct summits, the higher being the south one, Huascaran Sur (6,768 m-  -22,205 ft). and the north summit, Huascaran Norte (6, 654m - 21, 831ft). The core of Huascarбn, like much of the Cordillera Blanca, consists of Cenozoic era granite.
Huascaran gives its name to Huascaran National Park which surrounds it, and is a popular location for trekking and mountaineering. The Huascaran summit is one of the points on the Earth's surface farthest from the Earth's center, closely behind the farthest point, Chimborazo in Ecuador.
The mountain was named after Huбscar, a 16th-century Inca emperor who was the Sapa Inca of the Inca empire.
The summit of Huascaran is the place on Earth with the smallest gravitational force.
Climbing
The north peak (Huascaran Norte) had been first climbed on 2 September 1908 by a U.S. expedition that included Annie Smith Peck, albeit this first ascent is somewhat disputed
The summit of Huascaran Sur was first reached on 20 July 1932 by a joint German–Austrian expedition. The team followed what would become later the normal route (named today Garganta route).
On 31 May 1970, the Ancash earthquake caused a substantial part of the north side of the mountain to collapse. The avalanche mass, an estimated 80 million cubic metres (2.8 billion cubic feet) of ice, mud and rock, was about half a mile wide and a mile long. It advanced about 11 miles (18 km) at an average speed of 280 to 335 km/h (175 to 210 mph), burying the towns of Yungay  (in the second photo above) and Ranrahirca under ice and rock, killing more than 20,000 people. At least 20,000 people were also killed in Huaraz, site of a 1941 avalanche which killed over 6000 (see Palcacocha Lake). Estimates suggest that the earthquake killed over 66,000 people.
In 1989, a group of eight amateur mountaineers, the "Social Climbers", held what was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records (1990 edition) to be "the world's highest dinner party" on top of the mountain, as documented by Chris Darwin and John Amy in their book The Social Climbers, and raised Ј10,000 for charity.
Climbing Huascaran's has become increasingly dangerous due to climate change. On July 20, 2016, nine climbers were caught in an avalanche on Huascaran's normal route at approximately 5,800 m (19,000 ft), four of whom died.

MOUNT KOSCIUSZKO (AUSTRALIA) BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

EUGENE VON GUERARD  (1811-1901) 

Mount Kosciuszko (2, 228 m - 7,310 ft)

Australia

1.   In North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciuszko in 1863, Oil on canvas  

National Gallery of Australia

2.  In At the feet of Mr Kosciuszko in 1883,  oil on canvas, Private Collection, Australia

The mountain 

On the planet earth, there are two mountains named Mount Kosciuszko. One is located in Antarctica continent and the other in Australia (Oceania continent). 

Australia, Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m - 7,310 ft) is a mountain located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park, part of the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves, in New South Wales  and is located west of Crackenback and close to Jindabyne.

Mount Kosciuszko is the highest mountain in Australia. Various measurements of the peak originally called Kosciuszko showed it to be slightly lower than its neighbour, Mount Townsend. The names of the mountains were swapped by the New South Wales Lands Department, so that Mount Kosciuszko remains the name of the highest peak of Australia, and Mount Townsend ranks as second.  When considering all of Oceania as a continent, Mount Kosciuszko is overshadowed by Puncak Jaya in Papua, Indonesia, also called Carstensz Pyramid. Different versions of the Seven Summits climbing challenge depend on which is chosen to be the "Australia" peak.

There are several native Aboriginal (Ngarigo) names associated with Mount Kosciuszko, with some confusion as to the exact sounds. These are Jagungal, Jar-gan-gil, Tar-gan-gil, Tackingal; however, all of them mean "Table Top Mountain."

Mount Kosciuszko was named by the Polish explorer Paul Edmund Strzelecki in 1840, in honour of the Polish national hero and hero of the American Revolutionary War General Tadeusz Kościuszko, because of its perceived resemblance to the Kościuszko Mound in Kraków. The spelling "Mount Kosciuszko" was officially adopted in 1997 by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales, Australia. 

Climbing routes

- There is a road to Charlotte Pass, from which an 8-kilometre (5 mi) path leads to the summit. Anyone can walk to the top. Until 1977 it was possible to drive through Rawson Pass to within a few metres of the summit. The walking track to Mount Kosciuszko from Charlotte Pass is in fact that road, which was closed to public motor vehicle access due to environmental concerns. This track is also used by cyclists as far as Rawson Pass, where they must leave their bicycles at a bicycle rack and continue onto the summit track on foot.

- The peak may also be approached from Thredbo, which is a shorter 6.5 kilometres (4 mi), taking 3 to 3.5 hours for a round trip. This straightforward walk is supported by a chairlift all-year round. From the top of the chairlift there is a raised mesh walkway to protect the native vegetation and prevent erosion.

- Both tracks meet at Rawson Pass, at an elevation of 2,100 metres (6,900 ft) above sea level, from where it is about 1.6 kilometres (0.99 mi) to the summit. 

The peak and the surrounding areas are snow-covered in winter and spring (usually beginning in June and continuing until October or later). The road from Charlotte Pass is marked by snow poles and provides a guide for cross-country skiers and the track from Thredbo is easily followed until covered by snow in winter. 

Mount Kosciuszko 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 Mt Blanc (4,808m)

The Painter 

Johann Joseph Eugene von Guerard was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia from 1852 to 1882. Known for his finely detailed landscapes in the tradition of the Düsseldorf school of painting, he is represented in Australia's major public galleries, and is referred to in the country as Eugene von Guerard.

In 1852 von Guerard arrived in Victoria, Australia, determined to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. As a gold-digger he was not very successful, but he did produce a large number of intimate studies of goldfields life, quite different from the deliberately awe-inspiring landscapes for which he was later to become famous. Realizing that there were opportunities for an artist in Australia, he abandoned the diggings and was soon undertaking commissions recording the dwellings and properties of wealthy pastoralists.

By the early 1860s, von Guerard was recognized as the foremost landscape artist in the colonies, touring Southeast Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of the sublime and the picturesque.  He is most known for the wilderness paintings produced during this time, which are remarkable for their shadowy lighting and fastidious detail.  Indeed, his View of Tower Hill in south-western Victoria was used as a botanical template over a century later when the land, which had been laid waste and polluted by agriculture, was systematically reclaimed, forested with native flora and made a state park. The scientific accuracy of such work has led to a reassessment of von Guerard's approach to wilderness painting, and some historians believe it likely that the landscapist was strongly influenced by the environmental theories of the leading scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Others attribute his 'truthful representation' of nature to the criterion for figure and landscape painting set by the Düsseldorf Academy.

In 1866 his Valley of the Mitta Mitta was presented to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; in 1870 the trustees purchased his Mount Kosciusko shown in this article was titled "Northeast view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko", which is actually  "from Mount Townsend". 

In 2006, the City of Greater Geelong purchased his 1856 painting View of Geelong for A$3.8M. His painting, Yalla-y-Poora, is in the Joseph Brown Collection on display at the National Gallery of Victoria.  The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney holds an extensive collection of working sketchbooks by Eugene von Guerard, as well as larger drawings and paintings and a diary. The sketchbooks cover regions as diverse as Italy and Germany, Tasmania, New South Wales, and of course, Victoria.

In 1870 von Guerard was appointed the first Master of the School of Painting at the National Gallery of Victoria, where he was to influence the training of artists for the next 11 years. His reputation, high at the beginning of this period, had faded somewhat towards the end because of his rigid adherence to picturesque subject matter and detailed treatment in the face of the rise of the more intimate Heidelberg School style. Amongst his pupils were Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Von Guerard retired from his position at the National Gallery School the end of 1881 and departed for Europe in January 1882. In 1891 his wife died. Two years later, he lost his investments in the Australian bank crash and he lived in poverty until his death in Chelsea, London, on 17 April 1901.

MOUNT ELBRUS PAINTED BY ARKHIP KUINDZHI

ARKHIP KUINDZHI (1841-1910)

Mount Elbrus (5,642 m - 18,510 ft)
Russia 

1. In Mount Elbrus 1890-95, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Russia
2. Mount Elbrus 1900, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Russia
3. Mount Elbrus 1908, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Russia 

The paintings

What is particularly remarkable in this painting of Mount Elbrus is the way in which the conical summit was painted. Looking at the paintings n°1 and n°3, one understands better why the ancient Greeks called that Strobilos, which means 'pine cone' or 'a twisted object'.  The light which bathes these representations of the Elbrus is, as usual in most of the paintings representing it, unreal, as if to emphasize the sacredness of this mountain where Zeus himself chained Prometheus.

The mountain
Mount Elbrus (Эльбру́с) also called  Karachay-Balkar (Минги таy) is the highest mountain in Europe, and the seven highest summit in the world.  The seven 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), Vinson  Massif (4,892m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.
Mount Elbrus should not be confused with the Alborz (also called Elburz) mountains in Iran, which also derive their name from the legendary mountain Harā Bərəzaitī in Persian mythology.
A dormant volcano, Elbrus forms part of the Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia, near the border with Georgia. Elbrus has two summits, both of which are dormant volcanic domes. With its slightly taller west summit, the mountain stands at 5,642 metres (18,510 ft); the east summit is 5,621 metres (18,442 ft). The lower east summit was first ascended on 10 July 1829 by Khillar Khachirov, a Karachayguide for an Imperial Russian army scientific expedition led by General Emmanuel, and the higher in 1874 by an British expedition led by F. Crauford Grove and including Frederick Gardner, Horace Walker, and the Swiss guide Peter Knubel of St. Niklaus in the canton Valais.
While there are differing authorities on how the Caucasus are distributed between Europe and Asia, most relevant modern authorities define the continental boundary as the Caucasus watershed, placing Elbrus in Europe due to its position on the north side in Russia.
Mount Elbrus was formed more than 2.5 million years ago. The volcano is currently considered inactive. Elbrus was active in the Holocene, and according to the Global Volcanism Program, the last eruption took place about AD 50. Evidence of recent volcanism includes several lava flows on the mountain, which look fresh, and roughly 260 square kilometres (100 sq mi) of volcanic debris. The longest flow extends 24 kilometres (15 mi) down the northeast summit, indicative of a large eruption. There are other signs of activity on the volcano, including solfataric activity and hot springs. The western summit has a well-preserved volcanic crater about 250 metres (820 ft) in diameter.
The ancients knew the mountain as Strobilus, Latin for 'pine cone', a direct loan from the ancient Greek strobilos, meaning 'a twisted object' – a long established botanical term that describes the shape of the volcano's summit. Myth held that here Zeus had chained Prometheus, the Titan who had stolen fire from the gods and given it to ancient man – likely a reference to historic volcanic activity.
The Soviet Union encouraged ascents of Elbrus, and in 1956 it was climbed en masse by 400 mountaineers to mark the 400th anniversary of the incorporation of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic where Elbrus was located.
From 1959 through 1976, a cable car system was built in stages that can take visitors as high as 3,800 metres (12,500 ft). There are a wide variety of routes up the mountain, but the normal route, which is free of crevasses, continues more or less straight up the slope from the end of the cable car system. Winter ascents are rare, and are usually undertaken only by very experienced climbers. Elbrus is notorious for its brutal winter weather, and summit attempts are few and far between. The climb is not technically difficult, but it is physically arduous because of the elevations and the frequent strong winds. The average annual death toll on Elbrus is 15–30, primarily due to "many unorganized and poorly equipped" attempts to summit the mountain. Since 1986, Mt. Elbrus has been incorporated into Prielbrusye National Park, one of the Protected areas of Russia.
In 1997 a team led by the Russian mountaineer Alexander Abramov took a Land Rover Defender to the summit of the East Peak, breaking into the Guinness Book of Records. The project took 45 days in total. They were able to drive the vehicle as high as the mountain huts at The Barrels (3,800 metres (12,500 ft)), but above this they used a pulley system to raise it most of the way. On the way down, a driver lost control of the vehicle and had to dive out.
The second was Kevin Cooney, and the third Patrick Healy.
Regular competitions began to take place since 2005 is a choice of two routes: the classic and extreme. In 2006, on the route of extreme glade Azau (2400 m) - the western summit of Elbrus (5642 m asl) Denis Urubko set a record by winning the tour time 3 hours 55 minutes 59 seconds.
The Pole Aleksandra Dzik won the female competition on this route, becoming both the first woman graduated from extreme gear.

The painter
The very important Russian artist Arkhip Kuindzhi (Архи́п Ива́нович Куи́нджиwas) was born in 1842 (1841?) in a very poor emigrants family from Greece, in Mariupol, Russian Empire (nowadays Ukraine) but spent his youth in the city of Taganrog.
Arkhip was six years old when he lost his parents and had no other choice than to work at a church building site or grazing domestic animals. He received the rudiments of an education from a Greek friend of the family who was a teacher and then went to the local school. During the five years from 1860 to 1865, Arkhip Kuindzhi worked as a retoucher in the photography studio of Simeon Isakovich in Taganrog. He tried to open his own photography studio, but without success. After that Kuindzhi left Taganrog for Saint Petersburg.
He studied painting mainly independently and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (from 1868 and became a full member in 1893). He was co-partner of traveling art exhibition with a group of Russian realist artists who in protest to academic restrictions formed an artists'cooperative called the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions (Peredvizhniki).
In 1872 the artist left the academy and worked as a freelancer. The painting On the Valaam Island was the first artwork which Pavel Tretyakov acquired for his art gallery. In 1873 Kuindzhi exhibited his painting The Snow which received the bronze medal at the International Art Exhibition in London in 1874. In the middle of the 1870s he created a number of paintings in which the landscape motif was designed for concrete social associations in the spirit of Peredvizhniki (Forgotten village, 1874; Chumatski path, 1875; both – in the Tretyakov Gallery).
In his mature period Kuindzhy aspired to capture the most expressive illuminative aspect of the natural condition. He applied composite receptions (high horizon, etc.), creating panoramic views. Using light effects and intense colors shown in main tones, he depicted the illusion of illumination (Evening in the Ukraine, 1876; Birch Grove, 1879; After a thunderstorm, 1879; all three are in the Tretyakov Gallery; Night on Dnepr, 1880 in the Russian Museum, St.Petersburg). His later works are remarkable for their decorative effects of color building.
In his later years Kuinji travelled widely. He was attracted to the Crimean and Caucasian mountains, snow-capped and lit up by the sun or moon (cf. the etudes Elbrus, Moonlight Night, Kazbek in the Evening, Patches of Moonlight, etc.).
Kuinji's artistic method involved a great deal of preparatory painted eludes and studies. In his studies he sought compositional expressiveness and harmonious colouring for the future painting. His etudes, on the other hand, which were painted both from nature and from impressions, were for him only one of the stages in the work, preliminary paintings which could later be reworked in the final process of creating a picture.
Kuindzhi lectured at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (Professor since 1892; professor-head of landscape workshop since 1894; but was fired in 1897 for support of students' protests). Among his students were artists such as Arkady Rylov, Nicholas Roerich the famous Painter of Himalayas mountains) , Konstantin Bogaevsky, and others. Kuindzhi initiated creation of the Society of Artists (1909; later – the Society was named after A.I. Kuindzhi).
Source:
Kuinszhi ' biography in Artroots

THE MONT BLANC PAINTED BY CESARE MAGGI

CESARE MAGGI (1881-1962)

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m -15,777 ft)
 (from Italian side)

France - Italy 

 In A snowstorm over the Mont-Blanc oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm, Private collection 

The mountain
The Mont-Blanc (in French) (4 ,808.73 m -15,777 ft) 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 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 overcrowding threshold of Mont Blanc is reached, with 300 to 400 departures per day in summer.

 At the summit of the National Mountain Council held in Sallanches at the end of August 2006, it was estimated that between 25,000 and 30,000 people set out in 2005 to conquer Mont Blanc. With the opening of new markets (Russia, China, India), 50,000 to 100,000 people could tomorrow try the adventure, the figure of 200,000 has even been advanced. 

These prospects are nightmarish for the defenders of the site and for some political leaders of the valley, such as the mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, common on which Mont Blanc is located.

- More about the Mont-Blanc

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.
___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MONT BLANC BY ADOLPHE BRAUN

ADOLPHE BRAUN (1812-1877)  

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m - 15,776 ft)

  France - Italy border

In La pierre de Béranger et le massif du Mont-Blanc, 1875, photograph on paper. 

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.

-  More about The Mont Blanc 

The photographer

Adolphe Braun was a French photographer, best known for his floral still lifes, Parisian street scenes, and grand Alpine landscapes. One of the most influential French photographers of the 19th century, he used contemporary innovations in photographic reproduction to market his photographs worldwide. In his later years, he used photographic techniques to reproduce famous works of art, which helped advance the field of art history.
Photography historian Naomi Rosenblum described Braun's work as representative of the relationship between art and commercialism in the mid-19th century. His self-sustaining Mulhouse studio helped elevate photography from a craft to a full-scale business enterprise, producing thousands of unique images which were reproduced and marketed throughout Europe and North America.  Rosenblum also suggests that Braun's detailed reproductions of works of art in European museums brought these works to art students in North America, providing a major catalyst for the field of art history in the United States. Subsequent photographs focused on Alpine landscapes, especially lake scenes, and glacier scenes. Unlike many landscape photographers during this period, Braun liked to include people in his scenes. Photography historian Helmut Gernsheim suggested that Braun was one of the most skillful photographers of his era in rendering composition.  While not known as a portraitist, he did take portraits of several notable individuals, including Pope Pius IX, Franz Liszt, and the Countess of Castiglione, mistress of Napoleon III. Braun's work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the George Eastman House, and the Musйe d'Orsay.
His photographs of Parisian street scenes and Alpine landscapes are frequently reproduced in works on the history of photography.

MOUNT ELBRUS AND CAUCASUS RANGE BY IVAN AIVAZOVSKY

IVAN AIVAZOVSKY (1817-1900) 

Mount Elbrus (5,642 m - 18,510 ft)

Russia 

In Caucasus range with Mount Elbrus in the foreground, oil on canvas

The mountain 
Mount Elbrus (Эльбру́с) (5,642 m - 18,510 ft) also called  Karachay-Balkar (Минги таy) is the highest mountain in Europe, and the seven highest summit in the world.  The seven 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), Vinson  Massif (4,892m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.
Mount Elbrus should not be confused with the Alborz (also called Elburz) mountains in Iran, which also derive their name from the legendary mountain Harā Bərəzaitī in Persian mythology.
A dormant volcano, Elbrus forms part of the Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia, near the border with Georgia. Elbrus has two summits, both of which are dormant volcanic domes.  The east summit is 5,621 metres (18,442 ft) was first ascended on 10 July 1829 by Khillar Khachirov, a Karachayguide for an Imperial Russian army scientific expedition led by General Emmanuel, and the higher in 1874 by an British expedition led by F. Crauford Grove and including Frederick Gardner, Horace Walker, and the Swiss guide Peter Knubel of St. Niklaus in the canton Valais.
While there are differing authorities on how the Caucasus are distributed between Europe and Asia, most relevant modern authorities define the continental boundary as the Caucasus watershed, placing Elbrus in Europe due to its position on the north side in Russia.
Mount Elbrus was formed more than 2.5 million years ago. The volcano is currently considered inactive.

The painter 

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

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

LES ANDES ARGENTINES PEINTES PAR RHOD WULFARS

 

RHOD WULFARS (né en 1979)
Andes du Sud (6, 991 m - 22, 838 ft)
Argentine

In Andes from Menodza,  acrylique sur panneau dur, 2018, Collection de l'artiste @rhodwulfars
D'autres œuvres de cet artiste sur son site : rhodwulfars.wixsite.com/rhodwulfars/

L'artiste
Rhod Wulfars est un peintre de montagne contemporain utilisant principalement la technique acrylique pour ses peintures. Il est né en 1979 à Mendoza (Argentine). Sur son site Internet, il écrit : "J'ai passé toute ma vie près des montagnes. Un jour, j'ai commencé à les peindre". Utilisant, à la manière de Nicolas de Staël, un style toujours entre abstrait et figuratif, ses peintures très fortes et très émouvantes décrivent parfaitement la majesté et le contenu spectaculaire des sommets qu'il peint. Rhod Wulfars fait un usage surprenant du médium acrylique, en pâte épaisse comme on pourrait le faire avec de la peinture à l'huile. Il avait l'habitude de ne nommer ses œuvres que par des chiffres et des lettres de série, mais parfois il écrit le nom des sommets et le rend plus facile à identifier.

A propos des tableaux
Le peintre écrit : " Ce n'est pas une vraie montagne. La plupart de mes peintures naissent de la combinaison de l'imagination et des heures passées à les regarder, à les parcourir et à les sentir. Elles ressemblent à ces reliefs de la Coridilla andine argentine appelés "acarreos", qui sont de longues pentes de roche meuble très populaires et facilement visibles. très fréquemment observée. Ce tableau est donc celui d'une montagne inconnue, rêvée qui en résume plusieurs, et qui est sortie de mon inconscient un après-midi où le pinceau lui a donné vie de façon mystérieuse sans que je puisse l'expliquer. " Le plus étonnant étant qu'ils le font d'un seul coup de pinceau aussi puissant et définitif que le soulèvement rocheux lui-même qui a crée ses reliefs.

Les montagnes
Les Andes (Cordillera de los Andes en espagnol) sont la plus longue chaîne de montagnes continentales du monde, formant un plateau continu le long de la bordure ouest de l'Amérique du Sud. Leur étendue est de 7000 km (4350 mi) de long, 200 à 700 km (124 à 435 mi) de large (la plus large entre 18 ° S et 20 ° S de latitude) et d'une hauteur moyenne d'environ 4000 m (13123 pieds). Les Andes s'étendent du nord au sud à travers sept pays d'Amérique du Sud : le Venezuela, la Colombie, l'Équateur, le Pérou, la Bolivie, le Chili et l'Argentine.
La Cordillère des Andes est la plus haute chaîne de montagnes en dehors de l'Asie. La plus haute montagne en dehors de l'Asie, le mont Aconcagua en Argentine, s'élève à une altitude d'environ 6 961 m (22 838 pieds) au-dessus du niveau de la mer. Le pic du Chimborazo dans les Andes équatoriennes est plus éloigné du centre de la Terre que tout autre endroit à la surface de la Terre, en raison du renflement équatorial résultant de la rotation de la Terre. Les plus hauts volcans du monde se trouvent dans les Andes, y compris Ojos del Salado à la frontière Chili-Argentine, qui culmine à 6 893 m (22 615 pieds).
Les Andes font également partie de la Cordillère américaine, une chaîne de chaînes de montagnes (cordillère) qui consiste en une séquence presque continue de chaînes de montagnes qui forment la "colonne vertébrale" occidentale de l'Amérique du Nord, de l'Amérique centrale, de l'Amérique du Sud et de l'Antarctique.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE MONT BLANC (2) PAINTED BY CESARE MAGGI

 

 CESARE MAGGI (1881-1962)  

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m -15,777 ft)
 (from Italian side)

France - Italy

In  The Mont Blanc seen from Italy, Oil on canvas, 70 x 100 cm, Prviate collection

The mountain
The Mont-Blanc (in French) (4 ,808.73 m -15,777 ft) 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 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 overcrowding threshold of Mont Blanc is reached, with 300 to 400 departures per day in summer.

 At the summit of the National Mountain Council held in Sallanches at the end of August 2006, it was estimated that between 25,000 and 30,000 people set out in 2005 to conquer Mont Blanc. With the opening of new markets (Russia, China, India), 50,000 to 100,000 people could tomorrow try the adventure, the figure of 200,000 has even been advanced. 

These prospects are nightmarish for the defenders of the site and for some political leaders of the valley, such as the mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, common on which Mont Blanc is located.

- More about the Mont-Blanc

The painter
The italian painter Cesare Maggi was born into a family of actors, Maggi embarked on classical studies at his father’s wish but also took up painting at a very early age His debut in Florence at the Esposizione Annuale della Società di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1898 was followed by a short trip to Paris to catch up with the latest developments.
The crucial turning point in Maggi’s art came in 1889 with the posthumous show of work by Giovanni Segantini held by the Milanese Society of Fine Arts, which prompted a definitive shift to landscape painting of a Divisionist character. After a short stay in the Engadin, he returned to Milan before finally settling in Turin. Commercial collaboration with Alberto Grubicy until 1913 enabled Maggi to establish himself quickly as one of the leading representatives of the second generation of Divisionist painters in Italy. He painted a repertoire of readily comprehensible mountain landscapes focusing primarily on aspects of the visual perception of the reflection of light and colour but lacking the deep spirituality of Segantini’s work. He took part in the major Italian and European exhibitions and the Venice Biennale devoted an entire room to his work at the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte of Venice in 1912. After an interlude devoted to portrait painting in the same decade, the artist’s mature work focused on greater simplification of subject matter, mostly in landscapes.
Maggi obtained the chair in painting at the Albertina Academy, Turin, in 1936.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT KOSCIUSZKO (2) BY CHARLES PIGUENIT

WILLIAM CHARLES PIGUENIT (1836 -1914)

Mount Kosciuszko (2, 228 m - 7,310 ft)

Australia

 In Mount Kosciusko, oil on canvas, 1903, Art galleries of New South Wales

The mountain 

On the planet earth, there are two mountains named Mount Kosciuszko. One is located in Antartica continent and the other in Australia (Oceania continent). 

In Australia, Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m - 7,310 ft) is a mountain located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park, part of the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves, in New South Wales  and is located west of Crackenback and close to Jindabyne.

Mount Kosciuszko is the highest mountain in Australia. Various measurements of the peak originally called Kosciuszko showed it to be slightly lower than its neighbour, Mount Townsend. The names of the mountains were swapped by the New South Wales Lands Department, so that Mount Kosciuszko remains the name of the highest peak of Australia, and Mount Townsend ranks as second.  When considering all of Oceania as a continent, Mount Kosciuszko is overshadowed by Puncak Jaya in Papua, Indonesia, also called Carstensz Pyramid. Different versions of the Seven Summits climbing challenge depend on which is chosen to be the "Australia" peak.

There are several native Aboriginal (Ngarigo) names associated with Mount Kosciuszko, with some confusion as to the exact sounds. These are Jagungal, Jar-gan-gil, Tar-gan-gil, Tackingal; however, all of them mean "Table Top Mountain."

Mount Kosciuszko was named by the Polish explorer Paul Edmund Strzelecki in 1840, in honour of the Polish national hero and hero of the American Revolutionary War General Tadeusz Kościuszko, because of its perceived resemblance to the Kościuszko Mound in Kraków. The spelling "Mount Kosciuszko" was officially adopted in 1997 by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales, Australia. 

Mount Kosciuszko 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 Mt Blanc (4,808m)

The painter 

William Charles Piguenit also known as W.C. Piguenit or Bill Piguenit was an Australian landscape painter, amateur photographer, draughtsman and explorer, born in Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land. The family can be traced back to Pons, in the province of Saintonge, France, from which, as Huguenots, they escaped after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 to settle in Bristol, Somerset. William Charles attended Cambridge House Academy in Hobart; a school report of 18 December 1849 praises his 'mapping, particularly that of Van Diemen’s Land’. In September 1850, as an assistant draughtsman, he joined the Tasmanian Lands and Survey Department where much of his time was spent preparing maps of Tasmania. 

When Piguenit exhibited at Melbourne in 1870, showing a watercolour sketch of Mount Wellington from the Huon Road, the Daily Telegraph of 20 July called him 'a young artist who gives promise of better things’. His love for the Tasmanian landscape and his improved artistic ability led to his being invited to accompany James R. Scott’s expedition to Arthur Plains and Port Davey in March 1871 as official artist. The results of the trip formed the basis for later illustrations in the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia and in R.M. Johnston’s Systematic Account of the Geology of Tasmania. 
Having won another silver medal from the academy in 1875 for Mount Olympus, Lake St Clair, Tasmania (see above), Piguenit sent five of his Grose Valley oil landscapes to the academy’s 1876 exhibition and was awarded a certificate of merit for one, though the Sydney Mail critic was tepid in his praise: 'It would be enough to say that they are all very nicely painted and that all have about the same colour and tone’.
Regarded as the leading Australian-born landscape painter in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Piguenit was a founding committee member of the Art Society of New South Wales (elected Vice President in 1886) and regularly showed work in its exhibitions. He was represented in many major exhibitions, such as the 1880 Melbourne International, and he received many awards, including silver medals in 1874 and 1875 from the NSW Academy of Art, two second prizes at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition and gold medals from the 1883 Calcutta International and the 1888 Queensland Art Society and Tasmanian Juvenile Industries exhibitions. He was hung in the Paris Salon in 1893 and at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1894 (Scene on the Upper Nepean River, now AGNSW). A Tasmanian view near Prince of Wales Bay was presented by the Government House Literary Society to their founder and patron, Lady Hamilton, on her departure in 1892.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

LES ANDES DU SUD PEINTES PAR RHOD WULFARS (bn. 1979)

 

RHOD WULFARS (bn. 1979)
Andes du Sud (6, 991 m - 22, 838 ft)
Argentine

In Andes from Mendoza, 2018, acrylique sur radiographie, 24 x 30cm, Collection de l'artiste

@rhodwulfars
D'autres œuvres de cet artiste sur son site : rhodwulfars.wixsite.com/rhodwulfars/

L'artiste
Rhod Wulfars est un peintre de montagne contemporain utilisant principalement la technique acrylique pour ses peintures. Il est né en 1979 à Mendoza (Argentine). Sur son site Internet, il écrit : "J'ai passé toute ma vie près des montagnes. Un jour, j'ai commencé à les peindre". Utilisant, à la manière de Nicolas de Staël, un style toujours entre abstrait et figuratif, ses peintures très fortes et très émouvantes décrivent parfaitement la majesté et le contenu spectaculaire des sommets qu'il peint. Rhod Wulfars fait un usage surprenant du médium acrylique, en pâte épaisse comme on pourrait le faire avec de la peinture à l'huile. Il avait l'habitude de ne nommer ses œuvres que par des chiffres et des lettres de série, mais parfois il écrit le nom des sommets et le rend plus facile à identifier.

A propos des tableaux
Le peintre écrit : " Ce n'est pas une vraie montagne. La plupart de mes peintures naissent de la combinaison de l'imagination et des heures passées à les regarder, à les parcourir et à les sentir. Elles ressemblent à ces reliefs de la Cordillera andine argentine appelés "acarreos", qui sont de longues pentes de roche meuble très populaires et facilement visibles. très fréquemment observée. Ce tableau est donc celui d'une montagne inconnue, rêvée qui en résume plusieurs, et qui est sortie de mon inconscient un après-midi où le pinceau lui a donné vie de façon mystérieuse sans que je puisse l'expliquer. " Le plus étonnant étant qu'ils le font d'un seul coup de pinceau aussi puissant et définitif que le soulèvement rocheux lui-même qui a crée ses reliefs.

Les montagnes
Les Andes (Cordillera de los Andes en espagnol) sont la plus longue chaîne de montagnes continentales du monde, formant un plateau continu le long de la bordure ouest de l'Amérique du Sud. Leur étendue est de 7000 km (4350 mi) de long, 200 à 700 km (124 à 435 mi) de large (la plus large entre 18 ° S et 20 ° S de latitude) et d'une hauteur moyenne d'environ 4000 m (13123 pieds). Les Andes s'étendent du nord au sud à travers sept pays d'Amérique du Sud : le Venezuela, la Colombie, l'Équateur, le Pérou, la Bolivie, le Chili et l'Argentine.
La Cordillère des Andes est la plus haute chaîne de montagnes en dehors de l'Asie. La plus haute montagne en dehors de l'Asie, le mont Aconcagua en Argentine, s'élève à une altitude d'environ 6 961 m (22 838 pieds) au-dessus du niveau de la mer. Le pic du Chimborazo dans les Andes équatoriennes est plus éloigné du centre de la Terre que tout autre endroit à la surface de la Terre, en raison du renflement équatorial résultant de la rotation de la Terre. Les plus hauts volcans du monde se trouvent dans les Andes, y compris Ojos del Salado à la frontière Chili-Argentine, qui culmine à 6 893 m (22 615 pieds).
Les Andes font également partie de la Cordillère américaine, une chaîne de chaînes de montagnes (cordillère) qui consiste en une séquence presque continue de chaînes de montagnes qui forment la "colonne vertébrale" occidentale de l'Amérique du Nord, de l'Amérique centrale, de l'Amérique du Sud et de l'Antarctique.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MOUNT ELBRUS PAINTED BY ILYA NIKOLAEVITCH ZANKOVSKY

ILYA NIKOLAEVITCH ZANKOVSKY (1832-1919)

Mount Elbrus (5,642 m - 18,510 ft)

Russia 

1. In Mount Elbrus, Caucasus, oil on canvas,  Russian State Museum

2.  In Mountain in Caucasus,  Elbrus, spring, 1874, oil on canvas, Odessa Fine Arts Museum,

3. In  Mountain scene on Mount Elbrus, oil on canvas, 1875, Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts 

The paintings

Painting no. 1 is one of the rare ones depicting the Elbrus with a blue sky, as the atmospheric conditions around this majestic sacred mountain are usually tormented. The painter will no doubt have seized this moment by a sweet summer afternoon.

The light in paintings n°2 and n°3 is quite similar, a kind of misty, yellowish halo that coats the whole mass and seems to dissipate only around the glacier, which appears in a surreal whiteness. On the other hand, the staging of the mountain itself is totally different: in the n ° 2, the Mount Elbrus is seen at the plumb of a torrent which releases, in spring, of furious springtime cascades; in no. 3, Mount Elbrus is seen from a pass through which passes a caravan of wrapped merchants who seem to stop in front of the painter.

The mountain
Mount Elbrus (Эльбру́с) also called  Karachay-Balkar (Минги таy) is the highest mountain in Europe, and the seven highest summit in the world.  The seven 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), Vinson  Massif (4,892m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.
Mount Elbrus should not be confused with the Alborz (also called Elburz) mountains in Iran, which also derive their name from the legendary mountain Harā Bərəzaitī in Persian mythology.
A dormant volcano, Elbrus forms part of the Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia, near the border with Georgia. Elbrus has two summits, both of which are dormant volcanic domes. With its slightly taller west summit, the mountain stands at 5,642 metres (18,510 ft); the east summit is 5,621 metres (18,442 ft). The lower east summit was first ascended on 10 July 1829 by Khillar Khachirov, a Karachayguide for an Imperial Russian army scientific expedition led by General Emmanuel, and the higher in 1874 by an British expedition led by F. Crauford Grove and including Frederick Gardner, Horace Walker, and the Swiss guide Peter Knubel of St. Niklaus in the canton Valais.
While there are differing authorities on how the Caucasus are distributed between Europe and Asia, most relevant modern authorities define the continental boundary as the Caucasus watershed, placing Elbrus in Europe due to its position on the north side in Russia.
Mount Elbrus was formed more than 2.5 million years ago. The volcano is currently considered inactive. Elbrus was active in the Holocene, and according to the Global Volcanism Program, the last eruption took place about AD 50. Evidence of recent volcanism includes several lava flows on the mountain, which look fresh, and roughly 260 square kilometres (100 sq mi) of volcanic debris. The longest flow extends 24 kilometres (15 mi) down the northeast summit, indicative of a large eruption. There are other signs of activity on the volcano, including solfataric activity and hot springs. The western summit has a well-preserved volcanic crater about 250 metres (820 ft) in diameter.
The ancients knew the mountain as Strobilus, Latin for 'pine cone', a direct loan from the ancient Greek strobilos, meaning 'a twisted object' – a long established botanical term that describes the shape of the volcano's summit. Myth held that here Zeus had chained Prometheus, the Titan who had stolen fire from the gods and given it to ancient man – likely a reference to historic volcanic activity.
The Soviet Union encouraged ascents of Elbrus, and in 1956 it was climbed en masse by 400 mountaineers to mark the 400th anniversary of the incorporation of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic where Elbrus was located.
From 1959 through 1976, a cable car system was built in stages that can take visitors as high as 3,800 metres (12,500 ft). There are a wide variety of routes up the mountain, but the normal route, which is free of crevasses, continues more or less straight up the slope from the end of the cable car system. Winter ascents are rare, and are usually undertaken only by very experienced climbers. Elbrus is notorious for its brutal winter weather, and summit attempts are few and far between. The climb is not technically difficult, but it is physically arduous because of the elevations and the frequent strong winds. The average annual death toll on Elbrus is 15–30, primarily due to "many unorganized and poorly equipped" attempts to summit the mountain. Since 1986, Mt. Elbrus has been incorporated into Prielbrusye National Park, one of the Protected areas of Russia.
In 1997 a team led by the Russian mountaineer Alexander Abramov took a Land Rover Defender to the summit of the East Peak, breaking into the Guinness Book of Records. The project took 45 days in total. They were able to drive the vehicle as high as the mountain huts at The Barrels (3,800 metres (12,500 ft)), but above this they used a pulley system to raise it most of the way. On the way down, a driver lost control of the vehicle and had to dive out.
The second was Kevin Cooney, and the third Patrick Healy.
Regular competitions began to take place since 2005 is a choice of two routes: the classic and extreme. In 2006, on the route of extreme glade Azau (2400 m) - the western summit of Elbrus (5642 m asl) Denis Urubko set a record by winning the tour time 3 hours 55 minutes 59 seconds.
The Pole Aleksandra Dzik won the female competition on this route, becoming both the first woman graduated from extreme gear.

The painter 
Ilya Zankovsky was a russian  painter and graphic artist  who studied as a noncredit student in the Imperial Academy of Arts (IAKh, 1862–1863) and who did not finish the course. Zankovsky lived in Tiflis, served in the Military topographic department of the Caucasus military region. He painted landscapes of the Caucasus (Mount Elbrus (above), Georgian military road, The Darial Gorge, From the main mountain range, Mount Ushba. Hunters halt). He worked a lot in watercolor. His works were shown at the exhibitions of the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts, the Society for mutual aid of Caucasian artists, the Society of Russian Watercolorists, and at the Autumn exhibitions in the halls of the IAKh. Zankovsky taught in the Drawing School under the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts in 1880s–1910s.
In 2009 an exhibition of Zankovsky’s works was held in Moscow. Works by Ilya Zankovsky are in many museum collections, including the State Russian Museum, Odessa Fine Arts Museum, Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts named after M. A. Vrubel, and Dagestan Museum of Local History.

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2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE KILIMANDJARO PAINTED BY ROBERT MC LELLAN-SIM

ROBERT MC LELLAN-SIM  (1907-1985)

View of Mount Kilimandjaro (5,885m - 19,340ft) 

Tanzania

painted in 1950 

The mountain 

Mount Kilimanjaro  is a dormant volcano in Tanzania composed of three volcanic cones, "Kibo", "Mawenzi", and "Shira.  The Kilimandjaro is the highest mountain in Africa, and rises approximately 4,900 m (16,000 ft) from its base to 5,895 metres (19,341 ft) above sea level. The first recorded ascent to the summit of the mountain was by Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller in 1889. The mountain is part of the Kilimanjaro National Park and is a major climbing destination. The mountain has been the subject of many scientific studies because of its shrinking glaciers, especially since 2001.

The origin of the name "Kilimanjaro" is not precisely known, but a number of theories exist. European explorers had adopted the name by 1860 and reported that "Kilimanjaro" was the mountain's Kiswahili name. The 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia also records the name of the mountain as "Kilima-Njaro". Johann Ludwig Krapf wrote in 1860 that Swahilis along the coast called the mountain "Kilimanjaro". Although he did not support his claim, he claimed that "Kilimanjaro" meant either "mountain of greatness" or "mountain of caravans". Under the latter meaning, "Kilima" meant "mountain" and "Jaro" possibly meant "caravans".
Jim Thompson claimed in 1885, although he also did not support his claim, that the term Kilima-Njaro "has generally been understood to mean" the Mountain (Kilima) of Greatness (Njaro). "Though not improbably it may mean the "White" mountain.
"Njaro" is an ancient Kiswahili word for "shining".
Others have assumed that "Kilima" is Kiswahili for "mountain".
In the 1880s, the mountain became a part of German East Africa and was called "Kilima-Ndscharo" in German following the Kiswahili name components.
On 6 October 1889, Hans Meyer reached the highest summit on the crater ridge of Kibo. He named it "Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze" ("Kaiser Wilhelm peak").That name apparently was used until Tanzania was formed in 1964,] when the summit was renamed "Uhuru", meaning "Freedom Peak" in Kiswahili.
Climbing history :
- In August 1861, the Prussian officer Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken accompanied by English geologist R. Thornton made a first attempt to climb Kibo but "got no farther than 8,200 feet (2,500 m) owing to the inclemency of the weather."
- In December 1862, von der Decken tried a second time together with Otto Kersten. They reached a height of 14,000 feet (4,300 m).
- In August 1871, missionary Charles New became the "first European to reach the equatorial snows" on Kilimanjaro at an elevation of slightly more than 13,000 feet (4,000 m).
- In June 1887, the Hungarian Count Sámuel Teleki and Austrian Lieutenant Ludwig von Höhnel made an attempt to climb the mountain. Approaching from the saddle between Mawenzi and Kibo, Höhnel stopped at 4,950 meters (16,240 ft), but Teleki pushed through until he reached the snow at 5,300 meters (17,400 ft).
- Later in 1887 during his first attempt to climb Kilimanjaro, the German geology professor Hans Meyer reached the lower edge of the ice cap on Kibo, where he was forced to turn back because he lacked the equipment needed to handle the ice.The following year, Meyer planned another attempt with Oscar Baumann, a cartographer, but the mission was aborted after the pair were held hostage and ransomed during the Abushiri Revolt.
- In the autumn of 1888, the American naturalist Dr. Abbott and the German explorer Otto Ehrenfried Ehlers approached the summit from the northwest. While Abbott turned back earlier, Ehlers at first claimed to have reached the summit rim but, after severe criticism of that claim, later withdrew it.
- In 1889, Meyer returned to Kilimanjaro with the Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller for a third attempt. The success of this attempt was based on the establishment of several campsites with food supplies so that multiple attempts at the top could be made without having to descend too far.[ Meyer and Purtscheller pushed to near the crater rim on October 3 but turned around exhausted from hacking footsteps in the icy slope. Three days later, on Purtscheller's fortieth birthday, they reached the highest summit on the southern rim of the crater. They were the first to confirm that Kibo has a crater.  On October 18, they reascended Kibo to enter and study the crater, cresting the rim at Hans Meyers Notch. In total, Meyer and Purtscheller spent 16 days above 15,000 feet (4,600 m) during their expedition.  They were accompanied in their high camps by Mwini Amani of Pangani, who cooked and supplied the sites with water and firewood.
- The first ascent of the highest summit of Mawenzi was made on 29 July 1912, by the German climbers Edward Oehler and Fritz Klute, who christened it Hans Meyer Peak. Oehler and Klute went on to make the third-ever ascent of Kibo, via the Drygalski Glacier, and descended via the Western Breach.
- In 1989, the organizing committee of the 100-year celebration of the first ascent decided to award posthumous certificates to the African porter-guides who had accompanied Meyer and Purtscheller. One person in pictures or documents of the 1889 expedition was thought to match a living inhabitant of Marangu, Yohani Kinyala Lauwo. Lauwo did not know his own age.  Nor did he remember Meyer or Purtscheller, but he remembered joining a Kilimanjaro expedition involving a Dutch doctor who lived near the mountain and that he did not get to wear shoes during the climb.  Lauwo claimed that he had climbed the mountain three times before the beginning of World War I.  The committee concluded that he had been a member of Meyer's team and therefore must have been born around 1871.  Lauwo died on 10 May 1996, 107 years after the first ascent, but now is sometimes even suggested as co-first-ascendant of Kilimanjaro.
- The fastest ascent-descent has been recorded by the Swiss-Ecuadorian mountain guide Karl Egloff , who ran to the top and back in 6 hours and 42 minutes on 13 August 2014. Previous records were held by Spanish mountain runner Kílian Jornet on 29 September 2010) and by Tanzanian guide Simon Mtuy  on 22 February 2006.
- The female ascent record is held by Anne-Marie Flammersfeld. On 27 July 2015, she climbed to the summit in 8 hours, 32 minutes via the Umbwe Route, which is about 30 kilometres (19 mi) long. Born in Germany but living in Switzerland, she broke the record of Britain's Becky Shuttleworth who climbed to the summit in 11 hours, 34 minutes on 20 September 2014.
- Wheelchair-bound Bernard Goosen scaled Kilimanjaro in six days in 2007, while in 2012 Kyle Maynard, who has no forearms or lower legs, crawled unassisted to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The Kilimandjaro  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 seven summit (which are obviouly 8 !) are  :
Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m),  Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Vinson  Massif (4,892m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.
References:
- Mount Kimandjaro National Park
- Wikipedia Kilimandjaro 

The painter 

Robert McLellan-Sim (also known as RMS) was a prolific artist, and during his time in East Africa (he travelled throughout Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar) he completed as many as 40 paintings a year. His work was in great demand, and over a period of some fifteen years he held ten One Man Exhibitions, mostly in Kenya, but at least one in England while on leave. 

His work was purchased by many eminent people and was extremely popular as an official gift or a farewell present. The Colony of Kenya presented a McLellan-Sim painting to HM The Queen on the occasion of her Coronation in 1953, and HM The Queen Mother was presented with another to commemorate her Visit to Kenya in 1959. Many a departing dignitary at the time of independence received a McLellan-Sim painting as a farewell gift. Both Jake Fletcher and Amoeba Walker took McLellan-Sim works of art home with them to England when they left the Prince of Wales School. The Kenya Regiment presented a McLellan-Sim painting to Sir Patrick Renison as their departing Commander-in -Chief when he retired as Governor of Kenya in 1961.
RMS was a successful commercial artist, with his clients including the East African Tobacco Company, the East African Standard and the Uganda Tourist Board. His public works included the murals for the Kenya Agricultural Stand in the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition of 1952 in Bulawayo, the Nakuru Railway Station murals of 1957 and the 1960 mural for the National Assembly Building in Nairobi.
RMS designed the 1954 blue 10 shilling postage stamp depicting the Royal Lodge at Sagana, a signed mint copy of which has been presented by the McLellan-Sim family to The British Library. This is the one that caught my eye and got me started on this article in the first place.
References
Old Cambrian Society

THE MONT BLANC PAINTED BY GUSTAVE COURBET

GUSTAVE COURBET  (1819-1877)

The Mont Blanc (4,808.73 m -15,777 ft) 

 France - Italy 

 In La vue sur le Lac Léman, 1876,  Musée d'art et d'histoire de Granville 

The mountain 

The Mont-Blanc (in French)  (4 ,808.73 m -15,777 ft) 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 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.

The Painter 

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.
Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death.
Courbet  painted a few mountains in his life : the Juras mountains around Ornans ( France) and a few  mountains in Switzerland during his exil; Like many painters of the 19th Century, Courbet didn't name the mountain he painted; he liked to give a description of the general atmosphere rather than  a precise geographical location.

 "I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty."