PICO DE ORIZABA / CITLALTÉPETL PAINTED BY EUGENIO LANDESIO

EUGENIO LANDESIO  (1810-1879) 

Pico de Orizaba / Citlaltépetl (5,636 m -18,491 ft) 

Mexico (Vera Cruz) 

In Monte-Blanco-Farm-Mexico, Vera Cruz, 1879, oil on canvas, 

Museo de Arte del Estado de Veracruz 

About the painting

In 1873 Eugenio Landesio began working on the project that was to become Hacienda de Monte Blanco (above) and upon his return to Rome, Landesio commissioned José María Velasco to finish it. Hacienda de Monte Blanco is a view of Monte Blanco, a hacienda of the state of Veracruz and describes the biological, geological and regional characteristics that Landesio considered essential for landscaping. From the natural vegetation of the region to the rugged ascent to the mountain that can be seen in the distance, each aspect of the painting reflects its specific location, a hallmark of Landesio's style. At last, on the background of the composition one can see the Pico de Orizaba, a dormant volcano which is the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America.

The mountain 

Pico de Orizaba  (5,636 m -18,491 ft) also known as Citlaltépetl is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America, after Denali of Alaska in the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. It rises  in the eastern end of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, on the border between the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The volcano is currently dormant but not extinct, with the last eruption taking place during the 19th century. It is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro.
Pico de Orizaba was important in pre-Hispanic cultures, such as those of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs and the Totonacs. The volcano is part of many native mythologies.
Pico de Orizaba  is located 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Mexico City  and approximately 480 kilometres (300 mi) south of the Tropic of Cancer. A companion peak lying about six km to the southwest of Pico de Orizaba is the Sierra Negra, at 4,640 metres (15,223 ft). 

Pico de Orizaba is one of only three volcanoes in México that continue to support glaciers and is home to the largest glacier in Mexico, Gran Glaciar Norte. Orizaba has nine known glaciers: Gran Glaciar Norte, Lengua del Chichimeco, Jamapa, Toro, Glaciar de la Barba, Noroccidental, Occidental, Suroccidental, and Oriental.
Pico de Orizaba, like the Sierra Madre Oriental, forms a barrier between the coastal plains of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican Plateau. The volcano blocks the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from saturating central Mexico and influences the climates of both areas. Both the state of Veracruz and Puebla depend on Pico de Orizaba for supplying fresh water. The largest river originating on the volcano is the Jamapa River.

The painter
Eugenio Landesio was an Italian painter and a pupil of the Hungarian landscape painter Károly Markó the Elder. Landesio’s career in Mexico was marked by his years at the Academy of San Carlos, where he exercised an influence on later exponents of Mexican landscape painting such as José María Velasco.  In January 1855, at the invitation of the Catalan painter Pelegrín Clavé, who was director of the figure painting section of the Academy, he went to Mexico to give classes in landscape, perspective, and the principles of ornamentation.
Like his teacher, Landesio was a Romantic landscape painter, with a tendency to emphasize the sweetness and mellowness of his scenes. His work became known in Mexico when several of his paintings were acquired by the Academy of San Carlos. Landesio wrote three books on landscape painting that served as textbooks for the students of the Academy of San Carlos.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT TERROR AND CAPE CROZIER BY CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH

CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH (1776-1859)

Mount Terror (3, 262m - 10, 702 ft) 

Antarctica (Ross Island)

In Cap Crozier and Mount Terror - Watercolour from Views of Polar region, Connecticut Yale Center for British arts

The mountain 

Mount Terror (3, 262m - 10, 702 ft) is a large shield volcano that forms the eastern part of Ross Island, Antarctica. It has numerous cinder cones and domes on the flanks of the shield and is mostly under snow and ice. It is the second largest of the four volcanoes which make up Ross Island and is somewhat overshadowed by its neighbor, Mount Erebus, 30 km (19 mi) to the west. Mt. Terror was named in 1841 by Sir James Clark Ross for his second ship, HMS Terror. The captain of Terror was Captain Francis Crozier who was a close friend of Ross.

Those areas are from 0.82 to 1.75 million years old. Mount Terror showed no signs of volcanic activity more recent than that.

The first ascent of Mt. Terror was made by a New Zealand party in 1959.

Cape Crozier is the most easterly point on Ross Island in Antarctica. It was discovered in 1841 during the Erebus and Terror expedition of James Clark Ross, and was named after Francis Crozier, captain of HMS Terror. The Mount Terror volcano is located near the cape and the edge of the Ross barrier extends to the east.

This cape is a breeding area of the Adélie penguin and emperor penguin. It is a specially protected zone (zone n ° 6) by international agreement: any crossing of the zone, or overflight, is prohibited.

The message board erected on January 22, 1902 by Robert F. Scott during the Discovery Expedition and the remains of the hut built in July 1911 by the members of Edward Wilson's expedition are classified as a historic monument of the Antarctic.

The artist 
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith,  was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier, and... spy as well !. His military career began in 1787, when he studied at the Austrian academy for artillery and engineers at Mechelen and Leuven in Belgium (his native country). Although his military service, which ended in 1820 and included the Napoleonic Wars, saw him travel extensively (including the West Indies, Canada, United States, Southern and Northern Europe and ...Antarctica).
As a prolific self-taught illustrator (over 38,000 drawings!) He left quite an important number of books of  beautifully watercolored landscapes taken all around the world. those nooks of watercolors are nowadays in the collections of  the Yale Center From British Art. Among them  :

- Views of France, Volume I (81 watercolors), Views of France, Volume II (93 watercolors), 

- Views of England and Wales, Volume I (82  watercolors),  Views of England and Wales, Volume II (74  watercolors),

- Views of Northern Europe, Volume I (68watercolors) , Views of Northern Europe, Volume II (78)  watercolors),  

- Views of Polar Regions (75  watercolors) (see above) 

- Views of Spain, Volume I (69 watercolors), Views of Spain, Volume II (72 watercolors), 

But one of his noteworthy achievements was an 1800 experiment to determine which color should be used for military uniforms.  He is also known in military history circles for Costume of the Army of the British Empire, produced towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and an accurate depiction of contemporary British uniform.

As an antiquarian, he also produced, in collaboration with Samuel Rush Meyrick, Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Islands, 1815, and The Ancient Costume of England, with historical illustrations of medieval knights, ladies, shipsm and battles. 

He also wrote on the history of the Seven Years' War and TheNatural history of dogs.

Quite a productive fellow ! 

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE WETTERHORN BY FERDINAND HODLER

FERDINAND HODLER (1853-1918)

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

Switzerland

 In The Wetterhorn, oil on canvas,  1912

The painter
Ferdinand Hodler is one of the best-known Swiss painters of the 19th century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of symbolism he called Parallelism.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century his work evolved to combine influences from several genres including Symbolism and Art Nouveau. In 1890 he completed Night, a work that marked Hodler's turn toward symbolist imagery. It depicts several recumbent figures, all of them relaxed in sleep except for an agitated man who is menaced by a figure shrouded in black, which Hodler intended as a symbol of death. Hodler developed a style he called "Parallelism" that emphasized the symmetry and rhythm he believed formed the basis of human society.
Hodler painted number of large-scale historical paintings, often with patriotic themes.
Hodler's work in his final phase took on an expressionist aspect with strongly coloured and geometrical figures. Landscapes were pared down to essentials, sometimes consisting of a jagged wedge of land between water and sky

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 son of a Scottish physician, Speer lived in Interlaken, Switzerland.
Wetterhorn is neither a difficult, nor an easy mountain. Each access has its specialty. Since the Wetterhorn can be seen from most mountains within 100 miles, the view is unique. Although everything up there is snow and ice, looking perpendicularly down to the green pastures of Grindelwald provides an unforgettable contrast.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

PIZ CORVATSCH PAINTED BY GIOVANNI SEGANTINI

GIOVANNI SEGANTINI (1858-1899) 

Piz Corvatsch (3,451m - 11, 322 ft)

Switzerland

In Alpine Triptych: Death, 1898-1899, oil on canvas, 190 cm x 320 cm, 

Segantini Museum, St. Moritz.

About the painting 

In 1897, Segantini was commissioned by a group of local hotels to build a huge panorama of the Engadin valley to be shown in a specially built round hall at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.  For this project he worked almost exclusively outdoors on large canvases covered by substantial wooden shelters. Before it was completed, however, the project had to be scaled down for financial reasons. Segantini redesigned the concept into a large triptych known as Life, Nature and Death (Segantini Museum, St. Moritz), which is now his most famous work. He continued to work on it until his death. The painting above "Death", is the last part of  the triptych, depicting some mountain of the Engadin valley, propably Piz Corvatsch, even though the name of  the mountains  painted are never precisely given in Segantini works. 

The painter

Giovanni Segantini was an Italian painter known for his large pastoral landscapes of the Alps. He was one of the most famous artists in Europe in the late 19th century, and his paintings were collected by major museums. In later life, he combined a Divisionist painting style with Symbolist images of nature. He was active in Switzerland during the last period of his life.
More than anything else, Segantini's work represents the quintessential transition from traditional 19th century art to the changing styles and interests of the 20th century. He began with simple scenes of common people living of the land— peasants, farmers, shepherds—and moved toward a thematic symbolist style that continued to embody the landscapes around him while intertwining pantheistic images representing "a primeval Arcadia".  Over the course of his life, he moved from both the physical and emotional internal, such as his scene of motherhood in a stable, to the grand external views of the mountain scenery where he chose to live.
Nature and the connections of people to nature are the core themes of his art. After he moved to the mountains he wrote "I am now working passionately in order to wrest the secret of Nature's spirit from her. Nature utters the eternal word to the artist: love, love; and the earth sings life in spring, and the soul of things reawakens."
His 1896 painting Love at the Springs of Life (Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Milan) reflects Segantini's philosophical approach to his art. Set in the high mountain landscape near his home, it pictures an angel with large wings spread over a small waterfall flowing from some rocks. In the distance two lovers, clothed in white flowing robes, walk along a path coming toward the spring. Around them are flowers that would have been seen by viewers at the time as symbols of love and life.
Art historian Robert Rosenblum described Segantini as transforming "the earthbound into the spiritual", and the artist himself referred to his work as "naturalist Symbolism". 

 He said "I've got God inside me. I don't need to go to church."

The mountain
Piz Corvatsch (3,451m-11, 322 ft) is a mountain in the Bernina Range of the Alps, overlooking Lake Sils and Lake Silvaplana in the Engadin region of the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. It is the highest point on the range separating the main Inn valley from the Val Roseg. Aside from Piz Corvatsch, two other slightly lower summits make up the Corvatsch massif: Piz Murtèl (3,433 m (11,263 ft); north of Piz Corvatsch) and the unnamed summit where lies the Corvatsch upper cable car station (3,303 m (10,837 ft); north of Piz Murtèl). Politically, the summit of Piz Corvatsch is shared between the municipalities of Sils im Engadin and Samedan, although the 3,303 m high summit lies between the municipalities of Silvaplana and Samedan. The tripoint between the aforementioned municipalities is the summit of Piz Murtèl.
Several glaciers lie on the east side on the massif. The largest, below Piz Corvatsch, is named Vadret dal Murtèl. The second largest, below Piz Murtèl and the station, is named Vadret dal Corvatsch. The Corvatsch cable car starts above the village of Surlej, east of Silvaplana and culminates at 3,298 m. From there, the summit of Piz Corvatsch can be reached by traversing Piz Murtèl. In winter and spring, the mountain is part of a ski area, which is amongst the highest in Switzerland and the Eastern Alps.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

AGPARTUT PAINTED BY WILLIAM BRADFORD

WILLIAM BRADFORD  (1823-1892) 

Agpartut  (1, 922m - 6,306 ft)

Greenland -  Denmark - Nunavut 

In  Scene in the Arctic  Baffin Bay, oil on canvas 1880,  De Young Museum San Francisco 

The mountain 
Agpartut (1, 922m - 6,306 ft) is located in Greenland, an island belonging to Denmark, in the municipality of Avannaata, on the west coast bordered by Baffin Bay. Its summit is the Wegener Peninsula  highest point. 

The mountain is explored for the first time by the Italian expedition Spedizione Città di Carate in 1966 led by Giuseppe Cazzaniga with Gianni Merlini, Ambrogio Rigamonti, Carlo Bonfanti and Massimiliano Chiolo..

The first ascent was made in 1976 during a second Spanish expedition, led by Anglada Josep Manuel with Jordi Riera, Costa Lluis, Joan Cerda, Emilio Civis, Ursula Willius and Jordi Pons. Because of the inaccessibility of the region, attempts to climb are rare and it seems that the summit was climbed only once
The Chanel French expedition in 2001 was directed by Pierre Chanel and Alain Dutrévis, with Christine Cayrel, Marc Brouillet, Philippe Marty, François de Montbéliard and Didier Bensimhon.

The painter 

William Bradford (1823-1892) was an American romanticist painter, photographer and explorer. His early work focused on portraits of the many ships in New Bedford Harbor. In 1858, his painting New Bedford Harbor at Sunset was included in Albert Bierstadt's landmark New Bedford Art Exhibition.
William Bradford  is known for his paintings of ships and Arctic seascapes. He went on several Arctic expeditions with Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes, and was the first American painter to portray the frozen regions of the north. In 1862, Boston, he was an art teacher to Charles Dormon Robinson.
With funds provided by LeGrand Lockwood, Bradford traveled to the Arctic aboard the steamship Panther in 1869, accompanied by photographers John L. Dunmore and George Critcherson.

 Upon his return, Bradford spent two years in London, where he published an account of his trips to the north, entitled The Arctic regions, illustrated with photographs taken on an art expedition to Greenland; with descriptive narrative by the artist. (London, 1873).

 In 1874, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member.[
He was associated with the Hudson River School. He adopted their techniques and became highly interested in the way light touches water and how it affects the appearance of water surfaces and the general atmospherics of a painting. He compositionally balanced many of his paintings by creating a counter-subject and by placing darker colors around the edges, framing and counteracting the center's better-lit subject.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT STANLEY'S MARGHERITA PEAK AND ALEXANDRA PEAK BY VITTORIO SELLA

VITTORIO SELLA (1859-1943)

Margherita Peak / Mont Stanley (5,109 m-16,763 ft) 

Alexandra Peak / Mount Stanley (5,091m - 16,703 ft)

Congo - Uganda border 

1.  In Mount Stanley - Margherita peak and Alexandra peak, 1906, hand painted photographs 

The mountains 

Margherita Peak (5,109 m-16,763 ft) is the highest point of Mount Stanley which consists of two twin summits and several lower peaks which are : 

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

Mt. Stanley was first climbed in 1906 by Duke of the Abruzzi, J. Petigax, C. Ollier, and J. Brocherel. Margherita Peak is named after Queen Margherita of Italy.

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

Alexandra Peak (5,091m - 16,703ft) is part of Mount Stanley located in the Rwenzori range, the highest mountain of both Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.
Mt. Stanley was first climbed in 1906 by the Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia , Duke of the Abruzzi, (1873-1933), J. Petigax, C. Ollier, and J. Brocherel. He is known as well for his Arctic explorations and for his mountaineering expeditions, particularly to Mount Saint Elias (Alaska–Yukon) and K2 (Pakistan–China). Margherita Peak is named after Queen Margherita of Italy the prince's cousin.
The Rwenzori Mountains National Park is considered a model for integration of cultural values into the Protected Area Management framework as an innovative approach to resource management, the first of its kind in Africa. As a result the local communities have embraced collaborative resource management initiatives. Given its significance as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Albertine Rift, various local and international NGOs have supported the management and conservation of the property. A General Management Plan guides management operations on-site. Key challenges to address include illegal felling of trees, snow recession due to global warming, human population pressure adjacent to the property and management of waste generated through tourism operations. UWA is addressing the above threats through resource protection, community conservation education, research and ranger-based monitoring, ecotourism and transboundary initiatives with the DRC. The long-term maintenance of the integrity of the property will be achieved through sustainable financing, ecological monitoring, continued collaboration with key stakeholders and regional cooperation.

The photographer 
Vittorio Sella is a mountain italian climber and photographer who took his passion for mountains from his uncle, Quintino Sella, founder of the Italian Alpine Club. He accomplished many remarkable climbs in the Alps, the first wintering in the Matterhorn and Mount Rose (1882) and the first winter crossing of Mont Blanc (1888) and Les Rouies (1900).
He took part in various expeditions outside Italy:
- Three in the Caucasus in 1889, 1890 and 1896 where a summit still bears his name;
- The ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska in 1897;
- Sikkim and Nepal in 1899;
- Possibly climb Mount Stanley in Uganda in 1906 during an expedition to the Rwenzori;
- Recognition at K2 in 1909;
- In Morocco in 1925.
During expeditions in Alaska, Uganda and Karakoram, he accompanied the Duke of Abruzzi, Prince Luigi Amedeo di Savoia.
Sella continues the practice of climbing into his old age, completing his final attempt in the Matterhorn at the age of 76; a climb he had to interrupt the rise following an accident in which one of his guides injured. He died in his hometown during World War II. His photographic collection is now managed by the Sella Foundation.
His photos mountain are still considered today to be among the finest ever made.

- More informations about Vittorio Sella

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

DEVIL'S PEAK PAINTED BY JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF

JACOBUS HENDRIK PIERNEEF (1886-1957)

Devil's Peak (1,000 m - 3,300 ft) 

South Africa

In  Cape Farmland, 1930, casein, 55.9 x 50.8 cm, Private collection 

The mountain
Devil's Peak (1,000 m - 3,300 ft) less high than Table Mountain (1,087 m- 3,566 ft) is part of the mountainous backdrop to Cape Town, South Africa. When looking at Table Mountain from the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, or when looking at the standard picture postcard view of the mountain, the skyline is from left to right: the spire of Devil's Peak, the flat mesa of Table Mountain, the dome of Lion's Head and Signal Hill.
Forty years before Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape in 1497, the Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro created a map of the world for King Alfonso V of Portugal, based on knowledge drawn from the Arabians. On this map, which became the definitive view of the world for the early Portuguese explorers, he named the southernmost tip of Africa, Cabo di Diab – the Devil’s Cape. It’s very likely the association with the Devil simply migrated from the Cape to the mountain that flanks it. After all, sailors are a superstitious lot and Devil’s Peak remains the path through which the Cape Southeaster howls, churning up the waves in the Cape of Storms.
The upper, rocky parts of Devil's Peak, Table Mountain and Lion's Head consist of a hard, uniform and resistant sandstone commonly known as the Table Mountain sandstone or TMS. The tough sandstone rests conformably upon a basal shale that in turn lies unconformably upon a basement of older (Late Precambrian) rocks (Malmesbury shale/slate and the Cape Granite). Millions of years of erosion have stripped all of the TMS from Signal Hill and that is why it looks very rounded compared to its sister peaks. There is a road that runs almost on the contour from the lower cable station on Table Mountain along the mountain to Devil's Peak. As it turns east around the bulk of Devil's Peak the road cuttings expose a few famous geological unconformities, which illustrate very clearly that the Malmesbury rocks were folded, baked, intruded by granite and planed down by millions of years of erosion before the area sank below the ocean and a new sequence of sediments, including the TMS, began to accumulate.

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 FUJI / 富士山 BY KAMISAKA SEKKA / 神坂 雪佳

KAMISAKA SEKKA / 神坂 雪佳 (1866 - 1942)

Fujiyama / 富士山 (3, 776 m -12,389 ft)

 Japan 

In  Fuji - From Momoyogusa (A World of Things), 1909-1910   

The  New York Public Library Digital Collections 

The artist

Kamisaka Sekka / 神坂 雪佳,was an important artistic figure in early twentieth-century Japan. 

Born in Kyoto to a Samurai family, his talents for art and design were recognized early. He eventually allied himself with the traditional Rinpa school of art. He is considered the last great proponent of this artistic tradition. Sekka also worked in lacquer and in a variety of other media.

As traditional Japanese styles became unfashionable (such as Rimpa style), Japan implemented policies to promote the country's unique artistic style by upgrading the status of traditional artists who infused their craft with a dose of modernism. 

In 1901, Sekka was sent by the Japanese government to Glasgow where he was heavily influenced by Art Nouveau. He sought to learn more about the Western attraction to Japonism, and which elements or facets of Japanese art would be more attractive to the West. Returning to Japan, he taught at the newly opened Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts, experimented with Western tastes, styles, and methods, and incorporated them into his otherwise traditional Japanese-style works. While he sticks to traditional Japanese subject matter, and some elements of Rimpa painting, the overall effect is very Western and modern. He uses bright colors in large swaths, his images seeming on the verge of being patterns rather than proper pictures of a subject; the colors and patterns seem almost to "pop", giving the paintings an almost three-dimensional quality. 

His vision of MountFuji  (above) is quite in this style.

The mountain
The legendary Mount Fuji (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" or simply "Fuji."
Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08. 

Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day. 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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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

SAKURAJIMA / 桜島 BY TOSHIRO MAEDA / 前田敏郎

TOSHIRO MAEDA / 前田敏郎  (1904-1990)

Sakurajima / 桜島 (1, 117 m - 3,665 ft)

Japan 

In  Sakurajima in the morning light,  Kageshima, Kyushu, v. 1935-1942. print

The volcano
Sakurajima / 桜島 (1, 117 m - 3,665 ft) which means "Cherry blossom Island" is an active composite volcano and a former island in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, Japan. Sakurajima is a stratovolcano with 3 peaks : Kita-dake (northern peak), Naka-dake (central peak) and Minami-dake (southern peak) which is active now. Kita-dake is Sakurajima's highest peak.
The mountain is located in a part of Kagoshima Bay known as Kinkō-wan. The former island is part of the city of Kagoshima. The surface of this volcanic peninsula is about 77 km2 (30 sq mi).
The lava flows of the 1914 eruption connected it with the Osumi Peninsula.
The volcanic activity still continues nowadays, dropping volcanic ash on the surroundings, making of this volcanoes one of the most active in the world with, at least, a daily minor eruption. Earlier eruptions built the white sands highlands in the region. On September 13, 2016 a team of experts from Bristol University and the Sakurajima Volcano Research Centre in Japan suggested that the volcano could have a major eruption within 25 years.

The artist 
Toshiro Maeda / 前田敏郎 was born in 1904 in Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. In 1927 he graduated from Kobe School of Commerce. His first job was as a commercial illustrator in Osaka, working in the advertising section of a Department Store. While working for the department store company, he began to pursue his own artistic career as a self-taught artist. He taught himself linocut and later woodlock printmaking from a book written by the sosaku hanga artist and teacher Unichi Hiratsuka, Hanga no giho (Wood-block Printmaking Techniques). After he had finished his service in the army, Maeda Toshiro joined a number of artist groups in Osaka where he lived.
In 1929 he exhibited with the sosaku hanga group Shunyo-kai. In 1932 he became a member of the Japanese Print Association. In 1940, Maeda Toshiro contributed to the series One Hundred New Views to Japan.
After the end of the Pacific war, the Japanese artists opened themselves rapidly towards the international art scene with worldwide exhibitions, but also by venturing into Western printmaking techniques. Maeda Toshiro did both. He exhibited in Paris and Mexico. After 1950 he was an internationally established artist. Also his style changed. He began to integrate abstract and cubist elements into his artworks. Toshiro Maeda participated in the International Print Biennales in 1957, 1960 and 1962.
Maeda Toshiro died in 1990 in Osaka.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

COPAHUE VOLCANO PAINTED BY ONOFRE JARPA-LABRA

ONOFRE JARPA-LABRA (1849 - 1940)  

 Copahue volcano (2,997 m - 9,833 ft)

Chile, Argentina border

In En la Cordillera de Chillan, Quebrada el Manzano 1893, oil on canvas, 200 x1 31cm, 

 Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile

The volcano
Copahue  (2,997 m  - 9,833 ft) is a stratovolcano in the Andes on the border of Bío Bío Region, Chile and Neuquén Province, Argentina. There are nine volcanic craters along a 2 km (1.2 mi) line, the easternmost of which is historically the most active, and contains a 300 m (1000 ft) wide crater lake. Eruptions from this crater lake have ejected pyroclastic rocks and chilled liquid sulfur fragments. Although the lake emptied during the 2000 eruption, it later returned to its previous levels. Copahue means "sulphur waters" in Mapuche.
The modern structure is an elongated shield volcano, with a maximum thickness of 22 km and a minimum of 8 km. It has erupted ten times since 1900, most recently in March 2016.[
 On 27 May 2013, it was reported that a red alert had been issued and the evacuation of around 2,000 people was to begin.

The painter 
 The  Chilean landscape painter  Onofre Jarpa Labra was a Romantic style painter and an essayist on various artistic topics. His education began at the Instituto Nacional, a prestigious school that has produced many of Chile's presidents. He continued his studies at the Academia de Bellas Artes, directed by the conservative Italian painter Alejandro Ciccarelli, who resigned in 1869 and was replaced by the German painter, Ernesto Kirchbach, who took a progressive approach that was more amenable to Jarpa's temperament.
In 1875, he won second prize at an international exhibition in Santiago and, six years later, received a government grant to study in Europe, where he visited Spain, Rome and Paris. In Spain, he worked with Francisco Pradilla, who had a major influence on his style. His most important period, however, came during his stay in Venice, where his style became more Naturalistic and he began producing still-lifes. He also became devoted to painting en plein air. After his European tour, he visited the Holy Land, where he painted scenes from the River Jordan and Mount Carmel.
Upon returning to Chile, he became a teacher. Among his best-known students were José Tomás Errázuriz, Alberto Valenzuela Llanos and the caricaturist Jorge Délano Frederick.  He resisted the trends toward French Impressionism, represented by his former classmate, Juan Francisco González, although he was on good terms with the Grupo Montparnasse and the Generación del 13.
In addition to his landscapes and still lifes, he painted several portraits of notable public figures. A quiet, deeply religious man, he continued to paint almost until the day of his death. Most of his works are now in private collection.

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2019 - Men Portraits 
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

CERRO ACONCAGUA PAINTED BY ANTONIO SMITH

ANTONIO SMITH (1832–1877)

Cerro Aconcagua (6, 961m - 22,838ft) 

Argentina 

In Santiago de Chile desde Peñalolen, oil on canvas, 1875, Private collection

The mountain
Cerro Aconcagua (6,961 meters -22,838 ft) is the highest mountain outside of Asia and by extension the highest point in both the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. The origin of the name is contested; it is either from the Mapuche "Aconca-Hue", which refers to the Aconcagua River, the Quechua "Ackon Cahuak", meaning "Sentinel of Stone", or Quechua "Anco Cahuac", meaning "White Sentinel" or the Aymara "Janq'u Q'awa" meaning "White Ravine", "White Brook".
Aconcagua is located in the Andes mountain range, in the Mendoza Province, Argentina, and lies 112 kilometers (70 mi) northwest of its capital, the city of Mendoza and 108 km (67 mi) from Santiago de Chile (the capital of Chile). The summit is in fact located about 5 kilometers from San Juan Province and 15 kilometers from the international border with Chile; its nearest higher neighbor is Tirich Mir in the Hindu Kush, 16,520 kilometers (10,270 mi) away.
Aconcagua is one of the Seven Summit, which includes the highest mountains of each of the seven continents.  The 7 summits (which are obviously 8 !)... are :
Mt Everest (8,848m), Aconcagua (6,961m), Mt Denali or Mc Kinley (6,194m), Kilimandjaro (5,895m), Mt Elbrus (5,642m), Vinson Massif (4,892m), Mt Blanc (4,807m) and Mount Kosciuszko (2,228m).

Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass.  Aconcagua was created by the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate during the geologically recent Andean orogeny; but it is not a volcano. It is bounded by the Valle de las Vacas to the north and east and the Valle de los Horcones Inferior to the west and south. The mountain and its surroundings are part of the Aconcagua Provincial Park. The mountain has a number of glaciers. The largest glacier is the Ventisquero Horcones Inferior at about 10 km long, which descends from the south face to about 3600 m altitude near the Confluencia camp. Two other large glacier systems are the Ventisquero de las Vacas Sur and Glaciar Este/Ventisquero Relinchos system at about 5 km.

The painter
Miguel Antonio Smith Irisarri was a Chilean landscape painter, engraver, caricaturist and art teacher.
His father, Jorge, was a native of Scotland and served as the consul in Santiago. His mother, Carmen, was the daughter of independence leader Antonio José de Irisarri and the sister of poet Hermógenes Irisarri. His family wanted him to be a lawyer. With his own money, he purchased brushes and paints, but they were thrown away.
The failure of the Revolution of 1859 forced him to emigrate. He decided to go to France and, after a short time, became reasonably successful. However, the Bohemian lifestyle he had adopted caused him to squander his money, so he had to go to the United States to seek financial assistance from his grandfather, Antonio José, who at that time was a diplomat in New York. He then went to Italy, where he spent a year working with the landscape painter Carlo Marco. After that, he decided to return to Chile, despite the dangers involved in sea travel during the Chincha Islands War.
In 1866, following a difficult six-month voyage, he landed at San Antonio and joined a group of firefighters from Santiago, although he did not remain with them for long. Serious cultural reforms were sweeping the country, but he was amazed to see how little had changed at the Academy. That is, Ciccarelli was still in charge, so Smith established his own teaching workshop. In 1869, Ciccarelli was replaced by Ernst Kirchbach, a German painter who was more amenable to Smith, and they began sharing students. Some of his best-known students include Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma, Pedro Lira, Alberto Orrego Luco, Onofre Jarpa and Cosme San Martín.
Although an excellent teacher, he was very disorganized, painting when the mood struck him. As a result, many of his works were done quickly or left unfinished. His many imitators often make it difficult to assign authorship with certainty. The majority of his paintings are in private collections.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE CASTKILLS PAINTED BY DEWITT CLINTON BOUTELLE

DEWITT CLINTON BOUTELLE (1820-1884)

Catskill Mountains (1,279 m - 4,180 ft) 

United States of America (New York State)

In Sunset in the Catskills, Oil on canvas, circa 1866, 50.8 x 76.2 cm , Private collection

The mountains
The Catskill Mountains (1,279 m - 4,180 ft) also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas close to or within the borders of the Catskill Park, a 700,000-acre (2,800 km2) forest preserve forever protected from many forms of development under New York state law.
Geologically, the Catskills are a mature dissected plateau, a once-flat region subsequently uplifted and eroded into sharp relief by watercourses. The Catskills form the northeastern end of the Allegheny Plateau (also known as the Appalachian Plateau).
The Catskills are well known in American culture, both as the setting for many 19th-century Hudson River School paintings and as the favored destination for vacationers from New York City in the mid-20th century. The region's many large resorts gave countless young stand-up comedians an opportunity to hone their craft. In addition, the Catskills have long been a haven for artists, musicians, and writers, especially in and around the towns of Phoenicia and Woodstock.

The painter
DeWitt Clinton Boutelle was a self-educated artist but began painting under the obvious influence of Thomas Cole and Asher Brown Durand at an early age. Both men who influenced him were well known Hudson River School members. 

The year that Boutelle started working is unknown but records show that he was painting in New York City by 1846..
In 1855 he moved to Philadelphia. From the time Boutelle began painting to about 1857,  he painted almost entirely in the Hudson River Valley, Catskills, New Jersey, and along the Susquehanna. 

He did paint some subjects outside of this region, like Niagara Falls, but for the most part, he seldom left it.
In 1858, Boutelle moved one final time to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and settled there for good. He also became a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1862.

 Boutelle exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design (from 1846 to 1874). Between 1854 and 1869, his work could be seen at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Boutelle’s work was also displayed in the Boston Athenaeum (1854-61), the Washington Art Association (1857-59), and the American Art-Union (1845-52). On November 5, 1884, DeWitt Clinton Boutelle died after a nomadic life and career. 

His paintings can be found today in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, the High Museum of Art, and the Newark Museum, among other institutions.

TELEGRAPH HILL PAINTED BY CHILDE HASSAM

CHILDE HASSAM (1859-1935)

Telegraph Hill (84 m- 275 ft)  

United Sates od America (California)  

In Telegraph Hill, Oil on canvas, 1914 

The hill 
Telegraph Hill (84 m- 275 ft) is a hill and surrounding neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills".
Originally named Loma Alta (High Hill) by the Spaniards, the hill was then familiarly known as Goat Hill by the early San Franciscans and became the neighborhood of choice for many Irish immigrants. From 1825 through 1847, the area between Sansome and Battery, Broadway and Vallejo streets was used as a burial ground for foreign non-Catholic seamen.
The hill owes its name to a semaphore, a windmill-like structure erected in September 1849, for the purpose of signaling to the rest of the city the nature of the ships entering the Golden Gate.
The pole-and-arm signals on the Telegraph Hill semaphore became so well known to townspeople that, according to one story, during a play in a San Francisco theater, an actor held his arms aloft and cried, "Oh God, what does this mean?", prompting a rogue in the gallery to shout, "Sidewheel steamer!", which brought down the house.
Telegraph Hill is primarily a residential area, much quieter than adjoining North Beach with its bustling cafés and nightlife. Aside from Coit Tower, it is well known for its gardens flowing down Filbert Street down to Levi Plaza.
Today Telegraph Hill is known for supporting a flock of feral parrots, primarily red-masked parakeets (Aratinga erythrogenys), descended from escaped or released pets. The flock was popularized by a book and subsequent documentary (2003), both titled The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.
The birds, known in the bird trade as cherry-headed conures, are native to Peru and Ecuador; they have established a breeding colony, with the support of some residents, as reported in the film The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, and through the help of volunteers with Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue.  They range widely, including along The Embarcadero and in the Presidio.

The painter
Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.
In 1904 and 1908, he traveled to Oregon and was stimulated by new subjects and diverse views, frequently working out-of-doors with friend, lawyer and amateur painter Colonel C. E. S. Wood.
He produced over 100 paintings, pastels, and watercolors of the High Desert, the rugged coast, the Cascades, scenes of Portland. As usual, he adapted his style and colors to the subject at hand and the mood of place, but always in the Impressionist vein. With the art market now eagerly accepting his work, by 1909 Hassam was enjoying great success, earning as much as $6,000 per painting. His close friend and fellow artist J. Alden Weir commented to another artist : "Our mutual friend Hassam has been in the greatest of luck and merited success. He sold his apartment studio and has sold more pictures this winter, I think, than ever before and is really on the crest of the wave. So he goes around with a crisp, cheerful air."
The most distinctive and famous works of Hassam's later life comprise the set of some 30 paintings known as the "Flag series". He began these in 1916 when he was inspired by a "Preparedness Parade" (for the US involvement in World War I), which was held on Fifth Avenue in New York (renamed the "Avenue of the Allies" during the Liberty Loan Drives of 1918).Thousands participated in these parades, which often lasted for over twelve hours.
Being an avid Francophile, of English ancestry, and strongly anti-Germany, Hassam enthusiastically backed the Allied cause and the protection of French culture.
In 1919, Hassam purchased a home in East Hampton, New York. Many of his late paintings employed nearby subjects in that town and elsewhere on Long Island. In 1920, he received the Gold Medal of Honor for lifetime achievement from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and numerous other awards through the 1920s. Hassam traveled relatively little in his last years, but did visit California, Arizona, Louisiana, Texas, and Mexico. 

He died in East Hampton in 1935, at age 75.
He denounced modern trends in art to the end of his life, and he termed "art boobys" all the painters, critics, collectors, and dealers who got on the bandwagon and promoted Cubism, Surrealism and other avant-garde movements. Until a revival of interest in American Impressionism in the 1960s, Hassam was considered among the "abandoned geniuses". As French Impressionist paintings reached stratospheric prices in the 1970s, Hassam and other American Impressionists gained renewed interest and were bid up as well.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MOUNT HADDINGTON BY CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH

CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH (1776-1859),

Mount Haddington (1,630 m - 5,350 ft) 

Antarctica  (Ross Island) 

In Mount Haddington and Cape Gage from Views of Polar region, Watercolor and graphite, 
Yale Center for British Arts

The mountain 
Mount Haddington  (1,630 m - 5,350 ft) is a massive  high shield volcano comprising much of James Ross Island in Graham Land, Antarctica.  Mount Haddington was discovered on December 31, 1842 by the Ross expedition, a voyage of scientific exploration of the Antarctic from 1839 to 1843 led by James Clark Ross. Ross named the mountain after the Earl of Haddington, then First Lord of the Admiralty.
Mount Haddington is 60 km (37 mi) wide and has had numerous subglacial eruptions throughout its history, forming many tuyas. Some of its single eruptions were bigger in volume than a whole normal-sized volcano. Old eruption shorelines are widespread on the volcano's deeply eroded flanks.
Haddington formed along the Larsen Rift dominantly during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs but more recent eruptions have produced tuff cones on its slopes. The youngest tuff cones and pyroclastic cones on the eastern slope are situated below the summit icecap and may have formed in the last few thousand years. Effusive eruptions have created large deltas composed of hyaloclastite breccia and lava flows.

The artist 
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith,  was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier, and... spy as well !. His military career began in 1787, when he studied at the Austrian academy for artillery and engineers at Mechelen and Leuven in Belgium (his native country). Although his military service, which ended in 1820 and included the Napoleonic Wars, saw him travel extensively (including the West Indies, Canada, United States, Southern and Northern Europe and ...Antarctica).
As a prolific self-taught illustrator (over 38,000 drawings!) He left quite an important number of books of  beautifully watercolored landscapes taken all around the world. those nooks of watercolors are nowadays in the collections of  the Yale Center From British Art. Among them  :

- Views of France, Volume I (81 watercolors), Views of France, Volume II (93 watercolors), 

- Views of England and Wales, Volume I (82  watercolors),  Views of England and Wales, Volume II (74  watercolors),

- Views of Northern Europe, Volume I (68watercolors) , Views of Northern Europe, Volume II (78)  watercolors),  

- Views of Polar Regions (75  watercolors) (see above) 

- Views of Spain, Volume I (69 watercolors), Views of Spain, Volume II (72 watercolors), 

But one of his noteworthy achievements was an 1800 experiment to determine which color should be used for military uniforms.  He is also known in military history circles for Costume of the Army of the British Empire, produced towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and an accurate depiction of contemporary British uniform.

As an antiquarian, he also produced, in collaboration with Samuel Rush Meyrick, Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Islands, 1815, and The Ancient Costume of England, with historical illustrations of medieval knights, ladies, shipsm and battles. 

He also wrote on the history of the Seven Years' War and TheNatural history of dogs.

Quite a productive fellow ! 

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

RIESENGEBIRGE AND SZRENICA PAINTED BY CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840)

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

Poland - Czech Republic border

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

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

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

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE LEVANNA CENTRALE PAINTED BY CESARE MAGGI

CESARE MAGGI (1881–1962) 

The Levanna centrale (3,619 m -11,873ft) 

France- Italy border 

In Dintorni di Ceresole Reale, oil on canvas 

The mountain
The Levanna centrale (3,619 m -11,873ft) is a mountain of Grian Alps at the border  between Savoy(France) and Piedmonte (IOtazly) . The Levanna consists of three vertices connected by the same ridge: the western Levanna (3,593 m - 11,794ft) ), the central Levanna ((3,619 m -11,873ft)  and the eastern Levanna (3,555 m- 11, 663ft)). From the Italian side, Levanna overlooks the Lanzo Valley and the Orco Valley; from the French side, it dominates Maurienne.
Ceresole Reale occupies the upper Orco Valley, which separates the Gran Paradiso massif from the Levanna Massif. It reaches its maximum altitude at the highest point of this last massif, Levanna Centrale. It is bordering on the east with the municipality of Noasca, in the south with that of Groscavallo, both in the province of Turin (Piedmont), in the west with the French municipalities of Val d'Isère and Bonneval-sur-Arc and in the North with the towns of Rhêmes-Notre-Dame and Valsavarenche, in the Aosta Valley. The Nivolet pass (2,612 m), on the territory of the municipality and at the limit of the Aosta Valley, is accessible by the SP50 road, which, in about twenty kilometers, crosses an altitude difference of nearly 1,000 m, but do not go down to the Aosta Valley.

The painter 
The italian painter Cesare Maggi was born into a family of actors, Maggi embarked on classical studies at his father’s wish but also took up painting at a very early age His debut in Florence at the Esposizione Annuale della Società di Belle Arti di Firenze in 1898 was followed by a short trip to Paris to catch up with the latest developments.
The crucial turning point in Maggi’s art came in 1889 with the posthumous show of work by Giovanni Segantini held by the Milanese Society of Fine Arts, which prompted a definitive shift to landscape painting of a Divisionist character. After a short stay in the Engadin, he returned to Milan before finally settling in Turin. Commercial collaboration with Alberto Grubicy until 1913 enabled Maggi to establish himself quickly as one of the leading representatives of the second generation of Divisionist painters in Italy. He painted a repertoire of readily comprehensible mountain landscapes focusing primarily on aspects of the visual perception of the reflection of light and colour but lacking the deep spirituality of Segantini’s work. He took part in the major Italian and European exhibitions and the Venice Biennale devoted an entire room to his work at the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte of Venice in 1912. After an interlude devoted to portrait painting in the same decade, the artist’s mature work focused on greater simplification of subject matter, mostly in landscapes. 

Maggi obtained the chair in painting at the Albertina Academy, Turin, in 1936.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

DARIAL GORGE AND MOUNT KAZBEK BY IVAN AIVAZOVZKY

IVAN AIVAZOVSKY (1817-1900)

Darial Gorge (1,447m - 4,747 ft) 

Mount Kazbek (5,047m - 16, 558ft)

Russia - Georgia border 

In Darial Gorge and Mount Kazbek in the background, 1862,  oil on canvas

The mountain and gorge
The Darial Gorge (1, 447m - 4,747 ft) is a river gorge on the border between Russia and Georgia. It is at the east base of Mount Kazbek, south of present-day Vladikavkaz. The gorge was carved by the river Terek, and is approximately 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) long. The steep granite walls of the gorge can be as much as 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) tall in some places.
Mount Kazbek (5,047m - 16, 558ft)  is a dormant stratovolcano and one of the major mountains of the Caucasus located in the Kazbegi District of Georgia, just south of the border with Russia. It is the third highest peak in Georgia (after Mount Shkhara and Janga) and the seventh highest summit in the Caucasus Mountains. Kazbek is also the second highest volcanic summit in the Caucasus, after Mount Elbrus. The summit lies directly to the west of the town of Stepantsminda and is the most prominent geographic feature of the area. Mount Kazbek is the highest peak of Eastern Georgia.
The region is highly active tectonically, with numerous small earthquakes occurring at regular intervals. An active geothermal/hot spring system also surrounds the mountain.
Kazbek is a potentially active volcano, built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 1,770 m (5,800 feet). Kazbek is the highest of the volcanic cones of the Kazbegi volcanic group which also includes Mount Khabarjina (3,142 m).
Owing to the steepness of its slopes, the glaciers of Kazbek are not very large. The total combined area of all of Kazbek's glaciers is 135 kmІ. The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak (Devdaraki), which creeps down the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level of 2,295 meters (7,530 feet). Kazbek's other glaciers include the Mna, Denkara, Gergeti, Abano, and Chata. The recent collapse of the Kolka Glacier, located in a valley between Mt. Jimara and Kazbek in the year 2002 was attributed to solfatara volcanic activity along the northern slope of the mountain, although there was no eruption. In addition to the 2002 event, a massive collapse of the Devdaraki Glacier on the mountain's northeastern slope which occurred on August 20, 2014, led to the death of seven people. The glacier collapse dammed the Terek River in the Daryal Gorge and flooded the Georgian Military Highway.

The painter
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.

Full biography entry = >

___________________________________________

2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

THE HÖHER GÖLL PAINTED BY CARL ROTTMANN

CARL ROTTMANN (1797-1850)

Höher Göll (2,522 m (8,274 ft) 

Germany- Austria Border  

In "Hoher Göll im Alpenglühen ", 1846, Oil on canvas, 88 × 112 cm 

Nuremberg Germanisches Nationalmuseum

The  mountain 
The Höher Göll is a 2,522 m (8,274 ft) mountain in the Berchtesgaden Alps, the highest peak of the Göll massif, which straddles the border between the German state of Bavaria and Salzburg, Austria.
Rising above Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, the massif is situated between the Königssee and the Königsseer Ache in the west, opposite the Watzmann, and the Salzach Valley of the Tennengau region in the east. Neighbouring peaks include Hohes Brett, Jenner and the Kehlstein spur with the famous Kehlsteinhaus, linked with the Hoher Göll via the Mannlgrat ridge.
The first documented ascent was made by the ordinand Valentin Stanič from Bodrež in Gorizia and Gradisca, who at that time studied theology at the nearby University of Salzburg and had also climbed the Watzmann peak.
A wide variety of routes lead to its summit, ranging from UIAA Grade I on a Klettersteig up the Mannlgrat ridge to UIAA Grade VIII up the West face.  The Kehlsteinhaus is located on the German side, at 1,834 m. A trail leads from it to the Mannlgrat, the easiest route to the top.
Another popular round-trip ascent of the Hoher Göll is from the Purtschellerhaus mountain hut up to the summit and down to the Stahl-Haus.

The painter
Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann was a German landscape painter and the most famous member of the Rottmann family of painters. Rottmann belonged to the circle of artists around the Ludwig I of Bavaria, who commissioned large landscape paintings exclusively from him. He is best known for mythical and heroising landscapes. The landscape painter Karl Lindemann-Frommel belonged to his school. Rottmann received his first drawing lessons from his father, Friedrich Rottmann, who taught drawing at the university in Heidelberg. He formed himself chiefly through the study of nature and of great masterworks. In his first artistic period, he painted atmospheric phenomena. After gaining prominence with Heidelberg at Sunset (a water color), and Castle Eltz, he settled in Munich in 1822 and devoted himself to Bavarian scenery. Here his second period began, and in 1824 he married Friedericke, the daughter of his uncle, Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, who served as an attendant at court. Through this connection, he made the acquaintance of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who in 1826/27 sponsored his travels in Italy in order to widen his repertoire, which up to that point consisted solely of domestic, German, landscapes. In Italy, Rottmann made sketches for the 28 Italian landscapes in fresco which he was commissioned to paint in the arcades of the Hofgarten at Munich. The cycle, completed in 1833, gave visual expression to Ludwig’s alliance with Italy, and raised the genre of landscape painting to the height of history painting, the preferred mode of the King’s other great commissions for monumental painting. The frescos unfortunately deteriorated under climatic influences. The cartoons for them are in the Darmstadt Gallery.
In 1834 Rottmann traveled to Greece to prepare for a commission from Ludwig for a second cycle; one might mark here the beginning of his third period. At first also intended for the Hofgarten arcade, the 23 great landscapes (of which the one above) were eventually installed in the newly built Neue Pinakothek where they were given their own hall.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau