MOUNT LAFAYETTE PAINTED BY WILLIAM TROST RICHARDS

WILLIAM TROST RICHARDS (1833-1905)
Mount Lafayette (1,600m - 5,249 ft) 

United State of America  (New Hampshire)

In Moonlight on Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire, 1873, 

Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on gray-green wove paper, 21.6 x 36 cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

About this painting
This watercolor is one of scores that Richards painted for the Reverend Elias Magoon, a collector and writer on American scenery. In 1880, Magoon donated many of them to the Metropolitan Museum to create a Richards Gallery on the model of the Turner Gallery in London. Richards, a native of Philadelphia and a disciple of the American Pre-Raphaelite movement in the 1860s, painted the watercolor equivalents of Hudson River School oil landscapes of scenery ranging from the English and Irish coasts to the Atlantic shoreline from Massachusetts to New Jersey, and from the hills of southern Pennsylvania to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Magoon's home state. The artist, the cleric, and their wives vacationed together in the White Mountains in the summer before this watercolor was painted.

The mountain
Mount Lafayette (1,600m - 5,249 ft) is a mountain at the northern end of the Franconia Range in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, United States. It is located in the town of Franconia in Grafton County. It is on the New England Fifty Finest list of the most topographically prominent peaks in New England. The upper portion of the mountain is located in the alpine zone, an area where only small vegetation exists due to the harsh climate.
The mountain is named to honor General Lafayette, the famous  French military hero of the 18th century who fought with and significantly aided the Continental Army and was loved and adopted by George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. Lafayette re-visited New Hampshire and all the other states in an extremely popular, triumphal tour during 1824-1825, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Mount Lafayette is the highest point in the Franconia Range, a line of peaks along the east side of Franconia Notch. It is the sixth highest peak in New Hampshire and the highest outside of the Presidential Range. It is the second most prominent peak in the state. On the western side, its lower slopes lie inside Franconia Notch State Park. The remainder of the mountain lies within the White Mountain National Forest. The summit marks the western border of the Pemigewasset Wilderness Area within the WMNF.

The painter
William Trost Richards was born on 14 November 1833 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1846 and 1847 he attended the local Central High School. Between 1850 and 1855 he studied part-time with the German artist Paul Weber while working as designer and illustrator of ornamental metalwork. Richards first public exhibit was part of an exhibition in New Bedford, Massachusetts, organized by artist Albert Bierstadt in 1858.
In 1862 he was elected honorary member of the National Academy of Design, and was elected as an Academician in 1871. In 1863, he became a member of the Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art. In 1866, he departed for Europe for one year. Upon his return and for the following six years he spent the summers on the East Coast.
In the 1870s, he produced many acclaimed watercolor views of the White Mountains, several of which are now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Richards exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1861 to 1899, and at the Brooklyn Art Association from 1863 to 1885. He was elected a full member of the National Academy in 1871.
In 1881 he built a house in Jamestown, Rhode Island, where he lived and worked the remainder of his life. He died on April 17, 1905 in Newport, Rhode Island.
Richards rejected the romanticized and stylized approach of other Hudson River painters and instead insisted on meticulous factual renderings. His views of the White Mountains are almost photographic in their realism. In later years, Richards painted almost exclusively marine watercolors.
His works are featured today in many important American museums, including the National Gallery, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fogg Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Berkshire Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

CADILLAC MOUNTAIN BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)
Cadillac Mountain (466 m - 1,530 ft)
United States of America (Maine)

In The Artist Sketching at Mount Desert, Maine, oil on canvas 1860s, 

National Gallery of art, Washington DC 

The mountain,
Cadillac Mountain (466 m-1,530 ft) is located on Mount Desert Island, within Acadia National Park, in the U.S. state of Maine. Its summit is the highest point in Hancock County and the highest within 25 miles (40 km) of the shoreline of the North American continent between the Cape Breton Highlands, Nova Scotia and peaks in Mexico. It is known as the first place in the U.S. to see the sunrise, although that is only true for a portion of the year. Before being renamed in 1918, the mountain had been called Green Mountain. The new name honors the French explorer and adventurer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac. In 1688, De la Mothe requested and received from the Governor of New France a parcel of land in an area known as Donaquec which included part of the Donaquec River (now the Union River) and the island of Mount Desert in the present-day U.S. state of Maine. Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, a shameless self-promoter who had already appropriated the "de la Mothe" portion of his name from a local nobleman in his native Picardy, thereafter referred to himself as Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, Donaquec, and Mount Desert ! From 1883 until 1893 the Green Mountain Cog Railway ran to the summit to take visitors to the Green Mountain Hotel. The hotel burned down in 1895 and the cog train was sold and moved to the Mount Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire

 

The painter 

Sanford Robinson Gifford was born in Greenfield, New York and spent his childhood in Hudson, New York, the son of an iron foundry owner. He attended Brown University 1842-44, before leaving to study art in New York City in 1845. He studied drawing, perspective and anatomy under the direction of the British watercolorist and drawing-master, John Rubens Smith.  He also studied the human figure in anatomy classes at the Crosby Street Medical college and took drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.  By 1847 he was sufficiently skilled at painting to exhibit his first landscape at the National Academy and was elected an associate in 1851, an academician in 1854. Thereafter Gifford devoted himself to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the early Hudson River School.
Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.
In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.
Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.
During the summer of 1867, Gifford spent most of his time painting on the New Jersey coast, specifically at Sandy Hook and Long Branch, according to an auction Web site.
Another journey, this time with Jervis McEntee and his wife, took him across Europe in 1868. Leaving the McEntees behind, Gifford traveled to the Middle East, including Egypt in 1869. Then in the summer of 1870 Gifford ventured to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States, this time with Worthington Whittredge and John Frederick Kensett. At least part of the 1870 travels were as part of a Hayden Expedition, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden.
Returning to his studio in New York City, Gifford painted numerous major landscapes from scenes he recorded on his travels. Gifford's method of creating a work of art was similar to other Hudson River School artists. He would first sketch rough, small works in oil paint from his sketchbook pencil drawings. Those scenes he most favored he then developed into small, finished paintings, then into larger, finished paintings.
Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. Examples of Gifford's "chief pictures" in museum collections today include: Lake Nemi (1856–57), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ; The Wilderness (1861), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ;  A Passing Storm (1866), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut ;  Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
On August 29, 1880, Gifford died in New York City, having been diagnosed with malarial fever. The MET in New York City celebrated his life that autumn with a memorial exhibition of 160 paintings. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

 

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
 

MOUNT MARCY PAINTED BY REGIS-FRANÇOIS GIGNOUX

RÉGIS-FRANÇOIS GIGNOUX (1816-1882)
Mount Marcy (1,629m - 5,343ft)
United States of America (Essex County) 

 In Winter in the Adirondacks,  Oil on canvas, 1853, Driscoll Babcock Galleries, New York

The mountain 

Mount Marcy (1,629m - 5,343ft)    in Mohawk  langage  Tewawe’estha is the highest point in New York State. It is located in the Town of Keene in Essex County. The mountain is in the heart of the Adirondack High Peaks Region of the High Peaks Wilderness Area. Its stature and expansive views make it a popular destination for hikers, who crowd its summit in the summer months.

Lake Tear of the Clouds, at the col between Mt. Marcy and Mt. Skylight, is often cited as the highest source of the Hudson River, via Feldspar Brook and the Opalescent River, even though the main stem of the Opalescent River has as its source a higher point two miles north of Lake of the Clouds, and that stem is a mile longer than Feldspar Brook.

The mountain is named after Gov. William L. Marcy, the 19th-century Governor of New York, who authorized the environmental survey that explored the area. Its first recorded ascent was on August 5, 1837, by a large party led by Ebenezer Emmons looking for the source of the East Fork of the Hudson River.[6] Today the summit may be reached by multiple trails; though long by any route, a round-trip may be made in a day.

The painter 

Régis François Gignoux  was a French painter who was active in the United States from 1840 to 1870, also known under aliases Marie-François-Régis Gignoux or Régis Gignoux. He was born in Lyon, France and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under the French historical painter Hippolyte Delaroche, who inspired Gignoux to turn his talents toward landscape painting.  Gignoux arrived in the United States from France in 1840 and eventually opened a studio in Brooklyn, New York. He was a member of the National Academy of Design, and was the first president of the Brooklyn Art Academy. George Inness, John LaFarge (1835–1910), and Charles Dormon Robinson were his students.  By 1844, Gignoux had opened a studio in New York City and became one of the first artists to join the famous Tenth Street Studio, where other members included Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, Jasper Francis Cropsey, and John Frederick Kensett. He returned to France in 1870 and died in Paris in 1882. 

Gignoux is best known for his meticulous renderings of Northeast American landscapes, and was the only member of the Hudson River School to specialize in snow scenes. The fame of Gignoux is still quite considerable nowadays in the US and at least a dozen of the most important american museums are among the public collections holding work by Régis François Gignoux, which is often considered a precursor of the Luminist movement.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

THE WETTERHORN PAINTED BY THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE

THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE (1820-1910)

The Wetterhorn (3, 692m -12, 113ft)

 Switzerland

In Das Wetterhorn, 1858, oil on canvas, Newark Museum.

The mountain 

The Wetterhorn (3,692m-12,113ft) in the  Bernese Alps, towers above the village of Grindelwald. Formerly known as Hasle Jungfrau, it is one of three summits of a mountain named Wetterhorn sensu lato, or the "Wetterhцrner", the highest summit of which is the Mittelhorn (3,704 m) and the most distant the Rosenhorn (3,689 m). The Mittelhorn and Rosenhorn are mostly hidden from view from Grindelwald. The Grosse Scheidegg Pass crosses the col to the north, between the Wetterhorn and the Schwarzhorn. The Wetterhorn summit was first reached on August 31, 1844, by the Grindelwald guides Hans Jaun and Melchior Bannholzer, three days after they had co-guided a large party organized by the geologist Edouard Desor to the first ascent of the Rosenhorn. The Mittelhorn was first summitted on 9 July 1845 by the same guides, this time accompanied by a third guide, Kaspar Abplanalp, and by Stanhope Templeman Speer. 

The 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."

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MT WASHINGTON BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft)

United States of America  (New Hampshire) 

1.  In Mount Washington from the Saco River'  oil on canvas High Museum.

2.  In Mount Washington from the Saco River, a sketch, c. 1858, oil on paper mounted into board, Chazen Museum of Art

The mountain 

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft) is the highest point in the northeastern United States. It is located in the White Mountains in the county of Coos. Most of the mountain is located in the White Mountain National Forest and Mount Washington State Park.
The mountain is called Agiocochook, the "abode of the great spirit," by the Amerindians. A scientific expedition led by geologist Dr. Cutler named Mount Washington in 1784.
While the western slope, which climbs the Cog Railway, is regular from its base, the other slopes are more complex. To the north, Great Gulf, the largest glacial circus in the mountains, is surrounded by the Northern Presidentials, namely Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison Mountains. These peaks reach far beyond the alpine zone beyond the tree line. The imposing Chandler Ridge extends northeast from the top of Mount Washington to form the southern wall of the amphitheater. It is paced by a motorway to the summit.
The first European to mention the mountain is Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, who sees it from the Atlantic Ocean and describes it as a "high mountain of the interior". Irishman Darby Field says he made his first ascent in 1642.
The Crawford Path, the oldest hiking trail in the United States, was established in 1819 as a mule track from the Crawford Notch Gorge to the summit and has been in use since that time. Ethan Allen Crawford built a lodge at the summit in 1821 that resisted a storm five years later.  In the middle of the nineteenth century, the mountain became a major tourist destination of the country, with the construction of new trails and two hotels. The Summit House, a 20-meter-long stone building with a roof attached to four heavy chains, was opened in 1852. The following year, the Tip-Top House was erected to compete with it. Rebuilt in wood with 91 rooms in 1872-1873, the Summit House burned in 1908 and was replaced by a granite building in 1915. Only the Tip-Top House resists fire; it is now classified in the National Register of Historic Places and has recently been renovated to house exhibitions. Among the attractions of the Victorian era is also a coach road built in 1861, now the Mount Washington Auto Road, and the Mount Washington Cog Railway, a cog railway established in 1869, in service.
Forty years, an aperiodic journal called Among The Clouds, is published by Henry M. Burt at the summit every summer until 1917. The prints are distributed by rail and then to hotels and other outlets around.
In November 2010, Mount Washington became a trademark and actions were taken by the custodians to restrict their legal use.
Mount Washington offers endless opportunities for hiking, climbing and skiing at all levels of difficulty. It is one of the most frequented mountains in America (250,000 people go to the summit every year).

The painter 

Sanford Robinson Gifford was born in Greenfield, New York and spent his childhood in Hudson, New York, the son of an iron foundry owner. He attended Brown University 1842-44, before leaving to study art in New York City in 1845. He studied drawing, perspective and anatomy under the direction of the British watercolorist and drawing-master, John Rubens Smith.  He also studied the human figure in anatomy classes at the Crosby Street Medical college and took drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.  By 1847 he was sufficiently skilled at painting to exhibit his first landscape at the National Academy and was elected an associate in 1851, an academician in 1854. Thereafter Gifford devoted himself to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the early Hudson River School.

Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.

In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.

Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.

During the summer of 1867, Gifford spent most of his time painting on the New Jersey coast, specifically at Sandy Hook and Long Branch, according to an auction Web site.

Another journey, this time with Jervis McEntee and his wife, took him across Europe in 1868. Leaving the McEntees behind, Gifford traveled to the Middle East, including Egypt in 1869. Then in the summer of 1870 Gifford ventured to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States, this time with Worthington Whittredge and John Frederick Kensett. At least part of the 1870 travels were as part of a Hayden Expedition, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden.

Returning to his studio in New York City, Gifford painted numerous major landscapes from scenes he recorded on his travels. Gifford's method of creating a work of art was similar to other Hudson River School artists. He would first sketch rough, small works in oil paint from his sketchbook pencil drawings. Those scenes he most favored he then developed into small, finished paintings, then into larger, finished paintings.

Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. Examples of Gifford's "chief pictures" in museum collections today include: Lake Nemi (1856–57), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ; The Wilderness (1861), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ;  A Passing Storm (1866), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut ;  Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

On August 29, 1880, Gifford died in New York City, having been diagnosed with malarial fever. The MET in New York City celebrated his life that autumn with a memorial exhibition of 160 paintings. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

LONGS PEAK PAINTED BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)

Longs Peak (4,346 m - 14, 259 ft)

United States of America (Colorado) 

 In Longs Peak, Colorado,watercolour, 1870, Denver Art Museum

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). Another famous profile belongs to Longs Peak: to the southeast of the summit is a series of rises which, when viewed from the northeast, resembles a beaver. The photo shows the beaver climbing the south (left side) of the mountain.
In 1954 the first proposal made to the National Park Service to climb The Diamond was met with an official closure, a stance not changed until 1960. The Diamond was first ascended by Dave Rearick and Bob Kamps that year, by a route that would come to be known simply as D1. This route would later be listed in Allen Steck and Steve Roper's influential book Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. The easiest route on the face is the Casual Route (5.10a),  first climbed in 1977.  It has since become the most popular route up the wall.
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 

Sanford Robinson Gifford was born in Greenfield, New York and spent his childhood in Hudson, New York, the son of an iron foundry owner. He attended Brown University 1842-44, before leaving to study art in New York City in 1845. He studied drawing, perspective and anatomy under the direction of the British watercolorist and drawing-master, John Rubens Smith.  He also studied the human figure in anatomy classes at the Crosby Street Medical college and took drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.  By 1847 he was sufficiently skilled at painting to exhibit his first landscape at the National Academy and was elected an associate in 1851, an academician in 1854. Thereafter Gifford devoted himself to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the early Hudson River School.
Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.
In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.
Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.
During the summer of 1867, Gifford spent most of his time painting on the New Jersey coast, specifically at Sandy Hook and Long Branch, according to an auction Web site.
Another journey, this time with Jervis McEntee and his wife, took him across Europe in 1868. Leaving the McEntees behind, Gifford traveled to the Middle East, including Egypt in 1869. Then in the summer of 1870 Gifford ventured to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States, this time with Worthington Whittredge and John Frederick Kensett. At least part of the 1870 travels were as part of a Hayden Expedition, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden.
Returning to his studio in New York City, Gifford painted numerous major landscapes from scenes he recorded on his travels. Gifford's method of creating a work of art was similar to other Hudson River School artists. He would first sketch rough, small works in oil paint from his sketchbook pencil drawings. Those scenes he most favored he then developed into small, finished paintings, then into larger, finished paintings.
Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. Examples of Gifford's "chief pictures" in museum collections today include: Lake Nemi (1856–57), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ; The Wilderness (1861), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ;  A Passing Storm (1866), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut ;  Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
On August 29, 1880, Gifford died in New York City, having been diagnosed with malarial fever. The MET in New York City celebrated his life that autumn with a memorial exhibition of 160 paintings. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)

Whiteface mountain  (1,483m - 4,867ft) 

United States of America (State of New York) 

In Whiteface Mountain from Lake Placid, 1886 oil on canvas,  Smithsonian American Art Museum 

The mountain 

Whiteface Mountain  (1,483m - 4,867ft) is the fifth-highest mountain in the U.S. state of New York, and one of the High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. Set apart from most of the other High Peaks, the summit offers a 360-degree view of the Adirondacks and clear-day glimpses of Vermont and even Canada, where the skyscrapers of Montreal, 80 miles (130 km) away, can be seen on a very clear day. Located in the town of Wilmington, about 13 miles (21 km) from Lake Placid, the mountain's east slope is home to a major ski area which hosted the alpine skiing competitions of the 1980 Winter Olympics. Unique among the High Peaks, Whiteface features a developed summit and seasonal accessibility by motor vehicle. Whiteface Memorial Highway reaches a parking area at an elevation of 4,600 feet (1,400 m), with the remaining 267 feet (81 m) being obtained by tunnel and elevator.

Conceived and initiated prior to the Great Depression, Whiteface Castle and the Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway were funded entirely by the state of New York, though the timing of the project led to a widespread belief that they were Depression Era public works projects arising from the New Deal. Construction on the toll road began in 1929, after passage of a necessary amendment to the state constitution, with a groundbreaking ceremony featuring then-New York State Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eventually costing 1.2 million dollars (115 million in 2015 dollars) and ending vertically within 300 feet (90 m) of the summit the roadway is 5 miles (8 km) long and features an impressively steep 8% average grade. Officially opened July 20, 1935, in a ceremony featuring Roosevelt, by then President, the highway was dedicated to veterans of the Great War.

Whiteface Castle, built with granite excavated during the road construction, dominates the summit area. From the adjacent parking lot there are two routes to the summit proper. The first route is the Stairway Ridge Trail, a footpath with handrails and intermittent cement and stone steps approximately 0.2 miles (0.32 km) long. The second is a 424-foot (129 m) long tunnel into the core of the mountain. At the end of the tunnel is an elevator, which rises 276 feet (84 m) to the summit.

Whiteface mountain is the only peak in the Adirondacks where distinct evidence of alpine glaciers can be easily found. There peak has two neat ridges sitting on either side of a well-defined cirque on its north-west face and another ridge to the east. All have good trails on them (one is actually built over with a staircase) and are well worth the drive or hike up.
The ridge on the east side is quite mild and offers only a little exposure but is can be iced over in winter. The undeveloped a ridge on the north side offers a good scramble over very nice rock with a good deal of exposure and the occasional small cornice or gargoyle in winter.
The summit itself is just a flat platform.

Source:

 - Whiteface Mountain official website 

- Summitpost. org

- Wikipedia 

The painter 

Sanford Robinson Gifford was born in Greenfield, New York and spent his childhood in Hudson, New York, the son of an iron foundry owner. He attended Brown University 1842-44, before leaving to study art in New York City in 1845. He studied drawing, perspective and anatomy under the direction of the British watercolorist and drawing-master, John Rubens Smith.  He also studied the human figure in anatomy classes at the Crosby Street Medical college and took drawing classes at the National Academy of Design.  By 1847 he was sufficiently skilled at painting to exhibit his first landscape at the National Academy and was elected an associate in 1851, an academician in 1854. Thereafter Gifford devoted himself to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the early Hudson River School.
Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.
In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.
Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.
During the summer of 1867, Gifford spent most of his time painting on the New Jersey coast, specifically at Sandy Hook and Long Branch, according to an auction Web site.
Another journey, this time with Jervis McEntee and his wife, took him across Europe in 1868. Leaving the McEntees behind, Gifford traveled to the Middle East, including Egypt in 1869. Then in the summer of 1870 Gifford ventured to the Rocky Mountains in the western United States, this time with Worthington Whittredge and John Frederick Kensett. At least part of the 1870 travels were as part of a Hayden Expedition, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden.
Returning to his studio in New York City, Gifford painted numerous major landscapes from scenes he recorded on his travels. Gifford's method of creating a work of art was similar to other Hudson River School artists. He would first sketch rough, small works in oil paint from his sketchbook pencil drawings. Those scenes he most favored he then developed into small, finished paintings, then into larger, finished paintings.
Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. Examples of Gifford's "chief pictures" in museum collections today include: Lake Nemi (1856–57), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ; The Wilderness (1861), Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio ;  A Passing Storm (1866), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut ;  Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
On August 29, 1880, Gifford died in New York City, having been diagnosed with malarial fever. The MET in New York City celebrated his life that autumn with a memorial exhibition of 160 paintings. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

JEBEL UWIENAT PAINTED BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)

Jebel Uwienat (1,934m - 6,345ft) 

Egypt, Sudan, Lybia border

 In Siout, Egypt, 1874, oil on canvas, 53.3 x 101.6 cm, On view Gallery 67 National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

About the painting
Siout, Egypt, is the most important and the finest of Gifford's dozen or so known Egyptian works and ably demonstrates his mastery of both atmospheric and linear perspective. The glowing light serves both to give tonal unity and balance to the overall composition and to reveal the myriad details of the scene with exceptional clarity. The result is a work that is less about the physical facts of the scene it depicts and more about the very act of perceiving. As one of the artist's contemporaries wrote:" Gifford's art was poetic and reminiscent. . . It was nature passed through the alembic [a device that refines or transmutes through distillation] of a finely organized sensibility. "
Although many nineteenth-century American landscape painters traveled abroad in search of subjects, Sanford Gifford was one of the very few who ventured beyond England and the Continent. Early in 1869 he traveled the Nile from Cairo to the first cataract (actually rapids) and back. On March 4 he reached the village of Siout, which lay in the midst of an extensive and fertile plain below the Libyan Hills at the start of a great caravan route running through the Libyan Desert to the Sudan. The town was known for its picturesqueness and its history, having been the capital of the thirteenth nome (province) of Upper Egypt during antiquity and the birthplace of Plotinus, the great Neoplatonic philosopher. Gifford described the view that inspired this painting in his journal : "Looking westward, the town with its domes and minarets lay between us and the sun, bathed in a rich and beautiful atmosphere. Behind, on the right, were the yellow cliffs of the Libyan Mts., running back into the tender grades of distance. Between us and the town were fields of grain, golden green with the transparent light. On the right was a tent with sheep and beautiful horses, the sunlight sparkling on a splendid white stallion. On the left the road ran in, with a fountain and figures of men and women and camels. The whole glowing and gleaming under the low sun. "
(Text by Franklin Kelly, published in the National Gallery of Art exhibition catalogue, Art for the Nation, 2000)


The mountain 
Jebel Uwienat (1,934m - 6,345ft) ( جبل العوينات) literally is located where three countries are meeting : Egypt, Libya and Sudan. The Qattara Depression (Munkhafaḍ al-Qaṭṭārah) of Egypt descends to 436 feet (133 metres) below sea level. Jebel Uweinat literally "mountain of springs", also spelled Al Awaynat, Auenat, Ouenat, Ouinat, Owainat, Uweinat, Uwaynat, Uweinat, Uwenat, Uweynat is a mountain range ocated in the eastern Sahara, forty kilometers south-southeast of the similar mountain range, Jebel Arkanu, in Libya.

The main source of the massif, called Ain Dua, is on its western foothills. This slope is a cliff about six hundred feet high, the foot of which is covered with voluminous rocks falling under the effect of erosion. It is home to oases covered with shrubs and grasses. In total, three valleys are oriented towards the west: Karkur Hamid, Karkur Idriss and Karkur Ibrahim. To the east, the massif ends with the Karkur Talh valley. The highest point of the massif, in its eastern half, is at the top of the Italia plateau.
The western half of the massif is an intrusion of granite forming concentric rings, the largest of which is twenty-five kilometers in diameter. The eastern half consists of sandstones forming four separate trays. Egyptian graffiti from the third millennium BCE testifies to their exploration of the region from the time of the Old Kingdom, via the track of Abu Ballas.
The massif is officially discovered in 1923 by Ahmed Hassanein who, during his exploration, reports the existence of petroglyphs representing lions, giraffes, ostriches, gazelles or oxen, in a style reminiscent of the Bushmen. He tries to cross the mountains from west to east but turns around after traveling 40 kilometers without finding an exit.
In the 1930s, Ralph A. Bagnold and Captain Marchesi each built a cairn atop the highest point of the massif.

The painter
Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.
In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.
Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.
Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

_________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

GRAND TETON PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANSEL ADAMS

ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984)

Grand Teton  (4,199 m - 13,775 ft)

United States of America (Wyoming)

The Tetons and the Snake River in 1946, is one of the 115 images recorded on the 
Voyager Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecraft.

The mountain 
Grand Teton (4,199 m - 13,775 ft) is the highest mountain in Grand Teton National Park in Northwest Wyoming, and a classic destination in American mountaineering. It is the highest point of the Teton Range, and the second highest peak in the U.S. state of Wyoming after Gannett Peak. The mountain is entirely within the Snake River drainage basin, which it feeds by several local creeks and glaciers.The Teton Range is a subrange of the Rocky Mountains, which extend from southern Alaska to northern New Mexico.
Grand Teton's name was first recorded as Mount Hayden by the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870. However, the name "the Grand Teton" had early currency. The Edition of April, 1901 of the USGS 1:125,000 quadrangle map of the area shows "Grand Teton" as the name of the peak. A United States National Park named "Grand Teton National Park" was established by law in 1929. By 1931, the name Grand Teton Peak was in such common usage that it was recognized by the USGS Board on Geographic Names. Another shift in usage led the Board to shorten the name on maps to Grand Teton in 1970.
The origin of the name is disputed. The most common explanation is that "Grand Teton" means "large teat" in French, named by either French-Canadian or Iroquois members of an expedition led by Donald McKenzie of the North West Company. However, other historians disagree, and claim that the mountain was named after the Teton Sioux tribe of Native Americans.

The photographer 

Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist.
His black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, books, and the internet. Adams and Fred Archer developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs. He primarily used large-format cameras because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images. Adams founded the photography group known as Group f/64, along with fellow photographers Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham.
In September 1941, Adams contracted with the Department of the Interior to make photographs of National Parks, Indian reservations, and other locations for use as mural-sized prints for decoration of the Department's new building. Part of his understanding with the Department was that he might also make photographs for his own use, using his own film and processing. Although Adams kept meticulous records of his travel and expenses, he was less disciplined about recording the dates of his images, and neglected to note the date of Moonrise, so it was not clear whether it belonged to Adams or to the U.S. Government. But the position of the moon allowed the image to eventually be dated from astronomical calculations, and it was determined that Moonrise was made on November 1, 1941, a day for which he had not billed the Department, so the image belonged to Adams. The same was not true for many of his other negatives, including The Tetons and the Snake River, which, having been made for the Mural Project, became the property of the U.S. Government.
When Edward Steichen formed his Naval Aviation Photographic Unit in early 1942, he wanted Adams to be a member, to build and direct a state-of-the-art darkroom and laboratory in Washington, D.C. In February 1942, Steichen asked Adams to join. Adams agreed, with two conditions: He wanted to be commissioned as an officer, and he also told Steichen he would not be available until July 1. Steichen, who wanted the team assembled as quickly as possible, passed Adams by, and had his other photographers ready to go by early April.
Adams was distressed by the Japanese American Internment that occurred after the Pearl Harbor attack. He requested permission to visit the Manzanar War Relocation Center in the Owens Valley, at the foot of Mount Williamson. The resulting photo-essay first appeared in a Museum of Modern Art exhibit, and later was published as Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese-Americans. He also contributed to the war effort by doing many photographic assignments for the military, including making prints of secret Japanese installations in the Aleutians. " It was met with some distressing resistance and was rejected by many as disloyal." Adams was the recipient of three Guggenheim fellowships during his career, the first in 1946 to photograph every National Park. This series of photographs produced memorable images of Old Faithful Geyser, Grand Teton (above), and Mount McKinley.
Romantic landscape artists Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran portrayed the Grand Canyon and Yosemite at the end of their reign, and were subsequently displaced by daredevil photographers Carleton Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, and George Fiske.  But it was Adams's black-and-white photographs of the West which became the foremost record of what many of the National Parks were like before tourism, and his persistent advocacy helped expand the National Park system. He used his works to promote many of the goals of the Sierra Club and of the nascent environmental movement, but always insisted that, as far as his photographs were concerned, "beauty comes first". His images are still very popular in calendars, posters, and books. Realistic about development and the subsequent loss of habitat, Adams advocated for balanced growth, but was pained by the ravages of "progress". He stated, "We all know the tragedy of the dustbowls, the cruel unforgivable erosions of the soil, the depletion of fish or game, and the shrinking of the noble forests. And we know that such catastrophes shrivel the spirit of the people... The wilderness is pushed back, man is everywhere. Solitude, so vital to the individual man, is almost nowhere." 
In 1966 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1980 Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Adams's photograph The Tetons and the Snake River was one of the 115 images recorded on the Voyager Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecraft. These images were selected to convey information about humans, plants and animals, and geological features of the Earth to a possible alien civilization.

2016 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

EAST VIDETTE BY ANSEL ADAMS

ANSEL ADAMS (1902-1984) 

East Vidette (3,766m - 12 356ft) 

United States of America (California)

 In East Vidette Southern Sierra 1927, gelatin silver print 

from the portfolio Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras  

The Art Institute of Chicago 

The Mountain 

East Vidette ( 3,766m - 12 356ft)  is a striking peak in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, just west of the Sierra Crest at the entrance to the Center Basin area. Along with West Vidette, the peak stands as a sentinel along the south side of Bubbs Creek guarding the canyon drained by Vidette Creek. East Vidette is a prominent landmark along the John Muir Trail and the PCT which run closely along its eastern and northern flanks. 

Many outstanding peaks in the center of SEKI NP can be viewed from the summit of East Vidette. The Kings-Kern Divide, with Junction Peak, Mt. Stanford, and Mt. Ericsson can be seen to the south, West Vidette and Deerhorn Mtn to the southwest across Vidette Canyon, Mt. Brewer, North Guard, and Mt. Francis Farquhar on the Great Western Divide to the west, Mt. Rixford, Mt Gould to the north, and University Peak, Mt. Bradley and Mt. Keith on the Sierra Crest to the east. The impressively serrated Kearsarge Pinnacles lie nearby directly across Bubbs Creek to the northeast. 

The peak was first climbed in 1910 by a Sierra Club party along the popular East Ridge. The East Ridge is class 3. The Southeast Chutes are class 2. The North Side is class 3-4, and a class 4 chute can be found on the west side facing Vidette Creek.

The East Ridge rises at a moderate angle from Bubbs Creek to the summit. The rock quality is fair to good. Navigation is easy as there are many variations and options available. This seems to be the most popular route used by most parties.

The photographer 
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist.
His black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, books, and the internet. Adams and Fred Archer developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs. He primarily used large-format cameras because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images. Adams founded the photography group known as Group f/64, along with fellow photographers Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham.
In September 1941, Adams contracted with the Department of the Interior to make photographs of National Parks, Indian reservations, and other locations for use as mural-sized prints for decoration of the Department's new building. Part of his understanding with the Department was that he might also make photographs for his own use, using his own film and processing. Although Adams kept meticulous records of his travel and expenses, he was less disciplined about recording the dates of his images, and neglected to note the date of Moonrise, so it was not clear whether it belonged to Adams or to the U.S. Government. But the position of the moon allowed the image to eventually be dated from astronomical calculations, and it was determined that Moonrise was made on November 1, 1941, a day for which he had not billed the Department, so the image belonged to Adams. The same was not true for many of his other negatives, including The Tetons and the Snake River, which, having been made for the Mural Project, became the property of the U.S. Government.
When Edward Steichen formed his Naval Aviation Photographic Unit in early 1942, he wanted Adams to be a member, to build and direct a state-of-the-art darkroom and laboratory in Washington, D.C. In February 1942, Steichen asked Adams to join. Adams agreed, with two conditions: He wanted to be commissioned as an officer, and he also told Steichen he would not be available until July 1. Steichen, who wanted the team assembled as quickly as possible, passed Adams by, and had his other photographers ready to go by early April.
Adams was distressed by the Japanese American Internment that occurred after the Pearl Harbor attack. He requested permission to visit the Manzanar War Relocation Center in the Owens Valley, at the foot of Mount Williamson. The resulting photo-essay first appeared in a Museum of Modern Art exhibit, and later was published as Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese-Americans. He also contributed to the war effort by doing many photographic assignments for the military, including making prints of secret Japanese installations in the Aleutians. " It was met with some distressing resistance and was rejected by many as disloyal." Adams was the recipient of three Guggenheim fellowships during his career, the first in 1946 to photograph every National Park. This series of photographs produced memorable images of Old Faithful Geyser, Grand Teton (above), and Mount McKinley.
Romantic landscape artists Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran portrayed the Grand Canyon and Yosemite at the end of their reign, and were subsequently displaced by daredevil photographers Carleton Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, and George Fiske.  But it was Adams's black-and-white photographs of the West which became the foremost record of what many of the National Parks were like before tourism, and his persistent advocacy helped expand the National Park system. He used his works to promote many of the goals of the Sierra Club and of the nascent environmental movement, but always insisted that, as far as his photographs were concerned, "beauty comes first". His images are still very popular in calendars, posters, and books. Realistic about development and the subsequent loss of habitat, Adams advocated for balanced growth, but was pained by the ravages of "progress". He stated, "We all know the tragedy of the dustbowls, the cruel unforgivable erosions of the soil, the depletion of fish or game, and the shrinking of the noble forests. And we know that such catastrophes shrivel the spirit of the people... The wilderness is pushed back, man is everywhere. Solitude, so vital to the individual man, is almost nowhere."
In 1966 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1980 Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Adams's photograph The Tetons and the Snake River was one of the 115 images recorded on the Voyager Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecraft. These images were selected to convey information about humans, plants and animals, and geological features of the Earth to a possible alien civilization.