MOUNT LEFROY PAINTED BY J.E.H. MC DONALD

J.E.H. MC DONALD (1873-1932)

Mount Lefroy (3,423 m -11,230 ft) 

 Canada (Alberta)

 1. In Mount Lefroy oil on canvas, 1932,  National Gallery of Canada 

The mountain 
Mont Lefroy (3,423 m -11,230 ft)  is a mountain on the Continental Divide, at the border of Alberta and British Columbia in western Canada. The mountain is located on the eastern side of Abbot Pass which separates Lake Louise in Banff National Park from Lake O'Hara in Yoho National Park. Mount Victoria lies immediately on the western side of the pass.
The mountain was named by George M. Dawson in 1894 for Sir John Henry Lefroy (1817-1890), an astronomer who had traveled over 8,800 kilometres (5,470 mi) in Canada's north between 1842-44 making meteorological and magnetic observations.
The mountain is the site of the first fatal climbing accident in Canada. In 1896 during a failed summit bid, Philip Stanley Abbot slipped on rocks after just coming off an icy section and plummeted down the rock face to his death.

The painter 
The painter J.E.H. (James Edward Hervey) MacDonald, a founding member of the Group of Seven, responded to the Canadian landscape with a sensitivity honed by his interest in the American writers Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. One of Canada's leading graphic designers and a popular art teacher, MacDonald was also a poet and calligrapher. His design work was strongly influenced by Arts and Crafts designers in England and Canada, especially William Morris.
The son of a cabinetmaker, MacDonald immigrated with his family to Hamilton, Ontario, in 1887. After apprenticing with a Toronto lithography company at the age of sixteen, he worked in commercial design for Grip Printing and Publishing Co. from around 1895 to 1903, at Carlton Studio in London from 1903 to 1907, and again at Grip Ltd. from 1907. MacDonald resigned in 1912 to paint full-time, but worked as a freelance designer until 1921. While an apprentice, MacDonald studied art under John Ireland and Arthur Heming at the Hamilton School of Art, and with G.A. Reid and William Cruikshank at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design (now the Ontario College of Art and Design). He was active in the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto, and was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
MacDonald painted decorations for Dr. James MacCallum's cottage in Georgian Bay (1915) and St. Anne's Church, Toronto (1923). He worked up his paintings from sketches made on trips to Georgian Bay, northern Ontario, Algoma (1919 to 1922), and in the Rockies (1924 to 1930). From 1921 he taught at the Ontario College of Art, becoming Principal in 1929. MacDonald visited Barbados with his wife early in 1932 to recover from a stroke he had suffered the previous November.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SHISHAPANGMA / GOSAINTHAN PHOTOGRAPHED BY KURT BOECK

KURT BOECK (1855–1933) 

Shishapangma / Gosainthān  (8,027 m - 26,335 ft) 

China (Autonomous region of Tibet)

 In Das Gosainthangebirge (Shishapangma), Photo, 1898

The mountain 
Shishapangma / Gosainthān  (8,027 m - 26,335 ft)  is the 14th highest mountain in the world. It was the last 8,000 m peak to be climbed, due to its location entirely within Tibet Autonomous Region.  It is the only eight-thousander entirely within Chinese territory, located in south-central Tibet, five kilometres from the border with Nepal.
Shishapangma / Gosainthān was first climbed via the Northern Route on 2 May 1964 by a Chinese expedition led by Xu Jing. In addition to Xǔ Jìng, the summit team consisted of Zhāng Jùnyán, Wang Fuzhou, Wū Zōngyuè, Chén Sān, Soinam Dorjê, Chéng Tiānliàng, Migmar Zhaxi, Dorjê, and Yún Dēng.
Shishapangma / Gosainthān  is also the highest peak in the Jugal Himal which is contiguous with and often considered part of Langtang Himal. The Jugal/Langtang Himal straddles the Tibet/Nepal border.
 Tibetologist Guntram Hazod records a local story that explains the mountain's name in terms of its literal meaning in the Standard Tibetan language: shisha, which means "meat of an animal that died of natural causes" and sbangma which means "malt dregs left over from brewing beer".
According to the story, one year a heavy snowfall killed most of the animals at pasture. All that the people living near the mountain had to eat was the meat of the dead animals and the malt dregs left over from brewing beer, and so the mountain was named Shisha Pangma (shisha sbangma), signifiying "meat of dead animals and malty dregs".
The Sanskrit name of the mountain, Gosainthan, means "place of the saint" or "Abode of God".
Still, its most common name is Shishapangma.

The artist  
Kurt Karl Alexander Oskar Boeck was a German theater actor, climber, travel writer  ans eventually early photographer. He began as an actor but in 1887when  he had the opportunity to accompany a research expedition to Asia, especially to Persia and the Caucasus, he could not resist the temptation.
Researching and traveling in lesser-known, far-off lands told him so much that when he returned home from Asia he did not find a commitment that suited his wishes, he turned completely to this interesting profession. First, Boeck undertook in 1890 at his own expense an expedition to the Himalayas, where he took the glacier leader Hans Kerner from Tyrol and drove in the years 1893, 1895 and 1898-1899 again to India to thoroughly get to know the country in all parts. Boeck's lectures in numerous national and international associations on these and his other travels in Burma, China, America, Japan, Siberia, etc., have made him, as well as his articles in magazines, known to the general public.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SOUTH MASSIF BY NASA APOLLO 17 MISSION (1972)

NASA APOLLO 17 MISSION (1972)

 South Massif (2, 300 m - 75, 46ft)

The Moon

1.  In Astronaut Harrison Schmitt next to a large boulder in the Taurus–Littrow valley on the Apollo 17 mission . The South massif is visible to the right. Original NASA caption. 1972

2.  In  South Massif - North facing slope of South Massif, with the 3.6 km diameter Ching-Te crater in the background, Original NASA caption, 1972

The mountain 
South Massif  (2, 300 m - 75, 46ft)  is, according to lunar standards, a relatively modest mountain, but with a rich history (geologic and exploration).  South Massif is located at the edge of the Serenitatis impact basin on the Moon's nearside and borders the Taurus Littrow Valley where the Apollo 17 astronauts landed and explored.
The oblique view (n°2 above) dramatically shows the north-facing slope of South Massif, with the 3.6 km diameter Ching-Te crater in the background. From summit to base, the massif's relief exceeds that of the Grand Canyon.
The distinct high reflectance deposit that spreads across the Taurus Littrow valley floor formed as a giant landslide from the north face of South Massif. Apollo era scientists proposed that the landslide was caused by ejecta from Tycho crater landing on the summit and south side of the massif. The resulting seismic jolt sent regolith sliding down the steep north slope resulting in the distinctive landslide we see today. Look closely at the summit, you can see what appears to be dark and blocky material that may be a deposit of now solidifed impact melt from the Tycho event.  Sampling the landslide was an objective of the Apollo 17 mission. By  determining how long rocks had sat on the surface of the slide scientists could know the timing of the formation of Tycho crater, which is more than 2000 kilometers to the southwest.
As it turns out, the exposure ages of the samples brought back from the landslide were about 110 million years - thus Tycho crater was assigned that age. However, new mapping and analysis of the area brought forward a second hypotheisis, reported this spring at the 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. The alternative idea is that the landslide was caused by motion along the Lee Lincoln fault. It is certainly logical that seismic shaking along such a massive fault could cause a landslide. In fact, the paper (authored by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt) proposes that there were actually two large quakes and thus two landslides, the younger covering most of the older. The older deposit (smaller lobe on the right) is distinguished by its lower reflectance relative to the brighter younger slide (left side). If Dr. Schmitt is correct then we do not know the age of Tycho crater which in turn has implications for how scientists estimate the ages of other young craters across the Moon (and other inner Solar System bodies).

The mission 
Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program.
Launched at 12:33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, with a crew made up of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, it was the last use of Apollo hardware for its original purpose; after Apollo 17, extra Apollo spacecraft were used in the Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz programs.
Apollo 17 was the first night launch of a U.S. human spaceflight and the final manned launch of a Saturn V rocket. It was a "J-type mission" which included three days on the lunar surface, extended scientific capability, and the third Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). While Evans remained in lunar orbit in the Command/Service Module (CSM), Cernan and Schmitt spent just over three days on the Moon in the Taurus–Littrow valley and completed three moonwalks, taking lunar samples and deploying scientific instruments. Evans took scientific measurements and photographs from orbit using a Scientific Instruments Module mounted in the Service Module.
The landing site was chosen with the primary objectives of Apollo 17 in mind: to sample lunar highland material older than the impact that formed Mare Imbrium, and investigate the possibility of relatively new volcanic activity in the same area.  Cernan, Evans and Schmitt returned to Earth on December 19 after a 12-day mission.
Apollo 17 is the most recent manned Moon landing and the most recent time humans travelled beyond low Earth orbit.  It was also the first mission to have no one on board who had been a test pilot; X-15 test pilot Joe Engle lost the lunar module pilot assignment to Schmitt, a scientist.
The mission broke several records: the longest moon landing, longest total extravehicular activities (moonwalks),  largest lunar sample, and longest time in lunar orbit.
Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, commander, makes a short checkout of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) during the early part of the first Apollo 17 Extravehicular Activity (EVA-1) at the Taurus-Littrow landing site.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

PICOS DE EUROPA PAINTED BY CARLOS DE HAES

CARLOS DE HAES ( 1829-1898) 

Picos de Europa  (2,445 m - 8,022 ft)

Spain (Asturias) 

 In A canal de Mancorbo en los Picos de Europa,1876, Museo nacional del Prado 

About he painting
The place that appears in this painting lies at the foot of mount Andara, on the eastern side of Picos de Europa, above the village of Argüébanes in the Cantabrian county of Liébana. Haes fits the landscape’s geographical features into a clear structure of diagonal lines that brings out the stony peak rising from the back of the canal at the center of the composition, and flanked by the slopes of the two foothills in the foreground. The peak projects a shadow on the left foothill, that contrasts with the brightly illuminated face of the right one.

The mountain 
 The Picos de la Europa   (2,445 m - 8,022 ft) is  a mountainous massif located in the north of Spain that belongs to the central part of the Cantabrian mountain range. Although not very extensive, its proximity to the sea makes it lavish in geographic features of great interest. Currently, the Picos de Europa National Park is the second most visited national park in Spain.
This limestone formation extends through Cantabria, León and the Principality of Asturias, and its heights stand out, in many cases above 2500 m, because of how close they are to the Cantabrian Sea, because at its northernmost point they are only a short distance away. 15 kilometers from the sea.

The painter 
The spanish painter Carlos Sebastián Pedro Hubert de Haes was noted for the Realism in his landscapes, and was considered to be the "first contemporary Spanish artist able to capture something of a particularly Spanish 'essence' in his work". He was cited along with Jenaro Perez Villaamil and Aureliano de Beruete as one of the three Spanish grand masters of landscape painting, the latter of which was his pupil.
In the 1850s, Haes was involved in the rise of the Realist school of landscape. Coincidentally his landscape and wildlife paintings of the Monasterio de Piedra occurred at the time of an academic opening for the Painting School of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the selection to be made by a landscape competition. In 1857 he became the first professor of landscape painting, the first in Spain to teach painting directly from nature. In 1860, he became an Academic at the Royal Academy. In 1876, he presented at the National Exhibition with La Canal de Mancorbo en los Picos de Europa ("The Canal of Mancorbo in the Picos de Europa") later acquired by the Spanish state to be part of the collection of the Museo del Prado, because of its significance as a realistic Spanish landscape painting.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
A blog by Francis Rousseau

ELLMAUER HALT PAINTED BY ALFONS WALDE

ALFONS WALDE (1891-1958)

Ellmauer Halt (2,344 m  - 7,690 ft)

Austria

  In  Büchlach et le Wilder Kaiser, oil on paper, 1925

The mountain 
The Ellmauer Halt (2,344 m  - 7,690 ft)  is an alpine summit,  the highest point of the Kaisergebirge, and in particular the Wilder Kaiser range in Austria (Tyrolean Land).
The massif is surrounded by the Chiemgau Alps to the north, the Loferer Steinberge to the east, the Kitzbühel Alps to the south and the Brandenberg Alps to the west.
It is bordered on the west by the Inn.
It is composed of two main links oriented in an east-west axis about twenty kilometers long: the highest, the Wilder Kaiser (literally "Wild Emperor") in the south, and the Zahmer Kaiser ("Emperor Tamed") in North. They are separated by the Kaisertal ("Valley of the Emperor") and are connected only at the Stripsenjoch, at 1,580 meters above sea level.
The first dated traces of the human settlement in the Kaisergebirge are estimated from the 3rd millennium BC. These are the remains of hunters from the Stone Age in the cave of Tischof. Other finds prove the presence of settlements in the Bronze Age in the cavities. The documents relating to the settlement of Kaisertal in the Middle Ages date back to 1430. This is a contract to sell a farm called Hinterkaiser. The name "Kaiser" in this area is older and is already in 1240 in a list of goods Kitzbühel enacted by a certain Gamsgiayt Chaiser.
Tourism development begins in the Kaisergebirge in the second half of the 19th century. Until the end of this century, there are also many firsts. However, it is assumed that the greatest peaks had already been sporadically erected by the natives without this having ever been manifested. Then, until the First World War, the limestone walls of the Wilder Kaiser were the cradle of the Munich climbing scene, where the famous pioneers such as Hans Dülfer completely revolutionized the climbing adventure and athletic. Then, until the 1960s, the fixation techniques of these two disciplines were practically completed. In 1977, the 7th degree of difficulty is introduced with the free climbing of Pumprisse by Reinhard Karl and Helmut Kiene at Fleischbank. In the 1970s and 1980s, a series of sometimes extremely difficult sports routes were opened in the massif.

The artist 

Alfons Walde  was an Austrian artist and architect, best known for his winter landscapes and farming images, especially skiing and sporting scenes, painted in tempera or impastoed oil paint. Many of his paintings can be seen in the Museum gallery in Kitzbühel.
Walde  produced his first watercolour and tempera paintings during his school days. From 1910 to 1914 he studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna, while continuing his education as a painter. In the Danubian metropolis he moved in artistic circles that included Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and he became influenced by Ferdinand Hodler.
In 1911 Walde had his first exhibition in Innsbruck, and in 1913 presented four farm pictures at the prestigious Vienna Secession exhibition. From 1914 to 1917 he actively participated in World War I as a Tyrolean Kaiserschütze in the high mountains. After returning to Kitzbühel, he fully devoted himself to painting and participated again in exhibitions of the Secession and the Vienna Künstlerhaus throughout the 1920s. He was active as a graphic artist, and beginning in 1926 designed many posters.
By around 1928 Walde had finally found his own characteristic style, one that gave expression to both the Tyrolean mountain scenery – particularly the living winter landscapes – and its robust people through the use of highly reduced drawings and pastel colouring. Throughout the rest of his artistic career his work stayed with the subject of his homeland, and retained the same distinct native style.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

BRANDBERG / OMUKURUVARO PAINTED BY JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF

JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF (1886-1957), 

 The Brandberg  (2,573 m -8,442 ft)

 Namibia  

 In Purple Mountain  oil on board (10, 5 x14 cm), Private collection 

The mountain 
The Brandberg or Omukuruvaro  (2,573 m -8,442 ft)  is Namibia's highest mountain. Brandberg Mountain is located in former Damaraland, now Erongo, in the northwestern Namib Desert, near the coast, and covers an area of approximately 650 km². With its highest point, the Königstein (German for 'King's Stone'), located on the flat Namib gravel plains, on a clear day 'The Brandberg' can be seen from a great distance. There are various routes to the summit, the easiest (also steepest) being up the Ga'aseb river valley, but other routes include the Hungurob and Tsisab river valleys. The nearest settlement is Uis, roughly 30 km from the mountain.
The name Brandberg is Afrikaans, Dutch and German for Burning Mountain, which comes from its glowing color which is sometimes seen in the setting sun. The Damara name for the mountain is Dâures, which means 'burning mountain', while the Herero name, Omukuruvaro means 'mountain of the Gods'.
The Brandberg is a spiritual site of great significance to the San (Bushman) tribes. The main tourist attraction is The White Lady rock painting, located on a rock face with other art work, under a small rock overhang, in the Tsisab Ravine at the foot of the mountain. The ravine contains more than 1 000 rock shelters, as well as more than 45 000 rock paintings.
The Brandberg Massif or Brandberg Intrusion is a granitic intrusion, which forms a dome-shaped massif. It originated during Early Cretaceous rifting that led to the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. Argon–argon dating yielded intrusive ages of 132 to 130 Ma. Remnants of Cretaceous volcanic rocks are preserved in a collar along the western and southern margins of the massif. The origins of the magmas that formed the Brandberg intrusion are related to emplacement of mantle-derived basaltic magma during continental break-up which led to partial melting of crustal rocks resulting in a hybrid granitic magma. Erosion subsequently removed the overburden rock. Apatite fission track dating indicates approximately 5 km denudation between 80 and 60 Ma.

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

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT ABUNA YOSEF BY RAY NESTOR

RAY NESTOR  (1888-1989),

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

Ethiopia

In the Mountains of the moon, watercolour, private collection  

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

The painter

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

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

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

KVASSTINDEN & BREITINDEN PAINTED BY EVEN ULVING

 EVEN ULVING (1863 - 1952)
  Kvasstinden (1,010 m -3,313ft ) 
Breitinden (910 m - 2,985ft) 
Norway 

In  Motiv of Helgeland. Winter landscape with reindeer, oil on canvas, 1906,
Royal Palace Collection, Oslo

The mountains 
 Kvasstinden (1,010 m -3,313ft )  and Breitinden (910 m - 2,985ft) are part of the The Seven Sisters,  a mountainous massif of Norway located on the island of Alsten, in the county of Nordland, southwest of Mo i Rana. From north-east to south-west, the seven summits are:  Botnkrona (1,072 m - 3517ft)),  Grytfoten (1,019 m -3, 343ft),  Skjæringen (1,037 m- 3,402ft), Tvillingene ("the Twins") (945 m- 3,100ft  and 980 m - 3,215ft),  Kvasstinden  (1,010 m -3,313ft)  and  Breitinden (910 m - 2,985ft).

The painter 
Even Christophersen Ulving (was a Norwegian painter.  At the age of 18, he traveled to Kristiania to learn his craft with Wilhelm von Krogh  In 1883/84 he was a student at Knud Bergslien's painting school, in 1885/86 by Heinz Heim and Carl Frithjof Smith at the Kunstakademie in Munich, and in 1887 by William Adolphe Bouguereau at the Académie Julian in Paris.
Ulving painted naturalistic, mostly motifs from Helgeland or Vestfold . He especially understood how to portray the characteristic colors of the different seasons in a variety of often powerful tones, without causing any discord. His landscapes always show human activities or traces of it. He also likes to paint rural genre scenes in huts and living rooms.
Pictures of him hanging in the royal castle, and also the National Museum Oslo recently bought two works by him.
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

KAILASH / GANG RINPOCHÉ PAINTED BY NICHOLAS ROERICH

NICHOLAS ROERICH (1874-1947)

 Kailash  or Gang Rinpoché  (6,638 m - 21,778ft) 

China  (Tibet autonomous region) 

The mountain 

Mount Kailash (6,638 m - 21,778ft)  also  called Kangrinboqê or Gang Rinpoche  or Tisé Mountain  is situated in  the Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains), which forms part of the Transhimalaya in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
The mountain is located near Lake Manasarovar and Lake Rakshastal, close to the source of some of the longest Asian rivers: the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, and Karnali also known as Ghaghara (a tributary of the Ganges) in India.
Mount Kailash is considered to be sacred in four religions: Bön, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.
Tibetan Buddhists call it Kangri Rinpoche (Precious Snow Mountain).
For Böns, a religion native to Tibet,  it makes no doubt  that the entire mystical region and Kailash, which they call the "nine-story Swastika Mountain", is the axis mundi (Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring).
For Hindus, it is the home of the wild mountain god Shiva and a symbol of his penis.
For Jains it is where their first leader was enlightened.
For Buddhists, the navel of the universe; and for adherents of Bon, the abode of the sky goddess Sipaimen.
Every year, thousands make a pilgrimage to Kailash, following a tradition going back thousands of years. Pilgrims of several religions believe that circumambulating Mount Kailash on foot is a holy ritual that will bring good fortune. The peregrination is made in a clockwise direction by Hindus and Buddhists, while Jains and Bönpos circumambulate the mountain in a counterclockwise direction.  Kailash is still an unclimbed summit.
Herbert Tichy was in the area in 1936, attempting to climb Gurla Mandhata. When he asked one of the Garpons of Ngari whether Kailash was climbable, the Garpon replied, "Only a man entirely free of sin could climb Kailash. And he wouldn't have to actually scale the sheer walls of ice to do it – he'd just turn himself into a bird and fly to the summit."
 Reinhold Messner was given the opportunity by the Chinese government to climb in the mid-1980s but he declined.
In 2001, reports emerged that the Chinese had given permission for a Spanish team to climb the peak, which caused an international backlash. Chinese authorities disputed the reports, and stated that any climbing activities on Mt Kailash were strictly prohibited.
 Reinhold Messner, who condemned the reported Spanish plans, said:
" If we conquer this mountain, then we conquer something in people's souls. I would suggest they go and climb something a little harder. Kailash is not so high and not so hard. "  

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

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE KAISER MOUNTAINS PAINTED BY ALFONS WALDE

ALFONS WALDE (1891-1958)

Kaiser mountains   (2,344 m- 7,690 ft)

Austria 

 In  Ergfrühling (Wilder Kaiser), c. 1920. Oil on cardboard, 78.5 x 100 cm

The mountains 

The Kaiser Mountains  or  Kaisergebirge, meaning Emperor mountains  or just Kaiser, are a mountain range in the Northern Limestone Alps and Eastern Alps. It consists of two main mountain ridges – the Zahmer Kaiser ("gentle or tame emperor") to the north ,mainly covered by mountain pine and the Wilder Kaiser ("wild or fierce emperor") to the south, formed predominantly of bare limestone rock. The entire range is situated in the Austrian state of Tyrol between the town of Kufstein and the market town of St. Johann in Tirol. The Kaiser Mountains offer some of the loveliest scenery in all the Northern Limestone Alps. 

These two mountain ridges are linked by the 1,580 m- high Stripsenjoch pass, but are separated in the west by the valley of Kaisertal and in the east by the Kaiserbach valley. In total the Kaiser extends for about 20 km (12 mi) in an east-west direction and about 14 km (8.7 mi) from north to south, giving a total area of some 280 square kilometres (110 sq mi). 

The Zahmer Kaiser only just breaks through the 2,000 metre barrier (in the Vordere Kesselschneid). The highest elevation in the Wilder Kaiser is the Ellmauer Halt in the borough of Kufstein at 2,344 metres (7,690 ft). There are around forty other summits, including many well-known climbing peaks such as the Karlspitzen, Totenkirchl, Fleischbank, Predigtstuhl, Goinger Halt, Ackerlspitze and Maukspitze.

 The artist 

Alfons Walde  was an Austrian artist and architect, best known for his winter landscapes and farming images, especially skiing and sporting scenes, painted in tempera or impastoed oil paint. Many of his paintings can be seen in the Museum gallery in Kitzbühel.
Walde  produced his first watercolour and tempera paintings during his school days. From 1910 to 1914 he studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna, while continuing his education as a painter. In the Danubian metropolis he moved in artistic circles that included Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and he became influenced by Ferdinand Hodler.
In 1911 Walde had his first exhibition in Innsbruck, and in 1913 presented four farm pictures at the prestigious Vienna Secession exhibition. From 1914 to 1917 he actively participated in World War I as a Tyrolean Kaiserschütze in the high mountains. After returning to Kitzbühel, he fully devoted himself to painting and participated again in exhibitions of the Secession and the Vienna Künstlerhaus throughout the 1920s. He was active as a graphic artist, and beginning in 1926 designed many posters.
By around 1928 Walde had finally found his own characteristic style, one that gave expression to both the Tyrolean mountain scenery – particularly the living winter landscapes – and its robust people through the use of highly reduced drawings and pastel colouring. Throughout the rest of his artistic career his work stayed with the subject of his homeland, and retained the same distinct native style.

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2018 - Men Portraits 
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

MOUNT EREBUS (2) BY EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON

                                               EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (1872-1912) 

Mount Erebus (3, 794 m - 12, 448ft)

Antarctica

  In Sunset on Mount Erebus 1911, Watercolour,  Museum  Royal Geographical Society,  London

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.
Mount Erebus is classified as a polygenetic stratovolcano. The bottom half of the volcano is a shield and the top half is a stratocone. The composition of the current eruptive products of Erebus is anorthoclase-porphyritic tephritic phonolite and phonolite, which are the bulk of exposed lava flow on the volcano.  Erebus is the world's only presently erupting phonolite volcano.
Researchers spent more than three months during the 2007–08 field season installing an unusually dense array of seismometers around Mount Erebus to listen to waves of energy generated by small, controlled blasts from explosives they buried along its flanks and perimeter and to record scattered seismic signals generated by lava lake eruptions and local ice quakes. By studying the refracted and scattered seismic waves, the scientists produced an image of the uppermost (top few km) of the volcano to understand the geometry of its "plumbing" and how the magma rises to the lava lake. These results demonstrated a complex upper-volcano conduit system with appreciable upper-volcano magma storage to the northwest of the lava lake at depths hundreds of meters below the surface.

The artist
Edward Adrian Wilson,  nicknamed "Uncle Bill" was an English physician, polar explorer, natural historian, painter and ornithologist. Wilson took part in two British expeditions to Antarctica, the Discovery Expedition (1901-1904)  and the tragic Terra Nova Expedition (1907-1912), both under the leadership of Scott.
Dr. Edward A. Wilson  is widely regarded as one of the finest artists ever to have worked in the Antarctic. Sailing with Captain Scott aboard 'Discovery' (1901-1904), he became the last in a long tradition of 'exploration artists' from an age when pencil and water-colour were the main methods of producing accurate scientific records of new lands and animal species. He combined scientific, topographical and landscape techniques to produce accurate and beautiful images of the last unknown continent. Such was the strength of his work that it also helped to found the tradition of modern wildlife painting. In particular Wilson captured the essence of the flight and motion of Southern Ocean sea-birds on paper.
Returning with Captain Scott aboard 'Terra Nova' (1910-1913) as Chief of Scientific Staff, he continued to record the continent and its wildlife with extraordinary deftness. Chosen to accompany Captain Scott to the South Pole, his last drawings are from one of the most famous epic journeys in exploration history. Along with his scientific work, Wilson's pencil recorded the finding of Roald Amundsen's tent at the South Pole by Captain Scott. Wilson died, along with the other members of the British Pole Party, during the return journey, in March 1912. The drawings and paintings were created at considerable personal cost in the freezing conditions in which Wilson worked. He often suffered severely from the cold whilst sketching and also from snow-blindness, or sunburn of the eye. They provide a remarkable testament to one of the great figures of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. The book has been produced as a companion volume to 'Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks' by two of Wilson's great nephews, to mark the centenary of his death.

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

GUNIB MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY IVAN AIVAZOVSKY

 IVAN AIVAZOVSKY (1817-1900)

Gunib  Mountain (1, 500m - 4,921ft)

Russia  (Republic of Dagestan) 

 In  Mountain Village Gunib in Daghestan. View from the East. 1869. Oil on canvas. 

The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

The mountain 
Gunib  Mountain (1, 500m - 4,921ft) dominates the village of Gunib  (Гуниб) in Daghestan, chief town of the district of the same name. Its population, of stingy ethnicity, was 2 271 inhabitants in 2010. Gounib is situated in the middle of the Gounib Plateau, 172 kilometers southwest of Makhachkala at an altitude of 1,500 meters.
This area was taken by the Russian army against Shamil on August 25, 1859 who surrendered to General Prince Alexander Bariatinski. The village was formed in 1862 as a dwelling place for workers building a Russian fortress. It took the name of an aul higher on the plateau destroyed in 1859. Gounib was the chief town of Okrug Gounib belonging to the oblast of Dagestan (until 1921). The barracks of the Samur Regiment and the Artillery Regiment of the Dagestan Fortress and Terek were built there in 1895. At that time there were twenty-nine homes of employees, merchants, retired soldiers, a small Orthodox church and a post office.

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 

MOUNT HERDUBREID BY STEFAN JONSSON OF MÖORUDALUR

STEFAN JONSSON OF MÖORUDALUR (1908-1994)

Herðubreið  / Mount Herdubreid (1,682 m - 5518ft) 

Iceland

In  Sheep of Mount Herdubreid,  oil on canvas, 1982, Private owner  

The mountain 
Herðubreið  (1,682 m - 5518ft) meaning  broad-shouldered in icelandic is a tuya in north-east Iceland. It is situated in the Highlands of Iceland at the east side of the Ódáðahraun desert and close to Askja volcano. The desert is a large lava field originating from eruptions of Trölladyngja and other shield volcanoes in the area. Herðubreið was formed beneath the icesheet that covered Iceland during the last glacial period.
Due to the mountain's steep and unstable sides, the first ascent was in 1908 despite centuries of knowledge of its existence.
Near the mountain lies an oasis called Herðubreiðarlindir with a campground and hiking trails. In former times, outcasts who had been excluded from Icelandic society because of crimes they had committed lived at the oasis. One such outlaw was Fjalla-Eyvindur, who lived there during the winter of 1774–1775. In 2019 Herðubreið became a part of Vatnajökull National Park.

The painter 

Stefán Vilhjálmur Jónsson,  said of Möðrudalur (1908- 1994)  lived at Möðrudalur furthest and taught himself to the town. Stephen was a known naïveist and his pictures ran out on shows. He began painting at an old age after moving to town from the middle of the 20th century.

He was self-reliant without observing Astrid Jónsson, a painter who came to Möðrudalur several times to paint.

Herðubreið and horses were his hallmarks, as he himself told an interview in Morgunblaðið July 17, 1993: "It will always bring some pictures of Herðubreið to me, she is so much a beautiful mountain. That's what makes me happy. Frosti and Mökkur and Hardy Red. They're in trouble my favorite horse pictures. "

He was also a photographer and most of his photos were labeled with the artist's name Stórval.

Stephen was a colorful townspeople and said about himself: "Then I rode a lot about the town and often had a harmonica and painted me too. I went east sometimes but not in recent times. When one has become a multifunctional in pictures, it is interesting to leave them. But one should go out too and talk to his acquaintances, and I want to go to the bank so often. I see so much jealousy. Just put up the hat like that and bump me into town. "

_______________________________

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

FUJI YAMA / 富士山 PAINTED BY WADA EISAKU / 和田 英作

WADA EISAKU / 和田 英作 (1874-1959) 

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft) 

Japan

 In Fuji - Early spring ,oil on canvas,  Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art

The mountain 

Mount Fuji  (3,776.24 m -12,389 ft) or Fujiyama (富士山) is located on Honshu Island and is the highest mountain peak in Japan . 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.

The painter 

Wada Eisaku (和田 英作) was a yôga painter of the Meiji through Shôwa periods, and director of the Tokyo bijutsu gakkô ("Tokyo Art School," today the Tokyo University of the Arts). Born in Kagoshima prefecture in 1874, he began studying under Kuroda Seiki in 1894, at the age of 20. By age 29, in 1903, he was working as a teacher at the Tokyo Art School. Wada became head of the school in 1932, at the age of 58. In 1943, he was awarded the Order of Culture.

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT SINAI / JABAL MUSA IMAGINED BY VITTORE CARPACCIO

VITTORE CARPACCIO (1465-1526) 

Mount Sinaï / Jabal Musa (2,285 m - 7,496ft) 

Egypt

 In The Flight Into Egypt,  1516 ,oil on panel ( 111 x 72cm), 

The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. 

About the painting 

The flight to Egypt is a  religious  subject painted by many artists from the Middle Ages to the 18th century. It relates a famous episode of the Christian sacred history of which the painters have seized all the same moment: the passage of the border (if one may say) off  the land of Herod (Israël)  to Egypt, the so called border  being materialized, on all the paintings, by the Mount Sinai, nowadays set in Egypt. Those representations are ,of course, totally imaginary. None of these painters having had the opportunity to go there ! This is all the interest of these various representations of the Flight in Egypt presented in this blog: the one by Joachim Patinir or the so expressive version by Giotto.  

In the Carpaccio's version (above), the Mount Sinai is supposed to be the first (and the highest) mountain in the background, on the left of the frame... behind the tree !

The story related is the following :  forced to flee Bethlehem with the Infant Jesus to escape King Herod who ordered the death of all the male children under two-year-old, Joseph takes the Infant Jesus and his mother the Virgin Mary and take refuge in Egypt. They will remain three and a half years in Egypt, moving several times from city to city, until the death of Herod. They then came back to Nazareth by an other way. 

Nowadays  this  route (go and return), known as "The Way of the Holy Family" is in the process of becoming a World Heritage Site by UNESCO

The mountain 
Mount Sinaï (2,285 m - 7,496ft) or Jabal Mūsā or Gabal Mūsā (in arab  : "Moses' Mountain" or "Mount Moses"), also known as Mount Horeb or Jebel Musa (a similarly named mountain in Morocco), is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is a possible location of the biblical Mount Sinai.  The latter is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus (and other books of the Bible) and the Quran. According to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition, the biblical Mount Sinai was the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Mount Sinai is a moderately high mountain near the city of Saint Katherine in the Sinai region. It is next to Mount Katherine (2,629 m - 8,625 ft), the highest peak in Egypt.
Mount Sinai's rocks were formed in the late stage of the Arabian-Nubian Shield's (ANS) evolution. Mount Sinai displays a ring complex that consists of alkaline granites intruded into diverse rock types, including volcanics. The granites range in composition from syenogranite to alkali feldspar granite. The volcanic rocks are alkaline to peralkaline and they are represented by subaerial flows and eruptions and subvolcanic porphyry. Generally, the nature of the exposed rocks in Mount Sinai indicates that they originated from differing depths.
There are two principal routes to the summit. The longer and shallower route, Siket El Bashait, takes about 2.5 hours on foot, though camels can be used. The steeper, more direct route (Siket Sayidna Musa) is up the 3,750 "steps of penitence" in the ravine behind the monastery.
The summit of the mountain has a mosque that is still used by Muslims. It also has a Greek Orthodox chapel, constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th-century church, that is not open to the public. The chapel encloses the rock which is considered to be the source for the biblical Tablets of Stone. At the summit also is "Moses' cave", where Moses was said to have waited to receive the Ten Commandments.

 The painter 
The italian painter of  the Venetian school, Vittore Carpaccio studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian Renaissance painting during his lifetime. He was influenced by the style of Antonello da Messina and Early Netherlandish art. For this reason, and also because so much of his best work remains in Venice, his art has been rather neglected by comparison with other Venetian contemporaries, such as Giovanni Bellini or Giorgione. In 1516, he painted a Sacra Conversatione painting in then Venetian town of Capodistria (now Koper in Slovenia), which is hanging in its Cathedral of the Assumption. Carpaccio created several more works in Capodistria, where he spent the last years of his life and also died

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT EREBUS BY EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (2)

EDWARD ADRIAN WILSON (1872-1912) 

Mount Erebus (3, 794 m - 12, 448ft)

Antarctica

  In Mount Erebus from Castle rock ,1911, watercolour, Royal Geographical Society,  London

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.
Mount Erebus is classified as a polygenetic stratovolcano. The bottom half of the volcano is a shield and the top half is a stratocone. The composition of the current eruptive products of Erebus is anorthoclase-porphyritic tephritic phonolite and phonolite, which are the bulk of exposed lava flow on the volcano.  Erebus is the world's only presently erupting phonolite volcano.
Researchers spent more than three months during the 2007–08 field season installing an unusually dense array of seismometers around Mount Erebus to listen to waves of energy generated by small, controlled blasts from explosives they buried along its flanks and perimeter and to record scattered seismic signals generated by lava lake eruptions and local ice quakes. By studying the refracted and scattered seismic waves, the scientists produced an image of the uppermost (top few km) of the volcano to understand the geometry of its "plumbing" and how the magma rises to the lava lake. These results demonstrated a complex upper-volcano conduit system with appreciable upper-volcano magma storage to the northwest of the lava lake at depths hundreds of meters below the surface.

The artist
Edward Adrian Wilson,  nicknamed "Uncle Bill" was an English physician, polar explorer, natural historian, painter and ornithologist. Wilson took part in two British expeditions to Antarctica, the Discovery Expedition (1901-1904)  and the tragic Terra Nova Expedition (1907-1912), both under the leadership of Scott.
Dr. Edward A. Wilson  is widely regarded as one of the finest artists ever to have worked in the Antarctic. Sailing with Captain Scott aboard 'Discovery' (1901-1904), he became the last in a long tradition of 'exploration artists' from an age when pencil and water-colour were the main methods of producing accurate scientific records of new lands and animal species. He combined scientific, topographical and landscape techniques to produce accurate and beautiful images of the last unknown continent. Such was the strength of his work that it also helped to found the tradition of modern wildlife painting. In particular Wilson captured the essence of the flight and motion of Southern Ocean sea-birds on paper.
Returning with Captain Scott aboard 'Terra Nova' (1910-1913) as Chief of Scientific Staff, he continued to record the continent and its wildlife with extraordinary deftness. Chosen to accompany Captain Scott to the South Pole, his last drawings are from one of the most famous epic journeys in exploration history. Along with his scientific work, Wilson's pencil recorded the finding of Roald Amundsen's tent at the South Pole by Captain Scott. Wilson died, along with the other members of the British Pole Party, during the return journey, in March 1912. The drawings and paintings were created at considerable personal cost in the freezing conditions in which Wilson worked. He often suffered severely from the cold whilst sketching and also from snow-blindness, or sunburn of the eye. They provide a remarkable testament to one of the great figures of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. The book has been produced as a companion volume to 'Edward Wilson's Nature Notebooks' by two of Wilson's great nephews, to mark the centenary of his death.

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes..

Un blog de Francis Rousseau

STELLENBOSCH MOUNTAIN PAINTED BY JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF

 JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF (1886-1957)

 Stellenbosch mountain  (1,156 m - 3,792 ft)

 South Africa

The mountain 
The peak of Stellenbosch Mountain   (1,156 m- 3,792 ft) also called Stellenbosberg or Die Groteberg   is a mountain forming a prominent landmark, par of The Hottentots Holland Mountains, overlooking the town of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape Province  (South Africa). The mountain forms part of the Coetsenburg Estate, the Jonkershoek Nature Reserve, the Assegaaibosch Nature Reserve and the larger Hottentots-Holland Mountains Catchment Area.
The source of the Blaauwklippen  River is near the peak. The range is primarily composed of Table Mountain Sandstone. The climate is typically Mediterranean; warm and temperate. However, it is generally much cooler and more verdant than other areas in the Western Cape. Snow is not unusual on the peak during winter. The surrounding lowlands have rich alluvial soils supporting viticulture and other deciduous fruit farms.

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

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

FUJIYAMA / 富士山 PAINTED BY KURODA SEIKI / 黒田 清輝

KURODA SEIKI  / 黒田 清輝 (1866–1924)

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

Japan

 In Mount Fuji, oil on canvas, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art

The artist

Viscount Kuroda Seiki (黒田 清輝) was the pseudonym of a Japanese painter and teacher, noted for bringing Western theories about art to a wide Japanese audience. He was among the leaders of the yōga (or Western-style) movement in late 19th- and early 20th-century Japanese painting. His real name was Kuroda Kiyoteru, which uses an alternate pronunciation of the Chinese characters.

Few artists have influenced Japanese art as much as Kuroda. As a painter, he was among the first to introduce Western-style paintings to a broad Japanese audience. As a teacher, he taught many young artists the lessons that he himself had learned in Paris; among his students were painters like Wada Eisaku, who were to become among the preeminent Japanese painters of their generation. Many students also followed Kuroda in choosing to study in Paris, leading to a greater awareness of broader trends in Western art on the part of many Japanese artists in the twentieth century; a number of these, such as Asai Chū, even went as far as going to Grez-sur-Loing for inspiration.

Perhaps Kuroda's greatest contribution to Japanese culture, however, was the acceptance of Western-style painting he fostered on the part of the Japanese public. Despite their initial reluctance, he was able to convince them to accept the validity of the nude figure as a subject for art. This, coupled with the honors bestowed upon him later in his life, bespeak a broader understanding by the Japanese people, and by their government, as to the importance of yōga in their culture.

The mountain 

The legendary Mount Fuji or Fujiyama (富士山)  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.

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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau