FUJIYAMA / 富士山(n°19) BY HOKUSAI

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760–1849) 

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

Ushibori in  Hitachi province, woodblock print from n°19 from the series '36 Views of Mt. Fuji'
  Ashmolean Museum - University of Oxford

About the 36 Views of Mt Fuji 

Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūrokkei) is a series of landscape prints　created by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai (1760?1849). The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. The original thirty-six prints were so popular that Hokusai expanded the series by ten.

The artist
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎)  was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.
Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji " both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. In this series, Mt Fuji is painted on different meteorological conditions, in different hours of the days, in different seasons and from different places.

The mountain 
This is the legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山).
It is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). Several names are attributed to it:  "Fuji-san", "Fujiyama" or, redundantly, "Mt. Fujiyama". Usually Japanese speakers refer to the mountain as "Fuji-san".  The other Japanese names for Mount Fuji,  have become obsolete or poetic like: Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山 - The Mountain of Fuji), Fuji-no-Takane (ふじの高嶺- The High Peak of Fuji), Fuyō-hō (芙蓉峰 - The Lotus Peak), and Fugaku (富岳／富嶽), created by combining the first character of 富士, Fuji, and 岳, mountain.
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day.
Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.
Mount Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (三霊山) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites.
It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove; while on the low alps of Mount Fuji lies the Taisekiji temple complex, where the central base headquarters of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is located.

MONT VENTOUX PHOTOGRAPHED BY FRANCIS ROUSSEAU

©Francis Rousseau, all rights reserved.
Mont Ventoux (1, 911 m - 6, 270ft)
France (Provence)
In Mont Ventoux, photo by FR ©2017
Original HD photo on sale on
https://www.revelles.fr/photographe/francis-rousseau

#revelles

The mountain 
Mont Ventoux (Ventor in Latin) is located in the French department of Vaucluse (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur). Culminating at 1,911 meters - 6, 270 ft, it is about 25 kilometers long on an east-west for 15 kilometers wide on a north-south axis. Nicknamed the Giant of Provence, it is the culmination of the Monts du Vaucluse, the ultimate link of the Southern Alps and the highest peak of Vaucluse. Its geographical isolation makes it visible over great distances.
Mont Ventoux is as well the linguistic border between the north and south-Occitan.
Its mainly calcareous nature is responsible, in its top part, its deep white color in every season and intense karstification due to erosion by water, with the presence of numerous scree on the south face. Precipitation is particularly abundant in spring and fall. Rainwater seeps into galleries and reflects the level of the variable flow resurgences such as Fontaine de Vaucluse or Source du Groseau.
Mont Ventoux is subject to a Mediterranean dominant weather, sometimes causing scorching temperatures during summer, the altitude offering a wide variety of climates, to the top (continental influence of mountain type), through a temperate climate (mid-slopes). In addition, the north wind can be very violent and the Mistral blows almost half part of the year.
This particular geomorphology and climate make it a rich and fragile environmental site consisting of many levels of vegetation. It is s a biosphere reserve by UNESCO and Natura 2000 site.
If human settlements are found in the foothills in prehistoric times, the first ascent to the summit would work on 26 April 1336, the poet Petrarch from Malaucène on the northern slope. It opens the way later in numerous scientific studies.
Thereafter, for nearly six centuries, Mont Ventoux has been intensely deforested to provide the shipbuilding in Toulon, charcoal manufacturers and sheep farmers. During World War II, the mountain is home to the Ventoux maquis, the french Resistance against Nazis.
Since 1966, the summit is topped with an observation tower over forty meters high topped by a TV and satellite antenna.
While sheep farming has almost disappeared, beekeeping, gardening (especially cherries), viticulture, harvesting of mushrooms including truffles and, to a lesser extent,  lavender, are still practiced.
Mont Ventoux is an important symbolic figure of Provence that fed oral or literary works and artistic performances or pictorial map.

LES DENTS DU MIDI BY FELIX VALOTTON

FELIX VALOTTON  (1865-1925)  

Les Dents du Midi (3,114 m to 3,257 m -10,216 ft to10,685 ft) 

Switzerland

 In Les Dents du Midi, 1919, Oil on canvas, Private collection 

The mountain 

The Dents du Midi (Teeth of the south) (3,114 m to 3,257 m -10,216 ft to10,685 ft) are a mountain range, 3 kilometers long, located in the Chablais Alps in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Overlooking the valley of Illiez and Rhône Valley on south, they face the lake Salanfe, an artificial reservoir, and are part of the geological whole massif Giffre.

The name "Dents du Midi" is recent. The people formerly called them "Dents Tsallen". It was only towards the end of the19e century that the name "Dents du Midi" came officially.

Each « tooth » had several names over the centuries and according to its geological evolution.

- The "Cime de l'Est" (3178 meters) called "Mont Novierre" before the mid-17th century, and "Mont Saint-Michel "after landslides in 1635 and 1636 and finally "Dent Noire" (until the 19th century).

- The "Dent Jaune" (3186 m) was called the "Dent Rouge" until 1879.

- The "Doigt de Champéry" (in 1882) and then the Doigt Salanfe (in 1886) turned just into "Les Doigts" (Fingers) (3205 m and 3210 m).

- The  "Haute Cime" (3257 m) also had many names : "Dent de l’Ouest" (until 1784)an then "Dent du Midi", "Dent de Tsallen" and "Dent de Challent."

- As for l’Eperon (3114 m) (The Spur), it is assumed that there were two peaks but a landslide in the Middle Ages significantly changed its crest.

- The Forteresse (3164 m) and the Cathedral (3160 m) have not changed names.

The evolution of this massif continues nowadays. So on the morning of 30 October 2006, a volume of 1 million m3 of rock broke away from the edge of the Haute Cime and slid down the slope to an altitude of about 3000 m. The event did not present danger to the nearby village of Val-d'Illiez but roads and trails were closed for security reasons. According to the cantonal geologist, the landslide was caused by the thawing of rocks, helped by warm summers of recent years.
- More about Les Dents du Midi 

The painter 
Félix Edouard Vallotton (December 28, 1865 – December 29, 1925) was a Swiss/French painter and printmaker associated (from 1892) with Les Nabis, a group of young artists that included Pierre Bonnard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Maurice Denis, and Edouard Vuillard, with whom Vallotton was to form a lifelong friendship. During the 1890s, when Vallotton was closely allied with the avant-garde, his paintings reflected the style of his woodcuts, with flat areas of color, hard edges, and simplification of detail. His subjects included genre scenes, portraits and nudes. Examples of his Nabi style are the deliberately awkward Bathers on a Summer Evening (1892–93), now in the Kunsthaus Zurich, and the symbolist Moonlight (1895), in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
In 1899 Vallotton married Gabrielle Rodrigues-Henriques, a wealthy young widow with three children, and in 1900 he attained French citizenship. Around 1899, his printmaking activity diminished as he concentrated on painting, developing a sober, often bitter realism independently of the artistic mainstream. His Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1907) was painted as an apparent response to Picasso's portrait of the previous year, and in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Stein described the very methodical way in which Vallotton painted it, working from top to bottom as if lowering a curtain across the canvas.
Vallotton's paintings of the post-Nabi period found admirers, and were generally respected for their truthfulness and their technical qualities, but the severity of his style was frequently criticized. Typical is the reaction of the critic who, writing in the March 23, 1910 issue of Neue Zurcher Zeitung, complained that Vallotton "paints like a policeman, like someone whose job it is to catch forms and colors. Everything creaks with an intolerable dryness ... the colors lack all joyfulness."
In its uncompromising character his art prefigured the New Objectivity that flourished in Germany during the 1920s, and has a further parallel in the work of Edward Hopper.
Vallotton responded in 1914 to the coming of the First World War by volunteering for the French army, but he was rejected because of his age.  In 1915–16 he returned to the medium of woodcut for the first time since 1901 to express his feelings for his adopted country in the series, This is War, his last prints. He subsequently spent three weeks on a tour of the Champagne front in 1917, on a commission from the Ministry of Fine Arts. The sketches he produced became the basis for a group of paintings, The Church of Souain in Silhouette among them, in which he recorded with cool detachment the ruined landscape.  In his last years Félix Vallotton concentrated especially on still lifes and on "composite landscapes", landscapes composed in the studio from memory and imagination. Always a prolific artist, by the end of his life he had completed over 1700 paintings and about 200 prints, in addition to hundreds of drawings and several sculptures.  He died on the day after his 60th birthday, following cancer surgery in Paris in 1925.

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE JUNGRAU PAINTED BY KARL MILLNER

KARL MILLNER (1825-1895)

The Jungfrau  (4,158m- 13, 642ft)

Switzerland

In Die Junfrau, 1867, oil on canvas, private collection 

The mountain 

The Jungfrau (4,158 m- 13,642 ft) ("The virgin" in german) is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps, located between the northern canton of Bern and the southern canton of Valais, halfway between Interlaken and Fiesch. Together with The Eiger and  the Mönch, the Jungfrau forms a massive wall overlooking the Bernese Oberland and the Swiss Plateau, one of the most distinctive sights of the Swiss Alps. It is one of the most represented by artists summits with the Matterhorn and the Mont Blanc.

- More about the Jungfrau

The painter  

Karl Millner was a German landscape painter. In 1850, Millner moved from Mindelheim (Allgäu) to Munich, Germany's cultural capital, in order to perfect his artistic abilities and to receive new stimuli. Influenced by Carl Rottmann (1797-1850) and Eduard Schleich (the older 1812-1874), Millner quickly made a name for himself as a good painter especially for alpine landscapes. From 1858 Millner also studied painting with Julius Lange. Characteristic of his style were the dramatic appearance of the high Alps. He painted with great meticulous mountain panoramas, which were characterized by fine details and skillfully used light and shadow contrasts. The connection to the art dealer Daniel Loffel in 1857 opened the possibility for Millner to work in a financially secure framework. It also created the prerequisite for letting many young artists of this time work in his studio.

SOGNEFJORD PAINTED BY THERESE FUCHS

THERESE FUCHS  (1849-1898)

Sognefjord (1, 306m - 4, 291ft)

 Norway 

In Sommertag im Sognefjord, 1898, oil on canvas,  Private collection 

The mountains 

The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (1,308 metres -4,291 ft deep) is the largest and best known fjord in Norway and  the deepest in its  central parts near Haeyanger. Located in Sogn og Fjordane county in Western Norway, it stretches 205 kilometres (127 mi) inland from the ocean to the small village of Skjolden in the municipality of Luster. The fjord takes its name from the traditional district of Sogn, which covers the southern part of the county.

The fjord runs through many municipalities: Solund, Gulen, Hyllestad, Hшyanger, Vik, Balestrand, Leikanger, Sogndal, Laerdal, Aurland, Еrdal, and Luster.   Near its mouth, the bottom rises abruptly to a sill about 100 metres (330 ft) below sea level. The seabed in Sognefjord is covered by some 200 metres (660 ft) thick sediments such that the bedrock is some 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) below sea level. The fjord is up to 6 km wide. Cliffs surrounding the fjord rise almost sheer from the water to heights of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) and more.

The inner end of the Sognefjord is localized southeast of a mountain range rising to about 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) above sea level and covered by the Jostedalsbreen, continental Europe's largest glacier.  Hurrungane range at the eastern end of the fjord reaches 2400 m. The greatest elevation from sea bed to summit is at Sogndal. Several rivers pour fresh water into the fjord with an annual "spring" flood in June.The mouth of the fjord is surrounded by many islands including Sula, Losna, and Hiserшyna.

Boats connect settlements along the fjord and its sidearms. Larger villages on the fjord and its branches include Leirvik, Ytre Oppedal, Vadheim, Hшyanger, Vikшyri, Balestrand, Hermansverk, Sogndalsfjшra, Gudvangen, Flеm, Aurlandsvangen, Laerdalsшyri, Еrdalstangen, Gaupne, and Solvorn. Gudvangen is situated by the Naerшyfjord, a branch of the Sognefjord particularly noted for its unspoiled nature and dramatic scenery, and only 300 metres (980 ft) across at its narrowest point. The Naerшyfjord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the village of Flеm, the Flеm Railway climbs 864 m (2,835 ft) up to Myrdal Station in a distance of only 20 kilometres (12 mi)—the steepest unassisted railway climb in the world.

Around the inner end of the fjord, three of Norway's famous stave churches have survived: Kaupanger and Urnes (along the shoreline) and Borgund (30 kilometres or 19 miles into the Laerdal valley). The Sognefjord Span (power lines) crosses the fjord with a span of 4,597 metres (15,082 ft). This is the second largest span of power lines in the world. The fjord has become a tourist attraction with summer tourists being an important part of the local economy.

The painter 

Therese Fuchs was a German artist of the Dusseldorf School of Painting  who is known to have lived in Norway for a considerable time.  A prolific painter, she created atmospheric works depicting Alpine scenes, fiords, lakes and snowy landscapes, signing her work 'Th. Fuchs'. Many sources give her date of death as 1898 but this may be the year of her last dated painting as other sites state 'after 1898'. ​In the Getty Library Repository there is a letter from Therese Fuchs, dated 1901, sent to the German artist Melchior Lechter which might prove she was still alive in 1901...
Between 1819 and 1918, some 4000 artists belonged to the Düsseldorf school of painting, a school which  had a significant influence on the Hudson River School in the United States.  Albert Bierstadt applied but was not accepted.  His American friend Worthington Whittredge became his teacher while attending Düsseldorf.

VINICUNCA - MONTANA DE SIETE COLORES IN VINTAGE POSTCARDS 1930-1940

VINTAGE  POSTCARDS 1930- 1940

Vinicunca or Montaña de Siete Colores  (5,200m- 17, 100ft)  

 Peru (Cuzco)

1. In Vinicunca at noon, 1940, Vintage Peruvian postcard 

2. In Vinicunca at dawn, covered with snow, 1930, Vintage American postcard

The mountain 

Vinicunca (5,200m- 17, 100ft)  also called Montaña de Siete Colores (The Mountain of Seven Colors) or Montaña de Colores  (Mountain of colors), sometimes known as Rainbow mountains, is a mountain in Peru, located in the Andes of Peru, in the . The Mountain of Seven Colors is a spectacular place, as if it were taken from another planet. It is found in the mountain range of Vilcanota and its striking natural coloration is due to the presence of sedimentary stones and minerals thanks to the erosion of wind and water. Ocres, reds, whites, yellows, greens and purples form a chromatic range that make Vinicunca a unique place in the world.

According to what some people of the area, this part of the mountain range was covered by glaciers for millennia. It seems that the disappearance of perpetual snow since the 1920's, made this colorful show. One of the peculiarities of this mountain for tourists (and they actually are too many!) who arrive there at dawn, is to discover Vinicunca covered with frost and entirely white (second photo above), without any of the colors that the brochures had promised! Then, as the sun warms up the atmosphere, the frost melts and reveals a land of multiple colors, a true rainbow mountain. One can imagine the reaction of the Incas to this phenomenon and why they immediately declared it sacred mountain.

There are two others Rainbow mountains or so called Colored Mountains on planet Earth : one in Canada, one in China.

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.

GRINDELWALD VALLEY PANORAMA BY CASPAR WOLF

CASPAR WOLF (1735-1783) 

The Eiger (3,970 m - 13, 020ft)

The Mettenberg (3,104m -10,184ft)

The Wetterhorn (3,692m - 12, 133ft) 

Grindelwald Valley (1,034 m (3,392 ft) 

Switzerland

 In Panorama of the Grindelwald valley with  the Eiger, the Mettenberg, the Wetterhorn, 

oil on canvas, Private collection 

The mountains 

The Eiger (3,970 m - 13,020 ft)  is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau (4,158 m -13,642 ft), constituting one of the most emblematic sights of the Swiss Alps.
The Mettenberg  (3,104m -10,184ft) also spelled Mättenberg, is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald in the Bernese Oberland. It lies north of the Schreckhorn.

The Wetterhorn (3,692m - 12, 133ft)  is a mountain in the Swiss Alps towering above the village of Grindelwald. Formerly known as Hasle Jungfrau, it is one of three summits of a mountain named Wetterhorn sensu lato, or the "Wetterhцrner", the highest summit of which is the Mittelhorn (3,704 m) and the most distant the Rosenhorn (3,689 m). The Mittelhorn and Rosenhorn are mostly hidden from view from Grindelwald. The Grosse Scheidegg Pass crosses the col to the north, between the Wetterhorn and the Schwarzhorn.

Grindelwald (1,034 m 3,392 ft) designates a valley, a village and a municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the canton of Berne in Switzerland. In addition to the village of Grindelwald, the municipality also includes the settlements of Alpiglen, Burglauenen, Grund, Itramen, Mühlebach, Schwendi, Tschingelberg and Wargistal.

The Painter 

Caspar Wolf was a Swiss painter, known mostly for his dramatic paintings of Alps. He was strongly influenced by Albrecht von Hallers poem on the Alps, and the Sturm und Drang movement. After 1773 Wolf mostly painted glaciers, caves, waterfalls and gorges.

Wolf was trained in Konstanz, between 1753 and 1759 he worked in Augsburg, Munich, Passau as a decoration painter. Not being able to sell his work he went disappointed back to his home town. For Horben Castle he painted by hand the wallpaper on the first floor. In 1768 Wolf lived in Basel. From 1769 till 1771 he stayed in Paris and worked with Philip James de Loutherbourg. In 1774 he moved to Bern. Wolf made a deal with the local publisher Abraham Wagner who had a geological interest, to deliver 200 paintings. He travelled with Wagner or a minister Jakob Samuel Wyttenbach in Berner Oberland and Wallis. From 1780-1781 he was working in Spa, Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle and Düsseldorf. He died in poor circumstances in a hospital.

In 1779 his prints were exhibited in Bern but the book failed to sell. Wagner received help from a Swiss army officer in Dutch service and in 1785 thirty aquatints were published in Amsterdam. Till 1948 ninety of these aquatints were exhibited in Keukenhof Castle, but sold. Today these works can be seen in the Kunsthaus in Aarau. His son Theodor Wolf (1770–1818) was a still life painter.

MONTE DARWIN BY ISABELLE SCHEIBLI

ISABELLE SCHEIBLI (bn.1949) 

Monte Darwin (2,438m - 7,999ft) 

Chile (Tierra del Fuego) 

In Mont Darwin, Antarctica, watercolor, 2016, Private collection 

The Mountain 
Monte Darwin (2,438m - 7,999ft) is a peak in Tierra del Fuego, Chile, forming part of the Cordillera Darwin, the southernmost range of the Andes, just to the north of the Beagle Channel. It is formed of crystalline schists and has massive glaciers down its steep southern slopes. Monte Darwin was for a long time considered as the highest peak in Tierra del Fuego, but that distinction corresponds to a mountain unofficially named Monte Shipton, which is about 2,580 m (8,460 ft) high and is located at 54°39′33″S 69°35′54″W.
Both peaks are best climbed in late December, January, February and March. Monte Shipton was first climbed in 1962 by Eric Shipton, E. Garcia, F. Vivanco and C. Marangunic.
Mount Darwin was given its name during the voyage of the Beagle by HMS Beagle's captain Robert FitzRoy to celebrate Charles Darwin's 25th birthday on 12 February 1834. A year earlier FitzRoy had named an expanse of water to the southwest of the mountain the Darwin Sound to commemorate Darwin's quick wit and courage in saving them from being marooned when waves from a mass of ice splitting off a glacier threatened their boats.
The mountain is part of Alberto de Agostini National Park.

The artist 
Isabelle Scheibli (bn. 1949) is a french journalist, screenwriter, essayist and watercolorist, passionate about mountains. She is the author of the novel "Gaspard de la Meije" published in 1984. As a journalist she worked for several mountains magazines such as "Vertical" or "Montagne Magazine". She wrote several films scenarii related to the mountain such as "Le passe montagne" (1996), "Jours Blancs" (1990) or "Gaspard de la Meije" (1984) based on her novel, winner of a prize in the Festivals of Trent and of Les Diablerets, and also recompensed by the La Fondation de France. As a watercolorist, she illustrated three albums from the Carrés de France collection for Editions Equinox, about the Haute Savoie (2002), the Savoie (2003), the Drôme Provençale (2008).
Isabelle Scheibli made several voyages to Patagonia and Antarctica, which are her favorite places on earth. She doesn’t always paint in situ, due to the extreme conditions in these lands, especially speaking about watercolors! She often paints watertcolors in her studio from her drawings or photos, she realised herself in the Antarctic.  About those voyages she wrote :
 «Painting the glacial world is a long-term process. To accompany close alpinists and Himalayists in their expeditions, I have often been in the mountains, in the Alps, in Nepal and in Tibet. The peaks have become a privileged motive. In 2014, I had the opportunity to go to Patagonia, to follow the coast of the Beagle Channel on a sailboat and to go to the foot of the glaciers of Tierra del Fuego. It was a very violent aesthetic shock.  Here the conditions did not always allow me  to paint as I wished. When I returned I undertook a work in my atelier from the many drawings, watercolors and photos that I had brought back. The dimension of immensity quickly led me to paint in a large format, which I had never done before. In 2016, I set out on a sailboat to approach the absolute quintessence of the glacier, an entire continent of ice, Antarctica. I had somewhat underestimated the navigation part of this trip but the discovery of this icy pole was a glare. Once again I brought back watercolors stolen between two gusts, many drawings and photos. And I got to work on the way back, immersing myself completely »

THE MONT BLANC BY ADOLPHE BRAUN

ADOLPHE BRAUN (1812-1877)  

The Mont Blanc (4,808 m - 15,776 ft)

  France - Italy border

In La pierre de Béranger et le massif du Mont-Blanc, 1875, photograph on paper. 

The mountain 

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

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

-  More about The Mont Blanc 

The photographer

Adolphe Braun was a French photographer, best known for his floral still lifes, Parisian street scenes, and grand Alpine landscapes. One of the most influential French photographers of the 19th century, he used contemporary innovations in photographic reproduction to market his photographs worldwide. In his later years, he used photographic techniques to reproduce famous works of art, which helped advance the field of art history.
Photography historian Naomi Rosenblum described Braun's work as representative of the relationship between art and commercialism in the mid-19th century. His self-sustaining Mulhouse studio helped elevate photography from a craft to a full-scale business enterprise, producing thousands of unique images which were reproduced and marketed throughout Europe and North America.  Rosenblum also suggests that Braun's detailed reproductions of works of art in European museums brought these works to art students in North America, providing a major catalyst for the field of art history in the United States. Subsequent photographs focused on Alpine landscapes, especially lake scenes, and glacier scenes. Unlike many landscape photographers during this period, Braun liked to include people in his scenes. Photography historian Helmut Gernsheim suggested that Braun was one of the most skillful photographers of his era in rendering composition.  While not known as a portraitist, he did take portraits of several notable individuals, including Pope Pius IX, Franz Liszt, and the Countess of Castiglione, mistress of Napoleon III. Braun's work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the George Eastman House, and the Musйe d'Orsay.
His photographs of Parisian street scenes and Alpine landscapes are frequently reproduced in works on the history of photography.

SAPAS MONS BY NASA MAGELLAN MISSION

NASA MAGELLAN MISSION (1989-1994)

Sapas Mons (1,500m or 1, 5km -   4,921ft or 0.93mi)

Venus (Alta Regio) 

The mountain 

Sapas Mons 1.5 kilometers (0.93 mi) is a large volcano with twin summit, located in the Atla Regio region of planet Venus. Sapas is named after the Canaanite sun goddess. It measures about 400 kilometers (250 mi) across. Its flanks show numerous overlapping lava flows. The dark flows on the lower right of the radar image are thought to be smoother than the brighter ones near the central part of the volcano. Many of the flows appear to have been erupted along the flanks of the volcano rather than from the double summit. This type of flank eruption is common on large volcanoes on Earth, such as the Hawaiian volcanoes. The summit area has two flat-topped mesas, whose smooth tops give a relatively dark appearance in the radar image. Also seen near the summit are groups of pits, some as large as one kilometer (0.6 mile) across. These are thought to have formed when underground chambers of magma were drained through other subsurface tubes and lead to a collapse at the surface. A 20-kilometer-diameter (12 mi) impact crater northeast of the volcano is partially buried by the lava flows. Little was known about Atla Regio prior to the Magellan probe. The new data, acquired in February 1991, show the region to be composed of at least five large volcanoes such as Sapas Mons, which are commonly linked by complex systems of fractures or rift zones. If comparable to similar features on Earth Atla Regio probably formed when large volumes of molten rock upwelled from areas within the interior of Venus known as 'hot spots.'
Source:
- NASA

The photographer 
Soviet Venera 13 and 14 spacecraft observed in the 1970s have first photographed the twin summit. The Nasa Magellan Mission photographed the region in a more acute way.
- More about NASA Magellan Mission 
- Nasa Magellan Mission to Venus

CERRO MACA BY RAMOS CATALAN

RAMOS CATALAN (1888-1961)

Cerro Macá  (2, 300m - 7, 500ft)    

Chile

In Mountains landscapes of Andes, oil on canvas,Valparaiso Art Museum / Palazzo Barburizza

The mountain 

Cerro Macá  (2, 300m - 7, 500ft) - not to be be confused with Mount Maca in Mozambique, Africa -  is a stratovolcano located to the north of the Aisen Fjord and to the east of the Moraleda Channel, in the Aysen del General Carlos Ibanez del Campo Region of Chile.  Part of the Andes, this glacier-covered volcano lies along the regional Liquiсe-Ofqui Fault Zone. It has erupted basalt.
This peak has no ascents officially registered by  professional climbers.

 Source: 

 - Peakbagger. com 

The painter 
Benito Ramos Catalán (1888-1961) was a chilean  painter who used to sign "Ramos Catalan". Known for his marines and landscapes of the Andes and Chile, and most particularly for his mountains paintings. Most of them have the same title: "Mountains of Chile" or  "Mountains landscapes of Andes", making quite difficult to know which mountain was exactly depicted, in a country which has quite a lot of summits ! To add to the difficulty, he used to paint the most famous mountains of his country under very unusual angles or with proportions that do not correspond exactly to their real size... making even more difficult to recognize and identify them for experts ! That is why today, 55 years after his death, some of these mountains paintings are not clearly identified and presented, in the public sales, as 'possibly' a particular summit of Chile or Andes...
His works are in many Chilean institutions like Viña del Mar Fine Art Museum, O'Higginiano Fine Art Museum in Talca, Valparaiso Fine Art Museum, and Navy  Schools in Valparaiso and Talcahuano, Ranos.

MONT VENTOUX PAINTED BY PAUL SURTEL

PAUL SURTEL (1893-1985)

 The mont Ventoux (1, 911m - 6, 270ft)

 France (Provence-Alpe-Côte-d'Azur)  

1. The mont Ventoux from north, oil on cardboard, Private collection, France

2.  The mont Ventoux from south-west, oil on cardboard, Private collection, France

 3. The mont Ventoux from west , oil on cardboard, (not signed), Private collection, France

 4. The mont Ventoux from south, oil on cardboard, Private collection, France

 5. The mont Ventoux from Les Alpilles,  oil on cardboard, Private collection, Switzerland

One can notice that there is not a single tree on those paintings of the Mont Ventoux, which is no longer the case today. This is the result of an intensive reforestation policy carried out by the French State services on this mountain which had been devastated by the forestry exploitation in the late 19th and the early 20th century.

The mountain 

Mont Ventoux  (1, 911m - 6, 270ft), Ventor in Latin, is located in the French department of Vaucluse (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur). It is about 25 kilometers long on an east-west for 15 kilometers wide on a north-south axis. Nicknamed the Giant of Provence, it is the culmination of the Monts du Vaucluse, the ultimate link of the Southern Alps and the highest peak of Vaucluse. Its geographical isolation makes it visible over great distances.

- More about Mont Ventoux 

The painter 

Paul Surtel is a French painter and epistolier, the son of a family of coffee makers and restaurateurs living in the Paris region. Fernand Maillaud, the "good master",  a landscape painter, very good friend of Paul's father, introduced him very early to painting. In1904, Paul Surtel went up to Paris,at the Lycée Charlemagne and the Arts Décoratifs, but especially at the "l'école buissonnière", visiting  museums and exhibitions in the galleries of Paris instead to go to school ! He then became passionate for Rembrandt and especially Corot (who greatly influenced him).
At the end of the First World War, he was enlisted as an artilleryman (at the beginning of 1917). From Seine and Marne in Lorraine, Belgium, Somme, he went from offensive to cantonments. Then he allows himself to be taken back by nature, draws, leaves emotion to guide his hand, the craft acquiring itself by dint of attention and work.
Demobilized in Hyères, Paul found a forestry foreman occupation in the Var, and discovered the Provençal nature that would become the source of his work and would make him known as a "regionalist painter", a rather pejorative label to carry in France until very recently.  In 1937, during one of his first exhibitions in Oran (Algeria, at that time French department) Paul Surtel meets Elia Duc, a young teacher in a small the algerian city. They married in 1939. After that follows 48 years of passionate creation and happiness, especially in Peipin, a tiny village in the Alpes of Haute Provence where the couple settled. His paintings radiate tenderness, lightness, effusion, through impalpable matter. After two years in Quercy, then three in Orange, the family settles in Carpentras (Vaucluse), in 1951, where Elia is named professor.
From the 60s, Paul Surtel added landscapes, still-lifes and portraits.

MOUNT EREBUS BY SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER

SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER (1817-1911)

Mount Erebus (3,794m - 12, 448ft) 

Antarctica (Ross Island) 

 

In The HMS Erebus Voyage - Hookers's Antarctic Journal (1839-1843), watercolor, 

Royal Botanic Garden Kew, UK

The mountain 

Mount Erebus (3, 794 m - 12, 448ft), not to be confused with Mount Elbrus is the second-highest volcano in Antarctica (after Mount Sidley) and the southernmost active volcano on Earth. It is the sixth highest ultra mountain on an island, located on Ross Island, which is also home to three inactive volcanoes:  Mount Terror, Mount Bird, and Mount Terra Nova.
The volcano has been active since c. 1.3 million years ago and is the site of the Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory run by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
Mount Erebus was discovered on January 27, 1841 (and observed to be in eruption) by polar explorer Sir James Clark Ross who named it and its companion, Mount Terror, after his ships, Erebus and Terror (which were later used by Sir John Franklin on his disastrous Arctic expedition). Erebus is a dark region in Hades in Greek mythology. Present with Ross on the Erebus was the young Joseph Hooker, future president of the Royal Society and close friend of Charles Darwin. Erebus was an Ancient Greek primordial deity of darkness, the son of Chaos.
The mountain was surveyed in December 1912 by a science party from Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition who also collected geological samples. Two of the camp sites they used have been recognised for their historic significance:
- Upper “Summit Camp” site (HSM 89) consists of part of a circle of rocks, which were probably used to weight the tent valances.
- Lower “Camp E” site (HSM 90) consists of a slightly elevated area of gravel as well as some aligned rocks, which may have been used to weight the tent valances.
They have been designated Historic Sites or Monuments following a proposal by the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting.
- More About Mont Erebus

The artist 

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM GCSI CB PRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, succeeding his father, William Jackson Hooker, and was awarded the highest honours of British science. He reminded famous for his Voyages to Antarctic (1839-1843), Himalayas and India (1847-1851), Palestine (1860), Morocco (1871), and Western United Statesof America (1877).  He is the first European to have sketched Mount Everest and Himalayas as well as Mount Erebus and Mont Terror in Antarctic, the two volcanoes discovered on the voyage and named after the expedition ships HMW Erebus and HMS Terror. Joseph Hooker's first major botanical expedition was on HMS Erebus as part of Captain James Clark Ross' Antarctica expedition (1839-1843).
- More about Joseph Dalton Hooker

ETNA SKETCHED BY EUGENE VIOLLET-LE-DUC

EUGENE VIOLLET-LE-DUC (1814-1879)

Mount Etna or Mongibello (3,329 m - 10,922ft) 

 Italy (Sicily) 

In Le cratère de l'Etna en Sicile, 1836, watercolor, Musée Lambinet Versailles, France  

The mountain 
Mount Etna (3,329 m - 10,922ft) or Mongibello, Mungibeddu in Sicilian, Aetna in Latin is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, in the Province of Catania, between Messina and Catania. It lies above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is the tallest active volcano in Europe. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 (459 sq mi) with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. Only Mount Teide in Tenerife surpasses it in the whole of the European–North-African region. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under this mountain by Zeus, the god of the sky and thunder and king of gods, and the forges of Hephaestus were said to also be located underneath it.
Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is in an almost constant state of activity. The fertile volcanic soils support extensive agriculture, with vineyards and orchards spread across the lower slopes of the mountain and the broad Plain of Catania to the south.
Due to its history of recent activity and nearby population, Mount Etna has been designated a Decade Volcano by the United Nations. In June 2013, it was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
- More informations about Mount Etna

The artist 
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (not to be confused with the writer Violette Leduc) was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings.  But he was, as well, an excellent but less famous watercolorist, sketching quite a number of mountains and volcanoes all over Europe.
Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect. His works were largely restorative and few of his independent building designs were ever realised. Strongly contrary to the prevailing Beaux-Arts architectural trend of his time, much of his design work was largely derided by his contemporaries. He was the architect hired to design the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty, but died before the project was completed.
During the early 1830s, a popular sentiment for the restoration of medieval buildings developed in France. Viollet-le-Duc, returning during 1835 from study in Italy, was commissioned by Prosper Mérimée to restore the Romanesque abbey of Vézelay. This work was the first of a long series of restorations; Viollet-le-Duc's restorations at Notre Dame de Paris with Jean-Baptiste Lassus brought him national attention. His other main works include Mont Saint-Michel, Carcassonne, Roquetaillade castle and Pierrefonds.
Viollet-le-Duc's "restorations" frequently combined historical fact with creative modification. For example, under his supervision, Notre Dame was not only cleaned and restored but also "updated", gaining its distinctive third tower (a type of flèche) in addition to other smaller changes. Another of his most famous restorations, the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne, was similarly enhanced, gaining atop each of its many wall towers a set of pointed roofs that are actually more typical of northern France. Many of these reconstructions were controversial. Viollet-le-duc wanted what he called ‘a condition of completeness' which never actually existed at any given time. This approach to restoration was particularly problematic when buildings survived in a mixture of styles. For instance, Viollet-le-Duc eliminated eighteenth-century additions to Notre Dame. Both his theory and his practice were strongly criticized on the grounds that only what had once been in place should be reconstructed. At the same time, in the cultural atmosphere of the Second Empire theory necessarily became diluted in practice: Viollet-le-Duc provided a Gothic reliquary for the relic of the Crown of Thorns at Notre-Dame in 1862, and yet Napoleon III also commissioned designs for a luxuriously appointed railway carriage from Viollet-le-Duc, in 14th-century Gothic style.
Among his restorations were:
- Churches :
Notre-Dame in Paris, Abbey of the Mont Saint-Michel, Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene in Vézelay, St. Martin in Clamecy,  Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, Basilica of St. Denis near Paris, St. Louis in Poissy, Notre-Dame in Semur-en-Auxois, Basilica of St. Nazarius and St. Celsus in Carcasonne, Basilica of St. Sernin in Toulouse, Notre-Dame in Lausanne (Switzerland).
Town halls:
- Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, Narbonne
Castles:
- Château de Roquetaillade in Bordeaux, Château de Pierrefonds, Fortified city of Carcassonne, Château de Coucy, Antoing in Belgium, Château de Vincennes in  Paris.
When monuments was to much damaged, he sometimes  obtain from the emperor Napoleon III the permission to entirely rebuilt it,  like he did in Avignon with the Popes ramparts all around the city.
Sources: 
- Encyclopedia Britannica 

BARRON CANYON (PETAWAWA) PAINTED BY TOM THOMSON

TOM THOMSON (1877-1917) 

Barron Canyon (139m - 456ft)

Canada (Ontario) 

1. In Petawawa, fall 1916, oil on panel Private collection 

2. In Sketch for Petawawa Gorges (Early Spring), Spring 1914, oil on panel Private collection 

3. In Petawawa Gorges, fall 1916 , oil on panel Private collection 

 Note : 

Several of Thomson's sketches of  1914 - 1916 entitled   "Gorges of the Petawawa" were painted in what is now known as the Barron Canyon on the Barron River. 

The Canyon 

Barron Canyon (100 m- 328 ft) is a deep canyon formed approximately 10,000 years ago, the river was a main outlet for glacial meltwater in this region. It is believed to have carried for a short time the outflow from the Lake Agassiz. The rocks exposed in the Canyon are part of the Canadian Shield. The canyon itself still shows activity in the form of rockfalls and landslides.
The Barron River (in French: Rivière Barron) is a river in the Saint Lawrence River drainage basin in Nipissing District and Renfrew County, Ontario, Canada. It flows from Clemow Lake in northern Algonquin Provincial Park and joins the Petawawa River, whose southern branch it forms, in the municipality of Laurentian Hills, near the municipality of Petawawa.

The painter 
Thomas John "Tom" Thomson was an influential Canadian artist of the early 20th century. He directly influenced a group of Canadian painters that would come to be known as the Group of Seven, and though he died before they formally formed, he is sometimes incorrectly credited as being a member of the group itself.
Thomson was largely self-taught. His first trips to Algonquin Park inspired him to follow the lead of fellow artists in producing oil sketches of natural scenes on small, rectangular panels for easy portability while travelling. Between 1912 and his death in 1917, Thomson produced hundreds of these small sketches, many of which are now considered works in their own right, and are housed in such galleries as the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
Many of Thomson's major paintings, including Northern River, The Jack Pine, and The West Wind, began as sketches before being expanded into large oil paintings at Thomson's "studio"—an old utility shack with a wood-burning stove on the grounds of the Studio Building, an artist's enclave in Rosedale, Toronto. Although Thomson sold few of these paintings during his lifetime, they formed the basis of posthumous exhibitions, including one at Wembley in London, that eventually brought international attention to his work.
Thomson was aided by the patronage of Toronto physician James MacCallum, who enabled Thomson's transition from graphic designer to professional painter.  Although the Group of Seven was not founded until after Thomson's death, his work is sympathetic to that of group members A. Y. Jackson, Frederick Varley, Arthur Lismer.  These artists shared an appreciation for rugged, unkempt natural scenery, and all used broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the stark beauty and vibrant colour of the Ontario landscape. Thomson's art bears some stylistic resemblance to the work of European post-impressionists such as Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, whose work he may have known from books or visits to art galleries.
Described as having an "idiosyncratic palette," Thomson's control of colour was exceptional. He often mixed available pigments to create unusual, new colours making his distinctive palette along with his brushwork instantly recognizable regardless of the subject of his work. For Thomson biographer Harold Town, the brevity of Thomson's career hinted at an artistic evolution never fully realized. He cites the oil painting Unfinished Sketch as "the first completely abstract work in Canadian art" a painting that, whether or not it was intended as a purely non-objective work, presages the innovations of Abstract expressionism.
Thomson died under mysterious circumstances on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park.
Since his death, Thomson's work has grown in value and popularity. In 2002, the National Gallery of Canada staged a major exhibition of his work, giving Thomson the same level of prominence afforded Picasso, Renoir, and the Group of Seven in previous years. In recent decades, the increased value of Thomson's work has led to the discovery of numerous forgeries of his work on the market.
Source : 
- Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery 

SEEBERG SADDLE BY MARCUS PERNHART

MARCUS PERNHART (1824-1871)

Seeberg Saddle (1,218m- 3, 996ft) 

Austria - Slovenia

The mountain 
Seeberg Saddle   (1,218m- 3, 996ft), Seebergsattel in German, Jezerski in Slovene,  or also just Seeberg, is a high mountain pass connecting Bad Eisenkappel in the Austrian state of Carinthia with Jezersko in the Slovenian region of Carinthia. It is located in the Southern Limestone Alps, between the Karavanke range in the west and the Kamnik–Savinja Alps in the east.
The road across the pass is probably of Roman origin, leading from the Drava valley in the Noricum province towards the city of Aquileia. The border at the summit was implemented after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary by the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain. Today the Seeberg Highway (B 82) heads from the Austrian side up to the border crossing on the pass. Directly behind the Slovenian border station is an inn. On the Slovenian side, the state road No. 210 descends from the Seeberg down to Jezersko, offering a panoramic view of the Kamnik Alps.
Seeberg Saddle is also known as the Carinthian Seeberg to distinguish it from the Styrian Seeberg Pass in the Northern Limestone Alps.

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.
- More about Marcus Pernhart

OL DONYO SABUK BY AKSELI GALLEN-KALLELA

 AKSELI GALLEN-KALLELA (1865-1931)

Ol Donyo Sabuk or Kilimambogo (2, 145m- 7, 037ft) 

Kenya

 In Mount Donia Sabuk, 1909, oil on canvas,  Finish National  Gallery.

The mountain 
Ol Donyo Sabuk (2, 145m- 7, 037ft) also called  Kilimambogo in Kikuyu) is a mountain and an adjacent small town near Thika central Kenya. The peak was named by Maasai pastoralists, meaning big mountain. The Kikuyu name, Kilimambogo, means Buffalo Hill or Mountain.  The town is located in Kyanzavi Division, at the border between Machakos County and Kiambu County.
Lord William Northrop Macmillan (1872-1925) was the first white man to settle here, and everything else that has happened since is largely attributed to him. The town is quite dusty, due to deforestation and loose ground cover, compounded by occasional rainfall. However, the area is adorned with lots of untamed beauty.  Near the peak is the grave of Lord Macmillan,  his wife and their dog. Also, there is an extra grave of one Louise, who started working for the Macmillan's when she was age 13 until her death. It was, once, one of the biggest ranches in Kenya, with nothing less than five towns inside the former Juja Ranch. The rural area is a multi-ethnic community in farms owned by people who were former squatters and his farm labourers. The mountain peak is inside a game park, and the rest is partially owned nowadays by the Kenyatta family.
The name of this park established in 1967, Ol Donyo Sabuk, means large mountain in Maasai and Kamba language. It is situated 65 km (40 mi) north of Nairobi and has an excellent and clear view of Nairobi and other lowland areas. Wildlife species that can be spotted here include buffalo, colobus monkeys, baboons, bushbuck, impala, duiker, and abundant birdlife.
Ol Donyo Sabuk National Park is a common one-day trip out of Nairobi, only 65 km (40 mi) away. The mountain is the highest peak in the park, covering 20.7 km2 (8.0 sq mi).  One approach to the park is via the Fourteen Falls on the Athi River. The park's attraction is its beauty and views of both Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro. It teems with game including baboon, colobus, bushbuck, impala, duiker and many birds. Today, some 250 buffalos roam the slopes. Kikuyu traditionalists also call the mountain by Kea-Njahe, known as the 'Mountain of the Big Rain', one of Ngai's lesser homes.


The painter 
Akseli Gallen-Kallela was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His work was considered very important for the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallen to Gallen-Kallela in 1907. In 1884 he moved to Paris, to study at the Académie Julian and became friends with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt, the Norwegian painter Adam Dörnberger, and the Swedish writer August Strindberg.
In December 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to Berlin to oversee the joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Here he became acquainted with the Symbolists.
On his return from Germany, Gallen studied print-making and visited London to deepen his knowledge, and in 1898 studied fresco-painting in Italy.
For the Paris World Fair in 1900, Gallen-Kallela painted frescoes for the Finnish Pavilion. In these frescoes, his political ideas became most apparent. Gallen-Kallela officially finnicized his name to the more Finnish-sounding Akseli Gallen-Kallela in 1907.
In 1909, Gallen-Kallela moved to Nairobi in Kenya with his family, and there he painted over 150 expressionist oil paintings and bought many east African artefacts (watercolor above). But he returned to Finland after a couple of years, realizing Finland was his main inspiration. Between 1911 and 1913 he designed and built a studio and house at Tarvaspää, about 10 km northwest of the centre of Helsinki.
From December 1923 to May 1926, Gallen-Kallela lived in the United States, where an exhibition of his work toured several cities, and where he visited the Taos art-colony in New Mexico to study indigenous American art. In 1925 he began the illustrations for his "Great Kalevala". This was still unfinished when he died of pneumonia in Stockholm on 7 March 1931, while returning from a lecture in Copenhagen, Denmark His studio and house at Tarvaspää was opened as the Gallen-Kallela Museum in 1961.

THE MONT-BLANC BY JEAN DUBOIS

JEAN DUBOIS (1789-1849) 

The Mont Blanc (4,808.73 m -15,777 ft) 

 France - Italy 

1. In Le Mont-Blanc vu de Chamouni, aquatinte et aquarelle sur fond gravé, 1802, Private collection
2.   In Panorama du Mont Blanc, aquatinte et aquarelle sur fond gravé, 1805, Private collection  

The mountain 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- More about the Mont-Blanc 

The painter 

Jean Dubois (1789-1849) is a french artist-painter, draftsman and lithographer not  to be confused with Jean Dubois Le Vieux (1604-1676). He painted many landscapes of the valley of the Arve and Chamonix (called Chamouni in his time). He is considered as one of the best painter of Mont-Blanc, always painted with a very realistic touch.  In his paintings of the Mont-Blanc, the Glacier des Bossons (at the bottom) seems gigantic, for the simple reason the painting was made at the beginning of the nineteenth century,  a period considered as "the small glacial age" which nevertheless lasted almost three centuries. During this period, the glaciers spread to the bottom of the valleys. In the foreground the village of Chamonix and the Arve. Painters began to take an interest in the Mont Blanc and its surroundings at the end of the 18th century with the arrival of the first "tourists". Goethe and the Prince of Saxe-Anhalt were among the first travelers of note. The latter, to be freer, traveled anonymously, which enabled the Prince and his councilor to move on foot from Geneva to the Valais where they found German-speaking villages. At the end of the 19th century the french Baroness of Rothschild felt in love with the Mont Blanc and the little village of Megève and decided to buy enormous landmark there, just to have to possibility to practice a new sport up to date at that time called "ski".