LE MONT SINAÏ/ JABAL MUSA PEINT PAR DAVID ROBERTS

 

DAVID ROBERTS ( 1796-1864)
Mont Sinaï / Jabal Musa (2,285 m)
Egypte

In " Ascent of the Lower Range of Sinai, February 18th 1839" , Lithographie de Louis Hague, 1849

La montagne
Le mont Sinaï (2 285 m  ou Jabal Mūsā ou Gabal Mūsā (en arabe : "Montagne de Moïse" ou "Mont Moïse"), également connu sous le nom de Mont Horeb ou Jebel Musa (une montagne du même nom au Maroc), est une montagne dans la péninsule du Sinaï en Égypte. Elle est considérée comme l'emplacement le plus probable du mont Sinaï ,la montagne sacrée décrite dans la Bible. Ce dernier est mentionné à plusieurs reprises dans le Livre de l'Exode (et d'autres livres de la Bible) ainsi que dans le Coran. Selon la tradition juive, chrétienne et islamique, le mont Sinaï est le lieu où Moïse a reçu les Dix Commandements, les Tables de la Loi.
Le mont Sinaï est une montagne modérément élevée près de la ville de Saint Katherine dans la région du Sinaï. Il est situé juste à côté du mont Katherine (2 629 m - 8 625 pieds), le plus haut sommet d'Égypte.
Les roches du mont Sinaï se sont formées à la fin de l'évolution du bouclier arabo-nubien (ANS). Le mont Sinaï présente un complexe annulaire composé de granites alcalins pénétrés dans divers types de roches, y compris des roches volcaniques. Les granites varient en composition du syénogranite au granit de feldspath alcalin. Les roches volcaniques sont alcalines à hyperalcalines et elles sont représentées par des coulées et des éruptions subaériennes et du porphyre subvolcanique. En général, la nature des roches exposées du mont Sinaï indique qu'elles proviennent de profondeurs différentes.
Il y a deux routes principales vers le sommet. La route la plus longue et la moins profonde, Siket El Bashait, prend environ 2, heures et demi à pied, bien que des chameaux puissent être utilisés. La route la plus raide et la plus directe (Siket Sayidna Musa) monte les 3 750 "marches de pénitence" dans le ravin derrière le monastère.
Le sommet de la montagne comporte une mosquée qui est encore utilisée par les musulmans. Il possède également une chapelle orthodoxe grecque, construite en 1934 sur les ruines d'une église du 16e siècle, qui n'est pas ouverte au public. La chapelle renferme le rocher qui est considéré comme l'endroit où furent remise à Moïse, les Tables de la Loi. Au sommet se trouve également la "Grotte de Moïse", où Moïse aurait attendu avant de recevoir les Dix Commandements. 

Le peintre
Son travail commence à être connu et apprécié. En 1824, il rencontre Charles Dickens qui le prend en sympathie et l’introduit dans le monde. Il fait la connaissance de William Turner qui lui conseille de voyager : « c’est à l’étranger qu’on apprend la peinture ». La peinture l’attire et il commence ses voyages
Il quitte Londres en août 1838, traverse la France, embarque à Marseille et parvient à Alexandrie, après une escale à Malte le 24 septembre. Il se rend immédiatement au Caire et il loue un bateau avec douze hommes d’équipage pour remonter le Nil. Il parvient à l’extrême Sud de son voyage, à Abou Simbel, en Nubie le 8 novembre. À l’aller comme au retour, il fait une grande quantité de dessins et d’aquarelles des grands sites égyptiens. La grande surprise vient de la taille gigantesque des monuments. Il ne manque pas de dessiner des personnages devant pour montrer l'échelle. Il note dans son journal « Nous sommes un peuple de nains visitant une nation de géants ». Certains temples sont encore ensablés quand il les dessine. L’ensablement était une méthode de construction. N’ayant pas de moyens de levage, on construisait des rampes de sable, pour monter les pierres sur des rondins, jusqu’à les poser sur les pierres précédentes. À la fin de la construction, on désensablait le temple et il apparaissait alors dans sa taille impressionnante. Le temple d’Edfou est un exemple de cet ensablement. Les vents de sable, depuis l’Antiquité ont aussi une part de responsabilité dans cet ensablement, l’extérieur du temple d’Abou Simbel en est un autre exemple.
Il revient au Caire le 21 décembre avec plus de cent dessins et aquarelles, et séjourne là jusqu’à son départ en Terre Sainte. Introduit dans le milieu arabe, il fait de nombreux croquis et aquarelles au Caire, y compris dans les mosquées.
Il écrit : « Je suis le premier artiste, du moins anglais, à être venu ici. Les travaux des Français ne donnent pas l’impression de ces vestiges admirables comme je le sais maintenant »
Avec deux compagnons anglais, il part pour la Terre Sainte le 7 février 1839. Ils sont accompagnés de cinq serviteurs armés. Ils portent tous un costume local et sont portés par des chameaux. Ils vont jusqu’à Baalbek, mais il tombe malade et décide le 8 mai de repartir pour Beyrouth, puis de gagner Alexandrie et revenir en Angleterre
Il arrive à Londres, après deux escales, à Malte et Gibraltar, le 21 juillet 1839. Il montre ses œuvres originales, en obtient un grand succès et il est élu membre de la Royal Academy (RA) le 10 février 1841.
Il se met ensuite au travail avec Louis Haghe pour son grand œuvre, un recueil de 247 lithographies, gravées par son ami Louis Hague, d’après ses croquis et aquarelles. Louis Hague est le fils d’un architecte et il a appris la gravure. Mais l’influence de son père est notable, les lithographies doivent beaucoup aux rendus des dessins d’architecture. Le trait a beaucoup d’importance et les œuvres ressemblent à des gravures aquarellées. 

 

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

 

PENYCADAIR PAINTED BY RICHARD WILSON

RICHARD WILSON (1714-1782)

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

United Kingdom (Wales)

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

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

The mountain 

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

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

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

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 

THE WATZMANN PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)  

Watzmann (2,713m - 8,901ft) 

Germany

 In  The Watzmann, oil on canvas 1824-25 , Berlin State Museum 

The mountain 

The Watzmann (2,713m - 8,901ft) is a mountain in the Bavarian Alps south of the village of Berchtesgaden. It is the third highest in Germany, and the highest located entirely on German territory. Three main peaks array on a N-S axis along a ridge on the mountain's taller western half: Hocheck (2,651 m), Mittelspitze (Middle Peak, 2,713 m) and Sьdspitze (South Peak, 2,712 m).

The Watzmann massif also includes the 2,307 m Watzmannfrau (Watzmann Wife, also known as Kleiner Watzmann or Small Watzmann), and the Watzmannkinder (Watzmann Children), five lower peaks in the recess between the main peaks and the Watzmannfrau.

The entire massif lies inside Berchtesgaden National Park.

The Watzmann Glacier is located below the famous east face of the Watzmann in the Watzmann cirque and is surrounded by the Watzmanngrat arête, the Watzmannkindern and the Kleiner Watzmann. The size of the glacier reduced from around 30 hectares (74 acres) in 1820 until it split into a few fields of firn, but between 1965 and 1980 it advanced significantly again and now has an area of 10.1 hectares (25 acres). Above and to the west of the icefield lie the remains of a transport-bomber that crashed in October 1940.

Amongst the other permanent snow and icefields the Eiskapelle ("Ice Chapel") is the best known due to its easy accessibility from St. Bartholomä. The Eiskapelle may well be the lowest lying permanent snowfield in the Alps. Its lower end is only 930 metres high in the upper Eisbach valley and is about an hour's walk from St. Bartholomä on the Königssee. The Eiskapelle is fed by mighty avalanches that slide down from the east face of the Watzmann in spring and accumulate in the angle of the rock face. Sometimes a gate-shaped vault forms in the ice at the point where the Eisbach emerges from the Eiskapelle. Before entering there is an urgent warning sign that others have been killed by falling ice.

In the east face itself is another icefield in the so-called Schöllhorn cirque, called the Schöllhorneis, which is crossed by the Kederbach Way (Kederbacher-Weg). The cirque and icefield are named after the Munich citizen, Christian Schöllhorn, who was the first victim on the east face. On 26 May 1890 he fell at the upper end of the icefield into the randkluft and was fatally injured. Another small nameless snowfield is located several hundred metres below the Mittelspitze also in the east face.

The painter 

Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".

Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization".

Friedrich's work brought him renown early in his career, and contemporaries such as the French sculptor David d'Angers (1788–1856) spoke of him as a man who had discovered "the tragedy of landscape". Nevertheless, his work fell from favour during his later years, and he died in obscurity, and in the words of the art historian Philip B. Miller, "half mad". As Germany moved towards modernisation in the late 19th century, a new sense of urgency characterized its art, and Friedrich's contemplative depictions of stillness came to be seen as the products of a bygone age. The early 20th century brought a renewed appreciation of his work, beginning in 1906 with an exhibition of thirty-two of his paintings and sculptures in Berlin. By the 1920s his paintings had been discovered by the Expressionists, and in the 1930s and early 1940s Surrealists and Existentialists frequently drew ideas from his work. The rise of Nazism in the early 1930s again saw a resurgence in Friedrich's popularity, but this was followed by a sharp decline as his paintings were, by association with the Nazi movement, interpreted as having a nationalistic aspect.  It was not until the late 1970s that Friedrich regained his reputation as an icon of the German Romantic movement and a painter of international importance.

Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. In line with the Romantic ideals of his time, he intended his paintings to function as pure aesthetic statements, so he was cautious that the titles given to his work were not overly descriptive or evocative. It is likely that some of today's more literal titles, such as The Stages of Life, were not given by the artist himself, but were instead adopted during one of the revivals of interest in Friedrich. Complications arise when dating Friedrich's work, in part because he often did not directly name or date his canvases. He kept a carefully detailed notebook on his output, however, which has been used by scholars to tie paintings to their completion dates.

BEN HOPE / BEINN HÒB PEINT PAR MAXIME MAUFRA

MAXIME MAUFRA (1861-1918)
Ben Hope / Beinn Hòb  (927 m)
Royaume-Uni (Ecosse)

In "Nuit d'Été, Ben Hope, Ecosse," huile sur toile, 60.5 x 73.5 cm. Collection privée

La montagne
Ben Hope /Beinn Hòb  (927 m) est une montagne du nord de l'Écosse. C'est le sommet le plus au nord, seul dans la Flow Country (une région de landes couvertes de tourbe) au sud-est du Loch Hope à Sutherland. La montagne forme un cône à peu près triangulaire, avec un grand rocher à l'ouest et deux épaulements inférieurs au sud et au nord-est. Les fleurs alpines sont abondantes en saison, même si le sol est très rocheux. La route principale vers le sommet commence à Strathmore, à l'ouest de la montagne, où se trouve un parking sur une petite route. L'itinéraire longe le brûlis d'Allt-na-caillich qui descend à travers une brèche dans les rochers orientés à l'ouest. Le parcours est raide, mais bien balisé avec des cairns occasionnels et non exposé. L'approche par l'est est moins souvent utilisée car il y a une vaste étendue de landes couvertes de bruyères sans route. L'approche par le nord n'est pas possible pour les marcheurs, car il n'y a pas de chemin entre les rochers. La vue depuis le sommet englobe le Pentland Firth, le Loch Eriboll et les montagnes voisines d'Arkle et Foinaven. Les îles Orcades sont visibles par temps clair.

Le peintre
Maxime Maufra est un peintre, graveur et lithographe français postimpressionniste. Il s’initie à la peinture avec Charles Leduc et son frère Alfred Leduc à Nantes, en reproduisant des paysages des bords de Loire, mais son père qui a décidé d'en faire un homme d'affaires, lui fait faire un séjour linguistique en Angleterre à Liverpool. Là, il découvre ce qu'est réellement la peinture, notamment celle de Turner. Il visite le Pays de Galles et l’Écosse, dont les paysages lui seront une source d'inspiration. Il revient en France en 1884, il mène de front son activité professionnelle et ses travaux picturaux. Il est alors initié à l’impressionnisme par Charles Le Roux.
En 1886, il est remarqué par Octave Mirbeau, lors d'une exposition au Salon de Paris. Cette même année il participe à l'Exposition des beaux-arts de Nantes qui se tient tous les trois ans et à laquelle sont conviés les peintres déjà consacrés et ayant participé au Salon parisien, dont Eugène Boudin, Léon Bonnat, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Jules-Élie Delaunay, Émile Dezaunay, avec lequel il va lier une grande amitié, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Henry Moret, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat ou Alfred Sisley. Dans les années 1880, il parcourt ensuite la Normandie et la Bretagne pour peindre des marines et des paysages et s'installe à Paris en 1892, revenant chaque année en Bretagne. C'est lors d'un séjour à Pont-Aven en 1890 qu'il rencontre Paul Gauguin et Paul Sérusier (1864-1927).  Il est alors fortement influencé par le synthétisme, style inventé par Émile Bernard (1868-1941) et développé par Gauguin, qui traduit les formes en aplats colorés disposés selon un motif décoratif.  Il décide alors de se consacrer pleinement à la peinture et s'installe à Pont-Aven. Il fréquente, en 1891 et 1892, l'auberge de Marie Henry au Pouldu en compagnie de Charles Filiger. Il retrouve Gauguin quelques années plus tard à Paris en 1893. C’est l’occasion d’encouragements et de soutien réciproques entre ces deux artistes qui se respectent. Il témoigne néanmoins d'une pointe de scepticisme signalant son indépendance de caractère : « Je restais trois mois dans ce pays breton de Pont-Aven où je n’entendais parler que vert Véronèse pur, chrome, etc., théories de couleurs plus ou moins absurdes. Je préfère la coloration vive, mais on peut peindre avec du noir… Le tout est d’être peintre, et quoique ce mot déplaise à certains, il faut d’abord s’exprimer en cette langue. »
En 1892, Maufra fréquente avec son ami Émile Dezaunay, l'atelier d'Eugène Delâtre où ils réalisent leurs premières gravures, influencés par Paul Gauguin. Il est le premier à s'installer au Bateau-Lavoir à Montmartre en 1893, et son atelier est fréquenté par ses amis Dezaunay, Aristide Briand, ainsi que le poète Victor-Émile Michelet. En 1892 il expose une monographie de son œuvre à la deuxième exposition des peintres impressionnistes et symbolistes au Le Barc de Boutteville (Paris),
Il expose ensuite à la galerie Durand-Ruel qui sera son marchand jusqu'à la mort de l'artiste, et organisera de nombreuses expositions de ses œuvres.
Au printemps 1894, ils se fréquentent à nouveau avec Gauguin en Bretagne au Pouldu, puis Maufra part à la découverte du Trégor finistérien. Il finit par approfondir sa propre voie en abordant les paysages avec une prédilection pour les marines de Bretagne. Il a également visité la région du Dauphiné et les environs du Havre.
Après un voyage en Écosse à l'été 1895, il épouse à Londres Céline Le Floc'h, dont il avait fait la connaissance à Pont-Aven.
Écrivant à un ami en 1897, il déclara : « Je cherche les grands horizons, les cieux !... Je voudrais que les paysages soient classiques, simples et immenses »
En 1903, il est cofondateur avec  du Salon d'automne au Petit Palais et il expose en 1904.
Il est nommé Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur en 1906 et peintre de la Marine en 1916.
Militant régionaliste, Maxime Maufra est l'un des animateurs de la section « beaux-arts » de l’Union régionaliste bretonne.
Il meurt d'une crise cardiaque le 23 mai 1918 au Pont à Poncé, où il avait planté son chevalet.

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2024 - Wandering Vertexes / Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

RIESENGEBIRGE AND SZRENICA (3) PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

 

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)
Riesengebirge (1,362 m - 4,469 ft)
Poland - Czech Republic border

In New Moon above the Riesengebirge Mountains, 1810, pen and gray ink with watercolor over graphite on wove paper overall, 26.2 x 36.5 cm, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

The mountain
Szrenica (1,362 m - 4,469 ft) is a mountain peak situated in the western part of Karkonosze on Polish and Czech border within the Karkonosze National Park. Its name originates from the Polish word szron (frost). There is a weather station situated close to the summit. The peak is deforested, both the southern and the northern parts are used intensively for skiing. The elevation gain compared to the main range is approximately 60 m. Szrenica Is part of the Giant Mountains range (Riesengebirge in german) frequently painted by the most famous romantic german painter Caspar David Friedrich.

The painter
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization".
Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. In line with the Romantic ideals of his time, he intended his paintings to function as pure aesthetic statements, so he was cautious that the titles given to his work were not overly descriptive or evocative. It is likely that some of today's more literal titles, such as The Stages of Life, were not given by the artist himself, but were instead adopted during one of the revivals of interest in Friedrich. Complications arise when dating Friedrich's work, in part because he often did not directly name or date his canvases. He kept a carefully detailed notebook on his output, however, which has been used by scholars to tie paintings to their completion dates.


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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

RIESENGEBIRGE AND SZRENICA PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)

Szrenica (1,362 m - 4,469 ft)

Poland - Czech Republic border

In Riesengebirge - View of the Small Sturmhaube from Warmbrunn, 1810, Oil on canvas, 45 x 58 cm Puškin State Museum of Fine Arts., Moscow

The mountain
Szrenica (1,362 m - 4,469 ft) is a mountain peak situated in the western part of Karkonosze on Polish and Czech border within the Karkonosze National Park. Its name originates from the Polish word szron (frost). There is a weather station situated close to the summit. The peak is deforested, both the southern and the northern parts are used intensively for skiing. The elevation gain compared to the main range is approximately 60 m. Szrenica Is part of the Giant Mountains range (Riesengebirge in german) frequently painted by the  most famous romantic german painter Caspar David Friedrich.

The painter
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as Friedrich, J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization".
Friedrich's work brought him renown early in his career, and contemporaries such as the French sculptor David d'Angers (1788–1856) spoke of him as a man who had discovered "the tragedy of landscape". Nevertheless, his work fell from favour during his later years, and he died in obscurity, and in the words of the art historian Philip B. Miller, "half mad". As Germany moved towards modernisation in the late 19th century, a new sense of urgency characterized its art, and Friedrich's contemplative depictions of stillness came to be seen as the products of a bygone age. The early 20th century brought a renewed appreciation of his work, beginning in 1906 with an exhibition of thirty-two of his paintings and sculptures in Berlin. By the 1920s his paintings had been discovered by the Expressionists, and in the 1930s and early 1940s Surrealists and Existentialists frequently drew ideas from his work. The rise of Nazism in the early 1930s again saw a resurgence in Friedrich's popularity, but this was followed by a sharp decline as his paintings were, by association with the Nazi movement, interpreted as having a nationalistic aspect. It was not until the late 1970s that Friedrich regained his reputation as an icon of the German Romantic movement and a painter of international importance.
Friedrich was a prolific artist who produced more than 500 attributed works. In line with the Romantic ideals of his time, he intended his paintings to function as pure aesthetic statements, so he was cautious that the titles given to his work were not overly descriptive or evocative. It is likely that some of today's more literal titles, such as The Stages of Life, were not given by the artist himself, but were instead adopted during one of the revivals of interest in Friedrich. Complications arise when dating Friedrich's work, in part because he often did not directly name or date his canvases. He kept a carefully detailed notebook on his output, however, which has been used by scholars to tie paintings to their completion dates.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT KATAHDIN (2) BY FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH

FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH  (1826-1900)

Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267 ft)

United States of America (Maine)

In  Mount Katahdin  from Millinocket Camp, oil on canvas,  1895, Portland Museum of Art,  Maine 

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.  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.

TETON RANGE PAINTED BY THOMAS MORAN

THOMAS MORAN (1837-1926)
Grand Teton (4,199 m - 13,775 ft)
United States of America (Wyoming)

In Teton range, Oil on cnavas, 1897, 76.2 x 114.3 cm, The MET, (on view on Gallery 765)

 About this painting in the MET note
" As Albert Bierstadt claimed the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada for his art, so Moran made the Yellowstone region and the Grand Canyon his signature subjects. His dazzling watercolors of Yellowstone led directly to its designation, in 1872, as the first national park. A native of Great Britain and an ardent admirer of the English painter J. M. W. Turner, Moran used prismatic color to capture the splendors of the American West—such as this dramatic view of the Tetons, located just south of Yellowstone. For centuries, Indigenous communities lived on and cared for this land, yet they are notably absent from Moran’s work. Instead, the artist depicted the landscape as an untouched pre-industrial paradise—thus, ripe for White settlement and colonization "

The mountain
Grand Teton (4,199 m - 13,775 ft) is the highest mountain in Grand Teton National Park in Northwest Wyoming, and a classic destination in American mountaineering. It is the highest point of the Teton Range, and the second highest peak in the U.S. state of Wyoming after Gannett Peak. The mountain is entirely within the Snake River drainage basin, which it feeds by several local creeks and glaciers.The Teton Range is a subrange of the Rocky Mountains, which extend from southern Alaska to northern New Mexico.  Grand Teton's name was first recorded as Mount Hayden by the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870. However, the name "the Grand Teton" had early currency. The Edition of April, 1901 of the USGS 1:125,000 quadrangle map of the area shows "Grand Teton" as the name of the peak. A United States National Park named "Grand Teton National Park" was established by law in 1929. By 1931, the name Grand Teton Peak was in such common usage that it was recognized by the USGS Board on Geographic Names. Another shift in usage led the Board to shorten the name on maps to Grand Teton in 1970. The origin of the name is disputed. The most common explanation is that "Grand Teton" means "large teat" in French, named by either French-Canadian or Iroquois members of an expedition led by Donald McKenzie of the North West Company. However, other historians disagree, and claim that the mountain was named after the Teton Sioux tribe of Native Americans.

The painter
Thomas Moran was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist. He was a younger brother of the noted marine artist Edward Moran, with whom he shared a studio. A talented illustrator and exquisite colorist, Thomas Moran was hired as an illustrator at Scribner's Monthly. During the late 1860s, he was appointed the chief illustrator for the magazine, a position that helped him launch his career as one of the premier painters of the American landscape, in particular, the American West.
Moran along with Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill, and William Keith are sometimes referred to as belonging to the Rocky Mountain School of landscape painters because of all of the Western landscapes made by this group.
Thomas Moran has a painting exhibited as part of the White House collection with The Three Tetons painted in 1895.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

VESUVIUS BY JOHN RUSKIN

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

Mount Vesuvius  (1,281m - 4,203ft)

Italy

The mountain 

Mount Vesuvius (1,281 meters- 4,203 ft at present) is one of those legendary and mythic mountains the Earth paid regularly tribute. Monte Vesuvio in Italian modern langage or Mons Vesuvius in antique Latin langage is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples (Italy) about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. 

It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier and originally much higher structure.

Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman antique cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and several other settlements. That eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ash, and fumes to a height of 33 km (20.5 mi), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing. At least 1,000 people died in the eruption. The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.

Vesuvius has erupted many times since and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions (said Plinian eruptions). It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.

Vesuvius was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the oceanic African plate were pushed to hotter depths in the earth, the water boiled off and caused the melting point of the upper mantle to drop enough to create partial melting of the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak place at the Earth's surface it broke through, producing the volcano.

he area around Vesuvius was officially declared a national park on June 5, 1995. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors and there is a small network of paths around the mountain that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends.

There is access by road to within 200 metres (660 ft) of the summit (measured vertically), but thereafter access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the mountain from the road to the crater.

The first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius opened in 1880. It was later destroyed by the 1944 eruption. "Funiculì, Funiculà", a famous Neapolitan song with lyrics by journalist Peppino Turco set to music by composer Luigi Denza, commemorates its opening.

The painter 

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

LE MONT HOFFMANN PEINT PAR THOMAS COLE

THOMAS COLE (1801-1848)
Mont Hoffmann (3,307 m)
Etats Unis d'Amérique (Californie)

In View of Schroon Mountain, Essex County, New York, After a Storm , oil on board, 1898,

 160 cm x 99 cm, Cleveland Museum of Art

A propos de ce tableau

Grand défenseur de la nature sauvage américaine, Cole a déclaré : « Nous sommes toujours ici dans l' Eden » dans son Essai sur le paysage américain, publié deux ans avant de peindre cette vue des Adirondacks. L'artiste a esquissé la scène au début de l'été, mais lorsqu'il a créé le tableau dans son atelier, il l'a rendu avec l'éclat spectaculaire de couleurs automnales. Un tel choix avait probablement des connotations nationalistes ; il a un jour proclamé que l'automne était « une saison où la forêt américaine surpasse le monde entier en beauté ». Cole a inclus deux autochtones dans le feuillage du premier plan droit du tableau. À cette époque, les Adirondacks étaient encore le foyer de nombreux Amérindiens longtemps après que la plupart aient été expulsés de force des terres à l'est du fleuve Mississippi. Tout en continuant à vivre, chasser et pêcher dans la région, ces peuples algonquins et iroquois ont été contraints d'adapter considérablement leur existence au milieu de la colonisation et des industries forestières, minières et touristiques qui en découlèrent.

La montagne
Le mont Hoffmann (3,307m ) est un sommet de la Sierra Nevada, aux États-Unis.- dans le comté de Mariposa, en Californie, au sein de la Yosemite Wilderness, dans le parc national de Yosemite. Dans Un été dans la Sierra, paru en 1911, John Muir indique avoir randonné jusqu'au sommet du « mont Hoffman » le 26 juillet 1869-. Thomas Cole le surnomme Schrroon Mountain dans ce tableau. 

Le peintre
Thomas Cole, est un artiste américain, considéré comme le fondateur de la Hudson River School, école de peinture qui s'épanouit aux États-Unis dans la seconde moitié du A9^e siècle. Les œuvres de Cole et ses amis se caractérisent par leur rendu réaliste et minutieux des paysages américains, notamment des régions sauvages, et témoignent à la fois de l'influence du romantisme et du naturalisme.  Cole fut avant tout paysagiste, il se consacre également à la peinture allégorique. La plus célèbre de ces allégories est un ensemble de cinq toiles, Le Cours de l'Empire (ou Destin des Empires), qui retrace l'évolution d'un même lieu de l'état sauvage à la naissance de la civilisation, son développement son déclin et sa mort. Cole a été inspiré par la lecture de l'Histoire de la décadence et de la chute de l'Empire romain d'Edward Gibbon, publié entre 1776 et 1778. L'œuvre se trouve dans la collection de la Société d'Histoire de New York.  En 1827, Cole ouvre un studio dans une ferme à Cedar Grove dans la ville de Catskill, état de New-York. Il exécutera une grande partie de son œuvre dans ce lieu. En 1828, Cooper lui commande un paysage inspiré de ses romans, « sans les feuilles d’automne » du Paysage avec une scène du Dernier des Mohicans dont il juge l'effet trop voyant. Entre 1829 et 1832, il effectue un premier séjour en Europe, visitant notamment Londres, Paris et l'Italie. À Londres, il est attiré par les œuvres des paysagistes Turner et Constable. À Paris, il découvre les paysages classiques du 17e siècle et sera influencé par les œuvres de Claude Lorrain. En 1836, Cole épouse Maria Bartow, une des nièces de son propriétaire, faisant de Catskill son lieu de résidence principal. La jeune femme avait alors 23 ans et lui 35. Cole, qui s'intéressait également à l'architecture à une époque où cette profession était moins réglementée qu'aujourd'hui, participe au concours organisé en 1838 pour la construction du siège de l'exécutif à Columbus. Son projet obtint la troisième place et le monument final est une synthèse entre les projets des trois premiers lauréats. Le premier fils du couple, Theodore Alexander Cole, est né le 1er janvier de cette même année. L'année suivante naît Mary Bartow Cole, le 23 septembre 1839. Cole effectue alors un second séjour européen, d-e 1841 à 1842, accumulant les dessins et les esquisses dont il tirera les tableaux peints plus tard dans son studio de Catskill. Il exerce une influence significative sur ses pairs, notamment sur Asher Brown Durand, Jasper Francis Cropsey et Frederic Edwin Church. Ce dernier fut d'ailleurs son élève de 1844 à 1846. 

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

MOUNT PILATUS / TOMLISHORN BY JOHN RUSKIN

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900) 

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

Switzerland

 In Mount Pilatus from Lake Lucerne, 1846, watercolour and ink,  

The Ruskin Library - Lancaster  University  

The mountain 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The painter 

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

L 'ACROPOLE D'ATHÊNES PEINT PAR FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH

 

 

FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH (1826-1900)

L'Acropole d'Athènes (156m -512ft)

Grèce

In Acropolis od Athens,  oil on canvas, The MET

La colline
L'Acropole d'Athènes (156m -512ft) (Ακρόπολη Αθηνών) est situé sur un plateau rocheux calcaire dont le sommet plat mesure environ 270 mètres d'est en ouest et 85 mètres du nord au sud, s'élargissant jusqu'à près de 150 mètres grâce au travaux faits au  Ve siècle avant l'ère chrétienne. Le terme d"acropole" (ἀκρόπολις / akrópolis) vient de l'adjectif ἄκρος (ákros "haut") et du nom πόλις (pólis, "ville, ville"), signifiant ainsi  la "ville haute".
Il est accessible du côté ouest par une pente raide menant aux Propylées. Le plateau peut être aussi atteint par deux failles creusées par l'érosion sur la  face nord . Les faces est et sud  sont aussi inaccessibles. C'est même par le côté est, jugé trop escarpé et donc non surveillé, que les Perses pénétrèrent dans la forteresse en 480 avant l'ère chrétienne.
Le sanctuaire de l'Acropole d'Athènes s'organise autour de la statue de la divinité tutélaire de la ville. Cette statue d'Athéna Polias n'est connue que par quelques textes. Ce devait être un Xoanon, une sorte de poutre en bois d'olivier, presque aniconique.   Elle devait être plutôt debout : une poutre est difficile à asseoir et ressemble plus à un personnage debout qu'assis ; il n'y a pas non plus de mention de trône dans les textes ; enfin, Athéna est le plus souvent représentée debout.
Chaque année, la statue était lavée, ses péplos changés et sa parure (bijoux et accessoires) nettoyée. Ses bijoux étaient des boucles d'oreilles, une bordure sur le cou et cinq colliers. Ses accessoires, tout en or, étaient une chouette, une égide, une gorgone et une phiale. Elle n'avait pas d'armes : elle n'était donc pas la déesse guerrière des statues les plus célèbres par la suite (Athéna Parthénos et Athéna Promachos de Phidias). Ces bijoux et accessoires pourraient dater de la "restructuration" de la statue primitive par Endoios. Il aurait fait de la poutre une corée en y fixant un bras (et une main tenant la phiale)

Le peintre
Frederic Edwin Church  est un peintre américain dont l'œuvre constitue l'expression la plus originale et la plus complète du romantisme dans la peinture américaine. Church a le paysage pour domaine. Élève de Thomas Cole entre 1844 et 1846, il commence par recueillir les formules ambiguës de son maître et sa vision d'un immense paysage dramatisé. Mais, tandis que chez la plupart des peintres de l'école de l'Hudson l'exemple de Cole aboutit à un type de paysage composé, tout de poncifs, Church le renouvelle par une étude passionnément objective de la nature. À partir de 1890 environ, il entreprend de grands voyages à travers le continent américain, accumulant des études sur le motif, où l'action de la lumière est notée avec une précision quasi photographique. Ces études s'apparentent à celles d'Asher B. Durand, par exemple, et, comme lui, Church les utilise pour de grands paysages composés. Mais au lieu d'« idéaliser » l'observation initiale suivant les vieux procédés du paysage classique, il rejoint plutôt la jeune tradition « luministe » américaine, son hyperréalisme de la lumière qui donne la même intensité à tous les détails. Les motifs de prédilection de Church, inspirés par les terribles magnificences de la nature — montagnes, forêts vierges, glaciers, chutes d'eau (Le Niagara, 1857, Cocoran Gallery of Art, Washington ; Le Cœur des Andes, 1859, Metropolitan Museum, New York ; Le Cotopaxi, collection Aston, New York) —, rejoignent le répertoire du grand romantisme européen (Caspar David Friedrich, J.M.W. Turner...) et contiennent le même pouvoir de suggestion, le même symbolisme élémentaire et puissant. À un moment où le romantisme ne s'exprime plus guère dans la peinture européenne que sous une forme dérisoire, l'œuvre de Church constitue une réalisation saisissante du rêve exprimé par Baudelaire, qui, dans le Salon de 1859, regrettait que l'imagination doive fuir le paysage et évoquait avec nostalgie « le paysage romantique et même le paysage romanesque ».

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

THE BASTEI CLIFF PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

 

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)
The Bastei Cliff (194 m - 636 ft)
Germany  / Czech Republic border

 In "Felsenschlucht", oil on canvas , 1822

 

The rock
The Bastei (194 m - 636 ft) is a rock formation rising 194 metres above the Elbe River in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains  (723 m - 2,372 ft) of Germany. Reaching a height of 305 metres above sea level, the jagged rocks of the Bastei were formed by water erosion over one million years ago. They are situated near Rathen, not far from Pirna southeast of the city of Dresden, and are the major landmark of the Saxon Switzerland National Park. They are also part of a climbing and hiking area that extends over the borders into the Bohemian Switzerland (Czech Republic). The Bastei has been a tourist attraction for over 200 years. In 1824, a wooden bridge was constructed to link several rocks for the visitors. This bridge was replaced in 1851 by the present Bastei Bridge made of sandstone. The rock formations and vistas have inspired numerous artists, among them Caspar David Friedrich in "Felsenschlucht" (above)
The spa town of Rathen is the main base for visiting the Bastei; the town can be reached from Dresden by paddle steamer on the river Elbe.
The Bastei is one of the most prominent lookout points in Saxon Switzerland. In 1819 August von Goethe extolled the views: "Here, from where you see right down to the Elbe from the most rugged rocks, where a short distance away the crags of the Lilienstein, Königstein and Pffafenstein stand scenically together and the eye takes in a sweeping view that can never be described in words." Today the Bastei still has the highest number of visitors of all the lookout points in Saxon Switzerland. In addition to the actual vista, there are also other points of interest. At the Jahrhundertturm, a rock pinnacle on the Bastei Bridge, there are tablets commemorating the first mention of the Bastei in travel literature (in 1797) as well as the memory of Wilhelm Lebrecht Götzinger and Carl Heinrich Nicolai. These last two were amongst the pioneers of tourism in Saxon Switzerland, thanks to their descriptions of their journeys and their other works. Another tablet commemorates the Saxon court photographer, Hermann Krone, who took the first landscape photographs in Germany at the Bastei Bridge in 1853. From the Ferdinandstein, part of the Wehltürme rock towers, there is a famous view of the Bastei Bridge. It is reached over a branch from the route to the bridge. Another well-known rock formation in the vicinity of the Bastei is the Wartturm, a large piece of which broke off in 2000. Neurathen Castle, the largest rock castle in Saxon Switzerland, may be reached from the Bastei by crossing the Bastei Bridge. The ruins of the castle, some timber rebates, rooms carved out of the rock, a cistern and stone shot from a medieval catapult or slingshot may be viewed on a self-conducted circular walk. A replica slingshot was put on display in the castle in 1986. The finds from excavations in the area, especially pottery, can also be seen. The climb from Rathen to the Bastei runs past an open-air museum dedicated to Slavic settlement in the region and also past the path leading to the Rathen Open Air Stage. Another famous landmark in the local area is the fortress of Königstein.

The painter
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, considered as the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins. His primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic and anti-classical work seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their metaphysical dimension".
Friedrich was born in Pomerania, where he began to study art. He studied in Copenhagen until 1798, before settling in Dresden. A disillusionment with materialistic society was giving rise everywhere in Europe. This shift in ideals was often expressed through a reevaluation of the natural world, as artists such as J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) sought to depict nature as a "divine creation, to be set against the artifice of human civilization"....


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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MOUNT KATAHDIN PAINTED BY FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH

FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH  (1826-1900)

Mount Katahdin (1,605 m - 5,267 f)

United States of America (Maine)

In Twilight (Katahdin), 1860, oil on canvas, The MET

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. On 30 November 2011, Christie's auctioned Church's 1860 painting Twilight (Katahdin) for $3.1 million.(see above)

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.

Climbing 

The many routes to the summit all involve at least some scrambling from second to fourth class and come from three general directions, north, east and southwest. However there are several technical routes both rock and ice. A campsite, Chimney Pond, sits within the cirque called the Great Basin. From this point, one can ascend the Cathedral Ridge Route (1.7 mi.) that runs up the salient ridge just west of Baxter Peak or the Saddle Trail (2.2 mi.) which is a bit more pedestrian. Or if you want to head up the Knife Edge (1.1 mi.) you would ascend the Dudley Trail to Pamola Peak (1.3 mi.). You can also head west from Chimney Pond to Hamlin Peak via the Hamlin Ridge Trail (2.2 mi.) if you want to hike the entire western side of the mountain to the summit. You can also climb directly from the east via the Roaring Brook Campground in the Helon Taylor Trail (4.3 mi to summit). This takes you directly to Pamola Peak and the Knife Edge route to the summit and bypasses Chimney Pond.

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.