FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博

       

                                                 HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博 (1876-1950)

                                                      Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

 In Fuji from Yoshida Medium, Woodblock Print, 1926

The mountain 

Mount Fuji  (3,776.24 m - 12,389 ft) or Fujiyama (富士山) is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan. Several names are attributed to it:  "Fuji-san" (the one usually Japanese speakers refer to) , "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". 

Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.

Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.

Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.

It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

The painter 

Hiroshi Yoshida / 吉田 博(not to be confused with Toshi Yoshida) was born in 1876. He began his artistic training with his adoptive father in Kurume, Fukuoka prefecture. Around the age of twenty, he left Kurume to study with Soritsu Tamura in Kyoto, subsequently moving to Tokyo and the tutelage of Shotaro Koyama. Yoshida studied Western-style painting, winning many exhibition prizes and making several trips to the United States, Europe and North Africa selling his watercolors and oil paintings. In 1902, he played a leading role in the organization of the Meiji Fine Arts Society into the Pacific Painting Association. His work was featured in the exhibitions of the state-sponsored Bunten and Teiten. While highly successful as an oil painter and watercolor artist, Yoshida turned to printmaking upon learning of the Western world’s infatuation with ukiyo-e.

Following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Yoshida embarked on a tour of the United States and Europe, painting and selling his work. When he returned to Japan in 1925, he started his own workshop, specializing in landscapes inspired both by his native country and his travels abroad. Yoshida often worked through the entire process himself: designing the print, carving his own blocks, and printing his work. His career was temporarily interrupted by his sojourn as a war correspondent in Manchuria during the Pacific War. Although he designed his last print in 1946, Yoshida continued to paint with oils and watercolors up until his death in 1950.

Yoshida was widely traveled and knowledgeable of Western aesthetics, yet maintained an allegiance to traditional Japanese techniques and traditions. Attracted by the calmer moments of nature, his prints breathe coolness, invite meditation, and set a soft, peaceful mood. All of his lifetime prints are signed “Hiroshi Yoshida” in pencil and marked with a jizuri (self-printed) seal outside of the margin. Within the image, most prints are signed “Yoshida” with brush and ink beside a red “Hiroshi” seal.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 BY KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI / 葛飾 北斎

 

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI  / 葛飾 北斎 (1760–1849)
Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)
Japan

In Fuji Concluded in One Stroke, c.1834. Detached page from One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku hyakkei) Vol. 3, Edo period, circa 1835-1847, Harvard Art Museum

The mountain
Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft) is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan. Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707-08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
More about Mount Fuji

The artist
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji " both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. In this series, Mt Fuji is painted on different meteorological conditions, in different hours of the days, in different seasons and from different places.
More about Katsushika Hokusai...

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 AND TSUKUBA SAN/ 筑波山 (2) BY SUZUKI KIITSZU / 鈴木其

 

SUZUKI KIITSZU / 鈴木其 (1796 -1858)

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Mount Tsukuba / 筑波山 ( 877 m - 2,877 ft)

Japan

 In  Mount Fuji and Mount Tsukuba, Fan  East Asia, Japan - c. 1835-43

The mountains

Mount Tsukuba / 筑波山 (877 m- 2,877 ft), located near Tsukuba is one of the most famous mountains in Japan, particularly well known for its double peaks, Nyotai-san (女体山, female body (877 m -2,877 ft) and Nantai-san (男体山, male body (871 m-2,858 ft).

Many people climb the so-called "purple mountain" every year for the panoramic view of the Kantō plain from the summit. On clear days the Tōkyō skyline, Lake Kasumigaura and even Mount Fuji are visible from the summit. Japanese mountains are mostly volcanic, but Mount Tsukuba is non-volcanic granite and gabbroin origin. Renowned beautiful granites are produced in the northern quarries even today. As legend has it, thousands of years ago, a deity descended from the heavens and asked two mountains for a place to spend the night. With its great summit and almost perfect cone, Mt. Fuji refused, believing with pride and arrogance that it does not need the deity's blessings. Mt. Tsukuba, on the other hand, humbly welcomed the honored guest, even offering food and water. Today, Mt. Fuji is a cold, lonely, and barren mountain, while Mt. Tsukuba bursts with vegetation and is filled with colors as the seasons change.

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft) is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan. Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707-08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.

Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.

More about Mount Fuji

The painter

Suzuki Kiitsu / 鈴木其 (1796 – 1858) was a Japanese painter of the Rinpa school. A student of the famous painter Sakai Hoitsu (1761–1828), he was for a long time considered a minor member of Rinpa school of Japanese painting. In recent years his work has been reevaluated and gained recognition, leading to a series of major exhibitions of his art in 2016-2017 in Tokyo, Hyogo and Kyoto.

Kiitsu is best known for his byōbu folding screens, often a reinterpretation of screens by other Rinpa artists, such as his massive Wind God and Thunder God following Tawaraya Sōtatsu (c. 1570 – c. 1640), Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716) and Hoitsu. But he has been most acclaimed for his original screens, including his famed Morning Glories and Mountain Stream in Summer and Autumn.

He was also a notable master with many pupils. Although he was not the official successor of Hoitsu's school, he trained himself many of the Edo Rinpa artists. This has sometimes been labeled as the Kiitsu school of Edo Rinpa.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau

TATEYAMA / 立山 BY KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAÏ

 

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAÏ (1760-1849)

Tateyama / 立山 / Mount Tate (3,015 m - 9,892 ft)

Japan

In Tateyama, wood block print

The mountain
Tateyama / 立山 /  Mount Tate  (3,015 m  - 9,892 ft) commonly referred to as simply Tateyama, is a mountain located in the southeastern area of Toyama Prefecture, Japan. It is one of the tallest mountains in the Hida Mountains and along with Mount Fuji and Mount Haku, it is one of Japan's "Three Holy Mountains" (三霊山 Sanreizan). Tateyama is a term for the mountain consisting of three peaks: Ōnanjiyama (大汝山, 3,015m), Oyama (雄山, 3,003m), and Fuji-no-Oritateyama, (富士ノ折立, 2,999m)  which run along a ridge. Public transportation will take climbers and tourists as far as the Murodo Plateau Station at an elevation of 2,450 m (8,038 ft), from where individuals may climb to the peak on foot. These are the only glaciers identified in Japan so far.
It was first climbed by Saeki no Ariyori during Japan's Asuka period. The area was designated the Chūbu-Sangaku National Park on December 4, 1934.

The artist
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji " both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. In this series, Mt Fuji is painted on different meteorological conditions, in different hours of the days, in different seasons and from different places.
More about Katsushika Hokusai... 

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LE FUJIYAMA / 富士山 PEINT PAR ITO SHINSUI/ 伊東深水

SHINSUI ITO / 新水伊藤 (1898-1972)
Mont Fuji (3,376m)
Japan

In Three views of Mt Fuji

Le peintre
Itō Shinsui (伊東深水), de son véritable nom Itō Hajime, est un peintre de l'école nihon-ga et artiste ukiyo-e des ères Taishō et Shōwa au Japon. Il est l'un des noms majeurs derrière le mouvement shin hanga qui revitalise l'art traditionnel avant son déclin final avec l'avènement de la photographie au Japon au début du 20e siècle. Itō Shinsui est considéré comme l'une des personnalités les plus connues et respectées de la société japonaise et a reçu plusieurs titres honorifique dont celui de Trésor national vivant du Japon. En 1952, la « Commission pour la protection des biens culturels » déclare son talent de conception de gravure sur bois un « bien culturel immatériel »  En 1958, il est élu membre de l'académie japonaise des arts et en 1970 est élevé dans l'Ordre du Soleil levant.

La montagne
Le mont Fuji / 富士山  (3 776 mètres) est une montagne mythique du centre du Japon qui se trouve sur la côte sud de l'île de Honshū, au sud-ouest de l'agglomération de Tokyo. Il est le point culminant du Japon. Situé dans une région où se rejoignent les plaques tectoniques pacifique, eurasienne et philippine, la montagne est un stratovolcan toujours considéré comme actif, sa dernière éruption certaine s'étant produite fin 1707, bien que le risque éruptif soit actuellement considéré comme faible. À son sommet a été construit un observatoire météorologique et malgré les conditions climatiques rigoureuses, la montagne est une destination extrêmement populaire en particulier pour les Japonais, qu'ils soient shintoïstes ou bouddhistes, en raison de sa forme caractéristique et du symbolisme religieux traditionnel dont il est porteur. Il a ainsi été le sujet principal ou le cadre de nombreuses œuvres artistiques, notamment picturales au cours des siècles. Pourtant, cette fréquentation fragilise l'environnement. Aussi, le 22 juin 2013, il est inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO sous le titre « Fujisan, lieu sacré et source d'inspiration artistique ». Le plus célèbre de ses peintres fut Hokusai avec ses 36 vues du Mont Fuji, mais tous les grands artistes japonais l'ont peint au moins une fois dans leur vie.

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

LE FUJIYAMA / 富士山 (N°16) PEINT PAR HOKUSAÏ / 葛飾 北斎

 

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAÏ / 葛飾 北斎 (1760-1849)
Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)
Japan

 In Tsukada Island in the Musashi province, tiré deTrente-six vues du mont Fuji,  n° 16, 1830

La montagne
Le mont Fuji /-富士山, (3, 776 m -12,389 ft) est une montagne sacrée du centre du Japon qui se trouve sur la côte sud de l'île de Honshū, au sud-ouest de l'agglomération de Tokyo. Il est le point culminant du Japon. Situé dans une région où se rejoignent les plaques tectoniques pacifique, eurasienne et philippine, la montagne est un stratovolcan toujours considéré comme actif, sa dernière éruption certaine s'étant produite fin 1707, bien que le risque éruptif soit actuellement considéré comme faible. À son sommet a été construit un observatoire météorologique et malgré les conditions climatiques rigoureuses, la montagne est une destination extrêmement populaire en particulier pour les Japonais, qu'ils soient shintoïstes ou bouddhistes, en raison de sa forme caractéristique et du symbolisme religieux traditionnel dont il est porteur. Il a ainsi été le sujet principal ou le cadre de nombreuses œuvres artistiques, notamment picturales au cours des siècles. Pourtant, cette fréquentation fragilise l'environnement. Aussi, le 22 juin 2013, il est inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO sous le titre « Fujisan, lieu sacré et source d'inspiration artistique

Le peintre
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎) est un peintre, dessinateur et graveur japonais du 18e siècle, spécialiste de l’ukiyo-e, ainsi que l'auteur d'écrits populaires, surtout connu sous le nom de Hokusai(北斎?), ou son surnom de Gakyōjin, littéralement « Vieux Fou de dessin ». Au cours de ses soixante-dix ans de carrière, il a réalisé une œuvre considérable de quelque 3 000 tirages couleur, des illustrations pour plus de 200 livres, des centaines de dessins et plus de 1 000 peintures. Il a rapidement abandonné le sujet étroit traditionnellement associé à l'école du « monde flottant » (ukiyo-e) dont il faisait partie, comme les images d'acteurs populaires et de courtisanes. Les Trente-six vues du mont Fuji (1831 – 1833) comptant en réalité 46 estampes dont La Grande Vague de Kanagawa (1831) sont ses œuvres les plus connues. Son œuvre influença de nombreux artistes européens, en particulier Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet et Alfred Sisley, et plus largement le mouvement artistique appelé japonisme. Sur son lit de mort, il prononce ces dernières paroles : « Si le ciel m'avait accordé encore dix ans de vie, ou même cinq, j'aurais pu devenir un véritable peintre ». Sur sa pierre tombale il laisse cette épitaphe : « Oh ! La liberté, la belle liberté, quand on va aux champs d'été pour y laisser son corps périssable ! »

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2023 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

LE MONT AGEL PAINTED BY CLAUDE MONET

 

 

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Mont Agel (1,151m - 3,776 ft)
France - Principauté de Monaco - Italy border

In "La Corniche near Monaco, Le Mont Agel", oil on canvas, 65 x 82cm, Private Collection

About this painting
Claude  Monet  painted the Mont Agel quite a number of times, but in ecah painting colors and  general impression are totally different.  One can compare the different paintings of that mountain he done. this one is supposed to have been painted at 1the sunset.  Monet, like the japanese painters ,and particularly Hokusai who painted the 36 views of Mount Fuji, reproduced the same artistic behavior by painting series of the same mountains, in the same place, at different hours of the day or different seasons. At Cap Martin and Mont Agel, Monet painted about ten of them.

 The mountain
Mont Agel (1,151m - 3,776 ft) is a summit of the Alps located in the South of France, overlooking part of the French Riviera, Monaco, Beausoleil, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin... exactly as shwon in the Monet's painting above !
It has held a historic strategic position since Antiquity and still houses military aerial detection installations today. Mount Agel is precisely located in the French commune of Peille, ( Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region). It rises in the Prealps of Nice and constitutes the highest point of the Monegasque watershed. The highest point of the principality, of Monaco, on the slopes of this mountain, can be reached by the Chemin des Révoires. A massive summit, Mount Agel is visible from a great distance: from certain districts of Nice as well as from a large part of the French Riviera between Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Antibes, and the Principality of Monaco and likewise from the Italian Riviera to around Vintimiglia and Bordighiera.
The history of Mount Agel begins with the Celto-Ligurian tribes who occupied the site and some of whose members were involved in the boarding and looting of boats engaged in cabotage. They are submitted from 23 to 13 BC. BC by the Romans who restored the old coastal route passing through the slopes of Mount Agel to link Ventimiglia to Narbonne Gaul and forming part of the Via Aurelia.
From 1931, new elements of fortification were built within the framework of the Maginot line.
Mount Agel now houses a large work of artillery equipped with turrets, linked together by deeply buried galleries. During the fighting of June 1940, his shots participated in the defense of Menton and supported the outpost of Pont-Saint-Louis and the work of Cap-Martin.
Until 2012, the 943 Capitaine Auber air base of the French Air Force was located there.
Today, only radars remain, which continue their watch in automatic mode, the information being transmitted and used by the Detection and Control Center at 942 Lyon-Mont Verdun air base.
Mount Agel also shelters on its slopes, the Monte-Carlo Golf Club, a very selective club. A little to the east of the golf course is the transmitter center of Fontbonne. Until its recent redevelopment, there were various protohistoric constructions.
Close to Mount Agel and the golf course is also the summer residence of Princes of Monaco (Rocagel site).

The painter
The painter Oscar-Claude Monet better known as Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting « Impression, soleil levant » (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.
Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons exactly like the japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) did with his 36 views of Mount Fuji.
Monet repeated this kinf of "exercise de stylee with his series on Les Petites Dalles. and Kolsass mountain.
Monet has been described as "the driving force behind Impressionism". Crucial to the art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other. Monet's long career as a painter was spent in the pursuit of this aim.
In 1856, his chance meeting with Eugene Boudin, a painter of small beach scenes, opened his eyes to the possibility of plein-air painting. From that time, with a short interruption for military service, he dedicated himself to searching for new and improved methods of painterly expression. To this end, as a young man, he visited the Paris Salon and familiarised himself with the works of older painters, and made friends with other young artists.[54] The five years that he spent at Argenteuil, spending much time on the River Seine in a little floating studio, were formative in his study of the effects of light and reflections. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes rather than scenes and objects. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. Having rejected the academic teachings of Gleyre's studio, he freed himself from theory, saying "I like to paint as a bird sings."
In 1877 a series of paintings at Gare St-Lazare had Monet looking at smoke and steam and the way that they affected colour and visibility, being sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent. He was to further use this study in the painting of the effects of mist and rain on the landscape. The study of the effects of atmosphere were to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. This process began in the 1880s and continued until the end of his life in 1926.
His first series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. In 1892 he produced what is probably his best-known series, Twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral. In these paintings Monet broke with painterly traditions by cropping the subject so that only a portion of the facade is seen on the canvas. The paintings do not focus on the grand Medieval building, but on the play of light and shade across its surface, transforming the solid masonry.
Other series include Peupliers, Matins sur la Seine, and the Nenuphars that were painted on his property at Giverny. Between 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, including a series of paintings in Antibes (above) and Venice. In London he painted four series: the Houses of Parliament, London ; Charing Cross Bridge ; Waterloo Bridge, and Views of Westminster Bridge. Helen Gardner writes: "Monet, with a scientific precision, has given us an unparalleled and unexcelled record of the passing of time as seen in the movement of light over identical forms."
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LES TABLEAUX QUI PARLENT - N° 4 : Katsushika Hokusai, sous la grande vague, le Mont Fuji

 

 

 

Podcasts video à but éducatif "La Grande Vague de Kanagawa "est la première de la série des estampes "36 Vues du Mont Fuji". C'est uene oeuvre très célèbre qui révolutionna l'histoire de la peinture aussi bien en Asie qu'en Occident, pour plusieurs raisons....et pas seulement techniques. 

Ce podcast passent en revue ces raisons en, 8 minutes et laissant tout le temps d'observer cette estampe et de se promener dans de paysage qui raconte toute une histoire ... 

© Francis Rousseau - All rights reserved

MONADNOCK MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY ROCKWELL KENT

ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971)

Monadnock  mountain  (965m - 3, 125ft) 

United States of America (New Hampshire) 

In Mount Monadnock- afternoon, oil on canvas    

The mountain 

Mount Monadnock (965m - 3, 125ft) or Grand Monadnock is a mountain in the New England state of New Hampshire. It is the most prominent mountain peak in southern New Hampshire and is the highest point in Cheshire County, New Hampshire. It has long been known as one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world. The word "monadnock" is an Abenaki-derived word used to describe a mountain. Loosely translated it means "mountain that stands alone", although the exact meaning of the word (what kind of mountain) is uncertain. The term was adopted by early settlers of southern New Hampshire and later by American geologists as an alternative term for an Inselberg or isolated mountain. Mount Monadnock is often called Grand Monadnock, to differentiate it from other Vermont and New Hampshire peaks with "Monadnock" in their names. Its official name on federal maps is "Monadnock Mountain".
Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau visited the mountain and wrote fondly of it. Emerson was a frequent visitor, and made the mountain the subject of "Monadnoc", one of his most famous poems. Thoreau visited the mountain four times between 1844 and 1860 and spent a great deal of time observing and cataloging natural phenomena. He is regarded as having written one of the first serious naturalist inventories of the mountain. A bog near the summit of Mount Monadnock and a rocky lookout off the Cliff Walk trail are named after him; another lookout is named after Emerson.

Mount Monadnock is nearly 1,000 feet (300 m) higher than any other mountain peak within 30 miles (48 km) and rises 2,000 feet (610 m) above the surrounding landscape. Mount Monadnock, 62 miles (100 km) northwest of Boston and 38 miles (61 km) southwest of Concord, is located within the towns of Jaffrey and Dublin, New Hampshire.

Monadnock's bare, isolated, and rocky summit provides expansive views. A number of hiking trails ascend the mountain, including the 110-mile (180 km) Metacomet-Monadnock Trail and the 50-mile (80 km) Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway.
The earliest recorded ascent of Mount Monadnock took place in 1725 by Captain Samuel Willard and fourteen rangers under his command who camped at the top and used the summit as a lookout while patrolling for Native Americans. Before the practice came to be frowned upon, many early hikers carved their names in the summit; the earliest such engraving reads "S. Dakin, 1801" and is attributed to a local town clerk. Notable "power hiking" records associated with the mountain include that of Garry Harrington, who hiked to the summit 16 times in a 24-hour period, and Larry Davis, who claimed to have hiked to the summit daily for 2,850 consecutive days (7.8 years).
Monadnock is often claimed to be the second-most frequently climbed mountain in the world, after Mount Fuji in Japan. Monadnock is climbed by 125,000 hikers yearly, while Mount Fuji sees 200,000-300,000 hikers yearly.  However, according to UNESCO, neither mountain comes close in climbing popularity to Tai Shan in China, with more than 2 million visitors a year.

The painter

Rockwell Kent, artist, author, and political activist, had a long  and varied career. During his lifetime, he worked as an architectural draftsman, illustrator, printmaker, painter, lobsterman, ship's carpenter, and dairy farmer. Born in Tarrytown Heights, New York, he lived in Maine, Newfoundland, Alaska, Greenland, and the Adirondacks and explored the waters around Tierra del Fuego in a small boat. Kent's paintings, lithographs, and woodcuts often portrayed the bleak and rugged aspects of nature; a reflection of his life in harsh climates.His experience as a carpenter and builder and his familiarity with tools served him well when he took up the graphic process. His blocks were marvels of beautiful cutting, every line deliberate and under perfect control. The tones and lines in his lithography were solidly built up, subtle, and full of color. He usually made preliminary studies- old-mater style- for composition or detail before starting on a print. Nothing was vague or accidental about his work; his expression was clear and deliberate. Neither misty tonalities nor suggestiveness were to his taste. He was a highly objectified art - clean, athletic, sometimes almost austere and cold. He either recorded adventures concretely, or dealt in ideas. His studio was a model of the efficient workshop: neat, orderly, with everything in its place. His handwriting, the fruit of his architectural training, was beautiful and precise.
When Kent died of a heart attack in 1971, The New York Times described him as "... a thoughtful, troublesome, profoundly independent, odd and kind man who made an imperishable contribution to the art of bookmaking in the United States."  Richer, more accurate accounts of the scope of the artist's influential career as a painter and writer have since superseded this cursory summing-up of an American life. Retrospectives of the artist's paintings and drawings have been mounted, most recently by The Rooms in St. John's, Newfoundland, where the exhibition Pointed North: Rockwell Kent in Newfoundland and Labrador was curated by Caroline Stone in the summer of 2014. Other recent exhibitions include the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery and Owen D. Young Library at St. Lawrence University (Canton, New York) in the autumn of 2012; the Farnsworth Art Museum (Rockland, Maine) during the spring through autumn of 2012; the Bennington Museum in Vermont during the summer of 2012; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the spring through summer of 2012. An exhibition marking the centennial of Kent's time in Winona, Minnesota, took place there in 2013. Among the many notes of increasing awareness of Kent's contributions to American culture is the reproduction of one of Kent's pen-and-ink drawings from Moby Dick on a U.S. postage stamp, part of the 2001 commemorative panel celebrating such American illustrators as Maxfield Parrish, Frederic Remington, and Norman Rockwell.
Noted American and Canadian writers in recent years have found much gold to mine in Kent's improbable personal and public life. The year he spent in Newfoundland, for example, is fictionally (and very loosely) recalled by Canadian writer Michael Winter in The Big Why, his 2004 Winterset Award-winning novel. And certain qualities of the protagonist of Russell Banks's 2008 novel The Reserve are inspired by aspects of Kent's complex personality. Kent's work also figures in Steve Martin's 2010 novel An Object of Beauty and is the subject of a chapter in Douglas Brinkley's 2011 history The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom: 1879–1960.
The Archives of American Art is the repository for Kent's voluminous correspondence.

RISHIRI-ZAN / 利尻山 BY HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博

 HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博 (1876-1950), 

Rishiri-zan  / 利尻山  (1,721 m - 5, 646 ft)

Japan (Hokkaido) 

In Peaceful Rishiri, woodblock print, 1939

The mountain 
Rishiri-zan  / 利尻山  ( 1,721 m- 5, 646 ft) is a quaternary stratovolcano located off the coast of Hokkaidō, Japan in the Sea of Japan. The extinct volcano rises out of the sea forming Rishiri Island. Because its cone shape resembles Mount Fuji it is sometimes referred to as Rishiri Fuji. It is one of the 100 famous mountains in Japan.
Mount Rishiri is made up of alkali and non-alkali mafic volcanic rock dating from the Late Pleistocene, 130,000–18,000 years ago. Otherwise it is covered in quaternary volcanic rock debris.[2]
The ascent of Rishiri is not suitable for novice hikers, it is challenging in places. There is a campsite partway up the mountain from the dock, and an unmanned hut located a short distance below the summit. There is also a small shrine at the summit. On clear days the view extends to Hokkaidō, the adjacent island of Rebun, and as far as Sakhalin Island in Russia.
Mount Rishiri's opening festival is held annually on July 2 and July 3. This festival officially opens the climbing season.

The painter 

Hiroshi Yoshida / 吉田 博(not to be confused with Toshi Yoshida) was born in 1876. He began his artistic training with his adoptive father in Kurume, Fukuoka prefecture. Around the age of twenty, he left Kurume to study with Soritsu Tamura in Kyoto, subsequently moving to Tokyo and the tutelage of Shotaro Koyama. Yoshida studied Western-style painting, winning many exhibition prizes and making several trips to the United States, Europe and North Africa selling his watercolors and oil paintings. In 1902, he played a leading role in the organization of the Meiji Fine Arts Society into the Pacific Painting Association. His work was featured in the exhibitions of the state-sponsored Bunten and Teiten. While highly successful as an oil painter and watercolor artist, Yoshida turned to printmaking upon learning of the Western world’s infatuation with ukiyo-e.

Following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Yoshida embarked on a tour of the United States and Europe, painting and selling his work. When he returned to Japan in 1925, he started his own workshop, specializing in landscapes inspired both by his native country and his travels abroad. Yoshida often worked through the entire process himself: designing the print, carving his own blocks, and printing his work. His career was temporarily interrupted by his sojourn as a war correspondent in Manchuria during the Pacific War. Although he designed his last print in 1946, Yoshida continued to paint with oils and watercolors up until his death in 1950.

Yoshida was widely traveled and knowledgeable of Western aesthetics, yet maintained an allegiance to traditional Japanese techniques and traditions. Attracted by the calmer moments of nature, his prints breathe coolness, invite meditation, and set a soft, peaceful mood. All of his lifetime prints are signed “Hiroshi Yoshida” in pencil and marked with a jizuri (self-printed) seal outside of the margin. Within the image, most prints are signed “Yoshida” with brush and ink beside a red “Hiroshi” seal.

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MONT AGEL PAINTED BY CLAUDE MONET

 

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Mont Agel (1,151m - 3,776 ft)
France - Monaco border

In Cap Martin près de Menton, Huile sur toile, 1884  65 x 82cm, Private Collection 

About this painting
Another painting was done by Monet exactly  in the same place but at a different time of day. It has already been published in this blog. Colors and  general impression are totally different. One can compare the two paintings. this one is supposed to have been painted at 10 a.m, the other à 6 p.m. Monet, like the japanese painters ,and particularly Hokusai who painted the 36 views of Mount Fuji, reproduced the same artistic behavior by painting series of the same mountains, in the same place, at different hours of the day or different seasons. At Cap Martin and Mont Agel, Monet painted about ten of them.

 The mountain
Mont Agel (1,151m - 3,776 ft) is a summit of the Alps located in the South of France, overlooking part of the French Riviera, Monaco, Beausoleil, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin... exactly as shwon in the Monet's painting above !
It has held a historic strategic position since Antiquity and still houses military aerial detection installations today. Mount Agel is precisely located in the French commune of Peille, ( Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region). It rises in the Prealps of Nice and constitutes the highest point of the Monegasque watershed. The highest point of the principality, of Monaco, on the slopes of this mountain, can be reached by the Chemin des Révoires. A massive summit, Mount Agel is visible from a great distance: from certain districts of Nice as well as from a large part of the French Riviera between Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Antibes, and the Principality of Monaco and likewise from the Italian Riviera to around Vintimiglia and Bordighiera.
The history of Mount Agel begins with the Celto-Ligurian tribes who occupied the site and some of whose members were involved in the boarding and looting of boats engaged in cabotage. They are submitted from 23 to 13 BC. BC by the Romans who restored the old coastal route passing through the slopes of Mount Agel to link Ventimiglia to Narbonne Gaul and forming part of the Via Aurelia.
From 1931, new elements of fortification were built within the framework of the Maginot line.
Mount Agel now houses a large work of artillery equipped with turrets, linked together by deeply buried galleries. During the fighting of June 1940, his shots participated in the defense of Menton and supported the outpost of Pont-Saint-Louis and the work of Cap-Martin.
Until 2012, the 943 Capitaine Auber air base of the French Air Force was located there.
Today, only radars remain, which continue their watch in automatic mode, the information being transmitted and used by the Detection and Control Center at 942 Lyon-Mont Verdun air base.
Mount Agel also shelters on its slopes, the Monte-Carlo Golf Club, a very selective club. A little to the east of the golf course is the transmitter center of Fontbonne. Until its recent redevelopment, there were various protohistoric constructions.
Close to Mount Agel and the golf course is also the summer residence of Princes of Monaco (Rocagel site).

The painter
The painter Oscar-Claude Monet better known as Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting « Impression, soleil levant » (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.
Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons exactly like the japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) did with his 36 views of Mount Fuji.
Monet repeated this kinf of "exercise de stylee with his series on Les Petites Dalles. and Kolsass mountain.
Monet has been described as "the driving force behind Impressionism". Crucial to the art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other. Monet's long career as a painter was spent in the pursuit of this aim.
In 1856, his chance meeting with Eugene Boudin, a painter of small beach scenes, opened his eyes to the possibility of plein-air painting. From that time, with a short interruption for military service, he dedicated himself to searching for new and improved methods of painterly expression. To this end, as a young man, he visited the Paris Salon and familiarised himself with the works of older painters, and made friends with other young artists.[54] The five years that he spent at Argenteuil, spending much time on the River Seine in a little floating studio, were formative in his study of the effects of light and reflections. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes rather than scenes and objects. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. Having rejected the academic teachings of Gleyre's studio, he freed himself from theory, saying "I like to paint as a bird sings."
In 1877 a series of paintings at Gare St-Lazare had Monet looking at smoke and steam and the way that they affected colour and visibility, being sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent. He was to further use this study in the painting of the effects of mist and rain on the landscape. The study of the effects of atmosphere were to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. This process began in the 1880s and continued until the end of his life in 1926.
His first series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. In 1892 he produced what is probably his best-known series, Twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral. In these paintings Monet broke with painterly traditions by cropping the subject so that only a portion of the facade is seen on the canvas. The paintings do not focus on the grand Medieval building, but on the play of light and shade across its surface, transforming the solid masonry.
Other series include Peupliers, Matins sur la Seine, and the Nenuphars that were painted on his property at Giverny. Between 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, including a series of paintings in Antibes (above) and Venice. In London he painted four series: the Houses of Parliament, London ; Charing Cross Bridge ; Waterloo Bridge, and Views of Westminster Bridge. Helen Gardner writes: "Monet, with a scientific precision, has given us an unparalleled and unexcelled record of the passing of time as seen in the movement of light over identical forms."
___________________________________________

2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT MONADNOCK BY ABBOTT HANDERSON THAYER

ABBOTT HANDERSON THAYER (1849 -1921)

Monadnock  mountain  (965m - 3, 125ft) 

United States of America  (New Hampshire)  

1. In Mount Monadnock- Winter Sunrise, 1919

2.  In Mount Monadnock- Winter , 1904

The mountain 
Mount Monadnock (965m - 3, 125ft)  or Grand Monadnock is a mountain in the New England state of New Hampshire. It is the most prominent mountain peak in southern New Hampshire and is the highest point in Cheshire County, New Hampshire. It has long been known as one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world. The word "monadnock" is an Abenaki-derived word used to describe a mountain. Loosely translated it means "mountain that stands alone", although the exact meaning of the word (what kind of mountain) is uncertain. The term was adopted by early settlers of southern New Hampshire and later by American geologists as an alternative term for an Inselberg or isolated mountain. Mount Monadnock is often called Grand Monadnock, to differentiate it from other Vermont and New Hampshire peaks with "Monadnock" in their names. Its official name on federal maps is "Monadnock Mountain".
Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau visited the mountain and wrote fondly of it. Emerson was a frequent visitor, and made the mountain the subject of "Monadnoc", one of his most famous poems. Thoreau visited the mountain four times between 1844 and 1860 and spent a great deal of time observing and cataloging natural phenomena. He is regarded as having written one of the first serious naturalist inventories of the mountain. A bog near the summit of Mount Monadnock and a rocky lookout off the Cliff Walk trail are named after him; another lookout is named after Emerson.
Mount Monadnock is nearly 1,000 feet (300 m) higher than any other mountain peak within 30 miles (48 km) and rises 2,000 feet (610 m) above the surrounding landscape. Mount Monadnock, 62 miles (100 km) northwest of Boston and 38 miles (61 km) southwest of Concord, is located within the towns of Jaffrey and Dublin, New Hampshire.
Monadnock's bare, isolated, and rocky summit provides expansive views. A number of hiking trails ascend the mountain, including the 110-mile (180 km) Metacomet-Monadnock Trail and the 50-mile (80 km) Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway.
The earliest recorded ascent of Mount Monadnock took place in 1725 by Captain Samuel Willard and fourteen rangers under his command who camped at the top and used the summit as a lookout while patrolling for Native Americans. Before the practice came to be frowned upon, many early hikers carved their names in the summit; the earliest such engraving reads "S. Dakin, 1801" and is attributed to a local town clerk. Notable "power hiking" records associated with the mountain include that of Garry Harrington, who hiked to the summit 16 times in a 24-hour period, and Larry Davis, who claimed to have hiked to the summit daily for 2,850 consecutive days (7.8 years).
Monadnock is often claimed to be the second-most frequently climbed mountain in the world, after Mount Fuji in Japan. Monadnock is climbed by 125,000 hikers yearly, while Mount Fuji sees 200,000-300,000 hikers yearly.  However, according to UNESCO, neither mountain comes close in climbing popularity to Tai Shan in China, with more than 2 million visitors a year.

The painter 
Abbott Handerson Thayer was an American artist, naturalist and teacher. As a painter of portraits, figures, animals and landscapes, he enjoyed a certain prominence during his lifetime, and his paintings are represented in the major American art collections. He is perhaps best known for his 'angel' paintings, some of which use his children as models.
During the last third of his life, he worked together with his son, Gerald Handerson Thayer, on a major book about protective coloration in nature, titled Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom. First published by Macmillan in 1909, then reissued in 1918, it may have had an effect on military camouflage during World War I. However it was roundly mocked by Theodore Roosevelt and others for its assumption that all animal coloration is cryptic. Thayer also influenced American art through his efforts as a teacher, training apprentices in his New Hampshire studio.
Thayer is sometimes referred to as the "father of camouflage". While he did not invent camouflage, he was one of the first to write about disruptive patterning to break up an object's outlines, about masquerade, as when a butterfly mimics a leaf (though here he was anticipated by Bates, Wallace, and Poulton), and especially about countershading.

LES PETITES DALLES PEINTES PAR CLAUDE MONET

 

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Les Petites Dalles (30 à 50m)
France

In " Falaises près de Dieppe," Huile sur toile, 1896, collection privée 

Claude Monet et Les Petites Dalles
Claude Monet vint une première fois aux Petites-Dalles pour une quinzaine de jours en septembre 1880. Il y retourna ensuite régulièrement pendant sept ans, de 1881 à 1886. Il descendit chez son frère Léon qui habitait une des villas Saint-Jean. Léon (Léon Pascal Monet domicilié à Rouen) achèta cette villa, où plutôt le terrain, le 9 août 1875. Au moins 10 tableaux (huile sur toile) ont été peints aux Petites-Dalles par Claude Monet : 2 en 1880, 4 en 1881 et 4 en 1884. Tous sauf un daté de 1884 représentent les falaises.

La falaise
Les Petites Dalles (30 à 50m) sont des falaises situées dans un hameau entre Sassetot-le-Mauconduit et Saint-Martin-aux-Buneaux, en Haute-Normandie, France. Station balnéaire au sud de Dieppe en Normandie, sur la côte de la Manche et du pays de Caux, les falaises des Petites Dalles sont célèbres principalement parce qu'elles ont inspiré les peintres impressionnistes comme Claude Monet et Berthe Morisot. Elles sont également célèbres pour leurs nombreuses villas balnéaires construites à la fin du XIXème siècle et préservées (Les Catelets, Les Lampottes, Les Mouettes...)
L'ancien nom des Petites Dalles apparaît sous la forme latinisée Daletis dans une charte de 1252. C'est le diminutif de Dalis qui apparaît dans la même charte. Dalis devient Les Grandes-Dalles et Daletis, Les Petites Dalles.
Le lieu devient définitivement à la mode en 1875 lorsque l'Impératrice d'Autriche, Elisabeth, dite Sissi, passa les mois d'août et de septembre au château de Sassetot-le-Mauconduit et se baigna régulièrement sur la plage des Petites Dalles. Le peintre Paul Valantin réalisa un tableau de la scène. Le 25 août 2016, un glissement de terrain sur une centaine de mètres de falaise s'est abattu. Près de 50 000 m3 de rochers se sont effondrés sur la plage de Saint-Martin-aux-Buneaux au lieu-dit Les Petites Dalles, selon le Service d'incendie et de secours de Seine-Maritime.

  Le peintre
Oscar-Claude Monet, plus connu sous le nom de Claude Monet, était l'un des fondateurs de la peinture impressionniste française et  de la peinture de paysage en plein air. Le terme « impressionnisme » est dérivé du titre de son tableau « Impression, soleil levant », qui fut exposé en 1874 dans la première des expositions indépendantes montées par Monet et ses associés en alternative au Salon de Paris.
L'ambition de Monet de documenter la campagne française l'a amené à adopter une méthode consistant à peindre plusieurs fois la même scène afin de capturer le changement de lumière et le passage des saisons exactement comme l'artiste japonais Hokusai (1760-1849) l'a fait avec ses 36 vues. du mont Fuji.
Monet a été volontiers qualifié  de  "moteur de l'impressionnisme". La compréhension des effets de la lumière sur la couleur des objets et des effets de la juxtaposition des couleurs entre elles était cruciale pour l'art des peintres impressionnistes. La longue carrière de peintre de Monet s'est déroulée dans la poursuite de cet objectif...

VOIR AUSSI LE PODCAST  

LES TABLEAUX QUI PARLENT

N° 2 - Le Mont Kolsass, une aventure norvégienne de Monet

 

_________________________________________

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

MONT AGEL PAINTED BY CLAUDE MONET

CLAUDE MONET  (1840-1926)
Mont Agel  (1,151m - 3,776 ft)
France - Monaco border

In Cap Martin près de Menton, Huile sur toile, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

The mountain
Mont Agel (1,151m - 3,776 ft) is a summit of the Alps located in the South of France, overlooking part of the French Riviera, Monaco, Beausoleil, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin... exactly as shwon in the Monet's painting above !
It has held a historic strategic position since Antiquity and still houses military aerial detection installations today. Mount Agel is precisely located in the French commune of Peille, ( Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region). It rises in the Prealps of Nice and constitutes the highest point of the Monegasque watershed. The highest point of the principality, of Monaco, on the slopes of this mountain, can be reached by the Chemin des Révoires. A massive summit, Mount Agel is visible from a great distance: from certain districts of Nice as well as from a large part of the French Riviera between Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Antibes, and the Principality of Monaco and likewise from the Italian Riviera to around Vintimiglia and Bordighiera.
The history of Mount Agel begins with the Celto-Ligurian tribes who occupied the site and some of whose members were involved in the boarding and looting of boats engaged in cabotage. They are submitted from 23 to 13 BC. BC by the Romans who restored the old coastal route passing through the slopes of Mount Agel to link Ventimiglia to Narbonne Gaul and forming part of the Via Aurelia.
From 1931, new elements of fortification were built within the framework of the Maginot line.
Mount Agel now houses a large work of artillery equipped with turrets, linked together by deeply buried galleries. During the fighting of June 1940, his shots participated in the defense of Menton and supported the outpost of Pont-Saint-Louis and the work of Cap-Martin.
Until 2012, the 943 Capitaine Auber air base of the French Air Force was located there.
Today, only radars remain, which continue their watch in automatic mode, the information being transmitted and used by the Detection and Control Center at 942 Lyon-Mont Verdun air base.
Mount Agel also shelters on its slopes, the Monte-Carlo Golf Club, a very selective club. A little to the east of the golf course is the transmitter center of Fontbonne. Until its recent redevelopment, there were various protohistoric constructions.
Close to Mount Agel and the golf course is also the summer residence of Princes of Monaco (Rocagel site).

The painter
The painter Oscar-Claude Monet better known as Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting « Impression, soleil levant » (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.
Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons exactly like the japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) did with his 36 views of Mount Fuji.
Monet repeated this kinf of "exercise de stylee with his series on Les Petites Dalles. and Kolsass mountain.
Monet has been described as "the driving force behind Impressionism". Crucial to the art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other. Monet's long career as a painter was spent in the pursuit of this aim.
In 1856, his chance meeting with Eugene Boudin, a painter of small beach scenes, opened his eyes to the possibility of plein-air painting. From that time, with a short interruption for military service, he dedicated himself to searching for new and improved methods of painterly expression. To this end, as a young man, he visited the Paris Salon and familiarised himself with the works of older painters, and made friends with other young artists.[54] The five years that he spent at Argenteuil, spending much time on the River Seine in a little floating studio, were formative in his study of the effects of light and reflections. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes rather than scenes and objects. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. Having rejected the academic teachings of Gleyre's studio, he freed himself from theory, saying "I like to paint as a bird sings."
In 1877 a series of paintings at Gare St-Lazare had Monet looking at smoke and steam and the way that they affected colour and visibility, being sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent. He was to further use this study in the painting of the effects of mist and rain on the landscape. The study of the effects of atmosphere were to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. This process began in the 1880s and continued until the end of his life in 1926.
His first series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. In 1892 he produced what is probably his best-known series, Twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral. In these paintings Monet broke with painterly traditions by cropping the subject so that only a portion of the facade is seen on the canvas. The paintings do not focus on the grand Medieval building, but on the play of light and shade across its surface, transforming the solid masonry.
Other series include Peupliers, Matins sur la Seine, and the Nenuphars that were painted on his property at Giverny. Between 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, including a series of paintings in Antibes (above) and Venice. In London he painted four series: the Houses of Parliament, London ; Charing Cross Bridge ; Waterloo Bridge, and Views of Westminster Bridge. Helen Gardner writes: "Monet, with a scientific precision, has given us an unparalleled and unexcelled record of the passing of time as seen in the movement of light over identical forms."
___________________________________________

2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT MANSFIELD PAINTED BY GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

GEORGIA O' KEEFFE (1887-1986) 

 Mount Mansfield  (1,339m - 4,393ft) 

United States of America (Vermont) - Canada border 

In  The Green Mountains, oil on canvas, 1932, The Art Institute of Chicago

The mountains

Mount Mansfield   (1,339m - 4,393ft)  is the highest point of The Green Mountains, a mountain range in the U.S. state of Vermont,  part of the Appalachian Mountains, that stretches from Quebec in the north to Alabama in the south. The Green Mountains are part of the New England/Acadian forests ecoregion. The range runs primarily south to north and extends approximately 250 miles (400 km) from the border with Massachusetts to the border with Quebec, Canada. The part of the same range that is in Massachusetts and Connecticut is known as The Berkshires or the Berkshire Hills (with the Connecticut portion, mostly in Litchfield County, locally called the Northwest Hills or Litchfield Hills) and the Quebec portion is called the Sutton Mountains, or Monts Sutton in French.

All mountains in Vermont are often referred to as the "Green Mountains". However, other ranges within Vermont, including the Taconics — in southwestern Vermont's extremity—and the Northeastern Highlands, are not geologically part of the Green Mountains.

The painter 

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes, and images of bones against the stark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism.

She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-1906 and the Art Students League in New York in 1907-1908. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow’s emphasis on composition and design offered O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction.

O’Keeffe mailed some of these highly abstract drawings to a friend in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. An art dealer and internationally known photographer, he was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. He would eventually become O’Keeffe’s husband.

In the summer of 1929, O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art, and unique regional style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in O’Keeffe’s artwork. For the next two decades she spent part of most years living and working in New Mexico . She made the state her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death. O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain.

In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. 

Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972.  Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art.  In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination.

FALAISES D'ETRETAT BY CLAUDE MONET

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)

The Falaises d'Etretat (70 to 90 m -  230 to 300 ft)  

France (Normandie) 

 In Régates derriere l'Aiguille d'Etretat, 1885, oil on canvas

The cliffs 

Etretat is best known for its chalk cliffs, including three natural arches and a pointed formation called L'Aiguille (the Needle), which rises 70 m- 230 ft above the sea. The Etretat Chalk Complex, as it is known, consists of a complex stratigraphy of Turonian and Coniacian chalks. Some of the cliffs are as high as 90 metres (300 ft).

L'arche et L'aiguille  (The Ark and the Needle) above. An underground river, then marine erosion formed a natural arch and a estimated 55 meter to 70 meters  high needle, relic piece of the cliff. Maurice Leblanc describes it in these terms in his novel The Hollow Needle (1909) : "An enormous roach, more than eighty meters high, colossal obelisk, plumb on its granite base"  At his time, the site already attracted many tourists among them "lupinophiles" admirers of Arsene Lupine: American students came for the key to the cave, where the "gentleman burglar" had found the treasure of kings of France.

The painter 
Oscar-Claude Monet better known as Claude Monet  was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting « Impression, soleil levant » (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.
Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons exactly like the japanese artist  Hokusai (1760-1849) did with his 36 views of Mount Fuji.
Monet has been described as "the driving force behind Impressionism". Crucial to the art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other. Monet's long career as a painter was spent in the pursuit of this aim....

MOUNT KOLSASS PAINTED BY CLAUDE MONET

 

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)
Kolsås or Kolsass mountain (342 m - 1,122 ft)
Norway

In "Le village de Sandviken, près du Mount Kolsaas" Norvège, 1895, Huile sur toile 73,4 x92, 5 cm - Art Institute Chicago

Monet and Mount Kolsass
A text in french from the book Claude Monet, une vie dans le paysage by Marianne Alphant - Editions Hazan, 1993. (You may use the Google translation tool in this blog to tranlaste into your own langage)
« Au cours l'hiver 1895 le peintre français fit un séjour en Norvège. et peignit a plusieurs reprises à différentes heures du jour et dans différentes conditions climatiques une montagne, le mont Kolsaas. Mais sitôt réalisées leur auteur n'en fut guère satisfait et elles furent vite éclipsées par l'exposition des Cathédrales. Des vingt-sept ou vingt-huit qui furent recensées, le musée Rodin n'en propose qu'une douzaine, issues de collections publiques (Orsay, Marmottan) aussi bien que privées (Japon, Etats-Unis) et déjà présentées à Stavanger, en Norvège.
Monet effectua ce long voyage vers le Nord sur l'invitation de son beau-fils Jacques Hoschedé, pour saisir quelques effets de neige qu'il escomptait bien capter facilement là-bas. En quoi il se trompait généreusement, erreur à l'origine d'un de ses plus intéressants ratages.
Les quatre «portraits» du mont Kolsaas sont assez intrigants en ce que l’on y perçoit tout l'art du peintre pour «rendre» l'impalpable bien que cela l'entraînent vers des contrées inexplorées. « Le motif se met à flotter dans une atmosphère qui ne le porte plus, ne le soutient plus, l'abandonnant au gré d'une humeur vagabonde, à la manière d'un nuage libre de dériver au gré des vents. L'impression d'échec provient alors d'une incapacité à arrimer la figure, à saisir l'objet à bras le corps, à se tenir d'aplomb face à ce qui le surplombe. Mais la valeur inestimable de cet apparent échec excède largement cet effet de brouillon. (…)
Les peintures ne doivent pas leur sentiment d'incomplétude à une quelconque précipitation mais bien plutôt au désir de se fondre dans un immense éloge à la blancheur. (…)
Le mont Kolsaas ressemble de la sorte au dernier souffle ou à l'éternuement d'un linceul qui, l'instant suivant, s'affaissera dans l'indéterminé d'une forme sans contour. Autrement dit, l'informe. Ces quelques peintures représentent sans doute l'une des rares tentatives de distinguer la neige de la blancheur, de séparer les deux corps comme on le ferait dans une expérience chimique de dissociation. Car la neige n'est pas blanche, pas plus que le blanc n'est la couleur de la neige. L'un et l'autre entrent doucement en conflit pour que, dans l'intervalle, à la faveur d'une anecdote ­ petit pont ou rivière ­, se glisse l'élément qui permettra de rassurer la vision. Entre la neige et la blancheur, il y a un mariage fatal qu'il faut à tout prix éviter faute de s'y endormir. Entre le ciel et le bleu, c'est pareil mais c'est une autre histoire. Les deux histoires se rejouent chaque fois qu'un peintre essaie de fixer leur frontière, leur bord extrême. Comment cette peinture pourrait-elle alors s'achever ?."

The mountain
Kolsås or Kolsass Mountain (342 m - 1,122 ft) is a wooded mountain ridge in the municipality of Bærum, Norway. Geologically, Kolsås belongs to the Oslo Graben area. Its two peaks (one at 387m the other at 342m) consist of hard rhomb porphyric lava covering softer rocks, forming steep cliffs to the east, south and west. An old farm beneath the mountain has the name Kolsberg. The first element in this name is the genitive case of the old male name Kolr, and the last element is "berg" (mountain). The parish and municipality of Bærum (Old Norse Bergheimr) is probably named after this prominent mountain. The last element in the name of the mountain was later changed to ås (mountain ridge) to distinguish it from the name of the farm.
The French painter Claude Monet painted Mont Kolsaas in 1895 in a series of 4 paintings  one is permanently shown at the Musée d’Orsay , an other in Musée Marmottan. in Paris The 2 others shows on this blog are held in private collections in USA and Japan.

The painter
The painter Oscar-Claude Monet better known as Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting « Impression, soleil levant » (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.
Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons exactly like the japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) did with his 36 views of Mount Fuji.
  Monet repeated this kinf of "exercise de stylee with his series on Les Petites Dalles.

 
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TARANAKI / EGMONT SKETCHED BY GEORGINA BURNE HETLEY

 

 

GEORGINA BURNE HETLEY (1832-1898)
Mount Taranaki/ Mount Egmont (2,518 m - 8,261 ft)
New Zealand (North Island)

In "New Plymouth and Mt Taranaki/Egmont in background ", ink and watercolor,
Alexander Turnbull LIbrary.

The mountain
Taranaki or Mount Egmont (2,518 m - 8,261 ft is an active but quiescent stratovolcano in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. Although the mountain is more commonly referred to as Taranaki, it has two official names under the alternative names policy of the New Zealand Geographic Board. The mountain is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world. There is a secondary cone, Fanthams Peak or Panitahi in Māori (1,966 m - 6,450 ft), on the south side. Because of its resemblance to Mount Fuji, Taranaki provided the backdrop for the movie The Last Samurai.
For many centuries the mountain was called Taranaki by Māori. The Māori word tara means mountain peak, and naki is thought to come from ngaki, meaning "shining", a reference to the snow-clad winter nature of the upper slopes. It was also named Pukehaupapa and Pukeonaki by Iwi who live in the region in ancient times.
According to Māori mythology, Taranaki once resided in the middle of the North Island, with all the other New Zealand volcanoes. The beautiful Pihanga was coveted by all the mountains, and a great battle broke out between them. Tongariro eventually won the day, inflicted great wounds on the side of Taranaki, and causing him to flee. Taranaki headed westwards, following Te Toka a Rahotu and forming the deep gorges of the Whanganui River, paused for a while, creating the depression that formed the Te Ngaere swamp, then heading north. Further progress was blocked by the Pouakai ranges, and as the sun came up Taranaki became petrified in his current location. When Taranaki conceals himself with rainclouds, he is said to be crying for his lost love, and during spectacular sunsets, he is said to be displaying himself to her. In turn, Tongariro's eruptions are said to be a warning to Taranaki not to return.
Captain Cook named it Mount Egmont on 11 January 1770 after John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, a former First Lord of the Admiralty who had supported the concept of an oceanic search for Terra Australis Incognita. Cook described it as "of a prodigious height and its top cover'd with everlasting snow" surrounded by a "flat country ... which afforded a very good aspect, being clothed with wood and verdure".
When Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne made landfall off Taranaki on 25 March 1772 he named the mountain Pic Mascarin. He was unaware of Cook's earlier visit. It appeared as Mount Egmont on maps until 29 May 1986, when the Minister of Lands ruled that "Mount Taranaki" would be an alternative and equal official name. The Egmont name still applies to the national park that surrounds the peak and geologists still refer to the peak as the Egmont Volcano.
Taranaki is geologically young, having commenced activity approximately 135,000 years ago. The most recent volcanic activity was the production of a lava dome in the crater and its collapse down the side of the mountain in the 1850s or 1860s. Between 1755 and 1800, an eruption sent a pyroclastic flow down the mountain's northeast flanks, and a moderate ash eruption occurred about 1755, of the size of Ruapehu's activity in 1995/1996. The last major eruption occurred around 1655. Recent research has shown that over the last 9,000 years minor eruptions have occurred roughly every 90 years on average, with major eruptions every 500 years.

The Artist
Georgina Burne Hetley was a New Zealand artist and writer. Her book The Native Flora of New Zealand was published in English and French. Hetley was born in Battersea, Surrey, England on 27 May 1832. The family moved to Madeira, Portugal when Hetley was around 10 years old, leaving in 1852 for New Zealand when her father died. Annette McKellar, her children and two servants arrived in New Plymouth on the St Michael in December 1853.  Annette McKellar bought a block of about fifty acres of land at Omata, six miles south of New Plymouth. She called their farm Fernlea.  Hetley subsequently married a fellow settler Charles Hetley in the Omata church on 2 June 1856 and moved to Brookwood farm. Just prior to their first wedding anniversary Charles died, leaving Hetley with a newborn son, Charles Frederick Hetley.  This led to Hetley selling her farm two years later and returning to Fernlea to live with her mother. Hetley lived in Taranaki until 1860 when the First Taranaki War broke out.  The conflict led to Annette McKellar moving her family to New Plymouth. Fernlea was burnt down in the ensuing conflict, although the family rebuilt it later.  While in Taranaki, Hetley began drawing sketches and watercolours of the farm and surrounding landscapes. She continued this practice after the move to New Plymouth, painting the urban scenes in New Plymouth, Waikato and Auckland. Between 1863 and the late 1870s, she travelled to Queensland and sketched local stations.  She and her son moved to Auckland by 1879.  Hetley went to England to seek a publisher, receiving assistance along the way from authorities at Kew, and the chromolithographs were ultimately produced in 1888 by Leighton Brothers. The plates also had the distinction of being published in a French edition a year later.  Without the work of botanical artists such as Hetley there would be no record of what this plant truly looked like.  While in London, her work was exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition.  Hetley returned to New Zealand in 1889 and exhibited her New Zealand flora at the General Assembly Library in Wellington. She also held another major exhibit, 150 paintings in all, at Auckland Museum. Hetley lived in Auckland for the rest of her life, dying there after a long illness, on 29 August 1898.
In 2017, Hetley was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau