The Ascent of Mont-Blanc (ca. 1855)

Beyond their visual impact, the prints came with a description that contains its own form of literary experimentation, demonstrating the waning influence of Romanticism on mountaineering. The preface focuses less on the individual, heroic explorer, more on collective expeditions and technical achievement. “Mules, guides and porters; ropes, knapsacks and ice axes; provisions, blue spectacles, firewood, gaiters, and iron-spiked shoes; —alpenstocks, green veils, and snow gloves (like large little babies’ gloves with a thumb and general finger).” There is a fun interplay between life and art, as if the painter might provide a kind of protection that crampons cannot. “See how the treacherous ice breaks: but the oil brush has just caught that falling man in time.” And we find a humorous acknowledgement that the mountain is now overlaid with the heavy impact of human life. “The spasmodic and quick repeated sound, ‘’ppahh,’ ‘’ppahh,’ of fifty smokers on Mont Blanc—could anybody sleep under it?”

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/3uW9z75