DENALI PAINTED BY SYDNEY LAURENCE

SYDNEY LAURENCE (1865-1940) 

Denali, ex Mount Mc Kinley ( 6,190 m - 20,310 ft)

United States of America (Alaska)

1. Denali and Tokositna River - The Anchorage Museum 

2. Denali painted in 1919 
  3. Denali painted in 1921
4.  Denali painted in 1923

5. Denali in August 1924

The mountain 

Denali (also known as Mount McKinley, see the Naming paragraph below)) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of  6,190 m - 20,310 feet above sea level. Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak after Mount Everest and Aconcagua.  Denali  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 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.

Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U.S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.

Denali has two significant summits: the South Summit is the higher one, while the North Summit has an elevation of 19,470 ft (5,934 m) and a prominence of approximately 1,270 ft (387 m).  The North Summit is sometimes counted as a separate peak (see e.g., fourteener) and sometimes not; it is rarely climbed, except by those doing routes on the north side of the massif.

Five large glaciers flow off the slopes of the mountain. The Peters Glacier lies on the northwest side of the massif, while the Muldrow Glacier falls from its northeast slopes. Just to the east of the Muldrow, and abutting the eastern side of the massif, is the Traleika Glacier. The Ruth Glacier lies to the southeast of the mountain, and the Kahiltna Glacier leads up to the southwest side of the mountain.  With a length of 44 mi (71 km), the Kahiltna Glacier is the longest glacier in the Alaska Range.

About the naming 

The Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have for centuries referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali. The name is based on a Koyukon word for "high" or "tall".  During the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was Bolshaya Gora (Russian: Большая Гора, meaning Russian "big mountain)" which is the Russian translation of Denali.  It was briefly called Densmore's Mountain in the late 1880s and early 1890s after Frank Densmore, an Alaskan prospector who was the first European to reach the base of the mountain.

In 1896, a gold prospector named it McKinley as political support for then-presidential candidate William McKinley, who became president the following year. The United States formally recognized the name Mount McKinley after President Wilson signed the Mount McKinley National Park Act of February 26, 1917.  

In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson declared the north and south peaks of the mountain the "Churchill Peaks", in honor of British statesman Winston Churchill.  The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali in 1975, which was how it is called locally.  However, a request in 1975 from the Alaska state legislature to the United States Board on Geographic Names to do the same at the federal level was blocked by Ohio congressman Ralph Regula, whose district included McKinley's hometown of Canton.

On August 30, 2015, just ahead of a presidential visit to Alaska, the Barack Obama administration announced the name Denali would be restored in line with the Alaska Geographic Board's designation. 

Climbing history

The first recorded attempt to climb Denali was by Judge James Wickersham in 1903, via the Peters Glacier and the North Face, now known as the Wickersham Wall. Because of the route's history of avalanche danger, it was not successfully climbed until 1963.

Famed explorer Dr. Frederick Cook claimed the first ascent of the mountain in 1906. His claim was regarded with some suspicion from the start, but was also widely believed. It was later proved false, with some crucial evidence provided by Bradford Washburn when he was sketched on a lower peak.

In 1910, four area locals – Tom Lloyd, Peter Anderson, Billy Taylor, and Charles McGonagall – known as the Sourdough Expedition, attempted to climb Denali despite a lack of climbing experience. The group spent approximately three months on the mountain. Their purported summit ascent day included carrying a bag of doughnuts each, a thermos of hot chocolate, and a 14-foot (4.2 m) spruce pole. Two of them reached the North Summit, the lower of the two, and erected the pole near the top. According to the group, the time they took to reach the summit was a total of 18 hours. Until the first ascent in 1913, their claims were disbelieved, in part due to false claims they had climbed both summits.

In 1912, the Parker-Browne expedition nearly reached the summit, turning back within just a few hundred yards of it due to harsh weather. Hours after their ascent, the Great Earthquake of 1912 shattered the glacier they had ascended.

The first ascent of the main summit of Denali came on June 7, 1913, by a party led by Hudson Stuck and Harry Karstens. The first man to reach the summit was Walter Harper, an Alaska Native. Robert Tatum also made the summit. Using the mountain's contemporary name, Tatum later commented, "The view from the top of Mount McKinley is like looking out the windows of Heaven!"   Stuck confirmed, via binoculars, the presence of a large pole near the North Summit; this report confirmed the Sourdough ascent, and today it is widely believed that the Sourdoughs did succeed on the North Summit. However, the pole was never seen before or since, so there is still some doubt. Stuck also discovered that the Parker-Browne party were only about 200 feet (61 m) of elevation short of the true summit when they turned back.

The mountain is regularly climbed today; in 2003, around 58% of climbers reached the top. But by 2003, the mountain had claimed the lives of nearly 100 mountaineers over time.[49] The vast majority of climbers use the West Buttress Route, pioneered in 1951 by Bradford Washburn,  after an extensive aerial photographic analysis of the mountain. Climbers typically take two to four weeks to ascend Denali.

The painter 

Sydney Mortimer Laurence was an American Romantic landscape painter and is widely considered one of Alaska's most important historical artists. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he studied at the Art Students League of New York.  He exhibited regularly by the late 1880s. He and his wife traveled to England, settling in 1889 in the English artists' colony of St. Ives, Cornwall from 1889 to 1898. over the next decade he exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists and was included in the Paris Salon in 1890, 1894, and 1895, winning an award in 1894.

Suddently in 1903 or 1904, it appears that Laurence abandoned his family and came to Alaskan shich was quite a wild aerea.

Laurence was the first professionally trained artist to make Alaska his home. He moved to Alaska in 1904 for reasons still unknown. Records from 1907 show he lived in the village of Tyonek on the North Shore of Cook Inlet in Southcentral Alaska, about 60 miles from Ship Creek where Anchorage would begin years later.  Living the hard life of the pioneer prospector, he painted little in his first years in the then-District of Alaska, but between 1911 and 1914 he began to focus once again on his art.  He moved from Valdez to the nascent town of Anchorage in 1915 and by 1920 was Alaska's most prominent painter. 

Laurence painted Mount McKinley  at least 5 or 6 times all along his life, but it is image of Denali from the hills above the rapids of the Tokositna River, shown in this blog in n° 1, which  became his trademark. It is this image more than any other which personifies Laurence for his many admirers and collectors in Alaska and beyond. Laurence forged a uniquely personal style by applying the tonalist techniques he had learned in New York and Europe to the wilderness of the North. He, more than any other artist, defined for Alaskans and others the image of Alaska as "The Last Frontier."

Laurence painted as welle a variety of Alaskan scenes in his long and prolific career, among them sailing ships and steamships in Alaskan waters, totem poles in Southeast Alaska, dramatic headlands and the quiet coves and streams of Cook Inlet, cabins and caches under the northern lights, and Alaska Natives, miners, and trappers engaged in their often solitary lives in the northern wilderness.

In May 1927, Laurence married Jeanne Kunath, a French-born artist who had emigrated to the United States in 1920. He died in Anchorage on December 10, 1940.

Several places were named for Laurence in his adopted hometown. Laurence Court is a short street in the Bootleggers Cove neighborhood of Anchorage. Perhaps the most significant was the Sydney Laurence Auditorium, which sat downtown at the northwest corner of West Sixth Avenue and F Street. This structure was replaced during the 1980s by the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts in what Anchorage called "Project 80s", a large-scale civic improvement program carried out under mayors George M. Sullivan and Tony Knowles; now the Sydney Laurence theater is smallest of three stages at the Performing Arts Center.

Références 

- Sydney Laurence Biography - University of Alaska 

MOUNT DENALI MAP BY HEINRICH. C. BERANN

HEINRICH  C. BERANN (1915 - 1999) 

Mount Denali, ex Mount Mc Kinley (6,190 m - 20,310 ft)

United States of America (Alaska)

 In Denali map for US National Park Service, 1995.

The mountain 

Denali (also known as Mount McKinley, see the Naming paragraph below)) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of  6,190 m - 20,310 feet above sea level. Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak after Mount Everest and Aconcagua.  Denali  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 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.

Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U.S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.

Denali has two significant summits: the South Summit is the higher one, while the North Summit has an elevation of 19,470 ft (5,934 m) and a prominence of approximately 1,270 ft (387 m).  The North Summit is sometimes counted as a separate peak (see e.g., fourteener) and sometimes not; it is rarely climbed, except by those doing routes on the north side of the massif.

Five large glaciers flow off the slopes of the mountain. The Peters Glacier lies on the northwest side of the massif, while the Muldrow Glacier falls from its northeast slopes. Just to the east of the Muldrow, and abutting the eastern side of the massif, is the Traleika Glacier. The Ruth Glacier lies to the southeast of the mountain, and the Kahiltna Glacier leads up to the southwest side of the mountain.  With a length of 44 mi (71 km), the Kahiltna Glacier is the longest glacier in the Alaska Range.

The Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have for centuries referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali. The name is based on a Koyukon word for "high" or "tall".  During the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was Bolshaya Gora (Russian: Большая Гора, meaning Russian "big mountain)" which is the Russian translation of Denali.  It was briefly called Densmore's Mountain in the late 1880s and early 1890s after Frank Densmore, an Alaskan prospector who was the first European to reach the base of the mountain.

In 1896, a gold prospector named it McKinley as political support for then-presidential candidate William McKinley, who became president the following year. The United States formally recognized the name Mount McKinley after President Wilson signed the Mount McKinley National Park Act of February 26, 1917.  

In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson declared the north and south peaks of the mountain the "Churchill Peaks", in honor of British statesman Winston Churchill.  The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali in 1975, which was how it is called locally.  However, a request in 1975 from the Alaska state legislature to the United States Board on Geographic Names to do the same at the federal level was blocked by Ohio congressman Ralph Regula, whose district included McKinley's hometown of Canton.

On August 30, 2015, just ahead of a presidential visit to Alaska, the Barack Obama administration announced the name Denali would be restored in line with the Alaska Geographic Board's designation. 

The artist

Heinrich C. Berann, (1915–1999) the father of the modern panorama map, was born into a family of painters and sculptors in Innsbruck, Austria. He taught himself by trial and error. In the years 1930-1933 he attended the arts and design school "Bundeslehranstalt für Malerei" in Innsbruck.

Winning of first prize at a competition for a panorama map created great enthusiasm in him. Using his artistic heritage and new self-discovered techniques he invented a new way of painting landscapes for tourist purposes. The further development of both these panorama maps and his artistic style was influenced by lasting impressions he received during his military service in German Army in Norway and Northern Finland in 1942.

In 1962 he painted Mount Everest for the National Geographic Society, one of his most famous panoramic maps. He worked with Marie Tharp and Bruce C. Heezen to produce maps of the entire ocean floor in 1977.

He later created four panoramas for the United States National Park Service: Yellowstone National Park, North Cascades National Park, Yosemite National Park and finally Mt. McKinley National Park (now Denali). He was very sick when he painted Denali (above) - but he finished it in the age of 81.

In 2000, Tom Patterson of the National Park Service explored ways of digitally creating panoramas like Berann did for the Park Service.

MONT DENALI PEINT PAR JORGE RODRIGUEZ-GERADA

 

JORGE RODRIGUEZ-GERADA (bn.1 966)
 Mount Denali (6, 190 m - 20, 310 ft)
United States of America (Alaska)

 La montagne
Denali (également connu sous le nom de mont McKinley,)) est le plus haut sommet de montagne en Amérique du Nord, avec une altitude au sommet de 6 190 m - 20 310 pieds au-dessus du niveau de la mer. Denali est le troisième sommet le plus important et le troisième le plus isolé après le mont Everest et l'Aconcagua. Denali est l'un des sept sommets, qui comprend les plus hautes montagnes de chacun des sept continents. Les atteindre tous est considéré comme un défi d'alpinisme, réalisé pour la première fois le 30 avril 1985 par Richard Bass.
Situé dans la chaîne de l'Alaska à l'intérieur de l'État américain de l'Alaska, Denali est la pièce maîtresse du parc national et de la réserve de Denali.
Denali a deux sommets importants: le sommet sud est le plus élevé, alors que le sommet nord a une altitude de 19 470 pieds (5 934 m). Le sommet nord est parfois compté comme un pic distinct et parfois non; il est rarement escaladé, sauf par ceux qui font des voies sur le versant nord du massif.
Cinq grands glaciers coulent des pentes de la montagne. Le glacier Peters se trouve sur le côté nord-ouest du massif, tandis que le glacier Muldrow tombe de ses pentes nord-est. Juste à l'est du Muldrow, et jouxtant le côté est du massif, se trouve le glacier Traleika. Le glacier Ruth se trouve au sud-est de la montagne et le glacier Kahiltna mène au côté sud-ouest de la montagne. Avec une longueur de 44 mi (71 km), le glacier Kahiltna est le plus long glacier de la chaîne de l'Alaska.
Les Koyukon Athabaskans qui habitent la région autour de la montagne ont pendant des siècles appelé le pic Dinale ou Denali. Il a été brièvement appelé Densmore's Mountain à la fin des années 1880 et au début des années 1890 en l'honneur de Frank Densmore, un prospecteur de l'Alaska qui fut le premier Européen à atteindre la base de la montagne.
En 1896, un chercheur d'or l'a nommé McKinley  en soutien au candidat à la présidence de l'époque, William McKinley, t devenu président l'année suivante. Les États-Unis ont officiellement reconnu le nom de Mount McKinley après que le président Wilson a signé le Mount McKinley National Park Act du 26 février 1917.
En 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson a déclaré les sommets nord et sud de la montagne les "Churchill Peaks", en l'honneur de l'homme d'État britannique Winston Churchill. Le Conseil des noms géographiques de l'Alaska a changé le nom de la montagne en Denali en 1975, comme on l'appelle localement.
Le 30 août 2015, juste avant une visite présidentielle en Alaska, l'administration de Barack Obama a annoncé que le nom Denali serait rétabli conformément à la désignation de l'Alaska Geographic Board.

L'artiste
Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada est un artiste contemporain cubano-américain. Né à Cuba le 5 février 1966 et élevé aux États-Unis. Il crée principalement des œuvres dans des espaces urbains à grande échelle. Il a été membre fondateur du mouvement de brouillage culturel new-yorkais du début des années 1990, travaillant d'abord avec le groupe "Artfux" et plus tard avec le "Cicada Corps of Artists". Au cours de cette période, il a également lancé des interventions sur les panneaux d'affichage et la publicité publique. En 1997, il a commencé à s'orienter vers le travail en solo. En 2002, Rodríguez-Gerada a déménagé à Barcelone où il s'est concentré sur les dessins au fusain éphémères à grande échelle, qui composent sa série Identity. Il a ensuite développé la Série Terrestre ; des terrassements éphémères si vastes qu'ils sont visibles de l'espace. D'autres projets en cours incluent la série Identity Composite et des œuvres d'art plus petites qu'il appelle Fragment Series, Urban Analogies et Memorylythics. Depuis 2009, il organise le festival annuel AvantGuard Urbano ; un petit festival d'art urbain avec de grands noms, qui s'est tenu à Tudela, en Navarre, dans le nord de l'Espagne. Il participe également à de nombreux salons et expositions.

 __________________________________________

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

 

MOUNT EVEREST PAINTED BY HEINRICH C. BERANN

Pr. HEINRICH C. BERANN  (1915-1999)  

Mount Everest  or Sagarmatha or Chomolunga (8,848 m - 29,029ft) 

China (Tibet) / Nepal  

 In Panoramic maps designed for National Geographic, 1962

The Mountain 

Mount Everest (8,848 m - 29,029ft), also known in Nepal as Sagarmāthā and in Tibet as Chomolungma, is Earth's highest mountain. It is located in the Mahalangur mountain range in Nepal and Tibet. The international border between China (Tibet Autonomous Region) and Nepal runs across Everest's precise summit point. Its massif includes neighbouring peaks Lhotse (8,516 m -27,940 ft); Nuptse (7,855 m -25,771 ft) and Changtse (7,580 m -24,870 ft).

In 1856, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at (8,840 m -29,002 ft). The current official height of (8,848 m -29,029 ft) as recognised by China and Nepal was established by a 1955 Indian survey and subsequently confirmed by a Chinese survey in 1975. In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon a recommendation by Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India. As there appeared to be several different local names, Waugh chose to name the mountain after his predecessor in the post, Sir George Everest, despite George Everest's objections.

Mount Everest attracts many climbers, some of them highly experienced mountaineers. There are two main climbing routes: one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal (known as the standard route) and the other from the north in Tibet. While not posing substantial technical climbing challenges on the standard route, Everest presents dangers such as altitude sickness, weather, wind as well as significant objective hazards from avalanches and the Khumbu Icefall. As of 2016, there are well over 200 corpses still on the mountain, with some of them even serving as landmarks.

The first recorded efforts to reach Everest's summit were made by British mountaineers. With Nepal not allowing foreigners into the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. After the first reconnaissance expedition by the British in 1921 reached 7,000 m - 22,970 ft) on the North Col, the 1922 expedition pushed the North ridge route up to 8,320 m - 27,300 ft) marking the first time a human had climbed above 8,000 m - 26,247 ft). Tragedy struck on the descent from the North col when seven porters were killed in an avalanche. The 1924 expedition resulted in the greatest mystery on Everest to this day: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made a final summit attempt on 8 June but never returned, sparking debate as to whether they were the first to reach the top. They had been spotted high on the mountain that day but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again, until Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 8,155 m (26,755 ft) on the North face. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953 using the southeast ridge route. Tenzing had reached 8,595 m - 28,199 ft) the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition. The Chinese mountaineering team of Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo and Qu Yinhua made the first reported ascent of the peak from the North Ridge on 25 May 1960.

Mount Everest 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 summits (which are obviously 8 !)... are :  

Mount Everest (8,848 m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194 m), Kilimandjaro (5,895 m), Mt Elbrus (5,642 m), Vinson  Massif (4,892 m), Mt Blanc (4,807 m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228 m) in Australia.

Financial cost of guided climbs

Going with a "celebrity guide", usually a well-known mountaineer typically with decades of climbing experience and perhaps multiple Everest summits, can cost over £100,000 as of 2015. On the other hand, a limited support service, offering only some meals at base camp and bureaucratic overhead like a permit, can be as little as 7,000 USD.[ There are issues with the management of guiding firms in Nepal, and one Canadian woman was left begging for help when her guide firm, which she had paid perhaps 40,000 dollars to, couldn't stop her from dying in 2012. She ran out of bottled oxygen after climbing for 27 hours straight. Despite decades of concern over inexperienced climbers, neither she nor the guide firm had summited Everest before. The communist-controlled Tibetan/Chinese side does not offer much reprieve from the chaos, with it being described as "out of control" due to multiple reports of thefts, threats, etc.  By 2015, Nepal was considering requiring that summiters have some experience and wanted to make the mountain safer, and especially increase revenue. One barrier to this is that low-budget firms make money not taking inexperienced climbers to the summit. (subscription required) Those turned away by western firms can often find another firm willing to take them for a price—that they return home soon after arriving after base camp, or part way up the mountain. Whereas a western firm will convince those they deem incapable to turn back, other firms simply give people the freedom to choose.[331] Mountain managers can be left with difficult choices, sometimes balancing greed with the safety of tourists; as one bureaucrat for the extremely popular Mont Blanc put it, "Climbing the Mont Blanc is a matter for serious mountaineers. It isn't a trek or a playground to get a mention in the Guinness World Records" Mount Blanc may be an indicator of how extreme Everest can go, a mountain that dwarfs Everest in popularity— and fatalities, with tens of thousands, not hundreds summiting a commensurate increase in fatalities, with over a hundred dying each year. The battle for safety is a struggle there as in the Himalaya's, with another official jokingly noting they want to send Pamela Anderson to rescue tourists (perhaps a nod to her role as a life-guard on the U.S. television show Baywatch).

In 2016 the increased use of helicopters was noted for increased efficiency and for hauling materiel over the deadly Khumbu icefall. In particular it was noted that flights saved icefall porters 80 trips but still increased commercial activity at Everest. After many Nepal died in the icefall in 2014, the government had wanted helicopters to handle more transportation to Camp 1 but this was not possible because of the 2015 deaths and earthquake closing the mountain, so the this was implemented in 2016 (helicopters did prove instrumental in rescuing many people in 2015 though). That summer Bell tested the 412EPI, which conducted a series of tests including hovering at 18,000 feet and flying as high as 20,000 feet altitude near Mount Everest.

The artist

Heinrich C. Berann, (1915–1999) the father of the modern panorama map, was born into a family of painters and sculptors in Innsbruck, Austria. He taught himself by trial and error. In the years 1930-1933 he attended the arts and design school "Bundeslehranstalt für Malerei" in Innsbruck.

Winning of first prize at a competition for a panorama map created great enthusiasm in him. Using his artistic heritage and new self-discovered techniques he invented a new way of painting landscapes for tourist purposes. The further development of both these panorama maps and his artistic style was influenced by lasting impressions he received during his military service in German Army in Norway and Northern Finland in 1942.

In 1962 he painted Mount Everest for the National Geographic Society, one of his most famous panoramic maps (see picture above)

He worked with Marie Tharp and Bruce C. Heezen to produce maps of the entire ocean floor in 1977.

He later created four panoramas for the United States National Park Service: Yellowstone National Park, North Cascades National Park, Yosemite National Park and finally Mt. McKinley National Park (now Denali). He was very sick when he painted Denali - but he finished it in the age of 81.

In 2000, Tom Patterson of the National Park Service explored ways of digitally creating panoramas like Berann did for the Park Service.

References

-  H.C. Berann dedicated website : The World of H.C. Berann

MOUNT KHUMBILA / KHUMBU YUL-LHA BY HEINRICH C. BERANN

HEINRICH C. BERANN  (1915-1999)

Mount Khumbila / Khumbu Yul-Lha (5,761 m- 18, 901ft) 

Nepal 

In Kumbu Himal map, 1950 for National Geographic 

The mountain 

Mount Khumbila or Khumbu Yul-Lha (5,761 m- 18, 901ft)  roughly translated as "God of Khumbu" is one of the high Himalayan peaks in the Khumbu region of Eastern Nepal within the boundaries of Sagarmatha National Park. Considered too sacred to be climbed by most local Sherpa people, the mountain is considered home to the patron God of the local area. The mountain overlooks the famous southern approaches to its larger neighbours including Ama Dablam and Mount Everest.

Khumbila has never been climbed; one attempt prior to the 1980s ended when climbers were killed in an avalanche, and there have been no subsequent attempts.

Khumbila is said to be a god, and an old one. The prayers for Khumbila are believed to date back to the time when the ancestors of the Sherpas were still in Tibet (more than 500 years ago). Khumbila is said to have been subdued and converted to Buddhism by Guru Rimpoche, the 8th-century saint who spread Buddhism throughout the Himalaya . In fact, Guru Rimpoche is said to have spent some time meditating in a cave above Khunde, perhaps on the mountain Khumbila itself.

Local buildings often have prayer flags on bamboo wands to honour Khumbila.

The artist

Heinrich C. Berann, (1915–1999) the father of the modern panorama map, was born into a family of painters and sculptors in Innsbruck, Austria. He taught himself by trial and error. In the years 1930-1933 he attended the arts and design school "Bundeslehranstalt für Malerei" in Innsbruck.

Winning of first prize at a competition for a panorama map created great enthusiasm in him. Using his artistic heritage and new self-discovered techniques he invented a new way of painting landscapes for tourist purposes. The further development of both these panorama maps and his artistic style was influenced by lasting impressions he received during his military service in German Army in Norway and Northern Finland in 1942.

In 1962 he painted Mount Everest for the National Geographic Society, one of his most famous panoramic maps. He worked with Marie Tharp and Bruce C. Heezen to produce maps of the entire ocean floor in 1977.

He later created four panoramas for the United States National Park Service: Yellowstone National Park, North Cascades National Park, Yosemite National Park and finally Mt. McKinley National Park (now Denali). He was very sick when he painted Denali (above) - but he finished it in the age of 81.

In 2000, Tom Patterson of the National Park Service explored ways of digitally creating panoramas like Berann did for the Park Service.

LES AIGUILLES DE CHARMOZ ENGRAVED BY JEAN-ANTOINE LINCK

JEAN-ANTOINE LINCK (1766-1843)

 Les Aiguilles du Grand  Charmoz (3,445m - 11,302ft)

France

In La Mer de glace et les Aiguilles de Chamoz, 1799, oil on canvas,
Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève, Switzerland

The mountain 

The Aiguille des Grands Charmoz (3,445 m), is one of the Chamonix needles in the Mont Blanc massif. It is made up of a ridge bristling with " gendarmes", including La Carrée, and Bâton Wicks.

The first ascent was done on August 9, 1885 by H. Dunod and P. Vignon with the guides J. Desailloux, F. Folliguet, F. and G. Simond, by the corridor Charmoz-Grépon. It is today the normal way of descent, the climb generally being made by the south-west slope and the northwestern edge (AD +), climbed 15 July 1880 by Albert F. Mummery with Alexandre Burgener and Benedikt Venetz, which stopped before the summit at point 3 435 m. The Aiguille des Grands Charmoz is linked with the Aiguille du Grépon for the crossing of Charmoz-Grépon (D), one of the great rocky classics of the Mont Blanc massif. The first crossing was done by Laurent Croux in 1904. The first ascent of the north face, via the needle of the Republic, and crossing the edges of the Charmoz was done by Raymond Leininger and G. Bicavelle in 1946. In 1974, Jean-Claude Droyer succeeded the solo climb of the western pillar of the Grand Charmoz (Cordier lane opened in 1970 by Patrick Cordier).
The Mt Blanc is one of the 7 highest summits in earth, (which are obviously 8 with 2 in Europe !):
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 artist

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

THE MONT BLANC BY JONH RUSKIN

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)
The Mont Blanc (4,808.13 m - 15,776.7 ft)
France - Italy border

John Ruskin - In Clair de lune à Chamonix , watercolor on paper, 1888

The mountain 

Mont Blanc (in French) or Monte Bianco (in Italian), both meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps and the highest in Europe after the Caucasus peaks. It rises 4,808.73 m (15,777 ft) above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence.  The Mont Blanc is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass.  The 7 highest summit, (which are obviously 8 with 2 in Europe !) are :  

Mount Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m),  Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Mount Vinson (4,892m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228m) in Australia.

The painter 
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
He was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century, and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature".  From the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.
About mountains he painted quite a lot of times, Ruskin wrote: "They are the great cathedrals of the earth, with their portals of rock, the mosaics of clouds, the choirs of  torrents, and the altars of snow, sometimes with purple sparkling stars." and  "Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery."

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT ELBRUS PAINTED BY RICHARD ZOMMER

RICHARD KARLOVICH ZOMMER (1886-1939)

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

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 

Richard Karlovich Zommer  was a Russian royalist and impressionist artist. He was one of the first Russian artists to surrender to the Impressionist tendencies. A painter par excellence, one of his most celebrated works is undoubtedly The Shir-Dor Mosque, Samarkand  auctioned in 2006 at Sotheby's in London on New Bond Street.

Little is known of his life. It is known to have British origins. Inspired by other artists, he made several trips through Central Asia and Eastern Europe. It was during one of these visits that, in 1907, he began to paint, in a territory that today belongs nowadays to Kazakhstan.  Zommer was an Orientalist painter, stricto sensu, he was just painting Muslim communities which were living in territories, parts of the Great Russia of this time.  The style of the painter is full of exoticism and joy, which derive somewhat from his ostentatious palette of colors, very variable and exuberant, and his lighting games deriving from the Impressionist style.

His painting is marked by street scenes in the mostly Muslim territories of Russia, exhibiting bazaars, mosques processions and large crowds, which gives great freedom in color, vividly explored in paintings such as In the bazaar, among others, but also is marked by the desert landscapes in the mountainous Caucasus, an arid and dark environment, which in the pictures of Zommer is usually covered with snow, small streams entwined in muddy land or with picturesque caravans and soldiers of artists crossing it, as in Caravan crossing a river, one of the most outstanding works of his artistic trajectory.

Many of his paintings are known, mostly by the Russian people, but most of the works are in private collections or museums in Russia.

MOUNT EVEREST (CHOMOLUNGA) SEEN FROM NASA ISS

NASA INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (since1998)

Mount Everest or Sagarmatha or Chomolunga (8,848 m - 29,029ft) 

China (Tibet) / Nepal  

 In  Himalaya from the International Space Station

The mountain 

Mount Everest (8,848 m - 29,029ft), also known in Nepal as Sagarmāthā and in Tibet as Chomolungma, is Earth's highest mountain. It is located in the Mahalangur mountain range in Nepal and Tibet. The international border between China (Tibet Autonomous Region) and Nepal runs across Everest's precise summit point. Its massif includes neighbouring peaks Lhotse (8,516 m -27,940 ft); Nuptse (7,855 m -25,771 ft) and Changtse (7,580 m -24,870 ft).

In 1856, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at (8,840 m -29,002 ft). The current official height of (8,848 m -29,029 ft) as recognised by China and Nepal was established by a 1955 Indian survey and subsequently confirmed by a Chinese survey in 1975. In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon a recommendation by Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India. As there appeared to be several different local names, Waugh chose to name the mountain after his predecessor in the post, Sir George Everest, despite George Everest's objections.

Mount Everest attracts many climbers, some of them highly experienced mountaineers. There are two main climbing routes: one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal (known as the standard route) and the other from the north in Tibet. While not posing substantial technical climbing challenges on the standard route, Everest presents dangers such as altitude sickness, weather, wind as well as significant objective hazards from avalanches and the Khumbu Icefall. As of 2016, there are well over 200 corpses still on the mountain, with some of them even serving as landmarks.

The first recorded efforts to reach Everest's summit were made by British mountaineers. With Nepal not allowing foreigners into the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. After the first reconnaissance expedition by the British in 1921 reached 7,000 m - 22,970 ft) on the North Col, the 1922 expedition pushed the North ridge route up to 8,320 m - 27,300 ft) marking the first time a human had climbed above 8,000 m - 26,247 ft). Tragedy struck on the descent from the North col when seven porters were killed in an avalanche. The 1924 expedition resulted in the greatest mystery on Everest to this day: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made a final summit attempt on 8 June but never returned, sparking debate as to whether they were the first to reach the top. They had been spotted high on the mountain that day but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again, until Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 8,155 m (26,755 ft) on the North face. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953 using the southeast ridge route. Tenzing had reached 8,595 m - 28,199 ft) the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition. The Chinese mountaineering team of Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo and Qu Yinhua made the first reported ascent of the peak from the North Ridge on 25 May 1960.

Mount Everest 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 summits (which are obviously 8 !)... are :  

Mount Everest (8,848 m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194 m), Kilimandjaro (5,895 m), Mt Elbrus (5,642 m), Vinson  Massif (4,892 m), Mt Blanc (4,807 m) and Mount Kosciuszko  (2,228 m) in Australia.

Imager

In addition to looking heavenward, NASA helps the world see the Earth in ways no one else can. Astronauts on board the International Space Station recently took advantage of their unique vantage point to photograph the Himalayas, looking south from over the Tibetan Plateau. The perspective is illustrated by the summits of Makalu on left (8,462 m - 27,765 ft)], Everest in the middle (8,848 m- 29,035 ft) Lhotse  in the middle (8,516 m-  27,939 ft) and Cho Oyu on right (8,201 m- 26,906 ft)  at the heights typically flown by commercial aircraft.

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