QURNAT AS SAWDA' (MOUNT LEBANON) BY J.M.W. TURNER

J.M.W. TURNER (1775-1851) 

Qurnat as Sawdā’ - Mount Lebanon  (3, 088 m -10, 131 ft)

Lebanon

1. Mount Lebanon and Convent San Antonio, 1836 - The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 

2. Qurnat as Sawda' - Mont Lebanon Range Anonymus colorized photo, c. 1950  

The mountain
Qurnat as Sawdā’ (3,088m -10,131 ft) is the highest peak in Lebanon and the Levant. In Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda aurea, the summit of Mount Lebanon (Qurnat as Sawda') is the site on which Noah, after having survived the flood, replanted a sacred tree.  Voragine states that the tree's seeds were given to Seth by an angel in the Garden of Eden and placed in Adam's mouth upon his passing such that his blood could feed its growth.
Many mountains dwarf Qurnat as Sawda in size, but few can offer the experience of ascending such beautiful, untrodden terrain. Summiting this peak carries the added satisfaction of seeing a place few visitors to Lebanon ever experience themselves.
The scenery along the way is spectacular. Expansive desert stretching to all sides is something to behold, especially the sharp juxtaposition of dry rocky soil and permanent snow fields classified as "alpine tundra." Then, just nine miles east of Qurnat as Sawda's summit, Mount Lebanon (the common term for the entire range), drops off more than 8,000 vertical feet, revealing breathtaking views and impressive cloudscapes.
Qurnat as Sawda experiences an Alpine-Tundra like weather, with cool temperatures even in the summer. Summer highs usually hover around 10–15 degrees Celsius during the day time, but go down to around 0–5 degrees at night. Winter is a very long period on this mountain (October– late-April) with average highs of only −20 °C and night time lows that can plummet to −45 °C. Snowfall is around 10–12 meters every year, and doesn't melt until mid-June. Frosts are also very common during the summer, with some nighttime lows going to around −5 °C.  Lebanon peaks above 1800 m are covered with snow almost 4 months a year, and the peaks above 2,500 m are covered around 6 months a year.
The mountain peak is known to experience many avalanches which are, in fact, extremely deadly. Also, the steepness of the slopes can go up to 75 degrees.
Hiking 
Hikers making the trek in early fall, summer, or late spring will encounter a significant bonus in the seasonally abandoned Cedar's Ski Resort, whose empty chairlifts to nowhere look post-apocalyptic amidst their Martian surroundings.
The hike itself should be easy enough for any moderately fit individual, but navigation poses something of a challenge. It is advised to thoroughly review online maps, all materials at one's disposal, and the most recent political movements before departing. Moreover, no water is available after departing the town of Ariz, at the base of the Cedar's resort, so pack plenty for the hike out and back.
The trail followed  on ascent  can be : The longitude/latitude of the summit, according to peakbagger.com, is 34 18'; 36 7' E, which places it about 3.5 miles Northwest of the peak of the northern-most chair lift of the Cedar's Ski Resort. It sounds a bit scattered, but it is fairly easy to find (it is "the tallest one »).
From Bcharre, walk or take a cab east, towards Cedar's. There is only one road headed in that direction, and it is easy to identify - it is the one that goes up. It's about 11 km to the base of the resort, where your off-trail hike will begin.
From the base, head up the main slope. There are switchbacks that make the loose rock easier to manage. It shouldn't take more than 90 minutes to get to the top of the lift and the isolated lift operator's shack pictured. We spent the night here and did not see a soul to give us trouble, but I would bet squatting is frowned upon.
From the hut, the valley runs Northwest, funneling visitors to As'Sawda. After about 2.5 miles Northwest along the dirt valley road you will meet with a slightly more established dirt road that will take you another three quarters of a mile Northwest before heading North and a little East to the stout summit (although its prominence is listed around 2,400 m, it is a short jaunt from the valley to the top - from google earth, I estimate it is no more 700 vertical feet from the valley floor to peak), which is marked by a rickety metal structure."
Reference
- Mount Lebanon in Atlas Obscura

The painter 

The english painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence in the history of painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.

In his thirties, Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice.   Turner's talent was recognized early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." Turner was recognized as an artistic genius: influential English art critic John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature."

Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Lorrain  had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorized the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.  His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.

Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking or working or walking in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God – a theme that romanticist artists and poets were exploring in this period. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena.

Turner used pigments like carmine in his paintings, knowing that they were not long-lasting, despite the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded greatly. 

John Ruskin says in his "Notes" on Turner in March 1878 : "His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate. "

MONT SAINT-MICHEL PAINTED BY J.M.W.TURNER

J.M.W. TURNER (1775-1851) 

 Mont Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft)

France (Normandie)

1.  In Mont St Michel for The English channel Watercolour, 1827, FAM, San Francisco 

2.  In Mont Saint Michel sketches, Watercolour on paper 1826 Tate Britain, London 

About the paintings

Turner travelled through Normandy and Brittany in 1826  and 1827 at a time when the region was beginning to attract artists interested in the relationship of its architecture to that of England. The focal point of most tours was Mont St Michel, a casket-like architectural gem seemingly floating in the middle of the surrounding bay. Turner's watercolours of the island stress its fantastic, mirage-like qualities at the expense of giving precise details.

The mount  
Le Mont-Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft) is an island commune in Normandy, France. Mont Saint-Michel (first called Mont Tombe) consists of leucogranite, which solidified from an underground intrusion of molten magma about 525 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, as one of the younger parts of the Mancellian granitic batholith. Early studies of Mont Saint-Michel by French geologists sometimes describe the leucogranite of the Mont as "granulite", but this granitic meaning of granulite is now obsolete.
It is located about one kilometre (0.6 miles) off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is 100 hectares (247 acres) in size.
The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times and since the 8th century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it: on top, God, the abbey and monastery; below, the great halls; then stores and housing; and at the bottom, outside the walls, houses for fishermen and farmers. The commune's position - on an island just 600 m from land - made it accessible at low tide to the many pilgrims to its abbey, but defensible as an incoming tide stranded, drove off, or drowned would-be assailants. The Mont remained unconquered during the Hundred Years' War; a small garrison fended off a full attack by the English in 1433.  The reverse benefits of its natural defence were not lost on Louis XI, who turned the Mont into a prison. Thereafter the abbey began to be used more regularly as a jail during the monarchy.
One of France's most recognizable landmarks, visited by more than 3 million people each year, Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.
 Over 60 buildings within the commune are protected in France as  "Monuments historiques" (Historical buildings).
In the 11th century, the italian architect William di Volpiano was chosen by Richard II, Duke of Normandy, to be the building contractor of the Mont Saint-Michel church. He designed the Romanesque church of the abbey, daringly placing the transept crossing at the top of the mount. Many underground crypts and chapels had to be built to compensate for this weight; these formed the basis for the supportive upward structure that can be seen today.
Robert de Thorigny, a great supporter of Henry II of England (also Duke of Normandy), reinforced the structure of the buildings and built the main façade of the church in the 12th century.
In 1204, Guy de Thouars, regent for the Duchess of Brittany, as vassal of the King of France, undertook a siege of the Mount. After having set fire to the village and having massacred the population, he was obliged to beat a retreat under the powerful walls of the abbey. The buildings, and the roofs fell prey to the flames. Horrified by the cruelty and the exactions of his Breton ally, Philip Augustus offered Abbot Jordan a grant for the construction of a new Gothic architectural set which included the addition of the refectory and cloister.
Charles VI is credited with adding major fortifications to the abbey-mount, building towers, successive courtyards, and strengthening the ramparts.
Since 2001, a community of monks and nuns of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem, sent from the mother-house of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais in Paris, have been living as a community on Mont Saint-Michel. They replaced the Benedictine monks who returned to the Mount in 1966. They are tenants of the centre for National Historical Monuments and are not involved in the management of the abbey. The community meets four times a day to recite the liturgical office in the abbey itself (or in the crypt of Notre-Dame des Trente Cierges in winter). In this way, the building keeps its original purpose as a place of prayer and singing the glory of God. The presence of the community attracts many visitors and pilgrims who come to join in the various liturgical celebrations.
In 2012, the community undertook the renovation of a house on the Mount, the Logis Saint-Abraham, which is used as a guest house for pilgrims on retreat.

The painter 
The english painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence in the history of painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.
In his thirties, Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice.   Turner's talent was recognized early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." Turner was recognized as an artistic genius: influential English art critic John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature."
Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Lorrain  had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorized the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.  His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglas Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.
Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking or working or walking in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God – a theme that romanticist artists and poets were exploring in this period. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena.
Turner used pigments like carmine in his paintings, knowing that they were not long-lasting, despite the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded greatly.
John Ruskin says in his "Notes" on Turner in March 1878 : "His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate. "

THE MONT BLANC BY J.M.W. TURNER (2)

J.M.W. TURNER (1775-1851) 

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m - 15,776. ft)

  France - Italy border

In  Bonneville, Savoy, with Mont Blanc, oil on canvas  122 x 95 cm, 

Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection

Turner  has painted  the Mont Blanc a lot of times and he did, at least, 3 versions from that  spot from Bonneville :  the first is this oil on canvas  in the  Dallas Museum of Art, the second an other oil on canvas (123 x 92cm) in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the third a big watercolor on paper (584 x 277cm) nowadays in the British Museum collections. 

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.

Since the French Revolution, the issue of the ownership of the summit has been debated. 

From 1416 to 1792, the entire mountain was within the Duchy of Savoy. In 1723 the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, acquired the Kingdom of Sardinia. The resulting state of Sardinia was to become preeminent in the Italian unification.[ In September 1792, the French revolutionary Army of the Alps under Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou-Fézensac seized Savoy without much resistance and created a department of the Mont-Blanc. In a treaty of 15 May 1796, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France. In article 4 of this treaty it says: "The border between the Sardinian kingdom and the departments of the French Republic will be established on a line determined by the most advanced points on the Piedmont side, of the summits, peaks of mountains and other locations subsequently mentioned, as well as the intermediary peaks, knowing: starting from the point where the borders of Faucigny, the Duchy of Aoust and the Valais, to the extremity of the glaciers or Monts-Maudits: first the peaks or plateaus of the Alps, to the rising edge of the Col-Mayor". This act further states that the border should be visible from the town of Chamonix and Courmayeur. However, neither the peak of the Mont Blanc is visible from Courmayeur nor the peak of the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur is visible from Chamonix because part of the mountains lower down obscure them. A Sardinian Atlas map of 1869 showing the summit lying two thirds in Italy and one third in France.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna restored the King of Sardinia in Savoy, Nice and Piedmont, his traditional territories, overruling the 1796 Treaty of Paris. Forty-five years later, after the Second Italian War of Independence, it was replaced by a new legal act. This act was signed in Turin on 24 March 1860 by Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, and deals with the annexation of Savoy (following the French neutrality for the plebiscites held in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, against the Pope's will). A demarcation agreement, signed on 7 March 1861, defines the new border. With the formation of Italy, for the first time Mont Blanc is located on the border of France and Italy.

The 1860 act and attached maps are still legally valid for both the French and Italian governments. One of the prints from the 1823 Sarde Atlas  positions the border exactly on the summit edge of the mountain (and measures it to be 4,804 m (15,761 ft) high). The convention of 7 March 1861 recognises this through an attached map, taking into consideration the limits of the massif, and drawing the border on the icecap of Mont Blanc, making it both French and Italian.Watershed analysis of modern topographic mapping not only places the main summit on the border, but also suggests that the border should follow a line northwards from the main summit towards Mont Maudit, leaving the southeast ridge to Mont Blanc de Courmayeur wholly within Italy.

Although the Franco-Italian border was redefined in both 1947 and 1963, the commission made up of both Italians and French ignored the Mont Blanc issue. In the early 21st century, administration of the mountain is shared between the Italian town of Courmayeur and the French town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, although the larger part of the mountain lies within the commune of the latter.

The painter 

The english painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence in the history of painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.

In his thirties, Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice.   Turner's talent was recognized early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." Turner was recognized as an artistic genius: influential English art critic John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature."

Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Lorrain  had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorized the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.  His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.

Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking or working or walking in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God – a theme that romanticist artists and poets were exploring in this period. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena.

Turner used pigments like carmine in his paintings, knowing that they were not long-lasting, despite the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded greatly. 

John Ruskin says in his "Notes" on Turner in March 1878 : "His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate. "

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SINAÏ / JABAL MUSA BY JOHN MARTIN

JOHN MARTIN (1789-1854)

Mount Sinaï or Jabal Musa (2, 285 m - 7, 496 ft) 

Egypt

  In The flight into Egypt, oil on canvas, The MET  

The mountain 

Mount Sinaï (2,285 m - 7,496 ft) or Jabal Mūsā or Gabal Mūsā (in arab: "Moses' Mountain" or "Mount Moses"), also known as Mount Horeb or Jebel Musa (a similarly named mountain in Morocco), is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is a possible location of the biblical Mount Sinai.  The latter is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus (and other books of the Bible) and the Quran. According to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition, the biblical Mount Sinai was the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments. It is the reason it is a Sacred mountain for Jewish and Christian. 

Saint Catherine's Monastery - visible on the painting  above on the right side of the Holy family -  is officially called "Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai"  and lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge, at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the city of Saint Catherine, South Sinai Governorate, Egypt. The monastery is controlled by the autonomous Church of Sinai, part of the wider Eastern Orthodox Church, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world. The site contains the world's oldest continually operating library, possessing many unique books including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus. A small town with hotels and swimming pools, called Saint Katherine City, has grown around the monastery.

Sources : 

- More about Mont Sinaï 

The Painter 

John Martin was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator. He was celebrated for his typically vast and melodramatic paintings of religious subjects and fantastic compositions, populated with minute figures placed in imposing landscapes. Martin's paintings, and the engravings made from them, enjoyed great success with the general public—in 1821 Lawrence referred to him as "the most popular painter of his day"—but were lambasted by Ruskin and other critics.

- More about John Martin 

PENYCADAIR PAINTED BY RICHARD WILSON

RICHARD WILSON (1714-1782)

Penygadair - Cader Idris (892m-2,927ft)

United Kingdom (Wales)

1.   In Llyn-y-Cau, Cader Idris, oil on canvas, Tate Britain 

2. In The Mawddach Valley and Cader Idris, 1774, oil on canvas, Walker Art Gallery 

The mountain 

 Penygadair or Pen-y-Gader (892m-2,927 ft ) which means Top of the Chair, is the summit of Cader  Idris mountain and offers a superb panorama of mountain scenery.  Cader Idris  (or Cadair Idris) means 'Chair of Idris', the giant warrior poet of Welsh legend.  The mountain consists of a long ridge (11km), the 19th highest mountain in Wales and the second most popular mountain in the country after Mount Snowdon.  Pen-y-Gader northern face is craggy and precipitous, in contrast to the south face which slopes more gently into the broad expanse of the Dyfi estuary. There are a number of paths which lead to the summit, the Fox's Path leads directly up the mountains north face. To the north of the summit lies the very steep and craggy north face, where the cliffs drop around 200 metres (656ft).  The other peaks of the ridge are Mynyyd Moel (855m- 2805ft) and Mynydd Pencoed (798m-2618ft). North of Cadair Idris lies the town of Dolgellau, a convenient base, which offers cafes, restaurants and shops. The mountain is notorious for its low cloud but on a clear day it is possible to see the mountains of the Snowdon massif and the Rhinog mountain range as well as the Lleyn Peninsula and the hills of Shropshire, the Long Mynd, the Wrekin and occasionally Ireland.

There are numerous legends about Cader Idris. Some nearby lakes are supposed to be bottomless, and anyone who sleeps on its slopes alone will supposedly awaken either a madman or a poet. The tradition of sleeping on the summit of the Mountain apparently stems from bardic traditions, where bards would sleep on the mountain in hope of inspiration.
 Source:
 -Snowdonia official  Guide 

The painter
Richard Wilson was an influential Welsh landscape painter, who worked in Britain and Italy. With George Lambert he is recognized as a pioneer in British art of landscape for its own sake and was described in the Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales as the "most distinguished painter Wales has ever produced and the first to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of his country".  From 1750 to 1757 Wilson was in Italy, and became a landscape painter on the advice of Francesco Zuccarelli. Painting in Italy and afterwards in Britain, he was the first major British painter to concentrate on landscape. He composed well, but saw and rendered only the general effects of nature, thereby creating a personal, ideal style influenced by Claude Lorrain and the Dutch landscape tradition. John Ruskin wrote that Wilson "paints in a manly way, and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of colour". Among Wilson's pupils was the painter Thomas Jones. His landscapes were acknowledged as an influence by Constable, John Crome and Turner.
In December 1768 Wilson became one of the founder-members of the Royal Academy. A catalogue raisonné of the artist's work is published by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
Source: 
- Tate Britain 

MOUNT SNOWDON BY RICHARD WILSON

RICHARD WILSON  (1714-1782)
Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft) 

United Kingdom (Wales)

In Mount Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle, oil on canvas, 1765-66,Walker Art Gallery

The mountain 
Mount Snowdon (1, 085 m -3,560 ft),Yr Wyddfa in welsh, is the highest mountain in Wales and the highest point in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. A 1682 survey estimated that the summit of Snowdon was at a height of 1,130 m - 3,720 feet ; in 1773, Thomas Pennant quoted a later estimate of 1,088 m- 3,568 ft above sea level at Caernarfon. Recent surveys give the height of the summit as 1,085 m -3,560 ft. The name Snowdon is from the Old English for "snow hill", while the Welsh name – Yr Wyddfa – means "the tumulus" or "the barrow", which may refer to the cairn thrown over the legendary giant Rhitta Gawr after his defeat by King Arthur. As well as other figures from Arthurian legend, the mountain is linked to a legendary Afanc (water monster) and the Tylwyth Teg (fairies). Mount Snowdon is located in Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri) in Gwynedd. It has been described as "probably the busiest mountain in Britain", with approximately 444,000 people having walked up the mountain in 2016.  It is designated as a national nature reserve for its rare flora and fauna. The rocks that form Snowdon were produced by volcanoes in the Ordovician period, and the massif has been extensively sculpted by glaciation, forming the pyramidal peak of Snowdon and the Arêtes of Crib Goch and Y Lliwedd. The cliff faces on Snowdon, including Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, are significant for rock climbing, and the mountain was used by Edmund Hillary in training for the 1953 ascent of Mount Everest.
The summit can be reached by a number of well-known paths, and by the Snowdon Mountain Railway, a rack and pinion railway opened in 1896 which carries passengers the 4.7 miles (7.6 km) from Llanberis to the summit station.

The Painter 
Richard Wilson RA was an influential Welsh landscape painter, who worked in Britain and Italy. With George Lambert he is recognised as a pioneer in British art of landscape for its own sake and was described in the Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales as the "most distinguished painter Wales has ever produced and the first to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of his country".  In December 1768 Wilson became one of the founder-members of the Royal Academy. A catalogue raisonné of the artist's work is published by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
From 1750 to 1757 Wilson was in Italy, and became a landscape painter on the advice of Francesco Zuccarelli. Painting in Italy and afterwards in Britain, he was the first major British painter to concentrate on landscape. He composed well, but saw and rendered only the general effects of nature, thereby creating a personal, ideal style influenced by Claude Lorrain and the Dutch landscape tradition. John Ruskin wrote that Wilson "paints in a manly way, and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of colour".  He concentrated on painting idealised Italianate landscapes and landscapes based upon classical literature, but when his painting, The Destruction of the Children of Niobe (c.1759–60), won acclaim, he gained many commissions from landowners seeking classical portrayals of their estates. Among Wilson's pupils was the painter Thomas Jones. His landscapes were acknowledged as an influence by Constable, John Crome and Turner.

THE MONT BLANC PAINTED BY J. M. W. TURNER

J.M.W. TURNER (1775-1851) 

The Mont Blanc (4,808.13 m - 15,776.7 ft)

  France - Italy  border

 In The Mont Blanc from Fort Roch-Val d'Aoste, c.1814, watercolor, Private collection

The watercolor 

The landscape depicted on the watercolor presented here (The Mont Blanc from Fort Roch-Val d'Aosta) is a view from the Val D'Aosta from the village of Levergogne, 11 kilometers southeast of Mont Blanc. Turner devised a battle it was held in 1796 during the invasion of Italy by the French troops during the First Empire.  The same year, Turner painted another watercolor  which is a "complementary image" to it (The Battle of Fort Rock, Val d'Aosta, 1796). On a stylistic level the canvas we are looking at, seems to date from 1814 and would prior to his "complementary image" evoking "Fort Battle Rock 1796". It is likely that Turner had wanted to link the two watercolors to make allegories of War and Peace. Such juxtaposition was quite relevant in 1815, at the time of the end of the Napoleonic wars. Turner later also pursued the creation of many other "complementary images » such as these, often connected beyond many years apart. In this allegory of Peace, therefore, three girls leaning over a parapet with some hesitation, rightly, given the depth of the abyss. But now the sky is calm, mountains  radiate beauty and Mont-Blanc appears in its wonderful light…

The mountain 

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

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

The mountain lies in a range called the Graian Alps, between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France. The location of the summit is on the watershed line between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy and the valleys of Montjoie, and Arve in France. The Mont Blanc massif is popular for mountaineering, hiking, skiing, and snowboarding.

The three towns and their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valley, Italy, and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and Chamonix in Haute-Savoie, France.  A cable car ascends and crosses the mountain range from Courmayeur to Chamonix, through the Col du Géant. Constructed beginning in 1957 and completed in 1965, the 11.6 km (7¼ mi) Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two countries and is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes.

Since the French Revolution, the issue of the ownership of the summit has been debated. 

From 1416 to 1792, the entire mountain was within the Duchy of Savoy. In 1723 the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, acquired the Kingdom of Sardinia. The resulting state of Sardinia was to become preeminent in the Italian unification.[ In September 1792, the French revolutionary Army of the Alps under Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou-Fézensac seized Savoy without much resistance and created a department of the Mont-Blanc. In a treaty of 15 May 1796, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France. In article 4 of this treaty it says: "The border between the Sardinian kingdom and the departments of the French Republic will be established on a line determined by the most advanced points on the Piedmont side, of the summits, peaks of mountains and other locations subsequently mentioned, as well as the intermediary peaks, knowing: starting from the point where the borders of Faucigny, the Duchy of Aoust and the Valais, to the extremity of the glaciers or Monts-Maudits: first the peaks or plateaus of the Alps, to the rising edge of the Col-Mayor". This act further states that the border should be visible from the town of Chamonix and Courmayeur. However, neither the peak of the Mont Blanc is visible from Courmayeur nor the peak of the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur is visible from Chamonix because part of the mountains lower down obscure them. A Sardinian Atlas map of 1869 showing the summit lying two thirds in Italy and one third in France.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna restored the King of Sardinia in Savoy, Nice and Piedmont, his traditional territories, overruling the 1796 Treaty of Paris. Forty-five years later, after the Second Italian War of Independence, it was replaced by a new legal act. This act was signed in Turin on 24 March 1860 by Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, and deals with the annexation of Savoy (following the French neutrality for the plebiscites held in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, against the Pope's will). A demarcation agreement, signed on 7 March 1861, defines the new border. With the formation of Italy, for the first time Mont Blanc is located on the border of France and Italy.

The 1860 act and attached maps are still legally valid for both the French and Italian governments. One of the prints from the 1823 Sarde Atlas  positions the border exactly on the summit edge of the mountain (and measures it to be 4,804 m (15,761 ft) high). The convention of 7 March 1861 recognises this through an attached map, taking into consideration the limits of the massif, and drawing the border on the icecap of Mont Blanc, making it both French and Italian.Watershed analysis of modern topographic mapping not only places the main summit on the border, but also suggests that the border should follow a line northwards from the main summit towards Mont Maudit, leaving the southeast ridge to Mont Blanc de Courmayeur wholly within Italy.

Although the Franco-Italian border was redefined in both 1947 and 1963, the commission made up of both Italians and French ignored the Mont Blanc issue. In the early 21st century, administration of the mountain is shared between the Italian town of Courmayeur and the French town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, although the larger part of the mountain lies within the commune of the latter.

Climbing

The Mont Blanc Massif averages nearly 100 fatalities a year. A published estimate suggests there have been 6,000-8,000 alpinist fatalities in total, more than on any other mountain.Several classic climbing routes lead to the summit of Mont Blanc:

- The historic itinerary through the Grand Mulets, which is most frequently traversed in winter by ski, or in summer to descend to Chamonix.

- The normal Italian itinerary is also known as La route des Aiguilles Grises. After crossing the Miage Glacier, climbers spend the night at the Gonella refuge. The next day one proceeds through the Col des Aiguilles Grises and the Dôme du Goûter, concluding at L'arête des Bosses (Bosses ridge).

- The most popular route is the Voie Des Cristalliers, also known as the Voie Royale. Starting from Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, the Tramway du Mont-Blanc (TMB) is taken to get to the fr:Gare du Nid d'Aigle. The ascent begins in the direction of the Refuge de Tête Rousse and through the Goûter Corridor, considered dangerous because of frequent rock-falls, leading to the Goûter cabin for night shelter. The next day the route leads to the Dôme du Goûter, past the emergency Vallot cabin and L'arrête des Bosses.

- La Voie des 3 Monts is also known as La Traversée. Starting from Chamonix, the Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi is taken towards the Col du Midi. The Cosmiques cabin is used to spend the night. The next day the ascent continues over Mont Blanc du Tacul and Mont Maudit.

- The Miage — Bionnassay — Mont Blanc crossing is usually done in three days, and has been described as a truly magical expedition of ice and snow aretes at great altitude. The route begins from Contamines-Montjoie, with the night spent in the Conscrits cabin. The following day, the Dômes de Miages is crossed and the night spent at the Durier cabin. The third day proceeds over l'Aiguille de Bionnassay and the Dôme du Goûter, finally reaching the summit of Mont Blanc via the Bosses ridge.

Recent temperature rises and heatwaves, such as that of summer 2015, have had significant impacts on many climbing routes across the Alps, including those on Mont Blanc. For example, in 2015, the Grand Mulets route, previously popular in the 20th century, was blocked by virtually impenetrable crevasse fields, and the Gouter Hut was closed by municipal decree for some days because of very high stonefall danger, with some stranded climbers evacuated by helicopter.

The painter 

The english painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence in the history of painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.

In his thirties, Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice.   Turner's talent was recognized early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." Turner was recognized as an artistic genius: influential English art critic John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature."

Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Lorrain  had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorized the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.  His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.

Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking or working or walking in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God – a theme that romanticist artists and poets were exploring in this period. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena.

Turner used pigments like carmine in his paintings, knowing that they were not long-lasting, despite the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded greatly. 

John Ruskin says in his "Notes" on Turner in March 1878 : "His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate. "

MOUNT PILATUS (TOMLISHORN) PAINTED BY ALBERT GOODWIN

ALBERT GOODWIN (1884-1932)

 Mount Pilatus or Tomlishorn (2,128 m - 6,982 ft)

Switzerland

As seen from Stanstadt, Lucerne 

The mountain 

Mount Pilatus  is overlooking Lucerne in central Switzerland. It is composed of several summits of which the highest (2,128 m) is named Tomlishorn. Another summit named Esel (2,119 m) lies just over the railway station. Jurisdiction over the massif is divided between the cantons of Obwalden, Nidwalden, and Lucerne. The main peaks are right on the border between Obwalden and Nidwalden.

A few different local legends about the origin of the name exist. One claims that Mount Pilatus was named so because Pontius Pilate was buried there; a similar legend is told of Monte Vettore in Italy. Another is that the mountain looks like the belly of a large man, Pilate, lying on his back and was thus named for him. The name may also be derived from "pileatus," meaning "cloud-topped."

A medieval legend had dragons with healing powers living on the mountain. A chronicle from 1619 reads: 'as I was contemplating the serene sky by night, I saw a very bright dragon with flapping wings go from a cave in a great rock in the mount called Pilatus toward another cave, known as Flue, on the opposite side of the lake'. 

Nowadays, dragon has been replaced by fortified radar (part of the Swiss FLORAKO system) and weather stations on the Oberhaupt summit, not open to the public view and used all year round.

Climbing

The top can be reached with the Pilatus railway, the world's steepest cogwheel railway, from Alpnachstad, operating from May to November (depending on snow conditions), and the whole year with the aerial panorama gondolas and aerial cableways from Kriens. Both summits of Tomlishorn and Esel can be reached with a trail. Mount Pilatus has the longest summer toboggan track in Switzerland (0.88 miles or 1,350 m) and the biggest suspension rope park in Central Switzerland.

During the summer, the "Golden Round Trip" — a popular route for tourists — involves taking a boat from Lucerne across Lake Lucerne to Alpnachstad, going up on the cogwheel railway, coming down on the aerial cableways and panorama gondolas, and taking a bus back to Lucerne.

Numbered amongst those who have reached its summit are Conrad Gessner, Theodore Roosevelt, Arthur Schopenhauer (1804), Queen Victoria and Julia Ward Howe (1867).

Reference 

- Mont Pilatus website 

The painter 

Albert Goodwin was a English landscape painter well known for his watercolours. His work shows the influences of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

After leaving school he became an apprentice draper. His exceptional artistic ability was recognized at an early age and he went on to study with the Pre-Raphaelite artists Arthur Hughes and Ford Madox Brown - the latter predicting that he would become "one of the greatest landscape painters of the age". At the age of 15 his first painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy. He became an associate member of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) in 1876. He was championed by famed art critic John Ruskin who took him on a tour of Europe, where he made many sketches from nature which were later turned into watercolours. During his lifetime he traveled extensively throughout Britain and Europe, and visited many other countries.

Although the Pre-Raphaelites were not primarily landscape painters, their views on ‘truth to nature’, and their practice of working directly from nature for the landscape settings of their pictures, inevitably influenced most contemporary landscape painters in the 1850s and 1860s; and in his Notes on Prout and Hunt, Ruskin quite rightly described Goodwin’s work as having been ‘founded first on strong Pre-Raphaelite veracities…’. 

Goodwin was, in fact, extremely fortunate in being taught by Brown, who is by far the most original and interesting of the landscape painters associated with the Pre-Raphaelite circle; however, despite Brown’s devotion to the concept of truth to nature, and working sur le motif, his landscapes are, in the final analysis, strangely artificial – reminiscent of the magical realism of Palmer’s Shoreham period rather than the naturalism of Constable, Cox or De Wint. Similarly, Goodwin’s landscapes are invariably infused with a poetic charm that raises them above mere description; indeed, one critic complimented him for having that ‘peculiar faculty of painting a natural scene with an undercurrent of supernatural feeling’. 

Goodwin was a prolific artist, producing over 800 works and continuing to paint well into his eighties. His wide variety of landscape subjects reflected his love of travel and show the influence of Turner, with whom he felt a strong affinity. In later works he developed experimental techniques such as using ink over water color to achieve atmospheric lighting effects. His works are also an important record of social history.

Reference 

- Albert Goodwin  biography in Artrenewal.org

THE JUNGFRAU PAINTED BY JOHN MARTIN

JOHN MARTIN (1789-1854)

The Jungfrau  (4,158 m -13,642 ft)

Switzerland

 In Manfred on the Jungfrau, 1837

The mountain 

The Jungfrau (4,158m -13,642 ft)) is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps, located between the northern canton of Bern and the southern canton of Valais, halfway between Interlaken and Fiesch. Together with the Eiger and Mцnch, the Jungfrau forms a massive wall overlooking the Bernese Oberland and the Swiss Plateau, one of the most distinctive sights of the Swiss Alps.

The summit was first reached on August 3, 1811 by the Meyer brothers of Aarau and two chamois hunters from Valais. The ascent followed a long expedition over the glaciers and high passes of the Bernese Alps. It was not until 1865 that a more direct route on the northern side was opened.

The construction of the Jungfrau railway in the early 20th century, which connects Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch, the saddle between the Mцnch and the Jungfrau, made the area one of the most-visited places in the Alps. Along with the Aletsch Glacier to the south, the Jungfrau is part of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, which was declared a World Heritage Site in 2001.

Reference :

- Official Website of Interalken and Jungfrau.

The Painter 

John Martin was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator. He was celebrated for his typically vast and melodramatic paintings of religious subjects and fantastic compositions, populated with minute figures placed in imposing landscapes. Martin's paintings, and the engravings made from them, enjoyed great success with the general public—in 1821 Lawrence referred to him as "the most popular painter of his day"—but were lambasted by Ruskin and other critics.

His first exhibited subject picture, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (now in the St. Louis Art Museum), was hung in the Ante-room of the Royal Academy in 1812, and sold for fifty guineas. The piece depicts a scene from the Tales of Two Genii" It was followed by the Expulsion (1813), Adam's First Sight of Eve (1813), Clytie (1814), Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon (1816) and The Fall of Babylon (1819). In 1820 appeared his Belshazzar's Feast, which excited much favourable and hostile comment, and was awarded a prize of Ј200 at the British Institution, where the Joshua had previously carried off a premium of Ј100. Then came The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum (1822), The Creation (1824), the Eve of the Deluge (1840), and a series of other Biblical and imaginative subjects. The Plains of Heaven is thought by some to reflect his memories of the Allendale of his youth.

Martin's large paintings were closely connected with contemporary dioramas or panoramas, popular entertainments in which large painted cloths were displayed, and animated by the skilful use of artificial light. Martin has often been claimed as a forerunner of the epic cinema. These dioramas were tremendous successes with their audiences, but wounded Martin's reputation in the serious art world.The painting The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 1852 is currently at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne.

LE BEC DE L'AIGLE PEINT PAR ROGER FRY

ROGER FRY (1866-1934)
Le Bec de l'Aigle (155m)
France (Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur)

In Le Bec de L'aigle - La Ciotat, huile sur toile, The Courtauld Institute, London

Le Cap
Le Bec de l'Aigle est un sommet  situé en Provence, au-dessus de La Ciotat, à l'extrémité méridionale des falaises Soubeyranes. Il forme un cap, appelé cap de l'Aigle, délimitant l'extrémité occidentale de la baie de la Ciotat, culminant à 155 mètres d'altitude et qui se prolonge en mer par l'île Verte. L’éperon minéral s’élance vers la Méditerranée et exhibe une roche brune à gros galets que les géologues appellent « poudingue ». Cette roche s’est formée il y a environ 90 millions d’années. Elle témoigne d’un continent disparu, lointain cousin de la Corse et de la Sardaigne. À cette période reculée, la région de La Ciotat se situe sur les bords d’un continent faisant face à la Provence et a priori solidaire de la Corse et de la Sardaigne. Ce continent s’érodait et les sables, graviers et galets transportés par les fleuves, se sont accumulés dans des deltas au pied de cette terre émergée. L’un d’eux constitue aujourd’hui le poudingue du Bec de l’Aigle. La disparition de cette « Atlantide » séparée de la Provence par une petite mer intérieure, est liée à la naissance de la mer Méditerranée qui découle de la rotation dans le sens inverse des aiguilles d’une montre de la Corse. Le poudingue est ici un assemblage de galets arrondis composés de quartz, de grès, de schiste, de granite ou de calcaire, le tout cimenté naturellement.Le poudingue est ici un assemblage de galets arrondis composés de quartz, de grès, de schiste, de granite ou de calcaire, le tout cimenté naturellement.
Situé en bordure de ville, le parc du Mugel et le chantier naval de La Ciotat se trouvent à ses pieds.

Le peintre
Roger Eliot Fry est un critique et théoricien de l'art britannique, particulièrement actif dans les premières décennies du 20eiècle. Également peintre, il appartenait au Bloomsbury Group.L'historien de l'art Kenneth Clark voyait en lui le successeur de John Ruskin ; Virginia Woolf publia sa biographie en 1940. Il publie ses premiers articles dans des revues relativement confidentielles comme The Dome. Dans les années 1900, Roger Fry commence à enseigner l'histoire de l'art à la Slade School of Fine Art de University College à Londres. Il collabore à l’Athenaeum à partir de 1901 et participe en 1903 à la fondation du Burlington Magazine avec Bernard Berenson et Herbert Horne.
De 1906 à 1910, il passe quatre ans aux États-Unis, où il travaille au Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York comme conservateur du département des peintures. C'est lors de ce séjour qu'il découvre l'œuvre de Cézanne et se désintéresse peu à peu des primitifs italiens, au profit des peintres français de la fin du 19e siècle. De retour en Angleterre, il organise aux Grafton Galleries de Londres, en 1910, une exposition Manet et les postimpressionnistes, terme dont il est l'auteur. Celle-ci exerce une influence considérable sur le goût du public, tout en étant fraîchement accueillie par la critique. Fry organise alors, en 1912, une seconde exposition d'art post-impressionniste. Il reçoit le soutien financier de Lady Ottoline Morrell, avec qui il a une liaison éphémère.
En 1913, il fonde avec Vanessa Bell et Duncan Grant les Omega Workshops, un atelier d'art et d'artisanat situé à Fitzroy Square (Londres).
Deux de ses essais, Vision and Design (1920) et Transformations (1926), contribuent également à faire découvrir la peinture française contemporaine.
En 1932, Roger Fry apporte son soutien à l'Institut Courtauld de Londres pour en faire le premier centre britannique d'étude de l'histoire de l'art.
En 1933, il occupe la chaire Slade pour l'enseignement des beaux-arts à l'université de Cambridge, poste qu'il avait vivement souhaité.

 _________________________________________________________

2024 - 13e année de publication -  Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau