JEBEL SAGHRO BY JACQUES MAJORELLE

JACQUES MAJORELLE (1886-1962), 

Jebel Saghro or Adrar Saghro (2,712 m - 8,898 ft) 

Morocco 

 In Tinghir todra, oil on canvas, 1930, Private owner

The mountain 
The Jebel Saghro  or Adrar Saghro (2,712 m - 8,898 ft) is located less than 100 km south of the central High Atlas, Morocco, overlooking the valleys of Drâa and Dadès, eastern part of the Anti-Atlas.
Lunar landscapes of plateaus, peaks, canyons, forest of pitons, immensity of spaces. In this chaos of black rocks, the small villages, are reduced to a few small houses surrounded by a bouquet of palm or almond trees. The north-south crossings are made by three passes traversed by difficult and very spectacular tracks: the Tazazert pass (2,283 m), the Kouaouch pass (2,592 m), and the Tagmout pass (1,919 m). The highest point of the mountain is the Amalou n Mansour (2,712 m) which is located southeast of the village of Iknioun.
Charles de Foucauld, gone in search of spirituality, is one of the first Western travelers having explored Jebel Saghro, (Reconnaissance au Maroc  published in 1888 in Paris).

The painter 
Jacques Majorelle son of the celebrated Art Nouveau furniture designer Louis Majorelle, was a French painter. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nancy in 1901 and later at the Académie Julian in Paris with Schommer and Royer. Majorelle became a noted Orientalist painter, but is most remembered for constructing the villa and gardens that now carry his name, Les Jardins Majorelle in Marrakech.
In around 1917 he travelled to Morocco to recover from heart problems and after short period spent in Casablanca, he visited Marrakech, where he fell in love with the vibrant colours and quality of light he found there. Initially, he used Marrakech as a base for trips to Spain, Italy and other parts of North Africa, including Egypt. Eventually, however, he settled in Marrakech permanently.
He drew inspiration for his paintings from his trips and from Marrakesch itself. His paintings include many street scenes, souks and kasbahs as well as portraits of local inhabitants. He opened a handicrafts workshop in Marrakech and also designed posters to promote travel to Morocco.  His work was profoundly affected by his voyages around the Mediterannean and North Africa. He introduced a more coloured vision, bathed in light where the drawing disappears and the image emerges from large spots of colour laid flat. It seemed as if he had discoved the sun in these countries. His style exhibited more freedom and spontaneity.
During his lifetime, many of Majorelle's paintings were sold to private buyers and remain in private collections. Some of his early works can be found in Museums around his birthplace such as the Musée de l'Ecole de Nancy. Examples of his later work can be seen in the Mamounia Hotel, Marrakesch, the French Consulate of Marrakech and in the Villa at the Majorelle Gardens.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE POPOCATEPTL (2) BY JOSE MARIA VELASCO

JOSE MARIA VELASCO (1840-1912)

The Popocatépetl (5,426 m -17,802 ft)  

Mexico

 In Popocatepetl and greenery, oil on canvas, private owner 

The mountain 
Popocatépetl  (5,426 m - 17,802 ft) is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt.  The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca  (it smokes) and tepētl  (mountain), meaning Smoking Mountain. It is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).
It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.
Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity. By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.
Magma erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.

The Painter 
José Maria Tranquilino Francisco de Jesus Velasco Gomez Obregуn, generally known as José Marнa Velasco, was a 19th-century Mexican polymath, most famous as a painter who made Mexican geography a symbol of national identity through his paintings.
Velasco's long career elevated Mexican landscape painting to international standing. One of his landscapes of the Valley of Mexico is in the Vatican Museum, a gift to Pope Leo XIII. His scenes of the Mexican landscape are a visual source for environmental historians, since they show the Valley of Mexico before its degradation in the twentieth century, with air pollution and urban sprawl. His landscape art has a wide appeal, since it is more accessible than history paintings that require the viewer to understand a particular event.
Today the Government of the State of Mexico, where Velasco was from, presents an award for artistic merit in his name to painters born in that state. Among the most outstanding winners are Luis Nishizawa, Leopoldo Flores, Ignacio Barrios and Héctor Cruz.
The José María Velasco Museum was opened in 1992 in Toluca City with the task of preserving and promoting his paintings

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT WAHINGTON OR AGIOCOCHOOK BY SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880)

Mount Washington or Agiocochook  (1,916 m- 6,288 ft)

United States of America 

 In Indian Summer in the White Mountains, oil on canvas, 1862, Mint Museum of Art

The mountain 

Mount Washington (1,916 m- 6,288 ft), called Agiocochook by some Native American tribes, is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at  and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The mountain is located in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, in the township of Sargent's Purchase, in Coös County, New Hampshire. While nearly the whole mountain is in the White Mountain National Forest, an area of 60.3 acres (24.4 ha) surrounding and including the summit is occupied by Mount Washington State Park.

The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, the Mount Washington Observatory recorded a windspeed of 231 miles per hour (372 km/h) at the summit, the world record for most of the 20th century, and still a record for measured wind speeds not involved with a tropical cyclone.

The Mount Washington Cog Railway ascends the western slope of the mountain, and the Mount Washington Auto Road climbs to the summit from the east. The mountain is visited by hikers, and the Appalachian Trail crosses the summit. Other common activities include glider flying, backcountry skiing, and annual cycle and running races such as the Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb and Road Race.

The painter 
Like most Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes to sketch and paint. In addition to exploring New England, upstate New York and New Jersey, Gifford made extensive trips abroad. He first traveled to Europe from 1855 to 1857, to study European art and sketch subjects for future paintings. During this trip Gifford also met Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge.
In 1858, he traveled to Vermont, "apparently" with his friend and fellow painter Jerome Thompson. Details of their visit were carried in the contemporary Home Journal. Both artists submitted paintings of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's tallest peak, to the National Academy of Design's annual show in 1859. Thompson's work, "Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain" is now owned by the MET in New York, according to the report.
Thereafter, he served in the Union Army as a corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia upon the outbreak of the Civil War. A few of his canvases belonging to New York City's Seventh Regiment and the Union League Club of New York are testament to that troubled time.
Gifford referred to the best of his landscapes as his "chief pictures". Many of his chief pictures are characterized by a hazy atmosphere with soft, suffuse sunlight. Gifford often painted a large body of water in the foreground or middle distance (see above) in which the distant landscape would be gently reflected. A catalog of his work published shortly after his death recorded in excess of 700 paintings during his career.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT STURGEON OR WURGARRI BY EUGENE VON GUERARD

EUGENE VON GUERARD  (1811-1901)

Mount Sturgeon or Wurgarri  (575 m - 1,886 ft) 

Australia (Victoria) 

 In Mount Sturgeon and the Wannon in the Grampians, Victoria 1858, pencil on paper

The mountain 

Mount Wurgarri  (575 m-1,886 ft)  also called Mount Sturgeon is a mountain in Australia located in the Southern Grampians region and the state of Victoria , about 230 kilometers west of the state capital of Melbourne. The width at the base is 2.1 km.  The area around Mount Wurgarri is almost unpopulated, with less than two inhabitants per square kilometer.  In the surroundings around Mount Wurgarri grows mainly savannah forest.  The average annual average is 927 millimeters. The rainy month is July, with an average of 143 mm rainfall , and the driest is February, with 25 mm rainfall.

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.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MUHABURA VOLCANO IN VINTAGE POSTCARD 1930

VINTAGE POSTCARDS 1930 

Mount Muhabura  (4,127 m - 13,540 ft) 

Rwanda - Uganda border 

`The mountain 
Mount Muhabura  ( 4,127 m - 13,540 ft)  also known as Mount Muhavura, is an extinct volcano in the Virunga Mountains on the border between Rwanda and Uganda. Muhabura is the third highest of the eight major mountains of the mountain range, which is a part of the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. Muhabura is partly in the Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda and partly in the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, Uganda. The name Muhabura means "The Guide" in the local language, Kinyarwanda. It can be seen from many parts of Uganda and Rwanda because of its slope.


2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

PECA VIEJA PAINTED BY DAVID BOMBERG

 

DAVID BOMBERG (1890-1957)  

Peca Vieja (2,617m) 

Spain (Asturias)

In Sunrise in the mountains, Picos de Asturias, oil on canvas, 1935

The mountain
Peca Vieja (2,617m) is a mountain that is one of the Picos de Europa, also known as Picos de Aturias or Picos in Spain. The peaks of Europe (in Spanish: Picos de Europa, often called Los Picos), the highest massif of the Cordillera Cantabria, are located between the provinces of Asturias, Leûn and Cantabria, about thirty kilometers from the sea. They culminate in Torre de Cerredo, at 2,648 m.
The approximate dimensions of the massif are 40 km long (east - west) by 20 km wide (north - south) and an area of ​​502 km2. On May 30, 1995, the Picos de Europa National Park was created. For sailors coming from the west on the Atlantic Ocean who sailed by sight, Los Picos was the first land visible on the horizon, which explains the origin of the name. They are framed in the north by the Sierra de Cuera and the Sierra del Escudo, to the south by the Sierra de Alba and to the west by the Sierra de Ave.

The painter 
David Garshen Bomberg was an English painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys. Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, and which included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, C.R.W. Nevinson and Dora Carrington.  Bomberg painted a series of complex geometric compositions combining the influences of cubism and futurism in the years immediately preceding World War I; typically using a limited number of striking colours, turning humans into simple, angular shapes, and sometimes overlaying the whole painting a strong grid-work colouring scheme. He was expelled from the Slade School of Art in 1913, with agreement between the senior teachers Tonks, Frederick Brown and Philip Wilson Steer, because of the audacity of his breach from the conventional approach of that time.
Whether because his faith in the machine age had been shattered by his experiences as a private soldier in the trenches or because of the pervasive retrogressive attitude towards modernism in Britain Bomberg moved to a more figurative style in the 1920s and his work became increasingly dominated by portraits and landscapes drawn from nature. Gradually developing a more expressionist technique, he travelled widely through the Middle East and Europe.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

AI-PETRI PAINTED BY IVAN AIVAZOVSKY

IVAN AIVAZOVSKY (1817-1900)

Ai-Petri  (1,234.2 m - 4,049 ft)

Crimea - Russia 

In Pushkin at Ai-Petri Peak during sunrise, watercolour 

 The mountain 

Ai-Petri  (1,234.2 m - 4,049 ft) meaning  Saint Peter in Greek,  is a peak in the Crimean Mountains. For administrative purposes it is in the Yalta municipality of Crimea.  Ai-Petri is one of the windiest places in Crimea. The wind blows for 125 days a year, reaching a speed of 50 m/s (110 mph). The peak is located above the city of Alupka and the town of Koreiz. There is a cable car that takes passengers from a station near Alupka to the main area in Ai-Petri.

The painter 

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (Ива́н Константи́нович Айвазо́вский)  was a Russian Romantic painter. Despite he is considered one of the greatest marine artists in history, he painted a few mountains landscapes.  Aivazovsky was born into an Armenian family in the Black Sea port of Feodosia and was mostly based in his native Crimea.  Following his education at the Imperial Academy of Arts, Aivazovsky traveled to Europe and lived briefly in Italy in the early 1840s. He then returned to Russia and was appointed the main painter of the Russian Navy. Aivazovsky had close ties with the military and political elite of the Russian Empire and often attended military maneuvers. He was sponsored by the state and was well-regarded during his lifetime. The saying "worthy of Aivazovsky's brush", popularized by Anton Chekhov, was used in Russia for "describing something ineffably lovely." One of the most prominent Russian artists of his time, Aivazovsky was also popular outside Russia. He held numerous solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States. During his almost 60-year career, he created around 6,000 paintings, making him one of the most prolific artists of his time. The vast majority of his works are seascapes, but he often depicted battle scenes, Armenian themes, and portraiture. Most of Aivazovsky's works are kept in Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian museums as well as private collections.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE GIEWONT BY JAN NEPOMUCEN GLOWACKI

JAN NEPOMUCEN GLOWACKI (1802-1847)

Giewont (1, 895 m- 6, 217 ft)

Poland

The mountains 

Giewont is a mountain massif in the Tatra Mountains of Poland. It  is 1,895 m - at its highest.

The massif has three peaks (all m/metres in AMSL):

- Great Giewont - Wielki Giewont (1,895 m- 6, 217 ft)

- Long Giewont - Długi Giewont (1,867 m- 6, 125 ft)

- Small Giewont -  Polish Mały Giewont (1,728 m - 5,669 ft)

There is a mountain pass located between Great and Long Giewont, known as Szczerba (1,823 m-  5, 980 ft).  Long Giewont and Great Giewont are situated at a higher altitude than the nearby town of Zakopane, making them clearly visible from that city.

On Great Giewont, there is a 15 m steel cross (erected in 1901) - the site of religious pilgrimages. The area is notorious for its hazardous nature during thunderstorms, so this should be taken into consideration when approaching the summit.

The first recorded ascent to Giewont's summit was undertaken in 1830 by Franciszek Herbich and Aleksander Zawadzki (a19th century explorer). The first winter ascent of Giewont occurred in 1904 by a group of five mountaineers led by Mariusz Zaruski. Nowadays the climbing on Giewont is strictly banned. On the other hand, hiking on the hiking trails is allowed and the access (except the winter) is not difficult hence Giewont is a very popular destination among amblers and Sunday tourists. In the summer up to few thousands tourists a day ascend the top.

The painter 

Jan Nepomucen Głowacki was a Polish realist painter of the Romantic era, regarded as the most outstanding landscape painter of the early 19th century in Poland under the foreign partitions. Głowacki studied painting at the Kraków School of Fine Arts and later at the academies of Prague and Vienna, as well as Rome and Munich. He returned to Kraków in 1828, and became a teacher of painting and drawing. From 1842 he served as a professor in the Faculty of Landscape Painting at the School of Fine Arts. His work can be found at the National Museum of Poland and its branches. Some of his work was looted by Nazi Germany in World War II and has never been recovered.

Głowacki was the first Polish artist to devote an entire series of works to the Tatra Mountains.

 He was also the first, to produce studies for his oil paintings on strenuous outdoor trips. Landscapes such as "Widok z Poronina" (View from Poronin, 1836) and "Morskie Oko" are said to mark the beginning of realist Polish mountain painting.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE MONT BLANC BY JEAN-ANTOINE LINCK

JEAN-ANTOINE LINCK (1766-1843

 The Mont Blanc ( 4,808 m -15,777 ft)

France- Italy border 

 In Vue du massif du Mont-Blanc de Epaule droite des Aiguilles Vertes des Charmoz, du Plan du Midi, du Goute du Bionnassay, du Trelatete, des Montagnes du Prarion et Pormenaz, Aquatinta, Swiss National Library 

The mountain 

 The Mont Blanc ( 4,808.73 m -15,777 ft) or Monte Bianco, 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 summits, (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. 

 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.

The artist

Jean-Antoine Linck, is a swiss painter and draftsman who lived and worked at the end of the 18th century and beginning of 19th century, at the time nature and mountains were up to date in high society  in Switzerland and France.He is the son of Jean-Conrad, an enameller and engraver from Geneva who initiates his apprenticeship. He was then trained by Carl Hackert with Wolfgang Adam Toepffer. In 1802, he opened his own studio in Geneva, in the district of Montbrillant. His works, depicting the surroundings of Geneva, Savoy, the Alps and the Mont Blanc, were inspired by those of the great master of that " genre" Johann Ludwig Aberli and were successful with Josephine de Beauharnais, the French Empress and Catherine II, the Russian Empress, meanwhile alpine tourism began to develop.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT BANAHAW (3) BY FERNANDO AMORSOLO

FERNANDO AMORSOLO (1882-1972),

Mount Banahaw (2, 170m- 7, 120 ft) 

Philippines (Luzon)




The mountain

Mount Banahaw (2, 170m- 7, 120 ft) is an active volcano on Luzon in the Philippines. The three-peaked volcano complex is located between the provinces of Laguna and Quezon and is the tallest mountain in the Calabarzon region dominating the landscape for miles around. 

Mount Banahaw is a traditional pilgrimage site for locals, believed by many as a "Holy mountain", a spiritually-charged location. The mountain and its environs are considered sacred by local residents; the water from its sacred springs are deemed "holy water" for allegedly having beneficial qualities, issuing forth from locations called "puestos" or "holy sites". These sites are unique natural features composed not only of springs, but also caves, streams and boulders; with names with biblical allusions, and shrines erected in, on or around them. These locations were allegedly revealed to a man named Agripino Lontoc by the "Santong Boses" or the "Holy Voices", which also gave the names to these places way back during the Spanish Colonial Era. Another one of this mountain is the adjacent Mount Banahaw de Lucbán.

Due to incessant climbing activity the mountain trails have become littered with trash. In March 2004, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ordered a 5-year suspension of hiking activity in the mountains, covering the Dolores and Sariaya trails. Reopening was delayed was then scheduled to March 2012, but was further extended to February 2015.




The painter 

Fernando Cueto Amorsolo was one of the most important artists in the history of painting in the Philippines.Amorsolo was a portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes. He is popularly known for his craftsmanship and mastery in the use of light. After graduating from the Univeajor influences on his work. Amorsolo set up his own studio upon his return to Manila and painted prodigiously during the 1920s and the 1930s. His Rice Planting (1922), which appeared on posters and tourist brochures, became one of the most popular images of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Beginning in the 1930s, Amorsolo's work was exhibited widely both in the Philippines and abroad. His bright,optimistic, pastoral images set the tone for Philippine painting before World War II . Except for his darker World War II-era paintings, Amorsolo painted quiet and peaceful scenes throughout his career.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

EL CAYAMBE BY ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT  (1769-1859) 

 Cayambe  (5,790 m -19,000 ft)

 Ecuador

  In Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique  

book published in 1816 in Paris,  University of Ottawa 

The mountain 
Cayambe or Volcбn Cayambe (5,790 m -19,000 ft) is the name of a volcano located in the Cordillera Central, a range of the Ecuadorian Andes. It is located in Pichincha province some 70 km (43 mi) northeast of Quito. It is the third highest mountain in Ecuador.
Cayambe, which has a permanent snow cap, is a Holocene compound volcano which last erupted in March 1786. At 4,690 metres (15,387 ft) on its south slope is the highest point in the world crossed by the Equator and the only point on the Equator with snow cover. The volcano and most of its slopes are within the Cayambe Coca Ecological Reserve.  Studies conducted since 1995 by a joint team of Ecuadorian and French researchers have shown that during the last 4000, the Cayambe has experienced periods of intense eruptive activity about 700 years alternating with rest periods of 500 to 600 years. The resumption of eruptions must be considered.
Moreover, the region is home to numerous flower plantations for export; however, the non-secure management and toxic effects of these crops have caused serious damage to the environment and create health problems among employees of the plantations.

The cartographer and painter  
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783.  Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit.  Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

BEAR MOUNTAIN PAINTED BYJOHN MARIN

JOHN MARIN (1870-1953) 

Bear Mountain  (393m - 1,289ft)

United States of America 

The mountain 
Bear Mountain  (393m - 1,289ft) is one of the best-known peaks of New York's Hudson Highlands. Located partially in Orange County in the town of Highlands and partially in Rockland County in the town of Stony Point, it lends its name to the nearby Bear Mountain Bridge and Bear Mountain State Park that contains it. Its summit, accessible by a paved road, has several roadside viewpoints, a picnic area and an observatory, the Perkins Memorial Tower. It is crossed by several hiking trails as well, including the oldest section of the Appalachian Trail (AT). As of 2015, the AT across Bear Mountain is continuing to be improved by the New York–New Jersey Trail Conference to minimize erosion and improve accessibility and sustainability as part of a project to rebuild and realign the trail that began in 2006.
The steep eastern face of the mountain overlooks the Hudson River. The eastern side of the mountain consists of a pile of massive boulders, often the size of houses, that culminate in a 50-foot (15 m) cliff face at approximately the 1,000-foot (300 m) level. A direct scramble from the shore of Hessian Lake to Perkins Memorial Drive on the summit requires a gain of about 1,000 feet (300 m) in roughly 0.8 miles (1.3 km). From the summit, one can see as far as Manhattan, and the monument on High Point in New Jersey.


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

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

PUIG FUMAT BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT

JOHN SINGER SARGENT  (1856-1925)

 Puig Fumat  (384 m -1,260ft)
Spain (Mallorca)

In Mallcorca- Cap san Vicente, watercolour, The Brooklyn Museum

The mountain 

Puig  Fumat (384m)  is the cape at the northeastern tip of Mallorca dominating Cape Formentor and the bay of San Vicente. In 1925, Antoni Parietti Coll (Palma, 1899-1979) made the route between Port de Pollença and the end of the peninsula of Formentor, opening ample tourism in this portion, as well as the perspective of the luxury hotel.

The painter 
John Singer Sargent  was an American artist who  created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Switzerland, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. He was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, but  in later life he expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe.  Each destination offered pictorial stimulation and treasure.  Even at his leisure, in escaping the pressures of the portrait studio, he painted with restless intensity, often painting from morning until night.  His hundreds of watercolors of Venice are especially notable, many done from the perspective of a gondola. His colors were sometimes extremely vivid and as one reviewer noted, "Everything is given with the intensity of a dream." In the Middle East and North Africa Sargent painted Bedouins, goatherds, and fisherman. In the last decade of his life, he produced many watercolors in Maine, Florida, and in the American West, of fauna, flora, and native peoples.
With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness.   His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited 86 watercolors in New York City, 83 of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: 'To live with Sargent's water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, 'the refluent shade' and 'the Ambient ardours of the noon.'
Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America's greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

TARANAKI / MOUNT EGMONT BY JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE

JOHN BARR CLARK HOYTE (1835-1913)

Mount Taranaki / Mount Egmont  (2,518 m - 8,261 ft) 

New Zealand (North Island) 

In  Mount Egmont, Taranaki, watercolor  Alexander Turnbull Library 

The mountain 
Taranaki / Mount Egmont  (2,518 m - 8,261 ft) is an active but quiescent stratovolcano in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island.
According to Māori mythology, Taranaki once resided in the middle of the North Island, with all the other New Zealand volcanoes. The beautiful Pihanga was coveted by all the mountains, and a great battle broke out between them. Tongariro eventually won the day, inflicted great wounds on the side of Taranaki, and causing him to flee. Taranaki headed westwards, following Te Toka a Rahotu and forming the deep gorges of the Whanganui River, paused for a while, creating the depression that formed the Te Ngaere swamp, then heading north. Further progress was blocked by the Pouakai ranges, and as the sun came up Taranaki became petrified in his current location. When Taranaki conceals himself with rainclouds, he is said to be crying for his lost love, and during spectacular sunsets, he is said to be displaying himself to her. In turn, Tongariro's eruptions are said to be a warning to Taranaki not to return.
Captain Cook named it Mount Egmont on 11 January 1770 after John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, a former First Lord of the Admiralty who had supported the concept of an oceanic search for Terra Australis Incognita. Cook described it as "of a prodigious height and its top cover'd with everlasting snow" surrounded by a "flat country ... which afforded a very good aspect, being clothed with wood and verdure".

The Painter 
John Barr Clark Hoyte was born in England, probably in London,  Nothing is known of Hoyte's education and artistic training and we are reduced to the obvious deduction that he was heir to the English tradition of topographic draughtsmanship and watercolour painting. Firm drawing underlies his landscapes, making it appropriate to group him with colonial surveyor–architect artists such as Edward Ashworth, Edmund Norman and George O'Brien.
During his years in New Zealand John Hoyte travelled assiduously in search of new scenes to exploit.   His pictorial exploration of the colony's principal dramatic landscapes was completed when he took a cruise circumnavigating the South Island in early 1877, exploring the coast of Fiordland with particular attention. New Zealand subjects would continue to inspire his production long after he had settled in Australia, where they shared his attention with coastal and mountain views drawn chiefly from the neighbourhood of Sydney.
Despite his apparent commercial success, however, Hoyte's standing, like that of George O'Brien, waned in the 1870s: a decade which marked a major shift in New Zealand colonial taste as the Turnerian Romantics such as Gully, J. C. Richmond and W. M. Hodgkins moved into greater prominence. They and their style were to dominate the following decades.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MONTE CROCE DI MUGGIO BY FREDERIC LEIGHTON

 FREDERIC LEIGHTON ( 1830-1896)

Monte Croce di Muggio (1,799 m - 5902 ft) 

Italy   

In Monte Croce, watercolour, The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

The Mountain 

The Monte Croce di Muggio  (1,799 m - 5902 ft)  is a  mountain in the Bergamo Alps in Italy. It is located east of Lake Como.

 Starting points are Mornico (970 m) near Bellano, located southwest of the summit, or Giumello (1,536 m ) in the northeast. A popular climb ( mountain trail ) begins in Mornico and leads over the flank of the Matoch  1,379 m) to Monte Chiara (1,531 m). From there you continue on a flat path to the Rifugio Capanna Vittoria (1,536 m) and then to the summit cross of the Croce di Muggio

 The painter 

Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, PRA known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was an English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter. In 1860, he moved to London, where he associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. He designed Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tomb for Robert Browning in the English Cemetery, Florence in 1861. 

After his death his Barony was extinguished after existing for only a day; this is a record in the Peerage. His house in Holland Park, London has been turned into a museum, the Leighton House Museum. It contains many of his drawings and paintings, as well as some of his former art collection including works by Old Masters and his contemporaries such as a painting dedicated to Leighton by Sir John Everett Millais.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MOUNT TAMALPAIS PAINTED BY WILLIAM KEITH

WILLIAM KEITH (1838-1911)  

Mount Tamalpais (784m -  2,571 ft)  

 United State of America (California)

  In Sunset Glow on Mt Tamalpais, oil on canvas, 1896 Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The mountain 
Mount Tamalpais (784m -  2,571 ft)  known locally as Mount Tam is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County.  The name Tamalpais was first recorded in 1845. It comes from the Coast Miwok name for this mountain, támal pájiṣ, literally "west hill". Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mount Tamalpais State Park, the Marin Municipal Water District watershed, and National Park Service land, such as Muir Woods. Mount Tamalpais is the highest peak in the Marin Hills, which are part of the Northern California Coast Ranges.
Mount Tamalpais provides one of the last remaining wildlife refuges in the Bay Area. Urbanization has invaded wildlife habitat, forcing many fauna in southern Marin County to retreat up onto Mount Tamalpais, Muir Woods, and the Bolinas Ridge. A wide variety of avifauna, amphibians, arthropods and mammals are found on Mount Tamalpais, including a number of rare and endangered species. Nonetheless, Mt. Tamalpais and the neighboring Golden Gate Recreation Area together encompass over 115 square miles (298 square kilometers) of land, forming one of the largest preserved parklands located near a U.S. urban center.
Mount Tamalpais has been a common subject in California landscape painting. Painters who have made Tamalpais the subject of one or more paintings include Etel Adnan, Harry Cassie Best, Albert Bierstadt, Norton Bush, Russell Chatham, Edwin Deakin, Percy Gray, Ransome Gillett Holdridge, Tom Killion, William Marple, William Birch McMurtrie, Gilbert Munger, Julian Rix, Frederick Schafer, Jules Tavernier, Nancy Wallace, Thaddeus Welch, Ludmilla Welch, Virgil Williams, Jack Wisby, Theodore Wores, and Raymond Dabb Yelland.

The painter
William Keith (November 18, 1838 – April 13, 1911) was a Scottish-American painter famous for his California landscapes. He is associated with Tonalism and the American Barbizon school. Although most of his career was spent in California, he started out in New York, made two extended study trips to Europe, and had a studio in Boston in 1871-72 and one in New York in 1880.
When Keith went to California, and traveled to Yosemite Valley in the 70' with a letter of introduction to John Muir. The two men became deep friends for the next 38 years. Both had been born in Scotland the same year, and they shared a love for the mountains of California. James Mitchell Clarke described their friendship as one "in which deep affection and admiration were expressed through a kind of verbal boxing, counter-jibe answering jibe, counter-insult responding to insult."
During the 1870s Keith painted a number of six- by ten-foot panoramas, including Kings River Canyon (Oakland Museum, originally owned by Gov. Leland Stanford) and "California Alps" (Mission Inn, Riverside). These competed with paintings of similar size and subject matter by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Hill.
 "My subjective pictures are the ones that come from the inside. I feel some emotion and I immediately paint a picture that expresses it. The sentiment is the only thing of real value in my pictures, and only a few people understand that. Suppose I want to paint something recalling meditation or repose. If people do not feel that sensation when my work is completed, they do not appreciate nor realize the picture. The fact that they like it means nothing. Any one who can use paint and brushes can paint a true scene of nature — that is an objective picture. The artist must not depend on extraneous things. There is no reality in his art if he must depend on outside influences — it must come from within."
 ( From 1913 Exhibition booklet, Art Institute of Chicago)

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

ELYSIUM MONS BY NASA MARS ODYSSEY

NASA MARS ODYSSEY  (2001- 2010/2025) 

Elysium Mons  (13,900m / 13, 9km - 46,000 ft / 8,6 mi)

MARS

The Mountain 

Elysium Mons  (13,900m / 13, 9km - 46,000 ft / 8,6 mi) is a volcano on Mars located in the volcanic province Elysium, at 25.02°N 147.21°E, in the Martian eastern hemisphere. It stands about  above the surrounding lava plains, and about 16 km (52,000 ft) above the Martian datum. Its diameter is about 240 km (150 mi), with a summit caldera about 14 km (8.7 mi) across. It is flanked by the smaller volcanoes Hecates Tholus to the northeast, and Albor Tholus to the southeast.

A 6.5 km diameter crater at 29.674 N, 130.799 E, in the volcanic plains to the northwest of Elysium Mons has been identified as a possible source for the nakhlite meteorites, a family of similar basaltic Martian meteorites with cosmogenic ages of about 10.7 Ma, suggesting ejection from Mars by a single impact event. This implies that Martian volcanism had slowed greatly by that point in history.

The Mission 

NASA Mars Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001, on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and reached Mars orbit on October 24, 2001, at 02:30 UTC (October 23, 19:30 PDT, 22:30 EDT). By December 15, 2010, it broke the record for longest serving spacecraft at Mars, with 3,340 days of operation. It is currently in a polar orbit around Mars with a semi-major axis of about 3,800 km or 2,400 miles. It has enough propellant to function until 2025.
Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment.  It is hoped that the data Odyssey obtains will help answer the question of whether life existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory, and previously the Phoenix lander to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

TWIN VOLCANOES PARINACOTA & POMERAPE BY RAFAEL SALAS

RAFAEL SALAS  (1824-1906)  

Parinacota  (6,348 m - 20,827ft)

Pomerape (6,282m-20,610ft)

Chile - Bolivia border 

In Bista del Pomerope and Parinacota, oil on canvas, 1870  

The Mountains 
Parinacota (6,348 m-20,827ft) or Parina Quta or Parinaquta  and Pomerape (6,282m-20,610ft) are two twin massive dormant stratovolcanoes on the border of Chile and Bolivia.  The range they are part of, Cerros de Payachata, means twin mountains and there are only those two peaks in the range.
It is usually counted as a sub-range in the Cordillera Occidental,  part of the Payachata volcanic  Pleistocene group. Both volcanoes are right on the Chilean - Bolivian border and can be climbed from either side. Their closest neighbor is Bolivia's highest mountain Sajama (6,542m-21,463ft) which isn't more than 20km away.
Parinacota is located in the extreme NE of Chile, where the country borders to Bolivia. The closest really large city is La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, which is about 300km and five hours away. Arica, in Chile is at the Pacific coast and is about 180 km far (and almost 5000 vertical meters!).
 Parinacota's last eruptive phase has been dated using the helium surface exposure technique, which ties the eruption to 290AD ± 300 years.
One of the most dramatic eruptive events in the volcano's past was 8,000 years ago, when a major collapse of the edifice produced a 6 kmі (1.44 cubic miles) debris avalanche, which blocked nearby drainage patterns, creating Chungara Lake.
The volcano and Pomerape straddle the border between Sajama National Park (Bolivia) and Lauca National Park (Chile).

The painter 
Rafael Salas was an important Ecuadorian  landscape and genre painter  of nineteenth century South America neoclassicism. He was the last son of the famous Salas artists dynasty among which  his  half brother Ramon Salas ( 1815-1880), the fist professor a t Academy of fine Arts of Quito and  responsive for the taste of Costumbrismo; and above all their father Antonio Salas (1795-1860) a colonial artist specialized in religious themes like La Muerte de San José and La Negacion de San Pedro in the Cathedral of Quito.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

THE WETTERHORN PAINTED BY THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE

THOMAS WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE (1820-1910)

The Wetterhorn (3, 692m -12, 113ft)

 Switzerland

In Das Wetterhorn, 1858, oil on canvas, Newark Museum.

The mountain 

The Wetterhorn (3,692m-12,113ft) in the  Bernese Alps, towers 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. The Wetterhorn summit was first reached on August 31, 1844, by the Grindelwald guides Hans Jaun and Melchior Bannholzer, three days after they had co-guided a large party organized by the geologist Edouard Desor to the first ascent of the Rosenhorn. The Mittelhorn was first summitted on 9 July 1845 by the same guides, this time accompanied by a third guide, Kaspar Abplanalp, and by Stanhope Templeman Speer. 

The painter 

Thomas Worthington Whittredge  was an American artist of the Hudson River School. Whittredge was a highly regarded artist of his time, and was friends with several leading Hudson River School artists including Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Robinson Gifford. He traveled widely and excelled at landscape painting, many examples of which are now in major museums. He served as president of the National Academy of Design from 1874 to 1875 and was a member of the selection committees for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and the 1878 Paris Exposition, both important venues for artists of the day.

Whittredge journeyed across the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains in 1865 with Sanford Gifford and John Frederick Kensett. The trip resulted in some of Whittredge's most important works—unusually oblong, sparse landscapes that captured the stark beauty and linear horizon of the Plains. Whittredge later wrote in his autobiography, "I had never seen the plains or anything like them. They impressed me deeply. I cared more for them than for the mountains... Whoever crossed the plains at that period, notwithstanding its herds of buffalo and flocks of antelope, its wild horses, deer and fleet rabbits, could hardly fail to be impressed with its vastness and silence and the appearance everywhere of an innocent, primitive existence."

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

Un blog de Francis Rousseau

LONE PINE PEAK & MOUNTAIN LAKE BY MARSDEN HARTLEY

MARSDEN HARTLEY (1877-1943)

Lone Pine Peak (1,219 m - 4,000 ft) 

United States of America (Virginia)

 In  Mountain Lake-Autumn, oil on canvas, 1910, The Phillips collection 

The mountain 
Lone Pine Peak (1,219 m - 4,000 ft) is the highest point in the Mountain Lake Wilderness in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, Virginia. The wilderness area is located next to privately owned Mountain Lake, and consists of 8,314 acres (3,365 ha) in Virginia and 2,721 acres (1,101 ha) in West Virginia. Thanks to frequent rains and a high elevation, the wilderness provides habitat not found in other areas of the southern Appalachians, habitats such as mountain bogs, vernal ponds and red spruce wetlands.
The area is part of the Mountain Lake Wilderness Cluster.

The painter 
Marsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley began his art training at the Cleveland Institute of Art after his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1892.  He won a scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art.
In 1898, at age 22, he moved to New York City to study painting at the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase, and then attended the National Academy of Design. Hartley was a great admirer of Albert Pinkham Ryder and visited his studio in Greenwich Village as often as possible. His friendship with Ryder, in addition to the writings of Walt Whitman and American transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, inspired Hartley to view art as a spiritual quest.
Hartley first traveled to Europe in April 1912, and he became acquainted with Gertrude Stein's circle of Avant-garde writers and artists in Paris.  Stein, along with Hart Crane and Sherwood Anderson, encouraged Hartley to write as well as paint.
In 1913, Hartley moved to Berlin, where he continued to paint and befriended the painters Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. He also collected Bavarian folk art.  His work during this period was a combination of abstraction and German Expressionism, fueled by his personal brand of mysticism.
In Berlin, Hartley developed a close relationship with a Prussian lieutenant, Karl von Freyburg. References to Freyburg were a recurring motif in Hartley's work, most notably in Portrait of a German Officer (1914). Freyburg's subsequent death during the war hit Hartley hard, and he afterward idealized their relationship. Many scholars believe Hartley to have been gay, and have interpreted his work regarding Freyburg as embodying his homosexual feelings for him.
Hartley finally returned to the U.S. in early 1916. He lived in Europe again from 1921 to 1930, when he moved back to the U.S. for good.  He painted throughout the country, in Massachusetts, New Mexico, California, and New York. He returned to Maine in 1937, after declaring that he wanted to become "the painter of Maine" and depict American life at a local level.  This aligned Hartley with the Regionalism movement, a group of artists active from the early- to-mid 20th century that attempted to represent a distinctly "American art." He continued to paint in Maine, primarily scenes around Lovell and the Corea coast, until his death in Ellsworth in 1943. His ashes were scattered on the Androscoggin River. Most of his mountains paintings of Maine are nowadays in the MET collections.


2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MONT AGEL PAINTED BY PETER MONSTED

PEDER  MONSTED (1859-1941)

Mont Agel  (1,148m - 3,766ft) 

 France (Région Sud) 

In  Cap Martin  french Riviera,  oil on canvas, 1907, private collection  

The mountain 

Mount Agel (1,148m - 3,766ft) ) is a summit of the Alps located in the French town of Peille, in the Prealps of Nice and is the culmination of the Monegasque watershed in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region recently renamed Région  Sud. It dominates the Principality of Monaco and has held a strategic position since ancient times; it still houses today military installations of airforce detection.

It can be seen from some parts of the town of Nice as well as from the Italian Riviera.

The history of Mount Agel begins with the Celtic-Ligurian tribes who occupied the site and some of whose members engaged in the boarding and looting of boats engaged in cabotage. They are submitted from 23 to 13 BC.  by the Romans who restore the old coastal road through the flanks of Mount Agel to connect Ventimiglia to  Narbonne Gaul by the Via Aurelia. 

From the 14th century, Mount Agel is closely linked to the history of the former autonomous city of Peille. In 1860, the annexation of the county of Nice to France changed the boundaries of the region, with many peaks and passes remaining Italian. Mount Agel takes on a great strategic importance which is reinforced by the French defeat of 1870-1871. Mount Agel now houses a large artillery structure equipped with turrets, interconnected by deeply buried galleries. During the fighting of June 1940, his shots participated in the defense of Menton and supported the outpost of Pont-Saint-Louis and Cap-Martin.

The painter 

Peder Mønsted was a Danish realist painter, best known for his landscape paintings.

In 1882, he spent some time in Rome and Capri . In 1883, he worked in  the studios of William Adolphe Bouguereau in Paris. In 1889, he went to Algeria. Three years later, he travelled to Greece, where he was a guest of King George I, who was Danish. While there, he also did portraits of the Royal Family. After that, he visited Egypt and Spain.

His travels produced numerous sketches that became paintings he presented at several international exhibitions. Most of his landscapes were, however, devoted to Scandinavia. He was especially popular in Germany, where he held several shows at the Glaspalast in Munich. During his later years, he spent a great deal of time in Switzerland and travelling throughout the Mediterranean. Most of his works are in private collections. In 1995, a major retrospective, called "Light of the North", was held in Frankfurt am Main.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

MONTE DARWIN PAINTED BY ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971

 ROCKWELL KENT (1882-1971)

Monte Darwin (2,438m - 7,999ft) 

Chile (Tierra del Fuego)

In  Mountain Lake -Tierra del Fuego, oil on canvas, 1922-25, The Phillips Collection

About the painting
 For Duncan Phillips, Rockwell Kent's art embodied "the eager linear expression of his own abounding energy and gusto for physical adventure in wild and desolate regions," an appropriate description of the small oil panel entitled Mountain Lake. A record of Kent’s 1922 sailing adventure to the Tierra del Fuego region of South America, it is one of many small studies that may have been painted on site. Kent described the view from his boat, which was anchored in the bay of Bahía Blanca in the Admiralty Sound, noting the emerald green bay and beyond it steep cliffs, heavily wooded, leading to high mountains, still capped with snow.
In Mountain Lake Kent abandoned his earlier preference for rich impasto and surface texture in favor of a thin, sleek finish. The space, arbitrarily adjusted into abstract, flat patterns, reflects a stylistic kinship with both precisionism—an American movement that was widely influential in the early 1920s—and with the simplified forms of woodblock printing, a medium in which Kent worked over a long period of time.
Kent brought many paintings from this trip back to New York with him in 1923. Though they were well reviewed, the artist sensed a declining interest in realism, despite high degree of simplification, verging on abstraction, present in this image. Phillips, however, greatly appreciated Kent's work and purchased Mountain Lake as a representation of the artist's adventures in South America. Phillips first exhibited the painting in 1926, writing in the exhibition catalogue "Kent [did] not need abstract vision, for he moves us like mighty music with images drawn from his own romantic experience."

The mountain 
Monte Darwin  (2,438m - 7,999ft)  is a peak in Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego forming part of the Cordillera Darwin, the southernmost range of the Andes, just to the north of the Beagle Channel in Chile. 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 painter

Rockwell Kent, artist, author, and political activist, had a long  and varied career. During his lifetime, he worked as an architectural draftsman, illustrator, printmaker, painter, lobsterman, ship's carpenter, and dairy farmer. Born in Tarrytown Heights, New York, he lived in Maine, Newfoundland, Alaska, Greenland, and the Adirondacks and explored the waters around Tierra del Fuego in a small boat. Kent's paintings, lithographs, and woodcuts often portrayed the bleak and rugged aspects of nature; a reflection of his life in harsh climates.His experience as a carpenter and builder and his familiarity with tools served him well when he took up the graphic process. His blocks were marvels of beautiful cutting, every line deliberate and under perfect control. The tones and lines in his lithography were solidly built up, subtle, and full of color. He usually made preliminary studies- old-mater style- for composition or detail before starting on a print. Nothing was vague or accidental about his work; his expression was clear and deliberate. Neither misty tonalities nor suggestiveness were to his taste. He was a highly objectified art - clean, athletic, sometimes almost austere and cold. He either recorded adventures concretely, or dealt in ideas. His studio was a model of the efficient workshop: neat, orderly, with everything in its place. His handwriting, the fruit of his architectural training, was beautiful and precise.
Among the many notes of increasing awareness of Kent's contributions to American culture is the reproduction of one of Kent's pen-and-ink drawings from Moby Dick on a U.S. postage stamp, part of the 2001 commemorative panel celebrating such American illustrators as Maxfield Parrish, Frederic Remington, and Norman Rockwell.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau