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."

_______________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT LAFAYETTE PAINTED BY WILLIAM TROST RICHARDS

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

United State of America  (New Hampshire)

In Moonlight on Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire, 1873, 

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

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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

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

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

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE WHITES PAINTED BY WINSLOW HOMER

WINSLOW HOMER (1836-1910) 

White Mountains (1,917m - 6,288ft) 

United States of America (New Hampshire) 

In Artists Sketching in the White Mountains, oil on panel, 1868, 40 cm x 21 cm, 

 Portland Museum of Art 

The mountain
The White Mountains 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 artist
Winslow Homer was a major American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art.
Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations.
Homer never taught in a school or privately, as did Thomas Eakins, but his works strongly influenced succeeding generations of American painters for their direct and energetic interpretation of man's stoic relationship to an often neutral and sometimes harsh wilderness.
American illustrator and teacher Howard Pyle revered Homer and encouraged his students to study him. His student and fellow illustrator, N. C. Wyeth (and through him Andrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth), shared the influence and appreciation, even following Homer to Maine for inspiration. The elder Wyeth's respect for his antecedent was "intense and absolute" and can be observed in his early work Mowing (1907). Perhaps Homer's austere individualism is best captured in his admonition to artists: "Look at nature, work independently, and solve your own problems."

___________________________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE WHITES PAINTED BY ALBERT BIERSTADT

 ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902) 

White Mountains  (1,917m - 6,288ft) 

United States of America  (New Hampshire) 

In  Turbulent Clouds, White Mountains, New Hampshire,  oil on canvas, 1858 

The mountain 

The White Mountains 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  (1,917 m- 6,288-ft) Mount Washington, 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 

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.

In 1858 he exhibited a large painting of a Swiss landscape at the National Academy of Design, which gained him positive critical reception and honorary membership in the Academy.  At this time Bierstadt began painting scenes in New England and upstate New York, including in the Hudson River valley. A group of artists known as the Hudson River School portrayed its majestic landscapes and craggy areas, as well as the light affected by the changing waters.

In 1859, Bierstadt traveled westward in the company of Frederick W. Lander, a land surveyor for the U.S. government, to see those landscapes.  He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.

During the American Civil War, Bierstadt paid for a substitute to serve in his place when he was drafted in 1863. He completed one Civil War painting Guerrilla Warfare, Civil War in 1862, based on his brief experiences with soldiers stationed at Camp Cameron in 1861.

Bierstadt's painting was based on a stereoscopic photograph taken by his brother Edward Bierstadt, who operated a photography studio at Langley's Tavern in Virginia. Bierstadt's painting received a positive review when it was exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1861. Curator Eleanor Jones Harvey observes that Bierstadt's painting, created from photographs, "is quintessentially that of a voyeur, privy to the stories and unblemished by the violence and brutality of first-hand combat experience."

In 1860, he was elected a member of the National Academy; he received medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany.[ In 1867 he traveled to London, where he exhibited two landscape paintings in a private reception with Queen Victoria. He traveled through Europe for two years, cultivating social and business contacts to sustain the market for his work overseas.

As a result of the publicity generated by his Yosemite paintings, Bierstadt's presence was requested by every explorer considering a westward expedition, and he was commissioned by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to visit the Grand Canyon for further subject matter.

Bierstadt's technical proficiency, earned through his study of European landscape, was crucial to his success as a painter of the American West. It accounted for his popularity in disseminating views of the Rockies to those who had not seen them. The immense canvases he produced after his trips with Lander and Ludlow established him as the preeminent painter of the western American landscape. 

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the romanticism evident in his choices of subject and his use of light was felt to be excessive. 

In 1882 Bierstadt's studio at Irvington, New York, was destroyed by fire, resulting in the loss of many of his paintings. By the time of his death on February 18, 1902, the taste for epic landscape painting had long since subsided. Bierstadt was then largely forgotten. He was buried at the Rural Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Interest in his work was renewed in the 1960s, with the exhibition of his small oil studies. The subsequent reassessment of Bierstadt's work has placed it in a favorable context.

Bierstadt's theatrical art, fervent sociability, international outlook, and unquenchable personal energy reflected the epic expansion in every facet of western civilization during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Bierstadt was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 paintings during his lifetime. Many of these are held by museums across the United States.

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT ST HELENA / KANAMOTA BY THOMAS HILL

THOMAS HILL (1829-1908) 

 Mount St. Helena / Kanamota  (1, 323 m - 4,342 ft)  

United States of America  (California) 

 In Mount St. Helena, Napa Valley, 1887, oil on canvas, Private Collection  

The mountain
Mount Saint Helena or  Kanamota  (1, 323 m - 4,342 ft)   which means "Human Mountain", not to be confused with the volcano Mount St Helens (Washington State) is a peak in the Mayacamas Mountains with flanks in Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties of California. Composed of uplifted 2.4-million-year-old volcanic rocks from the Clear Lake Volcanic Field, it is one of the few mountains in the San Francisco Bay Area to receive any snowfall during the winter.
The mountain has five peaks, arranged in a rough "M" shape. Its highest point, North Peak, is in Sonoma County. The second-tallest, immediately east of the main summit, is the highest point in Napa County.
Mount Saint Helena has had an explosive history of pyroclastic flows that resulted in The Petrified Forest. Mount Saint Helena was originally named Mount Mayacamas, but the name was changed after a Russian survey party ascended the peak in 1841 and left a copper plate on the summit inscribed with the date of their visit. The plate also bore the name of Princess Helena de Gagarin, wife of Count Alexander G. Rotchev, the commanding officer of Fort Ross.
Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne spent the summer of 1880 honeymooning in an abandoned mining camp on Mount Saint Helena. Stevenson's book The Silverado Squatters includes his experiences while living there.
 The mount is also described by Ambrose Bierce in his ghost story The Death of Halpin Frayser.
The peak is reachable by hiking trails leading from Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. The trails are approximately 6 miles long.

The painter
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Hill’s work was often driven by a vision resulting from his experiences with nature. For Thomas Hill, Yosemite Valley and the White Mountains of New Hampshire were his sources of inspiration to begin painting and captured his direct response to nature.
Hill was loosely associated with the Hudson River School of painters. The Hudson River School celebrated nature with a sense of awe for its natural resources, which brought them a feeling of enthusiasm when thinking of the potential it held. Mainly the earlier members of the Hudson River School, around the 1850-60’s, displayed man as in unison with nature in their landscape paintings by often painting men on a very small scale compared to the vast landscape. Thomas Hill often brought this technique into his own paintings in for example in his painting, Yosemite Valley, 1889.
He made early trips to the White Mountains with his friend Benjamin Champney and painted White Mountain subjects throughout his career. An example of his White Mountain subjects is Mount Lafayette in his Mount Lafayette in Winter.
Hill acquired the technique of painting en plein air. These paintings in the field later served as the basis for larger finished works.
In plein air means to “paint outdoors and directly from the landscape”,[ which Hill incorporated into many of his paintings. Hill’s landscape paintings demonstrate how he combined his powers of observation with powerful motifs in each painting.
Hill’s move to California in 1861 brought him new material for his paintings. He chose monumental vistas, like Yosemite. During his lifetime, Hill’s paintings were popular in California, costing as much as $10,000.  Hill's best works are considered to be these monumental subjects, including Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Vernal Falls and Yosemite Valley.

MOUNT CHOCORUA PAINTED BY ASHER BROWN DURAND

ASHER BROWN DURAND (1796-1886)

Mount  Chocorua (1,061m - 3,480 ft)
United States of America (New Hampshire)  

In  Chocorua Peak,  oil  on canvas, 1855, RISD Museum

About this painting 

Asher B. Durand spent the summer of 1855 in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, staying at North Conway, near Mount Chocorua. It was the first return to the region in many years for this senior and most admired painter of the American landscape. The stark view of Mount Chocorua, a summit known for its sheer precipices, was unusual for Durand, who often enlivened his landscapes with small figures. He also avoided the dramatic potential of weather, concentrating instead on the mountain’s harsh profile. Conscious of the uniqueness of the American landscape, Durand published advice to younger painters that same year. In his “Letters on Landscape Painting” he urged them to work directly from nature and to “go not abroad” but concentrate instead on indigenous resources and the scenery of their native land.

The painter 

Asher Brown Durand was an American painter of the Hudson River School. His main interest changed from engraving to oil painting about 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. During 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks Mountains and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School.

Durand is remembered particularly for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth."

Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general opinions on art in his essay "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical.

The mountain 
Mount Chocorua (1,061m - 3,480 ft) is a summit in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the easternmost peak of the Sandwich Range. Although the range is not outstanding for its elevation, it is very rugged and has excellent views of the surrounding lakes, mountains, and forests. Mount Chocorua's bare summit can be seen from almost every direction and can be identified from many points throughout central New Hampshire and western Maine.
It is believed that Chocorua was the name of a Native American man in the 18th century, although no authentic records of his life exist. The usual story is that in about 1720 Chocorua was on friendly terms with settlers and in particular the Campbell family that had a home in the valley now called Tamworth. Chocorua was called away and left his son in the care of the Campbell family. The boy found and drank a poison that Mr. Campbell had made to eliminate troublesome foxes, and Chocorua returned to find his son had died. Chocorua, distraught with grief, pledged revenge on the family. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Campbell returned home one afternoon to find his wife and children had been slain. Campbell suspected Chocorua and pursued him up the mountain that today bears his name. Chocorua was wounded by a shot from Campbell's rifle. Before Campbell could reach Chocorua, he uttered a curse upon the white settlers and their homes, livestock, and crops, and leapt from the summit to his death. There are at least three other versions of the legend of Chocorua...
Mount Chocorua is a popular destination for hikers. Although it is under 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in elevation, its bare and rocky summit commands excellent views in all directions. Since most trails begin at much lower elevations, a hike to the summit is a strenuous exercise. There are many trails up the mountain, and they can be quite crowded during the summer months. Especially popular are the Piper Trail (4.2 miles (6.8 km) each way from the east), the Champney Falls Trail (from the north), and the Liberty Trail (from the southwest).

MUIR GLACIER PAINTED BY THOMAS HILL

THOMAS HILL (1829-1908)
Muir Glacier (90 m - 200 ft)
United States of America ( Alaska)

In Muir Glacier, Alaska. oil on canvas, Oakland Museum of California

The Glacier
Muir Glacier is a glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is currently about 0.7 km (0.43 mi) wide at the terminus. As recently as the mid-1980s the glacier was a tidewater glacier and calved icebergs from a wall of ice 90 m (200 feet) tall.
The glacier is named after Scottish-born naturalist John Muir, who traveled around the area and wrote about it, generating interest in the local environment and in its preservation. His first two visits were in 1879 (at age 41) and 1880. During the visits, he sent an account of his visits in installments to the San Francisco Bulletin. Later, he collected and edited these installments in a book, Travels in Alaska, published in 1915, the year after he died.
Muir Glacier has undergone very rapid, well-documented retreat since its Little Ice Age maximum position at the mouth of Glacier Bay around 1780. In 1794, the explorer Captain George Vancouver found that most of Glacier Bay was covered by an enormous ice sheet, some 1,200 meters (3,900 ft) in places.
In 1904 the glacier reportedly "broke through the mountains" with Pyramid Peak to the west and Mt. Wright and Mount Case to the east.
From 1892 to approximately 1980, it had retreated nearly 32 kilometers (20 mi). Between 1941 and 2004, the glacier retreated more than 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) and thinned by over 800 meters (2,600 ft). Ocean water has filled the valley replacing the ice and creating Muir Inlet.

The painter
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Hill’s work was often driven by a vision resulting from his experiences with nature. For Thomas Hill, Yosemite Valley and the White Mountains of New Hampshire were his sources of inspiration to begin painting and captured his direct response to nature.
Hill was loosely associated with the Hudson River School of painters. The Hudson River School celebrated nature with a sense of awe for its natural resources, which brought them a feeling of enthusiasm when thinking of the potential it held. Mainly the earlier members of the Hudson River School, around the 1850-60’s, displayed man as in unison with nature in their landscape paintings by often painting men on a very small scale compared to the vast landscape. Thomas Hill often brought this technique into his own paintings in for example in his painting, Yosemite Valley, 1889.
He made early trips to the White Mountains with his friend Benjamin Champney and painted White Mountain subjects throughout his career. An example of his White Mountain subjects is Mount Lafayette in his Mount Lafayette in Winter.
Hill acquired the technique of painting en plein air. These paintings in the field later served as the basis for larger finished works. In plein air means to “paint outdoors and directly from the landscape”,[ which Hill incorporated into many of his paintings. Hill’s landscape paintings demonstrate how he combined his powers of observation with powerful motifs in each painting.
Hill’s move to California in 1861 brought him new material for his paintings. He chose monumental vistas, like Yosemite. During his lifetime, Hill’s paintings were popular in California, costing as much as $10,000. Hill's best works are considered to be these monumental subjects, including Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Vernal Falls and Yosemite Valley.

___________________________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

HALF DOME PAINTED BY THOMAS HILL

 THOMAS HILL (1829-1908),

Half Dome (2, 695 m - 8,844 ft)

United States of America (California)

In Royal Arches And Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, Private collection

The mountain
Half Dome (2, 695 m - 8,844 ft) is a granite dome at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California, part of the Sierra Nevada Range. It is a well-known rock formation in the park, named for its distinct shape; One side is a sheer face while the other three sides are smooth and round, making it appear like a dome cut in half. The granite crest rises more than 4,737 ft (1,444 m) above the valley floor. The impression from the valley floor that this is a round dome that has lost its northwest half is an illusion. From Washburn Point, Half Dome can be seen as a thin ridge of rock, an arête, that is oriented northeast-southwest, with its southeast side almost as steep as its northwest side except for the very top. Although the trend of this ridge, as well as that of Tenaya Canyon, is probably controlled by master joints, 80 percent of the northwest "half" of the original dome may well still be there. As late as the 1870s, Half Dome was described as "perfectly inaccessible" by Josiah Whitney of the California Geological Survey. The summit was finally conquered by George G. Anderson in October 1875, via a route constructed by drilling and placing iron eyebolts into the smooth granite.
Today, Half Dome may now be ascended in several different ways. Thousands of hikers reach the top each year by following an 8.5 mi (13.7 km) trail from the valley floor. After a rigorous 2 mi (3.2 km) approach, including several hundred feet of granite stairs, the final pitch up the peak's steep but somewhat rounded east face is ascended with the aid of a pair of post-mounted braided steel cables originally constructed close to the Anderson route in 1919.
Alternatively, over a dozen rock climbing routes lead from the valley up Half Dome's vertical northwest face. The first technical ascent was in 1957 via a route pioneered by Royal Robbins, Mike Sherrick, and Jerry Gallwas, today known as the Regular Northwest Face. Their five-day epic was the first Grade VI climb in the United States. Their route has now been free soloed several times in a few hours' time. Other technical routes ascend the south face and the west shoulder.

The painter
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Hill’s work was often driven by a vision resulting from his experiences with nature. For Thomas Hill, Yosemite Valley and the White Mountains of New Hampshire were his sources of inspiration to begin painting and captured his direct response to nature.
Hill was loosely associated with the Hudson River School of painters. The Hudson River School celebrated nature with a sense of awe for its natural resources, which brought them a feeling of enthusiasm when thinking of the potential it held. Mainly the earlier members of the Hudson River School, around the 1850-60’s, displayed man as in unison with nature in their landscape paintings by often painting men on a very small scale compared to the vast landscape. Thomas Hill often brought this technique into his own paintings in for example in his painting, Yosemite Valley, 1889.
He made early trips to the White Mountains with his friend Benjamin Champney and painted White Mountain subjects throughout his career. An example of his White Mountain subjects is Mount Lafayette in his Mount Lafayette in Winter.
Hill acquired the technique of painting en plein air. These paintings in the field later served as the basis for larger finished works. In plein air means to “paint outdoors and directly from the landscape”,[ which Hill incorporated into many of his paintings. Hill’s landscape paintings demonstrate how he combined his powers of observation with powerful motifs in each painting.
Hill’s move to California in 1861 brought him new material for his paintings. He chose monumental vistas, like Yosemite. During his lifetime, Hill’s paintings were popular in California, costing as much as $10,000. Hill's best works are considered to be these monumental subjects, including Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Vernal Falls and Yosemite Valley.

___________________________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TALLAC PAINTED BY THOMAS HILL

THOMAS HILL (1829-1908) 

Mount Tallac (2,968m - 9, 739ft) 

United States of America (California) 

In  Mount Tallac from Lake Tahoe, 1880, oil on canvas, San Fransisco De Young Museum

The mountain
Mount Tallac  (2,968m - 9, 739ft) is a mountain peak southwest of Lake Tahoe, in El Dorado County, California. The peak lies within the Desolation Wilderness in the Eldorado National Forest.
Mount Tallac is quite visible from State Routes 89 and 28, and U.S. Route 50.  It is probably the most recognizable of the Tahoe Area peaks. With its distinctive "cross" of snow rising directly above the southwest corner of Lake Tahoe, Mount Tallac commands attention. While neither the highest peak in the area nor the hardest to summit, Mount Tallac nonetheless serves up enough adventure to satisfy nearly everyone.  Compared to the giants of the southern Sierra Nevada, Mount Tallac is a mere child. Still, it stands over 3,500 feet above the surface of Lake Tahoe, and from the summit, one may take in panoramic views of that amazing lake, as well as the enchanting peaks of Desolation Wilderness area. .The views from the summit, as well as the mountain's proximity to highway 89 and its wide selection of terrain types, make Mount Tallac one of the top hiking and backcountry skiing destinations in California.
Geologically, Mount Tallac is situated roughly on the boundary between the granites of the Sierra Nevada batholith, and the earlier metamorphosed sedimentary rocks. The southern and eastern slopes, especially Cathedral Peak, are crumbly, clinky "metaseds", while the other parts of the mountain are a bit more solid, but not Sierran granite, quite like Mount Ritter.
Source:
- Summit post

The painter
Thomas Hill was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Hill’s work was often driven by a vision resulting from his experiences with nature. For Thomas Hill, Yosemite Valley and the White Mountains of New Hampshire were his sources of inspiration to begin painting and captured his direct response to nature.
Hill was loosely associated with the Hudson River School of painters. The Hudson River School celebrated nature with a sense of awe for its natural resources, which brought them a feeling of enthusiasm when thinking of the potential it held. Mainly the earlier members of the Hudson River School, around the 1850-60’s, displayed man as in unison with nature in their landscape paintings by often painting men on a very small scale compared to the vast landscape. Thomas Hill often brought this technique into his own paintings in for example in his painting, Yosemite Valley, 1889.
He made early trips to the White Mountains with his friend Benjamin Champney and painted White Mountain subjects throughout his career. An example of his White Mountain subjects is Mount Lafayette in his Mount Lafayette in Winter.
Hill acquired the technique of painting en plein air. These paintings in the field later served as the basis for larger finished works.
In plein air means to “paint outdoors and directly from the landscape”,[ which Hill incorporated into many of his paintings. Hill’s landscape paintings demonstrate how he combined his powers of observation with powerful motifs in each painting.
Hill’s move to California in 1861 brought him new material for his paintings. He chose monumental vistas, like Yosemite. During his lifetime, Hill’s paintings were popular in California, costing as much as $10,000.  Hill's best works are considered to be these monumental subjects, including Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Vernal Falls and Yosemite Valley.
Source: 
- Sullivan Goss An American Gallery 

MOUNT WASHINGTON PAINTED BY AARON DRAPER SHATTUCK

AARON DRAPER SHATTUCK (1832-1928)

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.
The Crawford Path, the oldest hiking trail in the United States, was established in 1819 as a mule track from the Crawford Notch Gorge to the summit and has been in use since that time. Ethan Allen Crawford built a lodge at the summit in 1821 that resisted a storm five years later.  In the middle of the nineteenth century, the mountain became a major tourist destination of the country, with the construction of new trails and two hotels. The Summit House, a 20-meter-long stone building with a roof attached to four heavy chains, was opened in 1852. The following year, the Tip-Top House was erected to compete with it. Rebuilt in wood with 91 rooms in 1872-1873, the Summit House burned in 1908 and was replaced by a granite building in 1915. Only the Tip-Top House resists fire; it is now classified in the National Register of Historic Places and has recently been renovated to house exhibitions. Among the attractions of the Victorian era is also a coach road built in 1861, now the Mount Washington Auto Road, and the Mount Washington Cog Railway, a cog railway established in 1869, in service.

The artist 
Aaron Draper Shattuck was an American painter of the White Mountain School. He was born in Francestown, New Hampshire. A second-generation artist affiliated with the Hudson River School, Shattuck differed from most of his contemporaries in that he never studied abroad, and appears to have spent his entire life in New England.
Shattuck studied portrait painting with Alexander Ransom in Boston in 1851, and in 1852 was a student at the National Academy of Design in New York City. In 1854 he first painted in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  The following year he exhibited for the first time at both the National Academy and the Boston Athenaeum. In 1856 he was elected an associate of the National Academy, and was made a full Academician in 1861.
From 1856 to 1870 Shattuck worked at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City.  In 1883 he invented a canvas stretcher bar key which was used by artists of the era, and which contributed to Shattuck's considerable wealth.
In 1888 Shattuck suffered the effects of a serious illness, after which he ceased to paint. After recovering he followed other agrarian and creative pursuits, raising sheep, experimenting with apple tree grafts, and making violins.  Prior to his death in 1928 at the age of 96 he was the oldest living member of the National Academy of Design.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau,  #wandering-silent-vertexes

MOUNT CHOCORUA PAINTED BY JOHN MARIN

JOHN MARIN (1870-1953)

Mount Chocorua (1,061m - 3,480 ft)

United States of America (New Hampshire)

In Mount Chocorua, White Mountains series,  watercolor, 1926.

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.

The mountain 
Mount Chocorua (1,061m - 3,480 ft) is a summit in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the easternmost peak of the Sandwich Range. Although the range is not outstanding for its elevation, it is very rugged and has excellent views of the surrounding lakes, mountains, and forests. Mount Chocorua's bare summit can be seen from almost every direction and can be identified from many points throughout central New Hampshire and western Maine.
It is believed that Chocorua was the name of a Native American man in the 18th century, although no authentic records of his life exist. The usual story is that in about 1720 Chocorua was on friendly terms with settlers and in particular the Campbell family that had a home in the valley now called Tamworth. Chocorua was called away and left his son in the care of the Campbell family. The boy found and drank a poison that Mr. Campbell had made to eliminate troublesome foxes, and Chocorua returned to find his son had died. Chocorua, distraught with grief, pledged revenge on the family. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Campbell returned home one afternoon to find his wife and children had been slain. Campbell suspected Chocorua and pursued him up the mountain that today bears his name. Chocorua was wounded by a shot from Campbell's rifle. Before Campbell could reach Chocorua, he uttered a curse upon the white settlers and their homes, livestock, and crops, and leapt from the summit to his death. There are at least three other versions of the legend of Chocorua...
Mount Chocorua is a popular destination for hikers. Although it is under 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in elevation, its bare and rocky summit commands excellent views in all directions. Since most trails begin at much lower elevations, a hike to the summit is a strenuous exercise. There are many trails up the mountain, and they can be quite crowded during the summer months. Especially popular are the Piper Trail (4.2 miles (6.8 km) each way from the east), the Champney Falls Trail (from the north), and the Liberty Trail (from the southwest).

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT CHOCORUA PAINTED BY ALVAN FISCHER

ALVAN FISCHER (1792-1863)

Mount  Chocorua (1,061m - 3,480 ft)  

United States of America (New Hampshire)  

In Mount Chocorua Pond and Adjacent Scenery 1860, oil on canvas,  Private collection

The mountain 

Mount Chocorua (1,061m - 3,480 ft) is a summit in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the easternmost peak of the Sandwich Range. Although the range is not outstanding for its elevation, it is very rugged and has excellent views of the surrounding lakes, mountains, and forests. Mount Chocorua's bare summit can be seen from almost every direction and can be identified from many points throughout central New Hampshire and western Maine.

It is believed that Chocorua was the name of a Native American man in the 18th century, although no authentic records of his life exist. The usual story is that in about 1720 Chocorua was on friendly terms with settlers and in particular the Campbell family that had a home in the valley now called Tamworth. Chocorua was called away and left his son in the care of the Campbell family. The boy found and drank a poison that Mr. Campbell had made to eliminate troublesome foxes, and Chocorua returned to find his son had died. Chocorua, distraught with grief, pledged revenge on the family. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Campbell returned home one afternoon to find his wife and children had been slain. Campbell suspected Chocorua and pursued him up the mountain that today bears his name. Chocorua was wounded by a shot from Campbell's rifle. Before Campbell could reach Chocorua, he uttered a curse upon the white settlers and their homes, livestock, and crops, and leapt from the summit to his death. There are at least three other versions of the legend of Chocorua... 

Mount Chocorua is a popular destination for hikers. Although it is under 3,500 feet (1,100 m) in elevation, its bare and rocky summit commands excellent views in all directions. Since most trails begin at much lower elevations, a hike to the summit is a strenuous exercise. There are many trails up the mountain, and they can be quite crowded during the summer months. Especially popular are the Piper Trail (4.2 miles (6.8 km) each way from the east), the Champney Falls Trail (from the north), and the Liberty Trail (from the southwest).

The painter 
Alvan Fisher  was one of the United States's pioneers in landscape painting and genre works.
Fisher traveled throughout the northeastern United States searching out sites of landscape beauty such as the views of Springfield, Hartford, and Providence and the spectacular scenery of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He sketched outdoors and began to compose pastoral scenes in his studio before Thomas Cole or others of the Hudson River School gave serious attention to nature. The Watering Place, 1816, now in the collection of Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts, is his earliest extant pure landscape. His paintings of Niagara Falls, commissioned by Judge Daniel Appleton White of Salem, Massachusetts, were completed following his visit there in 1820.
In April, 1825, Fisher sailed for a tour of the great art centers of Europe. He was the first important American landscapist to make such a tour. He visited England, France, Italy and Switzerland, countries considered important for any artist's professional stature and artistic maturation. In London he visited private collections and was inspired by the composition and subject matter of landscapes by Claude Lorrain. In Paris he studied drawing and made copies of works by the Old Masters at the Louvre. He had evidently met General Lafayette in 1824 when Lafayette stopped at Dedham during his triumphal tour of the United States. Fisher was granted permission to complete paintings of Chateau La Grange, Lafayette's estate outside Paris. His four views of La Grange were then drawn on lithographic stones in France by the noted lithographer Isadore Deroy, and brought back for printing on one of the first lithographic presses used in the United States. Portfolios of these prints were sold as souvenirs building on the popularity of General Lafayette.
Perhaps the greatest recognition of his skill as a landscape artist came one hundred years his death  later when First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy chose his painting, The Remnant of the Tribe, to hang in the Green Room of the White House. The Dedham Historical Society has a collection of his paintings, sketches and biographical material. 

MOUNTAINS OF YOSEMITE VALLEY PAINTED BY THOMAS HILL

 

THOMAS HILL (1829-1908)  

Middle Cathedral Rock (2,026 m - 6,648 ft)

El Capitan (2,309 m - 7,573 ft)

Sentinel Dome (2,477 m - 8,127 ft)

Half Dome (2, 695 m - 8,844  ft)

United States of America (California)

In View of Yosemite Valley oil on canvas, 1885, (92.1 x 137.8 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (not on view)



Mountains of Yosemite Valley
The Middle Cathedral Rock (2,026 m- 6,648 ft)  (on right in the painting above with the cascades) is a prominent rock face on the south side of Yosemite Valley, California.
El Capitan (2,309m - 7,573 ft) (on left in the painting above) is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, located on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith extends about 3,000 feet (900 m) from base to summit along its tallest face and is one of the world's favorite challenges for rock climbers. The formation was named "El Capitan" by the Mariposa Battalion when it explored the valley in 1851. El Capitan ("the captain", "the chief") was taken to be a loose Spanish translation of the local Native American name for the cliff, variously transcribed as "To-to-kon oo-lah" or "To-tock-ah-noo-lah". It is unclear if the Native American name referred to a specific tribal chief or simply meant "the chief" or "rock chief". In modern times, the formation's name is often contracted to "El Cap", especially among rock climbers and BASE jumpers.
Sentinel Dome (2,477m - 8,127ft) (behind Cathedral rock in the painting above) is a granite dome in Yosemite National Park, United States. It lies on the south wall of Yosemite Valley, 0.8 miles (1.3 km) southwest of Glacier Point and 1.4 miles (2.3 km) northeast of Profile Cliff. Sentinel Dome is known for a Jeffrey Pine that grew from its peak (see photograph above). The pine was photographed as early as 1867 by Carleton Watkins, and was the subject of the well-known photograph by Ansel Adams. The pine died during the drought of 1976, but remained standing until August 2003. The original Native American name of Sentinel Dome, in the Southern Sierra Miwok language, was "Sakkaduch". The Bunnell survey named it "South Dome", but the Whitney survey renamed it Sentinel Dome (from its likeness to a watch-tower). The view from the top offers a 360 degree view of Yosemite Valley and surroundings. One can see Half Dome,Yosemite Falls, El Capitan, North Dome, Basket Dome, and much more.
Half Dome (2, 695 m - 8,844 ft) (behind Sentinel Dome in the painting above) is a granite dome at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California, part of the Sierra Nevada Range. It is a well-known rock formation in the park, named for its distinct shape; One side is a sheer face while the other three sides are smooth and round, making it appear like a dome cut in half. The impression from the valley floor that this is a round dome that has lost its northwest half is an illusion. From Washburn Point, Half Dome can be seen as a thin ridge of rock, an arête, that is oriented northeast-southwest, with its southeast side almost as steep as its northwest side except for the very top. Although the trend of this ridge, as well as that of Tenaya Canyon, is probably controlled by master joints, 80 percent of the northwest "half" of the original dome may well still be there. As late as the 1870s, Half Dome was described as "perfectly inaccessible" by Josiah Whitney of the California Geological Survey. The summit was finally conquered by George G. Anderson in October 1875, via a route constructed by drilling and placing iron eyebolts into the smooth granite.


The painter
Thomas Hill produced many fine paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, as well as the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Hill’s work was often driven by a vision resulting from his experiences with nature.
Hill was loosely associated with the Hudson River School of painters. The Hudson River School celebrated nature with a sense of awe for its natural resources, which brought them a feeling of enthusiasm when thinking of the potential it held. Mainly the earlier members of the Hudson River School, around the 1850-60’s, displayed man as in unison with nature in their landscape paintings by often painting men on a very small scale compared to the vast landscape. Thomas Hill often brought this technique into his own paintings in for example in his painting, Yosemite Valley, 1889.
He made early trips to the White Mountains with his friend Benjamin Champney and painted White Mountain subjects throughout his career. An example of his White Mountain subjects is Mount Lafayette in his Mount Lafayette in Winter.
Hill acquired the technique of painting en plein air. These paintings in the field later served as the basis for larger finished works.
Hill’s move to California in 1861 brought him new material for his paintings. He chose monumental vistas, like Yosemite. During his lifetime, Hill’s paintings were popular in California, costing as much as $10,000. Hill's best works are considered to be these monumental subjects, including Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Vernal Falls and Yosemite Valley.

_____________________________
2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT ABUNA YOSEF BY RAY NESTOR

RAY NESTOR  (1888-1989),

Abuna Yosef (4,260 m-13,980 ft)

Ethiopia

In the Mountains of the moon, watercolour, private collection  

The mountains
Mountains of the Moon or Jibbel el Kumri is an ancient term referring to a legendary mountain or mountain range in east Africa at the source of the Nile River. Various identifications have been made in modern times.  O. G. S. Crawford identified this range with the Mount Abuna Yosef  (4,260 m - 13,976 ft) area in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia.
Abuna Yosef   (4,260 m - 13,976 ft) is a prominent mountain near the eastern escarpment of the Ethiopian Highlands ; it is the 6th tallest mountain in Ethiopia and the 19th highest of Africa. It is located in the Lasta massif in the Semien Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region.
People of the ancient world were long curious about the source of the Nile, especially Ancient Greek geographers. A number of expeditions up the Nile failed to find the source.
Eventually, a merchant named Diogenes reported that he had traveled inland from Rhapta in East Africa for twenty-five days and had found the source of the Nile. He reported it flowed from a group of massive mountains into a series of large lakes. He reported the natives called this range the Mountains of the Moon because of their snowcapped whiteness.
These reports were accepted as true by Ptolemy and other Greek and Roman geographers, and maps he produced indicated the reported location of the mountains. Late Arab geographers, despite having far more knowledge of Africa, also took the report at face value, and included the mountains in the same location given by Ptolemy.[3]
It was not until modern times that Europeans resumed their search for the source of the Nile. The Scottish explorer, James Bruce, who travelled to Gojjam, Ethiopia, in 1770, investigated the source of the Blue Nile there. He identified the "Mountains of the Moon" with Mount Amedamit, which he described surrounded the source of the Lesser Abay "in two semi-circles like a new moon ... and seem, by their shape, to deserve the name of mountains of the moon, such as was given by antiquity to mountains in the neighborhood of which the Nile was supposed to rise."
James Grant and John Speke in 1862 sought the source of the White Nile in the Great Lakes region. Henry Morton Stanley finally found glacier-capped mountains possibly fitting Diogenes's description in 1889 (they had eluded European explorers for so long due to often being shrouded in mist). Today known as the Rwenzori Mountains, the peaks are the source of some of the Nile's waters, but only a small fraction, and Diogenes would have crossed the Victoria Nile to reach them.
Many modern scholars doubt that these were the Mountains of the Moon described by Diogenes, some holding that his reports were wholly fabricated. G.W.B. Huntingford suggested in 1940 that the Mountain of the Moon should be identified with Mount Kilimanjaro, and "was subsequently ridiculed in J. Oliver Thompson's History of Ancient Geography published in 1948". Huntingford later noted that he was not alone in this theory, citing Sir Harry Johnston in 1911 and Dr. Gervase Mathew later in 1963 having made the same identification.

The painter

Ray Nestor was born in India in 1888. He came to Kenya in 1912 as a surveyor and was between 1932 and 1950 farmed at Kipkarren where he did most of his paintings. Ray Nestor modesty as a printer stood between him and the wider recognition of his work. He never courted publicity being content to record his impressions of a fascinating country and its diverse peoples for his own satisfaction and that of his friends. In all his time in Africa, Ray Nestor was seldom without his paints and sketch book, alert to capture the fugitive moment : an old woman in her beads and bangles drawing on her long pipe ; a dhow in full sail beyond the coral reef outside Mombasa harbour ; the stupendous view from his farm house over down and forest, rolling away towards Mount Elgon;

a pair of rhinos threading their way through the bush under the snows of Kilimandjaro.  These sketches are what they claim to be, with all their freshness sponteneity. Ray Nestor died in England in June 1989. 

__________________________
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SAN JACINTO PEAK BY ALFRED. R. MITCHELL

ALFRED R. MITCHELL (1888-1972) 

San Jacinto Peak (3, 302m - 10,834 ft)

United States of America (California) 

In Road to Borrego - San Jacinto mountains in summer, oil on canvas,  Private collection  

The mountain 

The San Jacinto  Peak (3, 302m - 10,834 ft) is the highest poeak of the San Jacinto Mountains (Avii Hanupach in Mojave), a mountain range, in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles southern California in the United States.   The range extends for approximately 30 mi (50 km) from the San Bernardino Mountains southeast to the Santa Rosa Mountains. The San Jacinto Mountains are the northernmost of the Peninsular Ranges, which run 1,500 km (930 mi) from Southern California to the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula. 

The Coachella Valley stretches along the eastern side of the range, including the cities of Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage. San Gorgonio Pass separates the range from Mount San Gorgonio to the north. The western slope holds the community of Idyllwild. The range is the eastern boundary of the San Jacinto Valley, location of Hemet; it also marks the eastern edge of the fast-growing Inland Empire region and Greater Los Angeles as a whole. Much of the range is embraced by the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument created in 2000. 

Mount San Jacinto State Park is located along the flank of San Jacinto Peak. Part of the eastern flank of the range is located within the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. In 1990 the California Legislature created the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy to protect the mountains surrounding the valley.

The San Jacinto Mountains, like the neighboring San Bernardino Mountains, are a humid island above the surrounding desert and semi-desert.  The range can be thought of as a sky island, as it contains numerous species of flora and fauna that cannot tolerate the triple-digit-Fahrenheit heat of the surrounding valleys. Vegetation found on the mountain flanks is strongly influenced by elevation and climate.  At higher elevations, forests include Ponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine, Lodgepole pine, Incense cedar, White fir, Red fir, and deciduous oak. There is also a grove of over 150 Giant Sequoia Trees on the northeast facing slope. The sequoias (native to the Sierra Nevada Mountains) were planted by the U.S. Forest Service in the 1970s, and are now apparently healthy and producing seedlings. As in many other western U.S areas, bark beetle infestations have caused loss of some of the forest trees in recent years, especially during droughts. 

The indigenous Cahuilla live in the deserts around the San Jacinto Mountains and used the range for hunting, foraging, and to escape the summer heat.

Hollywood film directors have used the mountains to shoot film scenes. In Frank Capra's 1937 film, Lost Horizon, the falls in Tahquitz Canyon was used as a scene.

Today, the range is a destination for outdoor recreation. The Pacific Crest Trail runs along the spine of the range. 

The  artist

Alfred R. Mitchell  was an American landscape painter. Educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he was the president of the San Diego Art Guild and the La Jolla Art Association. He became known as the "Dean of San Diego County artists".

Alfred R. Mitchell was born  in York, Pennsylvania and moved to San Diego, California in 1908. He and studied with Maurice Braun in 1915. Mitchell won a silver medal at the 1915 Panama–California Exposition.  He served in the United States Army during World War I.  He enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1916, and won the Cresson Traveling Scholarship and the Edward Bok Philadelphia Prize to visit museums in Europe in 1920; he graduated from the academy in 1921. Mitchell was the President of the San Diego Art Guild and the co-founder of the San Diego Museum of Art.  He was a co-founder of the Fine Arts Society of San Diego in 1925.  He was also the founding secretary of the Associated Artists of San Diego in 1929; it later changed its name to Contemporary Artists of San Diego. Mitchell was also the founder of the Chula Vista Art Guild in Chula Vista, California in 1945. He was the co-founder and president of the La Jolla Art Association in La Jolla, California from 1951 to 1961. He exhibited his artwork at the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery from 1920 to 1927, and the La Jolla Library from 1923 to 1966.

WAUCOBA MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY MAYNARD DIXON

MAYNARD DIXON (1875-1946)

Waucoba Mountain (3,390m - 11, 123ft) 

United States of America (California)  

In Sunset Inyo Mountains,  oil on canvas, 1929 Maynard Dixon Museum, Tucson, Arizona,

The mountains
Waucoba Mountain (3,390m - 11, 123ft) is the highest peak in the Inyo Mountains, a short mountain range east of the Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California in the United States. The range separates the Owens Valley to the west from Saline Valley to the east, extending for approximately 70 mi (130 km) SSE from the southern end of the White Mountains, from which they are separated by Westgard Pass, to east of Owens Lake. Geologically, the mountains are a fault block range in the Basin and Range Province, at the western end of the Great Basin. They are considered to be among the most important and best-known Late Proterozoic to Cambrian sections in the United States.

The artist
Maynard Dixon  was an American artist whose body of work focused on the American West. He was married for a time to American photographer Dorothea Lange. In 1900, Dixon visited Arizona and New Mexico. This was the start of his lifelong passion for roaming the West. The next year he accompanied artist Edward Borein on a horseback trip through several Western states. In California, he illustrated books and magazines with Western themes. Some of his most memorable work from these early years appeared in Clarence Mulford’s books about Hopalong Cassidy.
Influenced in part by the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915, Dixon began to search for a new expression, moving away from impressionism and into a simpler, more modern style. His wife  Dorothea Lange, had a great influence on his art.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
 by Francis Rousseau

ASHOKAN HIGH POINT PAINTED BY ASHER BROWN DURAND

  

 ASHER BROWN DURAND (1796-1886)

Ashokan High Point (933 m - 3,061 ft)

United States of America ( New York State) 

In Shandaken Mountains, oil on canvas, 1853, (121,9 x 83,2 cm), The MET

About the painting
This work, first shown at the National Academy of Design’s annual exhibition in New York City in 1853, depicts a scene near the town of Olive, New York, where Durand spent the summers of 1853 and 1855. During those months, he repeated sketches he had made of a nearby mountain, High Point (also known as Ashokan High Point), on an earlier visit to the region in 1847. In this painting, in contrast to his large “historical landscapes,” the artist focused on depicting light and shade in the type of bucolic setting popular with an increasingly urban American public—represented here by the couple fishing on the bank of the stream, enjoying the bounty of nature.
Extract from the MET notice 

The mountain 
Ashokan High Point (933 m - 3,061 ft) is a  summit in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The trail that leads up to it is very old.
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas close to or within the borders of the Catskill Park, a 700,000-acre (2,800 km2) forest preserve forever protected from many forms of development under New York state law.
The Catskills are well known in American culture, both as the setting for films and works of art, including many 19th-century Hudson River School paintings, as well as for being a favored destination for vacationers from New York City in the mid-20th century. The region's many large resorts gave countless young stand-up comedians an opportunity to hone their craft. In addition, the Catskills have long been a haven for artists, musicians, and writers, especially in and around the towns of Phoenicia and Woodstock.

The painter
Asher Brown Durand was an American painter of the Hudson River School. His main interest changed from engraving to oil painting about 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. During 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks Mountains and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School.
Durand is remembered particularly for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. Durand wrote, "Let [the artist] scrupulously accept whatever [nature] presents him until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity...never let him profane her sacredness by a willful departure from truth."
Like other Hudson River School artists, Durand also believed that nature was an ineffable manifestation of God. He expressed this sentiment and his general opinions on art in his essay "Letters on Landscape Painting" in The Crayon, a mid-19th century New York art periodical.


__________________________________________

2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

ACONCAGUA PAINTED BY A.P. COLEMAN

ARTHUR PHILEMON COLEMAN (1852-1939) 

Aconcagua - Peak South  (6,961m - 22, 838ft) 

Argentina

Watercolor painted in 1897 during the first ascent expedition

The mountain

Aconcagua (6,961 meters -22,838 ft) is the highest mountain outside of Asia and by extension the highest point in both the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. The origin of the name is contested; it is either from the Mapuche  "Aconca-Hue", which refers to the Aconcagua River, the Quechua "Ackon Cahuak", meaning "Sentinel of Stone", or Quechua "Anco Cahuac", meaning "White Sentinel" or the Aymara  "Janq'u Q'awa" meaning "White Ravine", "White Brook".  

Aconcagua is located in the Andes mountain range, in the Mendoza Province, Argentina, and lies 112 kilometers (70 mi) northwest of its capital, the city of Mendoza. The summit is also located about 5 kilometers from San Juan Province and 15 kilometers from the international border with Chile; its nearest higher neighbor is Tirich Mir in the Hindu Kush, 16,520 kilometers (10,270 mi) away. 

Aconcagua is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven  continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering  challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass.  

The 7 summits (which are obviously 8 !)... are : 

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

Aconcagua was created by the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate during the geologically recent Andean orogeny; but it is not a volcano.  It is bounded by the Valle de las Vacas to the north and east and the Valle de los Horcones Inferior to the west and south. The mountain and its surroundings are part of the Aconcagua Provincial Park. The mountain has a number of glaciers. The largest glacier is the Ventisquero Horcones Inferior at about 10 km long, which descends from the south face to about 3600 m altitude near the Confluencia camp. Two other large glacier systems are the Ventisquero de las Vacas Sur and Glaciar Este/Ventisquero Relinchos system at about 5 km long. The most well-known is the north-eastern or Polish Glacier, as it is a common route of ascent.

The routes to the peak from the south and south-west ridges are more demanding and the south face climb is considered quite difficult.

The mains routes are:

- Puente del Inca, 2,740 meters (8,990 ft): A small village on the main road, with facilities including a lodge.

- Confluencia, 3,380 meters (11,090 ft): A camp site a few hours into the national park.

- Plaza de Mulas, 4,370 meters (14,340 ft): Base camp, claimed to be the second largest in the world (after Everest). There are several meal tents, showers and internet access. There is a lodge approx. 1 km from the main campsite across the glacier. At this camp, climbers are screened by a medical team to check if they are fit enough to continue the climb.

- Camp Canadá, 5,050 meters (16,570 ft): A large ledge overlooking Plaza de Mulas.

- Camp Alaska, 5,200 meters (17,060 ft): Called 'change of slope' in Spanish, a small site as the slope from Plaza de Mulas to Nido de Cóndores lessens. Not commonly used.

- Nido de Cóndores, 5,570 meters (18,270 ft): A large plateau with beautiful views. There is usually a park ranger camped here.

- Camp Berlín, 5,940 meters (19,490 ft): The classic high camp, offering reasonable wind protection.

- Camp Colera, 6,000 meters (19,690 ft): A larger, while slightly more exposed, camp situated directly at the north ridge near Camp Berlín, with growing popularity. In January 2011, a shelter was opened in Camp Colera for exclusive use in cases of emergency. The shelter is named Elena after Italian climber Elena Senin, who died in January 2009 shortly after reaching the summit, and whose family donated the shelter.

- Several sites possible for camping or bivouac, including Piedras Blancas (~6100 m) and Independencia (~6350 m), are located above Colera; however, they are seldom used and offer little protection.

Summit attempts are usually made from a high camp at either Berlín or Colera, or from the lower camp at Nido de Cóndores. All camps are used frequently, namely Plaza de Mulas and Nido de Cóndores.

Reference  

- Aconcagua in Andeshandbook

The artist 

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 "hi" 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

Reference :

Biography on A. P. Coleman's page of the Victoria  University Library