MOUNT GAMBIER / ERENG BALAM BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

EUGENE VON GUERARD  (1811-1901)

Mont Gambier / Ereng Balam (190 m - 620 ft)

Australia 

Painted in 1880

(Click Image to enlarge) 

The mountain 

Mount Gambier (190 m -  620 ft) also known as Ereng Balam, meaning  "eagle hawk"  is a young volcano and a maar complex located in South Australia associated with the Newer Volcanics Province. It contains four lake-filled maars called Blue Lake, Valley Lake, Leg of Mutton Lake, and Brownes Lake. It is one of Australia's youngest volcanoes, but estimates of the age have ranged from over 28,000 to less than 4,300. The most recent estimate, based on radiocarbon dating of plant fibers in the main crater (Blue Lake) suggests an eruption a little before 6000 years ago. Mount Gambier is thought to have formed by a mantle plume centre called the East Australia hotspot which may currently lie offshore.

The mountain was sighted by Lieutenant James Grant on 3 December 1800 from the survey brig HMS Lady Nelson and named for Lord James Gambier, Admiral of the Fleet.

This area is part of the UNESCO-endorsed Kanawinka Geopark.

Of the original four lakes found within the maars, only two remain. The Leg of Mutton Lake (named for the outline of its shoreline) became permanently dry in the 1990s. Brownes Lake suffered a similar fate during the late 1980s. Both these lakes were quite shallow; their demise is attributed to the lowering of the water table as a result of many years of land drainage to secure farmland.

The city of Mount Gambier partially surrounds the maar complex.

Source:

- Wikipedia 

The painter 

Johann Joseph Eugene von Guerard was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia from 1852 to 1882. Known for his finely detailed landscapes in the tradition of the Düsseldorf school of painting, he is represented in Australia's major public galleries, and is referred to in the country as Eugene von Guerard. In 1852 von Guerard arrived in Victoria, Australia, determined to try his luck on the Victorian goldfields. As a gold-digger he was not very successful, but he did produce a large number of intimate studies of goldfields life, quite different from the deliberately awe-inspiring landscapes for which he was later to become famous. Realizing that there were opportunities for an artist in Australia, he abandoned the diggings and was soon undertaking commissions recording the dwellings and properties of wealthy pastoralists.

By the early 1860s, von Guerard was recognized as the foremost landscape artist in the colonies, touring Southeast Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of the sublime and the picturesque.  He is most known for the wilderness paintings produced during this time, which are remarkable for their shadowy lighting and fastidious detail.  Indeed, his View of Tower Hill in south-western Victoria was used as a botanical template over a century later when the land, which had been laid waste and polluted by agriculture, was systematically reclaimed, forested with native flora and made a state park. The scientific accuracy of such work has led to a reassessment of von Guerard's approach to wilderness painting, and some historians believe it likely that the landscapist was strongly influenced by the environmental theories of the leading scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Others attribute his 'truthful representation' of nature to the criterion for figure and landscape painting set by the Düsseldorf Academy.
In 1866 his Valley of the Mitta Mitta was presented to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; in 1870 the trustees purchased his Mount Kosciusko shown in this article was titled "Northeast view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko", which is actually  "from Mount Townsend".
In 2006, the City of Greater Geelong purchased his 1856 painting View of Geelong for A$3.8M. His painting, Yalla-y-Poora, is in the Joseph Brown Collection on display at the National Gallery of Victoria.  The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney holds an extensive collection of working sketchbooks by Eugene von Guerard, as well as larger drawings and paintings and a diary. The sketchbooks cover regions as diverse as Italy and Germany, Tasmania, New South Wales, and of course, Victoria.
In 1870 von Guerard was appointed the first Master of the School of Painting at the National Gallery of Victoria, where he was to influence the training of artists for the next 11 years. His reputation, high at the beginning of this period, had faded somewhat towards the end because of his rigid adherence to picturesque subject matter and detailed treatment in the face of the rise of the more intimate Heidelberg School style. Amongst his pupils were Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Von Guerard retired from his position at the National Gallery School the end of 1881 and departed for Europe in January 1882. In 1891 his wife died. Two years later, he lost his investments in the Australian bank crash and he lived in poverty until his death in Chelsea, London, on 17 April 1901.
Several paintings of mountains of Australia and New Zealand by Eugène von Guerard are published in this blog....
Source: 
- Wandering Vertexes blog

THE ZINALROTHORN PAINTED BY EDWARD H. COMPTON

EDWARD HARRISON COMPTON (1881-1960)  

The Zinalrothorn (4,221 m -  13,848 ft)

Switzerland (Valais) 

The Zinalrothorn form Bratten Zermatt in 1920

(Click image to enlarge)

The mountain 

The Zinalrothorn (4,221 m - 13,848 ft) is a mountain in the Alps (Pennine Alps) in Switzerland. Its name comes from the village of Zinal lying on the north side and from the German word Rothorn which means Red Peak. Until 1864 the mountain was known locally as Moming.

The Zinalrothorn is one of the high summits separating the Matter valley on the east and the Val d'Anniviers (or more precisely the Val de Zinal) on the west. The summit of the Weisshorn (4,505 m) is located 5 km to the north and the Dent Blanche 7 km to the west. At the western foot of the mountain lies the large Zinal Glacier and, on the northern side, the Moming Glacier. L'Epaule (the shoulder) is a minor summit lying at the base of the northern ridge. The villages of Täsch and Zermatt are the closest while Zinal on the north-west is located further (9 km).
Climbing
The first ascent was made on 22 August 1864 via the north ridge by Leslie Stephen and Florence Crauford Grove with guides Jakob Anderegg and Melchior Anderegg (AD). They left Zinal at 1 a.m. and ascended the Zinal Glacier. The reached the shoulder from the ridge connecting the Blanc de Moming at the base of the northern ridge at 9 a.m. The traverse of the ridge to the summit took them 2 hours, Stephen wrote later that it was 'the nastiest piece of climbing I have ever accomplished'.
The slightly less difficult normal route, the south-east ridge, was first climbed by the combined parties of Clinton Thomas Dent with guide Alexander Burgener, and George Augustus Passingham, with guides Ferdinand Imseng and Franz Andermatten on 5 September 1872.
The first winter and ski ascent was by Marcel Kurz and T. Theytaz on 7 February 1914.
In the 1880s Mrs Aubrey Le Blond, the first president of the Ladies' Alpine Club, left her detachable skirt by mistake up the Zinalrothorn. To preserve her modesty, she made the decision to climb the mountain a second time to retrieve it rather than return to Zermatt in trousers.
Source: 
- Summitpost. org

The Painter
Edward Harrison Compton (1881–1960) not to be confused with his father Edward Theodore Compton (1849-1921) was a German landscape painter and illustrator of English descent. Compton was born in Feldafing in Upper Bavaria, Germany, the second son of notable landscape painter Edward Theodore Compton. He received his early art training from his father, and after a period of study in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts settled back in Bavaria. Like his father he was inspired by the Alps to become a mountain painter ("bergmaller") working in both oils and watercolour. However, an attack of Polio at the age of 28 meant that he had to find more accessible landscapes to paint in Germany, England northern Italy and Sicily. He also provided illustrations for several travel books published by A & C Black. Compton exhibited at galleries in Munich and Berlin, and also in England at the Royal Academy in London and in Bradford. He died in Feldafing in 1960.
He had two sisters, both of whom were artists: Marion Compton, the flowers and still-life painter, and Dora Keel-Compton, flower and mountain painter
Source: 
- Wikipedia 

MANASLU / KUTANG PAINTED BY NICHOLAS ROERICH

NICHOLAS ROERICH  (1874-1947)

Manaslu or Kutang  (8, 163m - 26,781 ft)) 

Nepal 

Painted in 1941- Nicholas Roerich  Museum NY

The mountain 

Manaslu  (8, 163m - 26,781 ft)  (Nepali: मनास्लु) also known as Kutang, is the eighth highest mountain in the world. It is located in the Mansiri Himal, part of the Nepalese Himalayas, in the west-central part of Nepal. Its name, which means "mountain of the spirit", comes from the Sanskrit word manasa, meaning "intellect" or "soul". Manaslu was first climbed on May 9, 1956 by Toshio Imanishi and Gyalzen Norbu, members of a Japanese expedition. It is said that "just as the British consider Everest their mountain, Manaslu has always been a Japanese mountain".

Manaslu is the highest peak in the Gorkha District and is located about 64 km (40 mi) east of Annapurna. The mountain's long ridges and valley glaciers offer feasible approaches from all directions, and culminate in a peak that towers steeply above its surrounding landscape, and is a dominant feature when viewed from afar.
The Manaslu region offers a variety of trekking options. The popular Manaslu trekking route of 177 kilometres (110 mi), skirts the Manaslu massif over the pass down to Annapurna. The Nepalese Government only permitted trekking of this circuit in 1991. The trekking trail follows an ancient salt-trading route along the Burhi Gandak River. En route, 10 peaks over 6,500 metres -21,300 ft are visible, including a few over 7,000 metres - 23,000 ft. The highest point reached along the trek route is the Larkya La at an elevation of 5,106 metres -16,752 ft.
As of May 2008, the mountain has been climbed 297 times with 53 fatalities.
The Manaslu Conservation Area has been established with the primary objective of achieving conservation and sustainable management of the delimited area, which includes Manaslu.
Climbing
All routes to the base camp of Manaslu begin in Kathmandu. Expedition Time: Approximate time 62 days. Bus from Kathmandu to Gorkha. Trek from Gorkha to Arughat. Trek through rice paddies to Sundi Khola. Trek through forest to Macha Khola. Trek along riverbanks of Budhi Gandaki to Jagat. Continue along the river to Deng. Continue along river to Ghap, a Buddhist village. Continue along river to Sho. Trek to Pungen Gompa. Rest day. Trek to Sama Gaon. Trek to Manaslu base. Rest in Manaslu base. Climb Manaslu 35 to 40-day window. Trek Out: Trek down to Samagaon. Trek down to Nyak. Trek down to Jagat. Trek down to Macha Khola. Trek down to Arughat. Trek down to Gorkha. Bus to Kathmandu.

The painter 
Nicholas Roerich known also as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (Никола́й Константи́нович Ре́рих) is quite an important figure of mountain paintings in the early 20th century.  He was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, perceived by some in Russia as an enlightener, philosopher, and public figure. In his youth was he was quite influenced by a movement in Russian society around the occult and was interested in hypnosis and other spiritual practices. His paintings are said to have hypnotic expression.
Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, he lived in various places around the world until his death in Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, India. Trained as an artist and a lawyer, his main interests were literature, philosophy, archaeology, and especially art. After the February Revolution of 1917 and the end of the czarist regime, Roerich, a political moderate who valued Russia's cultural heritage more than ideology and party politics, had an active part in artistic politics. With Maxim Gorky and Aleksandr Benois, he participated with the so-called "Gorky Commission" and its successor organization, the Arts Union (SDI).
After the October Revolution and the acquisition of power of Lenin's Bolshevik Party, Roerich became increasingly discouraged about Russia's political future. During early 1918, he, Helena, and their two sons George and Sviatoslav emigrated to Finland. After some months in Finland and Scandinavia, the Roerichs relocated to London, arriving in mid-1919. Later, a successful exhibition resulted in an invitation from a director at the Art Institute of Chicago, offering to arrange for Roerich's art to tour the United States. During the autumn of 1920, the Roerichs traveled to America by sea.  The Roerichs remained in the United States from October 1920 until May 1923.
After leaving New York, the Roerichs – together with their son George and six friends – began the five-year-long 'Roerich Asian Expedition' that, in Roerich's own words: "started from Sikkim through Punjab, Kashmir, Ladakh, the Karakoram Mountains, Khotan, Kashgar, Qara Shar, Urumchi, Irtysh, the Altai Mountains, the Oyrot region of Mongolia, the Central Gobi, Kansu, Tsaidam, and Tibet" with a detour through Siberia to Moscow in 1926.
In 1929 Nicholas Roerich was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the University of Paris. He received two more nominations in 1932 and 1935. His concern for peace resulted in his creation of the Pax Cultura, the "Red Cross" of art and culture. His work for this cause also resulted in the United States and the twenty other nations of the Pan-American Union signing the Roerich Pact on April 15, 1935 at the White House. The Roerich Pact is an early international instrument protecting cultural property.
In 1934–1935, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (then headed by Roerich admirer Henry A. Wallace) sponsored an expedition by Roerich and USDA scientists H. G. MacMillan and James F. Stephens to Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, and China.
Roerich was in India during the Second World War, where he painted Russian epic heroic and saintly themes, including: Alexander Nevsky, The Fight of Mstislav...
In 1942, Roerich received Jawaharlal Nehru at his house in Kullu. Together they discussed the fate of the new world: "We spoke about Indian-Russian cultural association, it is time to think about useful and creative cooperation ...”.
Gandhi would later recall about several days spent together with Roerich's family: "That was a memorable visit to a surprising and gifted family where each member was a remarkable figure in himself, with a well-defined range of interests." ..."Roerich himself stays in my memory. He was a man with extensive knowledge and enormous experience, a man with a big heart, deeply influenced by all that he observed". During the visit, "ideas and thoughts about closer cooperation between India and USSR were expressed. Now, after India wins independence, they have got its own real implementation[clarification needed]. And as you know, there are friendly and mutually-understanding relationships today between both our countries".
In 1942, the American-Russian cultural Association (ARCA) was created in New York.
Its active participants were Ernest Hemingway, Rockwell Kent, Charlie Chaplin, Emil Cooper, Serge Koussevitzky, and Valeriy Ivanovich Tereshchenko. The Association's activity was welcomed by scientists like Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton.
Roerich died on December 13, 1947.
Presently, the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York City is a major institution for Roerich's artistic work. Numerous Roerich societies continue to promote his theosophical teachings worldwide. His paintings can be seen in several museums including the Roerich Department of the State Museum of Oriental Arts in Moscow; the Roerich Museum at the International Centre of the Roerichs in Moscow; the Russian State Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia; a collection in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow; a collection in the Art Museum in Novosibirsk, Russia; an important collection in the National Gallery for Foreign Art in Sofia, Bulgaria; a collection in the Art Museum in Nizhny Novgorod Russia; National Museum of Serbia ; the Roerich Hall Estate in Nagar village in Kullu Valley, India; the Sree Chitra Art Gallery, Thiruvananthapuram, India;[17] in various art museums in India; and a selection featuring several of his larger works in The Latvian National Museum of Art.

_______________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE HOCHALMSPITZE PAINTED BY MARCUS PERNHART

MARCUS PERNHART  (1824-1871)

The Hochalmspitze (3,360 m - 11, 020 ft) 

Austria 

The mountain

The Hochalmspitze (3,360 m -  11,020 ft) above the Adriatic, is the highest mountain of the Ankogel Group in the High Tauern range, located east of Mallnitz in the Austrian state of Carinthia. It is sometimes called "Tauern Queen" (German: Tauernkцnigin) as a counterpart to the "Tauern King", the Grossglockner.
The peak is situated slightly south the main ridge of the Central Eastern Alps and the Alpine divide.
It actually consists of two pinnacles, the Schneeige Hochalmspitze and the higher Apere ("snowless") Hochalmspitze with the summit cross. It has glaciers on its eastern and southern sides. The neighbouring Großelendkopf peak  (3,317 m -10,883 ft), today counts as a separate mountain.
Like most of the High Tauern, the Hochalmspitze massif is formed of granite and gneiss, and many unusual rock formations can be found on its slopes. The mountain lies at the Eastern end of the range. In the northwest, a ridge connects it to Großer Ankogel, the third highest peak in its group, and to the Kцlnbrein Dam. In the south, the Mallnitz Ridge leads to the neighbouring Reisseck Group.
From the summit, the views stretch as far as the Salzburg Alps, the Dolomites and the Julian Alps.
The first official ascent was made in 1859 by the Austrian mountaineer Paul Grohmann, although letters found in 2010 bring this claim into disrepute, as the mountain may have first been climbed four years earlier. In 1913 a mountain hut  was erected by the German and Austrian Alpine Club on the southeastern slope ( 2,215 m(-7,267 ft). In the 1970s plans for a glacier ski resort were developed, but finally abandoned in 1988 when the Austrian Alpine Club was able to purchase large parts of the area.
Source:
 - Summitpost.org 

The Painter 

Marcus (or Markus) Pernhart was a Carinthian  / Slovenian / Austrian painter. He is considered the first Slovene realistic landscape painter. He painted several times Triglav.
At  barely 12 years, he painted the guest rooms of Krajcar Restaurant between Klagenfurt and Völkermarkt. The innkeeper made, the bishop's chaplain Henr. Hermann discovered the talented boys. At 15, he trained in painting first with Andreas Hauser in Klagenfurt. Hermann supported him further and introduced him to his patron, the Gorizia Archbishop Francis Xavier Luzhin.  Through this he got contact with the Viennese art scene, particularly to Franz Steinfeld, who taught at the Academy of Fine Arts. It was forwarded to the Munich Academy, but soon returned to Carinthia. There he was promoted by his stage name Pernhart the famous landscape painter of his time.
When Pernharts drawing style had fully developed, he was asked by Max from Moro to draw all Castles Carinthia. The idea was to these buildings if they could often for financial reasons can not be obtained, at least to preserve the picture, thereby preserving from decay. Markus Pernhart does not disappoint its customers and held in pencil drawings smallest details of the well-preserved, but also the already partly decayed plants firmly. Already in 1853, he produced 40 drawings followed by 198 others, he property of the Historical Association for Carinthia. In 1855  he gave the Carinthian estates Empress Elisabeth, an album of 21 drawings to which Max Moro contributed. Entitled images from Carinthia  appeared  in 1863-1868 in deliveries as steel engravings with accompanying. After his death appeared 5 lithographic panoramic images (Klagenfurt in 1875 and 1889).
His entire painted oeuvre consists of approximately 1,200  paintings, drawings and enrgavings that delight even after his death a large appreciation.
Pernhart presented landscapes, preferably lakes and high mountain motifs or castles, but also animals and still life subjects, in an idyllic and pathetic style. His works can be seen against the background of an incipient leisure society, they lead before the regional status objects of his home.
Sources:
- Mountain paintings

MONTS-AUX-SOURCES BY JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF

JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF (1886-1957) 

Monts-Aux-Sources (3, 282 m - 10,768 ft)

South Africa - Lesotho border 

The mountain 
Mont-Aux-Sources (3,282 m - 10,768 ft) is a mountain in Southern Africa, forming one of the highest portions of the Drakensberg Range. It is mostly within Lesotho, with parts in the KwaZulu-Natal and Free State provinces of South Africa. The peak is accessible from the Sentinel Car Park near Witsieshoek, via chain ladders.
The Mont-Aux-Sources is part of a basalt plateau which lies at an average elevation of about 10,000 feet (3,050 m). Among the many escarpments that surround the plateau is a sheer wall of 1,000 vertical ft., known as the Amphitheatre and the Sentinel.  The highest point is a peak 3 km from the ,Drakensberg escarpment.
Since important rivers have their sources in the range, the mountainous area was named Mont-Aux- Sources (‘Fountains Mount’) by French missionaries who visited the region in 1836.
Several rivers originate in the Mont-Aux-Sources, foremost of which is the Tugela, which flows eastwards into the Indian Ocean on the KwaZulu-Natal coast. Some 7 km from the Mont-Aux-Sources, the Tugela plunges 947 m in a series of falls in the Royal Natal National Park.
This is the second-highest series of falls in the world.
The Caledon River, one of the main tributaries of the Orange River, has its sources in this massif and flows along the border with Lesotho. Also the Seati (Khubedu), one of the headwater streams of the Orange River, has its origin near Mont-aux-Sources further to the north.
Another important river is the Elands, named the Namahadi in its uppermost section in the area of the Fika-Patso Dam. The Elands flows roughly northwards into the Wilge River, one of the major tributaries of the Vaal. The Vaal River flows westwards eventually into the Orange River, which in turn flows into the Atlantic Ocean on the West coast of Southern Africa.

The painter 
Jacobus Hendrik (Henk) Pierneef (usually referred to as Pierneef)  was a South African landscape artist, generally considered to be one of the best of the old South African masters. His distinctive style is widely recognized and his work was greatly influenced by the South African landscape.
Most of his landscapes were of the South African highveld, which provided a lifelong source of inspiration for him. Pierneef's style was to reduce and simplify the landscape to geometric structures, using flat planes, lines and colour to present the harmony and order in nature. This resulted in formalised, ordered and often-monumental view of the South African landscape, uninhabited and with dramatic light and colour.
Pierneef's work can be seen worldwide in many private, corporate and public collections, including the Africana Museum, Durban Art Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, King George VI Art Gallery, Pierneef Museum and the Pretoria Art Gallery.

MOUNT STANLEY PHOTOGRAPHED BY VITTORIO SELLA (2)

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943)

 Mount Stanley  (5,109 m- 16, 762 ft)  

Democratic Republic of Congo-Uganda border

The mountain 

Mount Stanley  (5,109 m -16,762 ft) is located in the Rwenzori range and is the highest mountain of both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and the third highest in Africa, after Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 m -19,340ft) and Mount Kenya (5,199 m - 17,057ft). The peak and several other surrounding peaks are high enough to support glaciers. Mount Stanley is named for the journalist and explorer, Sir Henry Morton Stanley. It is part of the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, a UNESCO world Heritage Site. 

Mt. Stanley consists of two twin summits and several lower peaks which are : 

Margherita Peak (5,109m - 16,763ft), Alexandra Peak (5,091m - 16,703ft), Albert Peak (5,087m - 16,690ft), Savoia Peak (4,977m - 16,330ft), Ellena Peak (4,968m -16,300ft), Elizabeth Peak (4,929m - 16,170 ft), Phillip Peak (4,920m - 16,140ft), Moebius Peak (4,916m - 16,130 ft) and Great Tooth (4,603m - 15,100ft).

Mt. Stanley was first climbed in 1906 by the Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia , Duke of the Abruzzi, (1873-1933),  J. Petigax, C. Ollier, and J. Brocherel. He is known as well for his Arctic explorations and for his mountaineering expeditions, particularly to Mount Saint Elias (Alaska–Yukon) and K2 (Pakistan–China). Margherita Peak is named after Queen Margherita of Italy the prince's cousin.

The Rwenzori Mountains National Park is considered a model for integration of cultural values into the Protected Area Management framework as an innovative approach to resource management, the first of its kind in Africa.  As a result the local communities have embraced collaborative resource management initiatives. Given its significance as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Albertine Rift, various local and international NGOs have supported the management and conservation of the property. A General Management Plan guides management operations on-site. Key challenges to address include illegal felling of trees, snow recession due to global warming, human population pressure adjacent to the property and management of waste generated through tourism operations. UWA is addressing the above threats through resource protection, community conservation education, research and ranger-based monitoring, ecotourism and transboundary initiatives with the DRC. The long-term maintenance of the integrity of the property will be achieved through sustainable financing, ecological monitoring, continued collaboration with key stakeholders andregional cooperation.

Climbing

The Bujuku valley is enclosed within a steep triangle formed by Mount Stanley and Mounts Speke and Baker, the second and third highest Ruwenzori peaks respectively. The worst part about climbing in the Ruwenzori is the approach, as four days of jungle and bogs guard the mountains on both the Zaire and Uganda sides. There are, however, good trails in the mountains, and plenty of huts for overnight. From Mutsori, Zaire, local tribesman are available as guides or porters.

The artist
Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club.  He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888).
He took part in various expeditions outside Italy:
- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name;
- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897;
- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899;
- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Rwenzori;
- Recognition at  K2   in 1909;
- In Morocco in 1925.
During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram (K2), he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.
Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II.  His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.
His photos mountain are still  considered today to be among the finest ever made.
Jim Curran believes that "Sella remains probably the greatest photographer of the mountain.  His name is synonymous with technical perfection and aesthetic refinement. "
The quality of the pictures of Vittorio Sella is partly explained by the use of a view camera 30 × 40 cm, despite the difficulty of the transportation of such a device, both heavy and fragile in places inaccessible; to be able to transport it safely, he had to make special pieces that can be stored in saddle bags.  His photographs have been widely distributed, either through the press or in the galleries, and were unanimously celebrated; Ansel Adams, who was able to admire thirty-one in an exhibition that was organized at Sella American Sierra Club, said they inspired him "a religious kind of sense of wonder."  Many of his pictures were taken in the mountains for the very first time in the History, which give them a much artistic, historical  but also scientific value ; for example, one could measure the decline in the Rwenzori glaciers in Central Africa.

ARAPAHO PEAK PAINTED BY CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS

CHARLES PARTRIDGE ADAMS (1858–1942)

Arapaho Peak (4,117m- 13, 508ft)

United States of America (Colorado) 

In Arapaho Peaks, 1905, oil on canvas,

The mountain 

When geographical maps refer to Arapaho Peak(4,117 m- 13,508-ft) they refer in reality to North Arapaho Peak , one of the two Arapho peaks (North and South). North Arapho peak is the highest summit of the Indian Peaks in the northern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The thirteener is located in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, 7.8 miles (12.6 km) west-southwest (bearing 245°) of the Town of Ward, Colorado, United States, on the Continental Divide separating Roosevelt National Forest and Boulder County from Arapaho National Forest and Grand County.
Between North Arapaho Peak and neighboring South Arapaho Peak sits Arapaho Glacier, which is owned by the City of Boulder as part of its water supply. West of these peaks is Arapaho Pass.
The Colorado Indian Peaks Wilderness is home to many of the best hiking and climbing routes in the state. All 73,391 acres of The Indian Peak Wilderness rests just south of Rocky Mountain National Park; it's basically an extension of its neighboring national park. As Gerry Roach notes in his popular book "It's smaller than Rocky Mountain National Park but no less spectacular." This impressive collection of jagged peaks includes 35 named peaks, 23 of which are over 12,000 ft, while seven are over 13,000 ft. From easy walk-ups to technical 5.5 climbing this mountaineering playground has something for everybody. Only 2 hours from Denver, the IPW can be a popular place for the day hiker, but solitude can be had by those willing to look for it.


The painter 
Charles Partridge Adams was a largely self-taught American landscape artist who painted primarily in Colorado, and secondarily in California. Some paintings were also made in other Rocky Mountain states, the Pacific Northwest and Canada, and a few in Louisiana, the East Coast and Europe.
Adams is widely considered to have been Colorado’s finest landscape artist. He is best known for his stunning views of snowy mountain peaks in early morning or sunset light, or wreathed in storm clouds, and for his luminous sunset and twilight paintings of the river bottoms near Denver. His works show an intensely personal and poetic response to the Colorado mountains and plains, with unusual sensitivity to the changing effects of light, atmosphere and season.
Adams early work in the 1880s was largely representational and somewhat prosaic, with only hints of the more impressionist works to follow. His style began to coalesce in the early 1890s with some excellent luminous sunsets, some of which were in a Barbizon style, but overall his output was still uneven. In the later 1890s his painting became much more consistent, impressionist, and colorful, and this style prevailed through about 1915. After that his style became progressively “looser,” with larger brush strokes, brighter colors, more impasto, and much less attention to foreground and detail. Some paintings left at his death show only traces of his previous skill.
Adams experimented freely with different palettes and lighting, and some of these were much more successful than others. He must have created several hundred paintings of Longs and Meeker Peaks from his studio in Estes Park, Colorado, yet no two are alike, and some are strikingly different.
Some of his earlier paintings include animals or human figures, but he was not very successful at rendering these, and later paintings do not include them.
Roughly half of Adams paintings are oils and half are watercolors, which he began painting in the early 1890s. Although some of his watercolors are masterfully detailed and very carefully done, others are much less detailed, and must have been done very quickly for the tourist trade. As one watercolorist remarked about one of these, “That one must have taken him all of 15 minutes.” Over 950 paintings have been documented. His total output is unknown, but it is estimated to have been 3,000 or more.

PICO DEL TEIDE IN VINTAGE DRAWINGS

VINTAGE DRAWINGS 19th 

Pico del Teide (3, 718 m -12, 198 ft)

Tenerife - Canari Islands - Spain 

The mountain 

Pico del  Teide (3,718m - 12,198 ft) (« Teide Peak") is a volcano on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Spain. Before the 1495 Spanish colonization of Tenerife, the native Guanches called the volcano Echeyde, which in their legends referred to a powerful figure leaving the volcano, which could turn into hell. El Pico del Teide is the modern Spanish name.
Its summit is the highest point in Spain and the highest point above sea level in the islands of the Atlantic. If measured from its base on the ocean floor, it is at 7,500 m-24,600 ft the third highest volcano on a volcanic ocean island in the world after Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Its elevation makes Tenerife the tenth highest island in the world. It remains active: its most recent eruption occurred in 1909 from the El Chinyero vent on the northwestern Santiago rift.
Historical volcanic activity on the island is associated with vents on the Santiago or northwest rift (Boca Cangrejo in 1492, Montañas Negras in 1706, Narices del Teide or Chahorra in 1798 and El Chinyero in 1909) and the Cordillera Dorsal or northeast rift (Fasnia in 1704, Siete Fuentes and Arafo in 1705). The 1706 Montañas Negras eruption destroyed the town and principal port of Garachico, as well as several smaller villages.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus reported seeing "a great fire in the Orotava Valley" as he sailed past Tenerife on his voyage to discover the New World. This was interpreted as indicating that he had witnessed an eruption there. Radiometric dating of possible lavas indicates that in 1492 no eruption occurred in the Orotava Valley, but one did occur from the Boca Cangrejo vent.
The last summit eruption from Teide occurred about the year 850 CE, and this eruption produced the "Lavas Negras"  that cover much of the flanks of the volcano.
About 150,000 years ago, a much larger explosive eruption occurred, probably of Volcanic Explosivity Index 5.
The United Nations Committee for Disaster Mitigation designated Teide a Decade Volcano because of its history of destructive eruptions and its proximity to several large towns, of which the closest are Garachico, Icod de los Vinos and Puerto de la Cruz. Teide, Pico Viejo and Montaсa Blanca form the Central Volcanic Complex of Tenerife.
In a publication of 1626, Sir Edmund Scory, who probably stayed on the island in the first decades of the 17th century, gives a description of Teide, in which he notes the suitable paths to the top and the effects the considerable height causes to the travellers, indicating that the volcano had been accessed via different routes before the 17th century. In 1715 the English traveler J. Edens and his party made the ascent and reported their observations in the journal of the Royal Society in London.
After the Enlightenment, most of the expeditions that went to East Africa and the Pacific had Teide as one of the most rewarding targets. The expedition of Lord George Macartney, George Staunton and John Barrow in 1792 almost ended in tragedy, as a major snowstorm and rain swept over them and they failed to reach the peak of Teide, just barely getting past Montaña Blanca.
During an expedition to Kilimanjaro, the German adventurer Hans Heinrich Joseph Meyer visited Teide in 1894 to observe ice conditions on the volcano. He described the two mountains as "two kings, one rising in the ocean and the other in the desert and steppes"
The volcano and its surroundings comprise Teide National Park, which has an area of 18,900 hectares (47,000 acres) and was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on June 28, 2007. Teide is the most visited natural wonder of Spain, the most visited national park in Spain and Europe and – by 2015 – the eighth most visited in the world, with some 3 million visitors yearly. A major international astronomical observatory is located on the slopes of the mountain.

AEOLIS MONS BY NASA CURIOSITY MISSION

NASA CURIOSITY MISSION (since 2012)

Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp (5, 500 m - 18, 000 ft)

Mars  

3 pictures of Aeolis Mons taken by NASA Curiosity Rover & Curiosity team : 

1. Aeolis Mons photographed by  Curiosity Rover on September 9, 2012

2. Aeolis Mons photographed by Curiosity Rover on September 20, 2012

3.  Aeolis Mons photographed  by Curiosity Rover on August 6, 2012

(Click images to enlarge)  

The mountain

Aeolis Mons (5, 500 m - 18, 000 ft) also called Mount Sharp is a mountain on the surface of the planet Mars. It forms the central peak within Gale crater and is located around 5.08°S 137.85°E, rising 5.5 km (18,000 ft) high from the valley floor. Aeolis Mons is about the same height as Mons Huygens, the tallest lunar mountain, and taller than Mons Hadley visited by Apollo 15. The tallest mountain known in the Solar System is in Rheasilvia crater on the asteroid Vesta, which contains a central mound that rises 22 km  or 22.000 m - 14 mi or 72,000 ft high.
Olympus Mons on Mars is nearly the same height, at 21.9 km (13.6 mi; 72,000 ft) high.
In comparison, Mount Everest / Chomolunga rises to 8.8 km -29,000 ft altitude above sea level, but is only 4.6 km - 15,000 ft  base-to-peak. Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro is about 5.9 km - 19,000 ft altitude above sea level  also 4.6 km base-to-peak. America's Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, has a base-to-peak of 5.5 km -18,000 ft.  The Franco-Italian Mont Blanc/Monte Bianco is 4.8 km -16,000 ft in altitude above sea level.  Mount Fuji, which overlooks Tokyo, Japan, is about 3.8 km -12,000 ft altitude. Compared to the Andes, Aeolis Mons would rank outside the hundred tallest peaks, being roughly the same height as Argentina's Cerro Pajonal; the peak is higher than any above sea level in Oceania, but base-to peak it is considerably shorter than Hawaii's Mauna Kea and its neighbors.
Discovered in the 1970s by NAS,  the mountain remained nameless for perhaps 40 years. When it became a likely landing site, it was given various labels; for example, in 2010 a NASA photo caption called it "Gale crater mound".  In March 2012, NASA unofficially named it "Mount Sharp", for American geologist Robert P. Sharp. The International Astronomical Union, which is responsible for planetary nomenclature for its participants, names large Martian mountains after the Classical albedo feature in which it is located, not for people. In May 2012 the IAU thus named the mountain Aeolis Mons, and gave the name Aeolis Palus to the crater floor plain between the northern wall of Gale and the northern foothills of the mountain. Despite the official name, NASA and the ESA continue to refer to the mountain as "Mount Sharp" in press conferences and press releases
Aeolis is the ancient name of the Izmir region in western Turkey.

The NASA mission 
On August 6, 2012, Curiosity (the Mars Science Laboratory rover) landed in "Yellowknife" Quad of Aeolis Palus, next to the mountain. NASA named the landing site Bradbury Landing on August 22, 2012. Aeolis Mons is a primary goal for scientific study.
 On June 5, 2013, NASA announced that Curiosity would begin a 8 km (5.0 mi) journey from the Glenelg area to the base of Aeolis Mons.
On November 13, 2013, NASA announced that an entryway Curiosity would traverse on its way to Aeolis Mons was to be named "Murray Buttes", in honor of planetary scientist Bruce C. Murray (1931–2013). The trip was expected to take about a year and would include stops along the way to study the local terrain.
On September 11, 2014, NASA announced that the Curiosity rover had reached Aeolis Mons, the rover mission's long-term prime destination.
On October 5, 2015, possible recurrent slope lineae, wet brine flows, were reported on Mount Sharp near Curiosity.

As of January 20, 2017, Curiosity has been on the planet Mars for 1585 sols (1628 days) since landing on August 6, 2012. 

Sources: 

- NASA Curiosity Mission page 

- Wikipedia

MOUNT KENYA PAINTED BY PILLY TURNER

PILLY TURNER (active 1955-1970) 

Mount Kenya (5,199 m -17,057 ft) 

Kenya

Two paintings of Mount Kenya in 1963

The mountain 
Mount Kenya  (5,199 m -17,057 ft)  is the highest mountain in Kenya and the second-highest in Africa, after Kilimanjaro.   The origin of the name Kenya is not clear, but perhaps linked to the Kikuyu, Embu and Kamba words Kirinyaga, Kirenyaa and Kiinyaa which mean "God's resting place" in all three languages.  Mount Kenya is located in central Kenya, about 16.5 kilometres (10.3 mi) south of the equator, around 150 kilometres (93 mi) north-northeast of the capital Nairobi.
Mount Kenya is the source of the name of the Republic of Kenya.
Mount Kenya is a stratovolcano created approximately 3 million years after the opening of the East African rift.   Before glaciation, it was 7,000 m (23,000 ft) high. It was covered by an ice cap for thousands of years. This has resulted in very eroded slopes and numerous valleys radiating from the centre.  There are currently 11 small glaciers and 8 peaks of which the highest are : Batian (5,199 m -  (17,057 ft), Nelion (5,188 m - 17,021 ft)) and Point Lenana (4,985 m - 16,355 ft).   The forested slopes are an important source of water for much of Kenya.
There are several vegetation bands from the base to the summit. The lower slopes are covered by different types of forest. Many alpine species are endemic to Mount Kenya, such as the giant lobelias and senecios and a local subspecies of rock hyrax. An area of 715 km2 (276 sq mi) around the centre of the mountain was designated a National Park and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.  The park receives over 16,000 visitors per year.
The main ethnic groups living around Mount Kenya are Kikuyu, Ameru, Embu and Maasai.
The first three are closely related. They all see the mountain as an important aspect of their cultures.  The most famous Maasai  are semi-nomadic people, who use the land to the north of the mountain to graze their cattle. They believe that their ancestors came down from the mountain at the beginning of time.  The Maasai name for Mount Kenya is Ol Donyo Keri, which means 'mountain of stripes', referring to the dark shades as observed from the surrounding plains.  At least one Maasai prayer refers to Mount Kenya: " God bless our children, let them be like the olive tree of Morintat, let them grow and expand, let them be like Ngong Hills like Mt. Kenya, like Mt. Kilimanjaro and multiply in number. "
All these cultures arrived in the Mount Kenya area in the last several hundred years.
Climbing routes 
Most of the peaks on Mount Kenya have been summited. The majority of these involve rock climbing as the easiest route, although some only require a scramble or a walk. The highest peak that can be ascended without climbing is Point Lenana (4,985 m -16,355 ft).  The majority of the 15,000 visitors to the national park each year climb this peak.  In contrast, approximately 200 people summit Nelion and 50 summit Batian, the two highest peaks.
Mount Kenya's climbing seasons are a result of its location only 20 km (12 mi) from the equator. During the northern summer the rock routes on the north side of the peak are in good summer condition, while at the same time the ice routes on the south side of the peak are prime shape. The situation is reversed during the southern summer. The two seasons are separated by several months of rainy season before and after, during which climbing conditions are generally unfavorable.
Mount Kenya is home to several good ice routes, the two most famous being the Diamond Couloir and the Ice Window route. Snow and ice levels on the mountain have been retreating at an accelerated rate in recent years, making these climbs increasingly difficult and dangerous.
The satellite peaks around the mountain also provide good climbs. These can be climbed in Alpine style and vary in difficulty from a scramble to climbing at UIAA grade VI.

The artist
Pilly Turner is a kenyan watercolourist, active during the 1955-1970 's. The watercolor she painted are always very realistic, and  with exemples of wild life animals and animals of the country. There are no other information available about this artist and only a few amount of paintings on the art market  (more than 10).

___________________________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

CASTLE MOUNTAIN IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1947

VINTAGE POSTCARD  1947

Castle Mountain or  Mount Eisenhower   (2,766m - 9,075ft)

Canada

 In Castle Mountain in Banff National Park, 1947, Hand-tinted photograph  

The mountain 

Castle Mountain (2,766m - 9,075ft) also named Mount Eisenhower between 1946 and 1979, is a mountain located within Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, approximately halfway between Banff and Lake Louise. It is the easternmost mountain of the Main Ranges in the Bow Valley and sits astride the Castle Mountain Fault which has thrust older sedimentary and metamorphic rocks forming the upper part of the mountain over the younger rocks forming its base. The mountain's castellated, or castle-like, appearance is a result of erosive processes acting at different rates on the peak's alternating layers of softer shale and harder limestone, dolomite and quartzite.
The mountain was named in 1858 by James Hector for its castle-like appearance. From 1946 to 1979 it was known as Mount Eisenhower in honour of the World War II general Dwight D. Eisenhower. Public pressure caused its original name to be restored, but a pinnacle on the southeastern side of the mountain was named Eisenhower Tower. Located nearby are the remains of Silver City, a 19th-century mining settlement, and the Castle Mountain Internment Camp in which persons deemed enemy aliens and suspected enemy sympathizers were confined during World War I.
While looking nearly inaccesible from the Trans-Canada Highway, the peak can be ascended from the backside on the northeastern slopes. The trail to Rockbound Lake leads hikers around the eastern side. The massif contains several high points including Helena Ridge (2,862 m - 9,390 ft), Stuart Knob (2,850 m - 9,350 ft) and Television Peak (2,970 m - 9,744 ft), the latter being named for the TV repeater located on top. Technicians use a helicopter rather than hiking the long ascent to the top.
James Hector, who accompanied the Palliser Expedition, encountered Castle Mountain in August 1858 while leading a side expedition to find the headwaters of the Bow River. He noted that it "...looks exactly like a gigantic castle" and named it Castle Mountain.  He also made the first recorded ascent of its slopes, but is not believed to have reached its summit.
The first climber to reach the top of Castle Mountain was Arthur P. Coleman, a professor at the University of Toronto, in 1884. Lawrence Grassi and P. Cerutti, both from Canmore, were the first to climb Eisenhower Tower in 1926.
In 1881, Joe Healy received some ore in trade from a First Nations person which was discovered to contain a relatively high silver content. The following year he settled at Castle Mountain as a prospector. News of Healy's ore soon spread; others began to arrive and the settlement of Silver City, situated near Castle Mountain, quickly developed. It was already thriving when the Canadian Pacific transcontinental railroad was built through the area in 1884.  Over three thousand people lived there at its height, but it was almost entirely abandoned in 1885 because the mines failed to yield a significant profit.
Situated nearby is Castle Mountain Internment Camp, a First World War internment camp where Ukrainian immigrants to Canada were confined. Life in the camps was often described as 'grim'; with its isolated location far from the roads of the time, the Castle Mountain camp was an ideal place to confine 'enemy aliens' and 'suspected enemy sympathisers'. The forced labour of these men helped build much of the infrastructure of Banff National Park. Internees were held at the Cave & Basin site during the winter months.
Construction began in 1910 at Castle Junction on a highway connecting British Columbia to Calgary that would, upon its completion in the early 1920s, make Castle Mountain more accessible to climbers, hikers and other tourists.


Vintage postcards
Postcards became popular at the turn of the 20th century, especially for sending short messages to friends and relatives. They were collected right from the start, and are still sought after today by collectors of pop culture, photography, advertising, wartime memorabilia, local history, and many other categories.
Postcards were an international craze, published all over the world. The Detroit Publishing Co. and Teich & Co. were two of the major publishers in the U.S, and sometimes individuals printed their own postcards as well. Yvon were the most famous in France. Many individual or anonymous publishers did exist around the world and especially in Africa and  Asia (Japan, Thailand, Nepal, China, Java) between 1920 and 1955. These photographer were mostly local notables, soldiers, official guides belonging to the colonial armies (british french, belgium...) who sometimes had rather sophisticated equipment and readily produced colored photograms or explorers, navigators, climbers (Vittorio Sella and the Archiduke of Abruzzi future king of Italy remains the most famous of them).
There are many types of collectible vintage postcards.
Hold-to-light postcards were made with tissue paper surrounded by two pieces of regular paper, so light would shine through. Fold-out postcards, popular in the 1950s, had multiple postcards attached in a long strip. Real photograph postcards (RPPCs) are photographs with a postcard backing.
Novelty postcards were made using wood, aluminum, copper, and cork. Silk postcards–often embroidered over a printed image–were wrapped around cardboard and sent in see-through glassine paper envelopes; they were especially popular during World War I.
In the 1930s and 1940s, postcards were printed on brightly colored paper designed to look like linen.
Most vintage postcard collectors focus on themes, like Christmas, Halloween, portraits of movie stars, European royalty and U.S. presidents, wartime imagery, and photos of natural disasters or natural wonders. Not to mention cards featuring colorful pictures by famous artists like Alphonse Mucha, Harrison Fisher, Ellen Clapsaddle, and Frances Brundage.

KATA TJUTA / MOUNT OLGA BY NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY

NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY  (since 1999)
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION  

Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga  (1,069 m - 3,507 ft)

Australia (Northern Territory )

Photographed from space in 2010

The mountain 

Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga  (1,069 m - 3,507 ft) is a located in the Northern Territory of Australia,  in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park which hosts some of the world’s most spectacular examples of inselbergs (isolated mountains). The most famous of these inselbergs is Uluru /Ayers Rock. An equally massive inselberg located approximately 30 kilometers (20 miles) to the northwest is known as Kata Tjuta. Like Uluru, this is a sacred site to the native Anangu or Aboriginal people. An English-born explorer named the highest peak Mount Olga, with the entire grouping of rocks informally known as “the Olgas.” Mount Olga has a peak elevation making it 206 meters (676 feet) higher than Uluru/Ayers Rock.

In this astronaut photograph, afternoon sunlight highlights the rounded summits of Kata Tjuta against the surrounding sandy plains. Sand dunes are visible at image lower left, while in other areas (image bottom and image right) sediments washed from the rocks have been anchored by a variety of grasses and bushes adapted to the arid climate. Green vegetation in the ephemeral stream channels that drain Kata Tjuta (image top center) provides colorful contrast with the red rocks and surrounding soils. Large gaps in the rocks (highlighted by shadows) are thought to be fractures that have been enlarged due to erosion.

Kata Tjuta is comprised of gently dipping Mount Currie Conglomerate, a sedimentary rock that includes rounded fragments of other rock types (here, primarily granite with less abundant basalt and rhyolite in a coarse sandy matrix). Geologists interpret the Mount Currie Conglomerate as a remnant of a large fan of material rapidly eroded from mountains uplifted approximately 550 million years ago. Subsequent burial under younger sediments consolidated the eroded materials to form the conglomerate exposed at the surface today.

Source: 

- NASA  Earth Observatory 

The photographer 

Astronaut photograph ISS023-E-29806 was acquired on April 30, 2010, with a Nikon D3 digital camera fitted with an 800 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center.  The image was taken by the Expedition 23 crew. 

The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. 

MOUNT KAZBEK PAINTED BY ILYA N. ZANKOVSKSY

ILYA NIKOLAEVITCH ZANKOVSKY (1832-1919)

Mount Kazbek  (5,047m - 16, 558ft)

Russia - Georgia border

The mountain 
Mount Kazbek  (5,047m - 16, 558ft) or Mkinvartsveri (in Georgian) or Bashlam (in Vainkah)  is a dormant stratovolcano and one of the major mountains of the Caucasus located in the Kazbegi District of Georgia, just south of the border with Russia.  It is the third highest peak in Georgia (after Mount Shkhara and Janga) and the seventh highest summit in the Caucasus Mountains.  Kazbek is also the second highest volcanic summit in the Caucasus, after Mount Elbrus. The summit lies directly to the west of the town of Stepantsminda and is the most prominent geographic feature of the area. Mount Kazbek is the highest peak of Eastern Georgia.
Kazbek is located on the Khokh Range, a mountain range which runs north of the Greater Caucasus Range, and which is pierced by the gorges of the Ardon and the Terek. At its eastern foot runs the Georgian Military Road through the pass of Darial 2,378 meters (7805 feet). The mountain itself lies along the edge of the Borjomi-Kazbegi Fault (which is a northern sub-ending of the Anatolian Fault). The region is highly active tectonically, with numerous small earthquakes occurring at regular intervals. An active geothermal/hot spring system also surrounds the mountain.
 Kazbek is a potentially active volcano, built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 1,770 m (5,800 feet). Kazbek is the highest of the volcanic cones of the Kazbegi volcanic group which also includes Mount Khabarjina (3,142 m).
Owing to the steepness of its slopes, the glaciers of Kazbek are not very large. The total combined area of all of Kazbek's glaciers is 135 kmІ. The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak (Devdaraki), which creeps down the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level of 2,295 meters (7,530 feet). Kazbek's other glaciers include the Mna, Denkara, Gergeti, Abano, and Chata. The recent collapse of the Kolka Glacier, located in a valley between Mt. Jimara and Kazbek in the year 2002 was attributed to solfatara volcanic activity along the northern slope of the mountain, although there was no eruption. In addition to the 2002 event, a massive collapse of the Devdaraki Glacier on the mountain's northeastern slope which occurred on August 20, 2014, led to the death of seven people. The glacier collapse dammed the Terek River in the Daryal Gorge and flooded the Georgian Military Highway.

The painter 
Ilya Zankovsky was a russian  painter and graphic artist  who studied as a noncredit student in the Imperial Academy of Arts (IAKh, 1862–1863) and who did not finish the course. Zankovsky lived in Tiflis, served in the Military topographic department of the Caucasus military region. He painted landscapes of the Caucasus (Mount Elbrus, Georgian military road, The Darial Gorge, From the main mountain range, Mount Ushba. Hunters halt). He worked a lot in watercolor. His works were shown at the exhibitions of the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts, the Society for mutual aid of Caucasian artists, the Society of Russian Watercolorists, and at the Autumn exhibitions in the halls of the IAKh. Zankovsky taught in the Drawing School under the Caucasian Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts in 1880s–1910s.
In 2009 an exhibition of Zankovsky’s works was held in Moscow. Works by Ilya Zankovsky are in many museum collections, including the State Russian Museum, Odessa Fine Arts Museum, Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts named after M. A. Vrubel, and Dagestan Museum of Local History.
_______________________________
2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT DAMAVAND IN VINTAGE POSTCARD, 1951

VINTAGE POSTCARD, 1951

Mount Damavand (5, 610m -18,410ft) 

Iran

 ©wanderingvertexescollection

The mountain 

Mount Damāvand  (5, 610m -18,410ft), in Persian  دماوند‎‎ , a potentially active volcano, is a stratovolcano which is the highest peak in Iran and the Middle East as well as the highest volcano in Asia (the Kunlun Volcanic Group in Tibet has a higher elevation than Damāvand, but are not considered to be volcanic mountains). It has a special place in Persian mythology and folklore.The origins and meaning of the word "Damavand" is unclear, yet some prominent researchers have speculated that it probably means "The mountain from which smoke and ash arises", alluding to the volcanic nature of the mountain. 

This peak is located in the middle of the Alborz range, adjacent to Varārū, Sesang, Gol-e Zard, and Mīānrūd. The mountain is located near the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, in Amol County, Mazandaran Province, 66 kilometres (41 miles) northeast of the city of Tehran. Mount Damāvand is the 12th most prominent peak in the world, and the second most prominent in Asia after Mount Everest. It is the highest volcanic mountain in Asia, and part of the Volcanic Seven Summits mountaineering challenge.

Damavand is a significant mountain in Persian mythology. It is the symbol of Iranian resistance against despotism and foreign rule in Persian poetry and literature. In Zoroastrian texts and mythology, the three-headed dragon Aži Dahāka was chained within Mount Damāvand, there to remain until the end of the world. In a later version of the same legend, the tyrant Zahhāk was also chained in a cave somewhere in Mount Damāvand after being defeated by Kāveh and Fereydūn. Persian poet Ferdowsi depicts this event in his masterpiece, the Shahnameh, in which the mountain is said to hold magical powers. Damāvand has also been named in the Iranian legend of Arash (as recounted by Bal'ami) as the location from which the hero shot his magical arrow to mark the border of Iran, during the border dispute between Iran and Turan. The famous poem Damāvand by Mohammad Taqī Bahār is also one fine example of the mountain's significance in Persian literature.
Mount Damavand is depicted on the reverse of the Iranian 10,000 rials banknote.

An anthropologist of Mazandaran Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department, Touba Osanlou, has said that a proposal has been put forward by a group of Iranian mountaineers to register the highest peak in the Middle East, Mount Damavand as a national heritage site. Mazandaran Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department has accepted the proposal, the Persian daily Jam-e Jam reported. 

Climbing routes 

The best major settlement for mountain climbers is the new Iranian Mountain Federation Camp in the village of Polour, located on the south of the mountain. There are at least 16 known routes to the summit, with varying levels of difficulty. Some of them are very dangerous and require rock 

climbing.

Sources:

- Smithsonian Institution  - Global volcanism program 

Vintage postcards

Postcards became popular at the turn of the 20th century, especially for sending short messages to friends and relatives. They were collected right from the start, and are still sought after today by collectors of pop culture, photography, advertising, wartime memorabilia, local history, and many other categories.

Postcards were an international craze, published all over the world. The Detroit Publishing Co. and Teich & Co. were two of the major publishers in the U.S, and sometimes individuals printed their own postcards as well. Yvon were the most famous in France. Many individual or anonymous publishers did exist around the world and especially in Africa and  Asia (Japan, Thailand, Nepal, China, Java) between 1920 and 1955. These photographer were mostly local notables, soldiers, official guides belonging to the colonial armies (british french, belgium...) who sometimes had rather sophisticated equipment and readily produced colored photograms or explorers, navigators, climbers (Vittorio Sella and the Archiduke of Abruzzi future king of Italy remains the most famous of them).

There are many types of collectible vintage postcards.

Hold-to-light postcards were made with tissue paper surrounded by two pieces of regular paper, so light would shine through. Fold-out postcards, popular in the 1950s, had multiple postcards attached in a long strip. Real photograph postcards (RPPCs) are photographs with a postcard backing.

Novelty postcards were made using wood, aluminum, copper, and cork. Silk postcards–often embroidered over a printed image–were wrapped around cardboard and sent in see-through glassine paper envelopes; they were especially popular during World War I.

In the 1930s and 1940s, postcards were printed on brightly colored paper designed to look like linen.

Most vintage postcard collectors focus on themes, like Christmas, Halloween, portraits of movie stars, European royalty and U.S. presidents, wartime imagery, and photos of natural disasters or natural wonders. Not to mention cards featuring colorful pictures by famous artists like Alphonse Mucha, Harrison Fisher, Ellen Clapsaddle, and Frances Brundage.

BISHOP PEAK PAINTED BY HENRY-JOSEPH BREUER

HENRY JOSEPH BREUER (1860-1932)

Bishop peak (471m - 1,546ft)

United States of America (California)  

oil on canvas, 1920

The mountain 

Bishop Peak (471m- 1,546ft) is a volcanic plug in San Luis Obispo, California. It is the tallest of the Morros or "Nine Sisters", a chain of similar peaks stretching to Morro Bay. It's mistakenly said to take its name from its resemblance to a bishop's miter, however, it is actually named in homage to the town's name (San Luis Obispo). "Obispo" is the Spanish word for Bishop, and It is frequently referred to by locals as "Bishop's Peak".
Like the other Morros, Bishop Peak is primarily composed of dacite. About 20 to 25 million years ago, magma welled up underneath a layer of softer rock and solidified. The softer overlying rock has since eroded away, leaving a distinct rugged shape.
In the past some quarrying has taken place, primarily to provide stone for the nearby city of San Luis Obispo.  Currently Bishop Peak Natural Reserve includes 350 acres (1.4 km2) of land purchased or donated since 1977.
There are several trails in the Open Space with trailheads on Patricia Drive and at the end of Highland Drive. The Felsman Loop Trail covers the northeast base and connects with Bishop Peak Trail, which climbs the South slope to the summit. There is a third possible trailhead on Foothill Blvd. accessing a steep fall line trail on private property which intersects the Bishop Peak Trail partway up. Residents surrounding Bishop Peak prefer for hikers to use the Patricia Drive Trailhead, which offers a 4.2 miles (6.8 km) round trip hike to the summit, ascending 1,175 feet (360 m).
There are many access trails that rock climbers use regularly on Bishop Peak to access different climbing walls. One of these trails, the 'Oh Man' trail starts just to the left of the cracked wall, which is off of the Highland or Patricia Drive trailheads, and it can be taken as an alternate route to the summit. It was named the 'Oh Man' trail due to the fact that it is a short, sprinty trail and it must be taken at a steady tempo in order to maintain safety.

The painter 

Not to be  confused with the austrian physician, Joseph Breuer, Henry Joseph Breuer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,  in 1860 is a american painter who earned a reputation as a well-known "painter of poetic landscapes."  He studied art during the 1870s in Buffalo, New York, and then worked as a designer-decorator for the Rockwood Pottery Company in Cincinnati where he also attended the Art Academy. He worked for five years as a lithographer in New York City. 

In 1888, he settled in San Francisco where he became art editor for the San Francisco Chronicle and Californian magazine. Then he went to France for art study and was influenced by the Barbizon School of impressionist painters of rural landscapes. 

Living out of a horse-drawn wagon, he traveled extensively along the western coast of California and Oregon, painting and earning a national reputation for his landscapes. He also painted in Arizona including Canyon de Chelly in Navajo country and did commissioned views of the San Gabriel Valley for the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.


In 1903 he spent two weeks in  Mount Shasta which had a great impact on him. In the Cincinatti  Time Stars he wrote: 

" I board a train to some station somewhere near Mount Shasta,and this into the woods. I man a one- man camp every night for two weeks.  It was cold and sometimes miserable in the thick, wet, cold mist of the mountain side, but the days were grand before that high, white altar, Shasta! I shall feel for all my life that I was a true pilgrim, and for the sake of days like that, I am happy to be what I am, a landscape painter..."

NOSHAQ PEAKS IMAGED IN AUTOCHROME LUMIERE

AUTOCHROME LUMIERE (ANONYMUS)

Noshaq peaks or Nowshak (7, 492 m-  24, 580 ft) 

Afghanistan - Pakistan border 

In Summer in Hindu Kush - Noshaq peak in the distance, c.1922., autochrome Lumière process

©wanderingvertexescollection - no copy allowed without permission

The mountain 

Noshaq peaks (7, 492 m-  24, 580 ft), also called Nowshak or Nōshākh (in Urdu/Persian/Pashto: نوشاخ‎) is the second highest independent peak of the Hindu Kush Range after Tirich Mir (7,706 m -25,289 ft) and lies on the border between Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan and Chitral District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Noshaq peaks, the 4th highest peak of the Hindu Kush Range, is an independent mountain on the Pakistani border with Afghanistan, with its 4 summits which are :
Noshaq Main (7,492m),  Noshaq East (7,480m), Noshaq Central (7,400m), Noshaq West (7,250 m)
From Pakistan:
Only Noshaq West (7,250 m) stands on the Pak-Afghan border, being natural water shed. Noshaq Main (7,492m) and the rest of the peaks of this massif lie well within Pakistan territory and easily accessible from Chitral-Pakistan which is 64 km away. Chital airport is linked with Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, with a daily flight of one hour duration and Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa province of Pakistan with a daily flight of 40 minutes duration.
Noshaq Main (7,492m) was first ascent by Japanese expedition in 1960. The expedition was led by Professor Sakato. Other members of the expedition were Goro Iwatsabo and Toshiaki Sakai. The route was followed from the South East Ridge of the peak, Nowadays; the normal route is by southeast face through Terich valley of Chitral-Pakistan. The second highest peak in this range is Noshaq East (7,480m) climbed in 1963 by Dr. Gerald Gruber and Rudolf Pischenger from Austria. The 3rd highest peak of the massif Noshaq Central (7,400m) and the 4th peak is Noshaq West (7,250m). These peaks were also climbed by the same Austrian expedition of 1963. The first winter ascent was in 1973 by Tadeusz Piotrowski and Andrzej Zawada, member of a Polish expedition, via the north face. It was the world’s first winter climb above any 7,000m peak.
From Afghanistan:
The North and the west sides of the mountain are in Afghanistan where as the South and Eastern sided are in Pakistan. In Afghanistan's Noshaq is considered it's the highest mountain and is located in the northeastern corner of the country along the Durand line which marks the border with Pakistan. It's 28 km away from Qazi Deh village, an expedition of 5 days journey. Qazi Deh is 280 km away from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, a perilous journey. However, the Easiest access to Noshaq is from Chitral, Pakistan. Nowadays, the normal route on Afghanistan side is by the West ridge.
The first Afghan ascent of the mountain was in July 2009. Two members of a team of four Afghans from the Wakhan Corridor made the summit on July 19.
Source: 
- Afghan Noshaq expedition
- Chitral explorer blog