MONT KATAHDIN PEINT PAR MARSDEN HARTLEY

 

 

 

 

 

MARSDEN HARTLEY (1877-1943)
Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267ft)
United States of America (Maine)

In Mt. Katahdin Oil on fiberboard, 55.9 x 71.1 cm. (1941) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC

La montagne
Le Mont Katahdin (1,605 m) est la plus haute montagne de l'État du Maine et le terminus nord du sentier des Appalaches. La montagne, située à un mile au-dessus du niveau de la mer, domine les lacs et les forêts du Maine. Nommé Katahdin par les Indiens Penobscot, ce qui signifie « la plus grande montagne », Katahdin est la pièce maîtresse du parc d'État de Baxter. Le nom officiel est "Mont Katahdin", comme l'a décidé le Conseil américain des noms géographiques en 1893. Parmi certains Amérindiens, Katahdin était considéré comme la demeure du dieu de la tempête Pamola, et donc une zone à éviter.
Il était connu des Amérindiens de la région et des Européens au moins depuis 1689. Il a inspiré des randonnées, des escalades, des récits, des peintures et même une sonate pour piano. La zone autour du sommet fut protégée par le gouverneur Percival Baxter à partir des années 1930. Katahdin est situé à proximité de la Hundred-Mile Wilderness.
La première ascension enregistrée du « Catahdin » a été réalisée par les géomètres du Massachusetts Zackery Adley et Charles Turner, Jr. en août 1804. Dans les années 1840, Henry David Thoreau gravit Katahdin, qu'il écrivait « Ktaadn » ; son ascension est enregistrée dans un chapitre bien connu de The Maine Woods. Quelques années plus tard, Theodore Winthrop a écrit sur l'ascension qu'il fit dans Life in the Open Air. Les peintres Frederic Edwin Church et Marsden Hartley ont souvent peint des paysages de Katahdin.

Le peintre
Marsden Hartley était un peintre, poète et essayiste moderniste américain.
Hartley a commencé sa formation artistique au Cleveland Institute of Art après que sa famille ait déménagé à Cleveland, Ohio, en 1892. En 1898, à 22 ans, il s'installe à New York pour étudier la peinture à la New York School of Art sous la direction de William Merritt Chase, puis fréquente la National Academy of Design. Hartley était un grand admirateur d'Albert Pinkham Ryder et visitait son studio de Greenwich Village aussi souvent que possible. Son amitié avec Ryder, ainsi que les écrits de Walt Whitman et des transcendantalistes américains Henry David Thoreau et Ralph Waldo Emerson, ont largement inscliné Hartley à considérer l'art comme une quête spirituelle. Hartley voyage pour la première fois en Europe en avril 1912 et fait la connaissance du cercle d'écrivains et d'artistes d'avant-garde de Gertrude Stein à Paris. Stein, avec Hart Crane et Sherwood Anderson, encouragéèrent Hartley à écrire ainsi qu'à peindre. En 1913, Hartley s'installe à Berlin, où il continue à peindre et se lie d'amitié avec les peintres Vassily Kandinsky et Franz Marc. Il collectionnait également l'art populaire bavarois. Son travail durant cette période était une combinaison d’abstraction et d’expressionnisme allemand, alimenté par sa marque personnelle de mysticisme. À Berlin, Hartley développa une relation étroite avec un lieutenant prussien, Karl von Freyburg. Les références à Freyburg sont un motif récurrent dans l'œuvre de Hartley, notamment dans Portrait d'un officier allemand (1914). La mort de Freyburg pendant la guerre a durement frappé Hartley. Hartley retourna aux États-Unis au début de 1916 mais Il vécut de nouveau en Europe entre 1921 et 1930, avant de retourner définitivement aux États-Unis. Il peignit alors dans tout le pays, au Massachusetts, au Nouveau-Mexique, en Californie et à New York. Il retourna dans le Maine en 1937, après avoir déclaré vouloir devenir « le peintre du Maine » et dépeindre la vie américaine locale. Il s'alignait ainsi sur le mouvement régionaliste, un groupe d'artistes actifs du début au milieu du 20e siècle qui tentaient de représenter un « art américain » distinct. Il continua à peindre dans le Maine, principalement des scènes autour de Lovell, jusqu'à sa mort à Ellsworth en 1943. La plupart de ses peintures de montagnes du Maine font aujourd'hui partie des collections du MET. 

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2011-2024 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

IRESON HILL / MARS PHOTOGRAPHIÉE PAR NASA MARS CURIOSITY MISSION

 

NASA MARS CURIOSITY MISSION (depuis 2012)

Ireson Hill sur Aeolis Mons/Mount Sharp (5, 500 m - 18, 000 ft)

MARS

La colline
Ce monticule sombre, appelé "Ireson Hill", s'élève à environ 5 mètres au-dessus du matériau d'affleurement en couches plus rouge de la formation Murray sur le mont Sharp inférieur (5, 500 mètres d'altitude), sur  la planète Mars, près d'un endroit où le rover Curiosity de la NASA a examiné une dune de sable linéaire en février 2017.  Qu'est-ce qui a créé cette colline inhabituelle sur Mars ? Pas de réponse pour l'instant mais un sujet de recherche  pour plusieurs années tant il est vrai que sa forme et sa structure bicolore en font l'une des formations les plus inhabituelles que le robot Curiosity ait croisé dans son exploration de la planète. Surnommé  "Colline Ireson", le monticule s'étend sur environ 15 mètres de largeur. Ce panorama composé de 41 images a été compressé horizontalement pour inclure toute la colline. L'image a été prise le 2 février 2017.

La camera
Les chercheurs ont utilisé la Mast Camera (Mastcam) du rover le 2 février 2017, lors du 1 598e jour martien, ou sol, des travaux de Curiosity sur Mars, pour prendre les 41 images combinées dans cette scène. La mosaïque a été équilibrée en blanc afin que les couleurs des matériaux de roche et de sable ressemblent à ce qu'elles apparaîtraient dans des conditions d'éclairage diurne sur Terre. La vue s'étend de l'ouest-sud-ouest à gauche au nord-nord-ouest à droite. Le faible horizon au loin au-delà d'Ireson Hill fait partie du bord du cratère Gale. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, a construit et exploite le Mastcam. Le Jet Propulsion Laboratory de la NASA, une division de Caltech à Pasadena, en Californie, gère le projet de laboratoire scientifique sur Mars pour la direction des missions scientifiques de la NASA, à Washington. JPL a conçu et construit le rover Curiosity du projet.

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

MONT CHOCORUA PAR JOHN MARIN

 

JOHN MARIN (1870-1953)
Mont Chocorua (1 061 m - 3 480 ft)
États-Unis d'Amérique (New Hampshire)

In Mount Chocorua, série White Mountains, aquarelle, 1927. Harvard University Museums

 

La montagne
Le mont Chocorua (1 061 m - 3 480 pieds) est un sommet des White Mountains dansle  New Hampshire, le sommet, le plus à l'est de la chaîne Sandwich. Bien que la chaîne ne soit pas exceptionnelle pa son élévation, elle est très accidentée et offre d'excellentes vues sur les lacs, les montagnes et les forêts environnantes. Le sommet dénudé du mont Chocorua peut être vu de presque toutes les directions et peut être identifié à partir de nombreux points du centre du New Hampshire et de l'ouest du Maine.
On pense que Chocorua était le nom d'un homme amérindien au 18ème siècle, bien qu'il n'existe aucun document authentique de sa vie.
Le mont Chocorua est une destination populaire pour les randonneurs. Il y a de nombreux sentiers en haut de la montagne, et ils peuvent être assez encombrés pendant les mois d'été. Le Piper Trail (6,8 km dans chaque sens depuis l'est), le Champney Falls Trail (du nord) et le Liberty Trail (du sud-ouest) sont particulièrement populaires.

Le peintre
John Marin est  un peintre  américain fondateur du mouvement moderniste. Il a été l'un des premiers Américains à utiliser des techniques d'abstraction dans ses représentations calligraphiques de paysages et de rues de la ville. Avec Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley et Georgia O'Keeffe, Marin a contribué à introduire un nouveau modèle esthétique  "Je dois pour ma part insister sur le fait qu'une fois terminé, c'est-à-dire lorsque toutes les pièces sont en place et fonctionnent, le tableau est devenu un objet et aura donc ses limites aussi définies que la proue, la poupe, les côtés et le fond lié comme dans un bateau », déclarait il.
Marin a commencé sa carrière artistique assez tard dans la vie et fut  diplômé de la Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts en 1901 à l'âge de 30 ans. En 1905, il voyagea en Europe, vécut à Paris (1905-1909) où il  développéasa technique d'aquarelle et rencontre l'artiste Edward Steichen. C'est Steichen qui présenta son travail au photographe Alfred Stieglitz, qui  monta la première exposition personnelle de Marin en 1909 et soutint financièrement l'artiste pendant le reste de sa carrière.
Aujourd'hui, ses œuvres font partie des collections du Museum of Modern Art de New York, de la Phillips Collection de Washington, D.C. et de l'Art Institute of Chicago, entre autres.
Il a développé un style plus dynamique et fracturé à partir de 1912 pour peindre l'interaction des forces en conflit, et a progressivement développé des manières sommaires de rendre ses impressions vives de la mer, du ciel, des montagnes ou des gratte-ciel de Manhattan. Dans les années 1920  il travailla presque exclusivement à l'aquarelle ; après 1930  il opta pour l'huile sur toile .
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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

LE VESUVE PEINT PAR ROBERT SCOTT DUNCANSON

 

ROBERT SCOTT DUNCANSON (1821-1872)
Le Vésuve (1,281m)
Italie

In Mount Vesuvius and Pompei ruins, 1879, Huile sur toile, 25.4 x 39.7 cm.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

L'artiste
Robert Scott Duncanson,  est le premier artiste afro-américain qui ait été reconnu de son vivant. Selon Joseph D. Ketner, conservateur de la galerie d'art de l'université d'État de Washington, il peint dans la tradition de l'Ecole de l'Hudson River. Il a été souvent inspiré par la littérature romantique anglaise. C'est un artiste peintre assez peu connu aujourd'hui, tant pour ses portraits que ses paysages beaux et sereins, marqués par les espaces encore sauvages de l'Amérique du Nord.
À son retour au domicile de sa mère, Duncanson aurait dit, « je reviens pour être artiste ». Il déménagea à Cincinnati. À cette époque, Cincinnati était connue comme « l'Athènes de l'Occident ». Duncanson possédait le dynamisme et la volonté de devenir artiste, mais il n'avait reçu aucune formation technique. Autodidacte, il apprit en copiant des portraits et des images imprimées. Sa détermination lui permit de voyager dans le monde et de poursuivre une longue carrière, jusqu'à sa mort en 1872. Il peignit plusieurs fois le Vésuve dans une période calme  relatif comme on peut le voir,  mais  il ne le peignit qu'une seule fois en insérant un tableau dans le tableau comme ici avec ce fragment de mur peint dont il est  plutôt difficile d'identifier le sujet.

Le volcan
Le Vésuve (1,281 mètres actuellement) fait partie de ces montagnes légendaires qui se rappelle régulièrement à l'attention des terriens. Monte Vesuvius ou Vesuvio en italien moderne ou Mons Vesuvius en latin antique est un stratovolcan située dans le golfe de Naples (Italie) à environ 9 km (5,6 mi) à l'est de Naples et à une courte distance du rivage. C'est l'un des nombreux volcans qui forment l'Arc Campanien. Il s'est formé à la suite de la collision de deux plaques tectoniques, l'africaine et l'eurasienne. Le Vésuve se compose d'un grand cône partiellement encerclé par le bord escarpé d'une caldeira sommitale causée par l'effondrement d'une structure antérieure et à l'origine beaucoup plus élevée.
Le mont Vésuve est surtout connu pour sa grande  éruption en 79 après JC qui a conduit à l'enterrement et à la destruction des villes antiques romaines de Pompéi, d'Herculanum et de plusieurs autres petits villages. Cette éruption a éjecté un nuage de pierres, de cendres et de fumées à une hauteur de 33 km (20,5 mi), crachant de la roche en fusion et de la pierre ponce pulvérisée à raison de 1,5 million de tonnes par seconde, libérant finalement cent mille fois l'énergie thermique libérée par l'attentat d'Hiroshima. Au moins 1 000 personnes sont mortes dans l'éruption. Le seul récit de témoin oculaire survivant de l'événement consiste en deux lettres de Pline le Jeune à l'historien Tacite. Depuis l'an 79, le Vésuve est entré en éruption environ trois douzaines de fois.
En 203, du vivant de l'historien Cassius Dio.
En 472, il a éjecté un tel volume de cendres que des chutes de cendres ont été signalées jusqu'à Constantinople à 1 220 km) de là.
Les éruptions de 512 ont été si graves que les habitants des pentes du Vésuve ont été exonérés d'impôts par Théodoric le Grand, alors le roi d'Italie.
D'autres éruptions ont été enregistrées en 787, 968, 991, 999, 1007 et 1036 avec les premières coulées de lave enregistrées. Le volcan s'est calmé à la fin du XIIIe siècle et dans les années suivantes, il s'est à nouveau couvert de jardins et de vignes comme autrefois. Même l'intérieur du cratère était rempli d'arbustes.
Le Vésuve est entré dans une nouvelle phase en décembre 1631, lorsqu'une éruption majeure a enseveli de nombreux villages sous des coulées de lave, tuant environ 3 000 personnes. Des torrents de lahar ont  ajouté à la dévastation. L'activité est ensuite devenue presque continue, avec des éruptions relativement graves se produisant en 1660, 1682, 1694, 1698, 1707, 1737, 1760, 1767, 1779, 1794, 1822, 1834, 1839, 1850, 1855, 1861, 1868, 1872, 1906 1926, 1929 et 1944. De nos jours, il est considéré comme l'un des volcans les plus dangereux au monde en raison de la population de 3 000 000 de personnes vivant à proximité et de sa tendance aux éruptions explosives (dites éruptions pliniennes). C'est la région volcanique la plus densément peuplée au monde.

La zone autour du Vésuve a été officiellement déclarée parc national le 5 juin 1995. Le sommet du Vésuve est ouvert aux visiteurs et il existe un petit réseau de sentiers autour de la montagne

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes ....
            Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
            Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MONTE SOLARO PAINTED BY THEODORE ROBINSON

 

 

 

THEODORE ROBINSON (1852-1896)
Monte Solaro (589m - 1,932ft)
Italy (Campania)

In Capri, 1880, oil on canvas, 53, 3 x 44,5cm,  Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

The Painter
Theodore Robinson was an American painter best known for his Impressionist landscapes. He was one of the first American artists to take up Impressionism in the late 1880s, visiting Giverny and developing a close friendship with Claude Monet. Several of his works are considered masterpieces of American.
Robinson was born in Irasburg, Vermont. His family moved to Evansville, Wisconsin, and Robinson briefly studied art in Chicago. In 1874 he journeyed to New York City to attend classes at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League.
In 1876 he traveled to Paris to study under Carolus-Duran and at the École des Beaux-Arts, with Jean-Léon Gérôme. He first exhibited his paintings at the 1877 Salon in Paris, and spent the summer of that year at Grez-sur-Loing.
After trips to Venice and Bologna, he returned to the United States in 1879 for several years. In 1881 he moved into a studio in New York and became a professional painter and art teacher, and in the same year became a member of the Society of American Artists. During this time Robinson painted in a realist manner, loosely brushed but not yet impressionistic, often depicting people engaged in quiet domestic or agrarian pursuits.
In 1884 Robinson returned to France where he lived for the next eight years, visiting America only occasionally. Robinson gravitated to Giverny, which had become a center of French impressionist art under the influence of Claude Monet.
Historians are unclear when Robinson met Monet, but by 1888 their friendship was enough for Robinson to move in next door to the famous impressionist. Robinson's art shifted to a more traditional impressionistic manner during this time, likely due to Monet's influence. While a number of American artists had gathered at Giverny, none were as close to Monet as Robinson. Monet offered advice to Robinson, and he likewise solicited Robinson for opinions on Monet's own works in progress. At Giverny, Robinson painted what art historians regard as some of his finest works. These depicted the surrounding countryside in different weather, in the plein air tradition, sometimes with women shown in leisurely poses. His Winter Landscape won the 1890 Webb Prize. Another example of his mature work during this period is La Débâcle (1892) in the collection of Scripps College, Claremont California. He wrote an essay on the Barbizon painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and, because of his friendship with the French Impressionist, he wrote and illustrated the essay on Claude Monet. The book was published in 1896 and his illustration of Monet was featured in the exhibition "In Monet's Light."In 1895, Robinson enjoyed a productive period in Vermont, and in February 1896 he wrote to Monet about returning to Giverny, but in April he died of an acute asthma attack in New York City. He was buried in his hometown of Evansville, Wisconsin. He was 43 years old Today Robinson's paintings are in the collections of many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Art Institute of Chicago.

The mountain 

Monte Solaro (589m - 1,932ft)  also called Monte Solare or Monte Solara is the highest point of  the island of Capri in Campania, in the Gulf of Naples, Italy.  Monte Solaro is formed from the same limestone that the island is composed of. Monte Solaro has a typical mediterranean climate, but with colder winters because of the high altitude. From the top of Monte Visto, one can see both the gulfs of Napoli and Salerno.

The summit is accessible by walking without too much difficulty by either the passetiello or a path that starts from Axel Munthe. Both routes are suitable for walkers in decent physical condition. Notable sites include the Eremo di Santa Maria a Cetrella for its architecture, and the remains of the Fortino di Bruto, a military fort built during the Napoleonic Wars.

Mount Solaro contains the "Fortino di Bruto", a blockhouse which was used in battles between Britain and France in the early 19th century.  It is characterised by its "sheer dolomitic slopes" which form an "unsurpassable partition" between the eastern and western sides of the island. 

Marina Grande lies at the foot of the mountain. It became popular with painters due to its "romantic situation, affording extensive and beautiful views to the NW of the Tyrrhenian sea, the gulf of Naples". Up the mount there is a statue of Emperor Augustus who first landed on Capri.

The area around Monte Solaro is inhabited by over 900 species of vegetation.  The mountain is also visited by many species of birds, including peregrine falcons.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT COLEMAN PAINTED BY ARTHUR P. COLEMAN

 

ARTHUR P. COLEMAN (1852-1939)
Mount Coleman (3,135 m-10,285 ft)
Canada (Alberta) 

 In  "Mountain un the Canadian rockies"

The mountain
Mount Coleman (3,135 m-10,285 ft) mountain summit located in the upper North Saskatchewan River valley in Banff National Park, in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, Canada. Its nearest higher peak is Cirrus Mountain, 4.46 km (2.77 mi) to the north.  Mount Coleman is situated along the east side the Icefields Parkway midway between Saskatchewan Crossing and Sunwapta Pass.
Mount Coleman was named in 1898 after Arthur Philemon Coleman (1852-1939), a Canadian geologist and among the first white men to explore the area that is now Jasper National Park.(see below). Like other mountains in Banff Park, Mount Coleman is composed of sedimentary rock laid down from the Precambrian to Jurassic periods. Formed in shallow seas, this sedimentary rock was pushed east and over the top of younger rock during the Laramide orogeny.  Based on the Köppen climate classification, Mount Coleman is located in a subarctic climate with cold, snowy winters, and mild summers.  Temperatures can drop below -20 °C with wind chill factors below -30 °C. Precipitation runoff from Mount Coleman drains into tributaries of the North Saskatchewan River.

The painter
Arthur Philemon Coleman was a Canadian a geologist, professor, minerals prospector, artist, Rockies explorer, backwoods canoeist, world traveller, scientist, popular lecturer, museum administrator, memoirist and... one of Canada’s most beloved scientist.
Arthur Coleman is a fine example of that rare bird, a polished amateur artist whose drawings and paintings stand comfortably beside those of many professionals. He was active during the time when sketching and painting was ceding to photography the task of recording the visible world. Although he was also a photographer, painting was, for him, both a poetic and a descriptive pursuit, a way of wrapping an artistic expression around a phenomenon he was interested in or moved by. Thus motivated, Coleman's paintings give much joy and command a good deal of respect. The more surprising, perhaps given that he used to introduced himself more as a geologist than a painter.
Coleman travelled throughout the United States for professional conferences as well as geological field work. He visited many of the major American mountain ranges including: the American Cordillera Mountains (Washington, Oregon and California); the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California and Nevada); Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, Montana and Idaho); and the Appalachian Mountains (eastern United States). Pleistocene glaciation had extended in Northern Europe as far south as Berlin and London and covered an area of two million square miles. Coleman also visited such countries as India, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Scandinavia, Bolivia, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay. In his final years he made two expeditions to the Andes in Colombia, to mountains in Southern Mexico and to two mountains in Central America. He achieved the first ascent of Castle Mountain in 1884, and in 1907, he was the first white man to attempt to climb Mount Robson. He made a total of eight exploratory trips to the Canadian Rockies, wholly four of them looking for the mythical giants of Hooker and Brown.
From 1901 to 1922, he was a Professor of Geology at the University of Toronto and was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1919 to 1922. From 1931 to 1934, he was a geologist with the Department of Mines of the Government of Ontario. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1900 and was its President in 1921. In 1929, he was appointed Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
"Mount Coleman" and "Coleman Glacier" in Banff National Park is named in his honor. He was awarded the Penrose Medal in 1936.
He planned to climb "his" mountain, "Mount Coleman"'in the Albertan Rockies, and had also prepared a trip to British Guiana, but death intervened.
He was author of:
- Reports on the Economic Geology of Ontario (1903)
- Lake Ojibway; Last of the Great Glacial Lakes (1909)
- The Canadian Rockies: New and Old Trails (1911)
- Ice Ages, Recent and Ancient (1926), and was co-author of Elementary Geology (1922).
- The Last Million Years (1941) edited by George F. Kay

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT KATAHDIN (3) PAINTED BY FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH

FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH (1826-1900)
Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267ft)
United States of America (Maine)

In Mt. Katahdin from Lake Katahdin,  Medium/ Brush and oil, pencil on cardboard,1860–70, 28.4 x 30.6 cm ,Smithsonian/ Cooper Hewitt,

About this painting
Frederic Edwin Churh painted Mt Katahdin several times. Two of those paintings has already peen publish in this blogs. : 13 Decembeer 2016 and 7 may 2018   very often at sunset but  never with the golden light we can see on the canvas above...

The mountain
Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267 feet) is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Maine and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. The mountain, being a mile above sea level, towers above the comparatively low Maine lakes and forests. Named Katahdin by the Penobscot Indians, which means "The Greatest Mountain", Katahdin is the centerpiece of Baxter State Park. The official name is "Mount Katahdin" as decided by the US Board on Geographic Names in 1893. Among some Native Americans, Katahdin was believed to be the home of the storm god Pamola, and thus an area to be avoidedIt is a steep, tall mountain formed from a granite intrusion weathered to the surface.
Katahdin was known to the Native Americans in the region, and was known to Europeans at least since 1689. It has inspired hikes, climbs, journal narratives, paintings, and a piano sonata. The area around the peak was protected by Governor Percival Baxter starting in the 1930s. Katahdin is located near a stretch known as the Hundred-Mile Wilderness.
Katahdin is referred to 60 years after Field’s climb of Agiokochuk (Mount Washington) in the writings of John Gyles, a teenage colonist who was captured near Portland, Maine in 1689 by the Abenaki. While in the company of Abenaki hunting parties, he traveled up and down several Maine rivers including both branches of the Penobscot, passing close to “Teddon”. He remarked that it was higher than the White Hills above the Saco River.
The first recorded climb of "Catahrdin" was by Massachusetts surveyors Zackery Adley and Charles Turner, Jr. in August 1804.[14] In the 1840s Henry David Thoreau climbed Katahdin, which he spelled "Ktaadn"; his ascent is recorded in a well-known chapter of The Maine Woods. A few years later Theodore Winthrop wrote about his visit in Life in the Open Air. Painters Frederic Edwin Church and Marsden Hartley are well-known artists who created landscapes of Katahdin.
In the 1930s Governor Percival Baxter began to acquire land and finally deeded more than 200,000 acres (809 km2) to the State of Maine for a park, named Baxter State Park after him. The summit was officially recognized by the US Board on Geographic Names as "Baxter Peak" in 1931.

The painter

Frederic Edwin Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, perhaps best known for painting large panoramic landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets, but also sometimes depicting dramatic natural phenomena that he saw during his travels to the Arctic and Central and South America. Church's paintings put an emphasis on light and a romantic respect for natural detail. In his later years, Church painted classical Mediterranean and Middle Eastern scenes and cityscapes. Church was the product of the second generation of the Hudson River School and the pupil of Thomas Cole, the school’s founder. The Hudson River School was established by the British Thomas Cole when he moved to America and started painting landscapes, mostly of mountains and other traditional American scenes.  Both Cole and Church were devout Protestants and the latter's beliefs played a role in his paintings especially his early canvases.  Church did differ from Cole in the topics of his paintings: he preferred natural and often majestic scenes over Cole's propensity towards allegory.

Church, like most second generation Hudson River School painters, used extraordinary detail, romanticism, and luminism in his paintings. Romanticism was prominent in Britain and France in the early 1800s as a counter-movement to the Enlightenment virtues of order and logic. Artists of the Romantic period often depicted nature in idealized scenes that depicted the richness and beauty of nature, sometimes also with emphasis on the grand scale of nature.

This tradition carries on in the works of Frederic Church, who idealizes an uninterrupted nature, highlighted by creating excruciatingly detailed art. The emphasis on nature is encouraged by the low horizontal lines, and preponderance of sky to enhance the wilderness; humanity, if it is represented, is depicted as small in comparison with the greater natural reality. The technical skill comes in the form of Luminism, a Hudson River School innovation particularly present in Church's works. Luminism is also cited as encompassing several technical aspects, which can be seen in Church’s works. One example is the attempt to “hide brushstrokes” which makes the scene seem more realistic and lessen the artist’s presence in the work. Most importantly is the emphasis on light (hence luminism) in these scenes. The several sources of light create contrast in the pictures that highlights the beauty and detailed imagery in the painting.

 
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT MARCY PAINTED BY JONAS LIE

 

JONAS LIE (1880-1940)
Mount Marcy (1,629m - 5,343ft)
United States of America (Essex County)

In Snow - Adirondacks, Private collection (Christie's)

The mountain
Mount Marcy (1,629m - 5,343ft) in Mohawk langage Tewawe’estha is the highest point in New York State. It is located in the Town of Keene in Essex County. The mountain is in the heart of the Adirondack High Peaks Region of the High Peaks Wilderness Area. Its stature and expansive views make it a popular destination for hikers, who crowd its summit in the summer months.
Lake Tear of the Clouds, at the col between Mt. Marcy and Mt. Skylight, is often cited as the highest source of the Hudson River, via Feldspar Brook and the Opalescent River, even though the main stem of the Opalescent River has as its source a higher point two miles north of Lake of the Clouds, and that stem is a mile longer than Feldspar Brook.
The mountain is named after Gov. William L. Marcy, the 19th-century Governor of New York, who authorized the environmental survey that explored the area. Its first recorded ascent was on August 5, 1837, by a large party led by Ebenezer Emmons looking for the source of the East Fork of the Hudson River.  Today the summit may be reached by multiple trails; though long by any route, a round-trip may be made in a day.

The painter
Jonas Lie was a Norwegian-born American painter. He is best known for colorful paintings of coastlines of New England and city scenes of New York City.
Between 1901 and the memorial exhibition in 1940 his work was shown all over America. In 1905 Lie exhibited 34 pictures in the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn Museum of Art. Between 1905 and 1938 Lie had 57 one-man shows, each including from 12 to 45 paintings. He participated in important annual and biennial exhibitions at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington as well as most of the world fairs. While living in Panama in 1913, he painted scenes of the construction of Panama Canal which were later donated to U.S. Military Academy at West Point in memory of the West Pointer who, as chief engineer, was most potent in channeling the isthmus, General George W. Goethals. In 1932, Jonas Lie was awarded the Knight of Order of St. Olav by the King of Norway.
Jonas Lie often depicted the sea, channels, and ships with dramatic perspective and powerful use of color. He became known for colorful impressionistic scenes of harbors & coves, painted during the many summers he spent on the coasts of New England & Canada. Throughout his prolific career he painted brilliantly colored images of the rocky coves and harbors that identify the region's dramatic shoreline.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CLYDE PEAK PAINTED BY ARTHUR P. COLEMAN

 

ARTHUR P. COLEMAN (1852-1939)
Clyde Peak (2,624 m - 8,610 ft)
United States of America (Montana)

In Mountain South Clide, watercolor on paper, 1895 A.P Coleman Funds.

The mountain
Clyde Peak 2,624 m- is an 8,610 ft) is  located in Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. The mountain straddles the border shared by Flathead County and Glacier County. It is situated on the Continental Divide so precipitation runoff from the west side of the mountain drains into Thompson Creek which is part of the Middle Fork Flathead Riverwatershed, and the east side drains into headwaters of Red Eagle Creek, which flows to Red Eagle Lake, thence Saint Mary Lake. It is set in the Lewis Range, and the nearest higher neighbor is Mount Logan 1.44 mile to the northwest. Topographic relief is significant as the southwest aspect rises approximately 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) in one mile.
The mountain's name commemorates Norman Clyde (1885–1972), who made the first ascent of this peak on July 23, 1923.  Clyde is credited with 130 first ascents, most of which were in the Sierra Nevada of California.[ In 1923 he spent 36 days in Glacier National Park, Montana, where he climbed 36 mountains, including 11 first ascents.

The painter
Arthur Philemon Coleman was a Canadian a geologist, professor, minerals prospector, artist, Rockies explorer, backwoods canoeist, world traveller, scientist, popular lecturer, museum administrator, memoirist and... one of Canada’s most beloved scientist.
Arthur Coleman is a fine example of that rare bird, a polished amateur artist whose drawings and paintings stand comfortably beside those of many professionals. He was active during the time when sketching and painting was ceding to photography the task of recording the visible world. Although he was also a photographer, painting was, for him, both a poetic and a descriptive pursuit, a way of wrapping an artistic expression around a phenomenon he was interested in or moved by. Thus motivated, Coleman's paintings give much joy and command a good deal of respect. The more surprising, perhaps given that he used to introduced himself more as a geologist than a painter.
Coleman travelled throughout the United States for professional conferences as well as geological field work. He visited many of the major American mountain ranges including: the American Cordillera Mountains (Washington, Oregon and California); the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California and Nevada); Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, Montana and Idaho); and the Appalachian Mountains (eastern United States). Pleistocene glaciation had extended in Northern Europe as far south as Berlin and London and covered an area of two million square miles. Coleman also visited such countries as India, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Scandinavia, Bolivia, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay. In his final years he made two expeditions to the Andes in Colombia, to mountains in Southern Mexico and to two mountains in Central America. He achieved the first ascent of Castle Mountain in 1884, and in 1907, he was the first white man to attempt to climb Mount Robson. He made a total of eight exploratory trips to the Canadian Rockies, wholly four of them looking for the mythical giants of Hooker and Brown.
From 1901 to 1922, he was a Professor of Geology at the University of Toronto and was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1919 to 1922. From 1931 to 1934, he was a geologist with the Department of Mines of the Government of Ontario. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1900 and was its President in 1921. In 1929, he was appointed Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
"Mount Coleman" and "Coleman Glacier" in Banff National Park is named in his honor. He was awarded the Penrose Medal in 1936.
He planned to climb "his" mountain, "Mount Coleman"'in the Albertan Rockies, and had also prepared a trip to British Guiana, but death intervened.
He was author of:
- Reports on the Economic Geology of Ontario (1903)
- Lake Ojibway; Last of the Great Glacial Lakes (1909)
- The Canadian Rockies: New and Old Trails (1911)
- Ice Ages, Recent and Ancient (1926), and was co-author of Elementary Geology (1922).
- The Last Million Years (1941) edited by George F. Kay

 
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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CADILLAC MOUNTAIN BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

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

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

National Gallery of art, Washington DC 

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

 

The painter 

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

 

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
 

MOUNT TOHIVEA (2) PAINTED BY JOHN LA FARGE

JOHN LA FARGE (1835-1910) 

Mount Tohivea   (1,207 m-3,960 ft)

French Polynesia (Moorea)

In  The entrance of Tutira River, with Tohivea in the back 1895,
 National Gallery of Art, Washington 

The mountain
Mount Tohivea (or Tohiea)  (1,207 m - 3,960 ft) is a volcanic peak and the highest point on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia. On its slopes are many streams and fertile soils. There are hiking trails along the summit close to Belvedere Point where people can view Mont Routui and the two bays and three peninsulas of Moorea. Mount Tohivea is a dormant volcano that is easily visible from Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. The surrounding peaks are almost as tall as Mount Tohivea.
Mt. Tohivea has many peaks surrounding it. These include Mount Rotui (899 m), and Mou'a Roa (880 m), both of which can be seen from Belvedere Point. Other peaks include Mou'a Puta (830 m) and Mou'a Tamaru To'ofa (916 m).  

The painter

John La Farge was an American painter, muralist, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer.

born in New York City to wealthy French parents and was raised bilingually; as a child, he and his brothers produced a handmade magazine in French entitled Le Chinois.  His interest in art began during his studies at Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland and St. John's College (now Fordham University) in New York.  He initially intended to study law, but this changed after his first visit to Paris, France in 1856. Stimulated by the arts in the city, he studied with Thomas Couture and became acquainted with notable literary people. La Farge also studied with the painter William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island.

More about the painter  

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT BAKER / KULSHAN PAINTED BY ALBERT BIERSTADT

 

ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902)

Mount Baker / Kulshan ((3,286 m - 10,781 ft

United States of America

In Mount Baker from the Frazier River, c. 1890, oil on canvas, Brooklyn Museum

The mountain
Mount Baker ((3,286 m - 10,781 ft), also known as Koma Kulshan or simply Kulshan, is a active glaciated andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington in the United States. Mount Baker has the second-most thermally active crater in the Cascade Range after Mount Saint Helens. About 30 miles (48 km)[due east of the city of Bellingham, Whatcom County, Mount Baker is the youngest volcano in the Mount Baker volcanic field. While volcanism has persisted here for some 1.5 million years, the current glaciated cone is likely no more than 140,000 years old, and possibly no older than 80–90,000 years. Older volcanic edifices have mostly eroded away due to glaciation.
After Mount Rainier, Mount Baker is the most heavily glaciated of the Cascade Range volcanoes; the volume of snow and ice on Mount Baker, 0.43 cu mi (1.79 km3) is greater than that of all the other Cascades volcanoes (except Rainier) combined. It is also one of the snowiest places in the world; in 1999, Mount Baker Ski Area, located 9 mi (14.5 km) to the northeast, set the world record for recorded snowfall in a single season—1,140 in (29 m; 95 ft).
Mt. Baker is the third-highest mountain in Washington and the fifth-highest in the Cascade Range, if Little Tahoma Peak, a subpeak of Mount Rainier, and Shastina, a subpeak of Mount Shasta, are not counted.[Located in the Mount Baker Wilderness, it is visible from much of Greater Victoria, Nanaimo, and Greater Vancouver in British Columbia, and to the south, from Seattle (and on clear days Tacoma) in Washington.
Indigenous peoples have known the mountain for thousands of years, but the first written record of the mountain is from Spanish explorer Gonzalo Lopez de Haro, who mapped it in 1790 as Gran Montaña del Carmelo, "Great Mount Carmel". The explorer George Vancouver renamed the mountain for 3rd Lieutenant Joseph Baker of HMS Discovery, who saw it on April 30, 1792.

The painter
Albert Bierstadt was a German-born American painter. He was brought to the United States at the age of one by his parents. He later returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. At an early age Bierstadt developed a taste for art and made clever crayon sketches in his youth.
In 1851, he began to paint in oils. He became part of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along this scenic river. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School....
Full Wandering Vertextes entry =>


___________________________________________
2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TACOMA / MOUNT RAINIER BY CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH

CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH (1776-1859)

Mount Tacoma / Mont Rainier (4,392 m -14,411 ft)

United States of America (Washington)

In Mount Rainier from the South Part of Admiralty Inlet, Watercolor and graphite from Views of Polar region, Yale Center for British arts, Connectitcut USA.

The mountain
Mount Rainier, Mount Tacoma, or Mount Tahoma (4,392 m-14,411 ft) is the highest mountain of the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, and the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a large active stratovolcano located 54 miles (87 km) south-southeast of Seattle. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc.
Mount Rainier was first known by the Native Americans as Talol, or Tacoma or Tahoma.
The current name was given by George Vancouver, who named it in honor of his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. The map of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806 refers to it as "Mt. Regniere". Mount Rainier is ranked third of the 128 ultra-prominent mountain peaks of the United States.
With 26 major glaciers and 36 sq mi (93 km2) of permanent snowfields and glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each more than 1,000 ft (300 m) in diameter, with the larger east crater overlapping the west crater. Geothermal heat from the volcano keeps areas of both crater rims free of snow and ice, and has formed the world's largest volcanic glacier cave network within the ice-filled craters, with nearly 2 mi (3.2 km) of passages. The Carbon, Puyallup, Mowich, Nisqually, and Cowlitz Rivers begin at eponymous glaciers of Mount Rainier. The sources of the White River are Winthrop, Emmons, and Fryingpan Glaciers. The White, Carbon, and Mowich join the Puyallup River, which discharges into Commencement Bay at Tacoma; the Nisqually empties into Puget Sound east of Lacey; and the Cowlitz joins the Columbia River between Kelso and Longview.

The artist
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith, was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier, and... spy as well !. His military career began in 1787, when he studied at the Austrian academy for artillery and engineers at Mechelen and Leuven in Belgium (his native country). Although his military service, which ended in 1820 and included the Napoleonic Wars, saw him travel extensively (including the West Indies, Canada, United States, Southern and Northern Europe and ...Antarctica).
As a prolific self-taught illustrator (over 38,000 drawings!) He left quite an important number of books of beautifully watercolored landscapes taken all around the world. those nooks of watercolors are nowadays in the collections of the Yale Center From British Art. Among them :
- Views of France, Volume I (81 watercolors), Views of France, Volume II (93 watercolors),
- Views of England and Wales, Volume I (82 watercolors), Views of England and Wales, Volume II (74 watercolors),
- Views of Northern Europe, Volume I (68watercolors) , Views of Northern Europe, Volume II (78) watercolors),
- Views of Polar Regions (75 watercolors) (see above)
- Views of Spain, Volume I (69 watercolors), Views of Spain, Volume II (72 watercolors), But one of his noteworthy achievements was an 1800 experiment to determine which color should be used for military uniforms. He is also known in military history circles for Costume of the Army of the British Empire, produced towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and an accurate depiction of contemporary British uniform.
As an antiquarian, he also produced, in collaboration with Samuel Rush Meyrick, Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Islands, 1815, and The Ancient Costume of England, with historical illustrations of medieval knights, ladies, shipsm and battles.
He also wrote on the history of the Seven Years' War and TheNatural history of dogs.
Quite a productive fellow !

___________________________________________ 

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT CAUBVICK/ MONT D'IBERVILLE PAINTED BY ARTHUR P. COLEMAN

 

 

ARTHUR P. COLEMAN (1852-1939)

Mount Caubvick / Mont D'Iberville (1,652 m -5,420 ft) 

Canada (Labrador /Quebec border) 

In Mountains South of Nakvak, Labrador; oil on canvas, 1910, Private collection

The mountain 
Mount Caubvick / Mont D'Iberville (1,652 m -5,420 ft)  is a mountain located in Canada on the border between Labrador and Quebec in the Selamiut Range of the Torngat Mountains. Mount Caubvick is the highest point in mainland Canada east of the Rockies. The mountain contains a massive peak that rises sharply from nearby sea level. Craggy ridges, steep cirques and glaciers are prominent features of the peak.
The alp was named Mont d'Iberville by the Quebec government in 1971. It remained nameless on the Labrador side for several years; it became known unofficially as L1, L for Labrador and 1 for highest. In 1981, at the suggestion of Dr. Peter Neary, the provincial government named the mountain after Caubvick, one of the five Inuit who accompanied George Cartwright to England in 1772.
Mount Caubvick also hosts the highest point in both the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec, although the summit itself lies about 10 metres (33 ft) northeast of the Quebec provincial border and is entirely within Labrador.

The painter
Arthur Philemon Coleman was a Canadian a geologist, professor, minerals prospector, artist, Rockies explorer, backwoods canoeist, world traveller, scientist, popular lecturer, museum administrator, memoirist and... one of Canada’s most beloved scientist.
Arthur Coleman is a fine example of that rare bird, a polished amateur artist whose drawings and paintings stand comfortably beside those of many professionals. He was active during the time when sketching and painting was ceding to photography the task of recording the visible world. Although he was also a photographer, painting was, for him, both a poetic and a descriptive pursuit, a way of wrapping an artistic expression around a phenomenon he was interested in or moved by. Thus motivated, Coleman's paintings give much joy and command a good deal of respect. The more surprising, perhaps given that he used to introduced himself more as a geologist than a painter.
Coleman travelled throughout the United States for professional conferences as well as geological field work. He visited many of the major American mountain ranges including: the American Cordillera Mountains (Washington, Oregon and California); the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California and Nevada); Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, Montana and Idaho); and the Appalachian Mountains (eastern United States). Pleistocene glaciation had extended in Northern Europe as far south as Berlin and London and covered an area of two million square miles. Coleman also visited such countries as India, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Scandinavia, Bolivia, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay. In his final years he made two expeditions to the Andes in Colombia, to mountains in Southern Mexico and to two mountains in Central America. He achieved the first ascent of Castle Mountain in 1884, and in 1907, he was the first white man to attempt to climb Mount Robson. He made a total of eight exploratory trips to the Canadian Rockies, wholly four of them looking for the mythical giants of Hooker and Brown.
"Mount Coleman" and "Coleman Glacier" in Banff National Park are named in his honor.
He was awarded the Penrose Medal in 1936.

_______________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT BAKER / KULSHAN PAINTED BY JONAS LIE

 

JONAS LIE  (1880-1940)

Mount Baker / Kulshan ((3,286 m - 10,781 ft

United States of America

In Mount Baker, 1925, oil on canvas, Courtesy Saranac Lake Free Library

The mountain
Mount Baker ((3,286 m - 10,781 ft), also known as Koma Kulshan or simply Kulshan, is a active glaciated andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington in the United States. Mount Baker has the second-most thermally active crater in the Cascade Range after Mount Saint Helens. About 30 miles (48 km)[due east of the city of Bellingham, Whatcom County, Mount Baker is the youngest volcano in the Mount Baker volcanic field. While volcanism has persisted here for some 1.5 million years, the current glaciated cone is likely no more than 140,000 years old, and possibly no older than 80–90,000 years. Older volcanic edifices have mostly eroded away due to glaciation.
After Mount Rainier, Mount Baker is the most heavily glaciated of the Cascade Range volcanoes; the volume of snow and ice on Mount Baker, 0.43 cu mi (1.79 km3) is greater than that of all the other Cascades volcanoes (except Rainier) combined. It is also one of the snowiest places in the world; in 1999, Mount Baker Ski Area, located 9 mi (14.5 km) to the northeast, set the world record for recorded snowfall in a single season—1,140 in (29 m; 95 ft).
Mt. Baker is the third-highest mountain in Washington and the fifth-highest in the Cascade Range, if Little Tahoma Peak, a subpeak of Mount Rainier, and Shastina, a subpeak of Mount Shasta, are not counted.[Located in the Mount Baker Wilderness, it is visible from much of Greater Victoria, Nanaimo, and Greater Vancouver in British Columbia, and to the south, from Seattle (and on clear days Tacoma) in Washington.
Indigenous peoples have known the mountain for thousands of years, but the first written record of the mountain is from Spanish explorer Gonzalo Lopez de Haro, who mapped it in 1790 as Gran Montaña del Carmelo, "Great Mount Carmel". The explorer George Vancouver renamed the mountain for 3rd Lieutenant Joseph Baker of HMS Discovery, who saw it on April 30, 1792.

The painter
Jonas Lie was a Norwegian-born American painter. He is best known for colorful paintings of coastlines of New England and city scenes of New York City.
Between 1901 and the memorial exhibition in 1940 his work was shown all over America. In 1905 Lie exhibited 34 pictures in the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn Museum of Art. Between 1905 and 1938 Lie had 57 one-man shows, each including from 12 to 45 paintings. He participated in important annual and biennial exhibitions at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington as well as most of the world fairs. While living in Panama in 1913, he painted scenes of the construction of Panama Canal which were later donated to U.S. Military Academy at West Point in memory of the West Pointer who, as chief engineer, was most potent in channeling the isthmus, General George W. Goethals. In 1932, Jonas Lie was awarded the Knight of Order of St. Olav by the King of Norway.
Jonas Lie often depicted the sea, channels, and ships with dramatic perspective and powerful use of color. He became known for colorful impressionistic scenes of harbors & coves, painted during the many summers he spent on the coasts of New England & Canada. Throughout his prolific career he painted brilliantly colored images of the rocky coves and harbors that identify the region's dramatic shoreline.

___________________________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TACOMA / RAINIER BY HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博

HIROSHI YOSHIDA / 吉田 博 (1876-1950)

Mount Tacoma also called Mont Rainier (4,392 m -14,411 ft) 

United States of America (Washington)

In Mt. Rainier USA- Woodblock print - 1925

The mountain
Mount Rainier, Mount Tacoma, or Mount Tahoma (4,392 m-14,411 ft) is the highest mountain of the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, and the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a large active stratovolcano located 54 miles (87 km) south-southeast of Seattle. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc.
Mount Rainier was first known by the Native Americans as Talol, or Tacoma or Tahoma. One hypothesis of the word origin is ("mother of waters"), in the Lushootseed language spoken by the Puyallup people. Another hypothesis is that "Tacoma" means "larger than Mount Baker" in Lushootseed: "Ta", larger, plus "Koma", Mount Baker. Other names originally used include Tahoma, Tacobeh, and Pooskaus.
The current name was given by George Vancouver, who named it in honor of his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. The map of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806 refers to it as "Mt. Regniere".
This peak is located just east of Eatonville and just southeast of Seattle and Tacoma. Mount Rainier is ranked third of the 128 ultra-prominent mountain peaks of the United States.

More about Mont Tacoma /Rainier 

The painter
Hiroshi Yoshida (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.

_______________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT WASHINGTON BY JOHN MARIN

JOHN MARIN  (1870-1953)

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

United States of America (New Hampshire) 

The mountain 

Mount Washington (1, 916m - 6, 286ft) is the highest point in the northeastern United States. It is located in the White Mountains in the county of Coos. Most of the mountain is located in the White Mountain National Forest and Mount Washington State Park.
The mountain is called Agiocochook, the "abode of the great spirit," by the Amerindians. A scientific expedition led by geologist Dr. Cutler named Mount Washington in 1784.
While the western slope, which climbs the Cog Railway, is regular from its base, the other slopes are more complex. To the north, Great Gulf, the largest glacial circus in the mountains, is surrounded by the Northern Presidentials, namely Clay, Jefferson, Adams and Madison Mountains. These peaks reach far beyond the alpine zone beyond the tree line. The imposing Chandler Ridge extends northeast from the top of Mount Washington to form the southern wall of the amphitheater. It is paced by a motorway to the summit.
The first European to mention the mountain is Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, who sees it from the Atlantic Ocean and describes it as a "high mountain of the interior". Irishman Darby Field says he made his first ascent in 1642.

More about Mount Washington 

The painter
John Marin was a seminal American modernist painter. He was one of the first Americans to employ techniques of abstraction in his calligraphic depictions of landscapes and city streets. Along with Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O’Keeffe, Marin helped introduce a new aesthetic model for American painters. “I must for myself insist that when finished, that is when all the parts are in place and are working, that now it has become an object and will therefore have its boundaries as definite as the prow, the stern, the sides, and bottom bound as a boat” he once reflected.
Marin started his career in art later in life, graduating from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1901 at the age of 30. In 1905, he travelled to Europe, lived in Paris (1905-1909) where he developed his signature watercolor technique and met the artist Edward Steichen. It was Steichen that introduced his work to the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who mounted Marin’s first solo show in 1909, and financially supported the artist over the remainder of his career.
Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.
He developed a more dynamic, fractured style from 1912 to depict the interaction of conflicting forces, and gradually evolved summary ways of rendering his vivid impressions of sea, sky, mountains or the skyscrapers of Manhattan. In the 1920s worked almost exclusively in watercolour; after 1930 painted largely in oils.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE WHITES PAINTED BY CHILDE HASSAM

CHILDE HASSAM (1859-1935)

White Mountains (1,917m - 6,288ft) 

United States of America (New Hampshire) 

In Spring In White Mountains, oil on canvas

The mountains
The White Mountains (1,917m - 6,288ft) also called The Whites are a mountain range covering about a quarter of the state of New Hampshire and a small portion of western Maine in the United States. They are part of the northern Appalachian Mountains and the most rugged mountains in New England. The range is heavily visited due to its proximity to Boston and, to a lesser extent, New York City and Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Most of the area is public land, including the White Mountain National Forest and a number of state parks. Its most famous mountain is Mount Washington (1,917 m- 6,288-ft) which is the highest peak in the Northeastern U.S. and for 76 years held the record for fastest surface wind gust in the world (231 miles per hour (372 km/h) in 1934 .
The White Mountains also include the Franconia Range, Sandwich Range, Carter-Moriah Range and Kinsman Range in New Hampshire, and the Mahoosuc Range straddling the border between it and Maine. In all, there are 48 peaks within New Hampshire as well as one (Old Speck Mountain) in Maine over 4,000 feet (1,200 m), known as the four-thousand footers.
The Whites are known for a system of alpine huts for hikers operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club. The Appalachian Trail crosses the area from southwest to northeast.

The painter
Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.
In 1904 and 1908, he traveled to Oregon and was stimulated by new subjects and diverse views, frequently working out-of-doors with friend, lawyer and amateur painter Colonel C. E. S. Wood.
He produced over 100 paintings, pastels, and watercolors of the High Desert, the rugged coast, the Cascades, scenes of Portland. As usual, he adapted his style and colors to the subject at hand and the mood of place, but always in the Impressionist vein. With the art market now eagerly accepting his work, by 1909 Hassam was enjoying great success, earning as much as $6,000 per painting. His close friend and fellow artist J. Alden Weir commented to another artist : "Our mutual friend Hassam has been in the greatest of luck and merited success. He sold his apartment studio and has sold more pictures this winter, I think, than ever before and is really on the crest of the wave. So he goes around with a crisp, cheerful air."

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT ROBSON BY ARTHUR P. COLEMAN

ARTHUR P. COLEMAN (1852-1939)
Mount Robson (3,954 m - 12, 972 ft) 

Canada (British Columbia)

  In Mount Robson glacier -cutting steps, oil on canvas

The mountain 

Mount Robson (3,954 m - 12, 972 ft) is the most prominent mountain in North America's Rocky Mountain range; it is also the highest point in the Canadian Rockies. The mountain is located entirely within Mount Robson Provincial Park of British Columbia, and is part of the Rainbow Range. Mount Robson is the second highest peak entirely in British Columbia, behind Mount Waddington in the Coast Range. The south face of Mount Robson is clearly visible from the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16), and is commonly photographed along this route.

Mount Robson was likely named after Colin Robertson, who worked for both the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company at various times in the early 19th century, though there was confusion over the name as many assumed it to have been named for John Robson, an early premier of British Columbia. The Texqakallt, a Secwepemc people and the earliest inhabitants of the area, call it Yuh-hai-has-kun (The Mountain of the Spiral Road). Other unofficial names include Cloud Cap Mountain.

In 1893, five years after the expedition of A.P. Coleman to Athabasca Pass and the final settling of the mistaken elevations of Mt. Hooker and Mt. Brown, Mt. Robson was first surveyed by James McEvoy and determined to be the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The first documented ascent of Mount Robson, led by the young guide Conrad Kain, at its time the hardest ice face to be climbed on the continent, was achieved during the 1913 annual expedition organized by a large party of Alpine Club of Canada members who made use of the newly completed Grand Trunk Pacific railway to access the area. Prior to 1913, it had been necessary to approach the mountain by pack train from Edmonton or Laggan via Jasper and Lucerne, so only few intrepid explorers had made previous attempts at exploring the mountain. The most famous early ascensionist was the Reverend George Kinney, a founding member of the Alpine Club, who on his twelfth attempt in August 1909 claimed to have reached the summit with local outfitter Donald "Curly" Phillips. A major controversy over this claim and over the implausible nature of his unlikely and dangerous route dominated the discourse within the Alpine Club elite, and he is now generally presumed to have reached the high summit ridge before being turned back at the final ice dome of the peak. Kinney Lake, below the south face, is named in his honour.

The north face of Mount Robson is heavily glaciated and 800 m (2,600 ft) of ice extends from the summit to Berg Glacier. The Berg glacier calves directly into the lake. The Robson Glacier, which fills the cirque and valley between Mount Robson and Mount Resplendent, in the early 1900s fed directly into both Berg lake and Adolphus lake, straddling the Continental Divide and draining thus to both the Arctic and Pacific oceans via the Smoky and Robson Rivers, respectively. It since has receded more than 2 kilometres and is the source of the Robson River only.

The painter 
Arthur Philemon Coleman was a Canadian a geologist, professor, minerals prospector, artist, Rockies explorer, backwoods canoeist, world traveller, scientist, popular lecturer, museum administrator, memoirist and...  one of Canada’s most beloved scientist.
Arthur Coleman is a fine example of that rare bird, a polished amateur artist whose drawings and paintings stand comfortably beside those of many professionals. He was active during the time when sketching and painting was ceding to photography the task of recording the visible world. Although he was also a photographer, painting was, for him, both a poetic and a descriptive pursuit, a way of wrapping an artistic expression around a phenomenon he was interested in or moved by. Thus motivated, Coleman's paintings give much joy and command a good deal of respect. The more surprising, perhaps given that he used to introduced himself more as a geologist than a painter.
Coleman travelled throughout the United States for professional conferences as well as geological field work.  He visited many of the major American mountain ranges including: the American Cordillera Mountains (Washington, Oregon and California); the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California and Nevada); Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, Montana and Idaho); and the Appalachian Mountains (eastern United States). Pleistocene glaciation had extended in Northern Europe as far south as Berlin and London and covered an area of two million square miles. Coleman also visited such countries as India, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Scandinavia, Bolivia, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay. In his final years he made two expeditions to the Andes in Colombia, to mountains in Southern Mexico and to two mountains in Central America.  He achieved the first ascent of Castle Mountain in 1884, and in 1907, he was the first white man to attempt to climb Mount Robson. He made a total of eight exploratory trips to the Canadian Rockies, wholly four of them looking for the mythical giants of Hooker and Brown.
 "Mount Coleman" and "Coleman Glacier" in Banff National Park are named in his honor.
He was awarded the Penrose Medal in 1936.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau