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Today, landscape paintings are versatile, enthralling, colorful and inspiring. They reflect the way we perceive peaks.

This series represent my selection of the worlds most discussed and most beautiful mountains. I selected mountains by the story they are telling, not by height or steepness. Here are:

After viewing the nature paintings you can read more about the landscape paintings, read the concept of the series, and get an idea of the making-off.

Kili-Man-Jaro

Mount Kili-man-jaro is a volcano in Tanzania. It is only 5,895 metres (19,341 ft) high, but it has a couple of surprises with it:

Since it is the highest mountain in Africa , it is part of the seven summits, the highest mountains of each continent. Also, it is the highest single free-standing mountain in the world. 

Kili-Man-Jaro has three volcanic cones: Kibo, shown on the painting, is the highest with its summit Uhuru Peak. This is the part of the mountain is dormant and could erupt again. The volcano has more than 250 parasitic cones on its northwest and southeast flanks. 

Kibo has an ice cap, since it rises above the snow line. The cap is diminishing, but until today there are expeditions to the top in order to ice climb there.

Presumably there are thousands of ascents each year, creating a tourism comparable to Mont Blanc or Mount Elbrus and hundreds of them reportedly need to be evacuated each year, although only view of them die. There is a record for the fastest ascend (less than seven hours for the round trip ), the oldest, the youngest, disabled people, just like on Mount Everest.

The origin of the name Kilimanjaro is according to one theory derived from the mountain’s Kiswahili name Kilima-Njaro.

Lauterbrunnen Valley High Nose

In the Swiss Lauterbrunnen valley mountain painting began at the foot of world-famous’ 4000. Both the Staubachfall (Caspar Wolf) and the Schmadribachfall (Joseph Anton Koch) are here. Still the Lauterbrunnen valley is in discussion – as one of the world’s best known location for BASE jumpers who find ideal conditions and exit points here. A well-known exit point is High-Nose – this oil painting is based on a video still of a wingsuit pilot.

K2 Mountain

K2 is with 8611 meters the second highest mountain in the world and the highest mountain outside the Himalayas. Located in Karakorum it is considered one of the most difficult of the high mountains, and as one of the most beautiful. Especially from the north, at sunset, the K2 mountain looks like the Matterhorn. But the “mountain of mountains” is one of the dangerous 8.000 meter mountains: approximately every fourth climber does not return.

Mt Everest Kangshung Face

There is a never ending discussion, but Mt Everest is the highest mountain of the world. The mountain, which is actually called Sagarmatha or Chomolungma, is pure adventure for many people, although Sherpa every year (except 2014 and 2015) put fixed ropes on the most frequented routes via the southeast ridge or the northeast ridge. The east wall, the Kangshung face, is different. It is limited by the above ridges, three kilometers wide, as high, very steep, dangerous, located in an isolated position, and not directly climbed so far – an objective for the avant-garde!

Chogolisa

In addition to the four acknowledged eight thousand meter mountains there are other interesting mountains located in the Karakorum. Chogolisa is there as well as the K1, the Masherbrum, whose northeast wall has not yet been climbed in alpine style. In terms of beauty Chogolisa competes with Ama Dablan and the K2 mountain. In terms of risk it compares to the Nanga Parbat: the Austrian Helmut Buhl, the first man on the Nanga Parbat, died on Chogolisa.

Ama Dablan Camp 2

In climber circles Ama Dablan is known as one of the most beautiful mountains of the Himalayas. The summit looks as harmonious as the Matterhorn, but it is two km higher. Each traveler who wants to see Mt Everest or Lhotse will pass Ama Dablan. Less well known is the exposed location of the second camp: it sits on a ridge with precipices of several hundred meters on two sides.

Nepal

People in Nepal have a hard time. The country is consistently steep and sparsely populated. Food must be wrested with difficulty of the mountains. Hill tribes, known in the Khumbu region around Everest as Sherpa, like to work as a support for expeditions into the mountains. A lucrative job where many Sherpa die.

Dhaulagiri South Face

One of the last great unclimbed walls of the Himalayas is the south face of the White Mountain of the Eight-Thousander, the Dhaulagiri. The sixth highest mountain in the world is as its neighbor, the Annapurna, a huge massive with many other peaks. The area is the most ragged in the world – the with seven kilometers in depth deepest valley in the world is right next door – the Kali Gandaki Valley.

Denali

The Denali is one of the Seven Summits, the highest mountains of all continents, like Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe. The highest mountain in North America offers not only his record-breaking temperatures of nearly -110 ° C Fahrenheit. It is also one of the few mountains with an airport directly at base camp. The incredible sunrise in Alaska and the nature of Denal national park is well worth a visit.

Action Directe

At first glance, Europe seems to be a little light with respect to the mountains of the avant-garde. All the mountains of the Alps are climbed – there are higher, more beautiful, more severe challenges elsewhere in the world. But: the contemplative Frankish Trubach in Germany close to Nuremberg is the place from where Wolfgang Guellich conquered the climbing world. He climbed the 15-meter-long “Action Directe” first in 1991 after years of preparation. Action Directe has been the the hardest route in the world until the beginning of the years 2000. Even today, the “Frankenjura” is known worldwide as one of the most demanding climbing areas, also for bouldering.

La Dura Dura

The performance of today’s climbers is increasing rapidly. New training facilities and methods always allow heavier routes. It does not take an oracle to predict that today’s hardest route will soon be trumped. “The Hard Hard” as La Dura Dura was named based on its location in the Spanish region Oliana, was first climbed is by Adam Ondra and Chris Sharma, today’s avant-garde of climbers.

El Cap Dawn Wall

In addition to the cover of the Apple operating system El Capitan is known as the origin, Eldorado and crowning of the “Big Walls” – one-kilometer-high walls that are ascended with a minimum of tools. “The Nose” – in the center of the pic – and “Wings of Steel” are the best known routes. The first ascent of the Nose took 47 days – today it is climbed in two and a half hours. In 2015 Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson managed the first free ascent of the “Dawn Wall” – in 19 days. The team was not alone. Friends dropped food every day.

Sendero luminoso

Alex Honnold is one of the most famous climbers in the world – and one of the craziest. He ascended alone the nearly 1,000-meter-high luminous path, the Sendero luminoso, in El Potrero Chico, Mexico. Without a rope backup.

Few climbers are similarly crazy. The most known free solo climber next Honnold was Dean Potter, who carried a parachute while climbing.

Fitz Roy Traverse

This sunrise painting shows the spectacular view of the Fitz Roy Traverse which opens up to everyone who approaches the southern border between Argentina and Chile in Patagonia from the East. The Fitz Roy himself is almost as difficult as its neighbor Cerro Torre – the five-kilometer traverse through seven of these summits seemed to be impossible. Until Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold 2014 showed the world how to do it. They received a Piolet d’Or, the most important prize of the mountaineering world.

Cerro Torre Egger

The Cerro Torre has long been considered one of the most difficult climbing mountains in the world. Storm, rain, wind and weather allowed climbing only on selected days. But above all, the Cerro Torre is the scene of a grandiose spectacle. 1959 the Italian Cesare Maestri and  the Tyrolean Toni Egger first climbed its north face. Albeit, the ascend was not acknowledged in climbing circles. He repeated the ascend via the west wall in 1970, by drilling holes with a compressor in order to attach hooks. This rise also was not acknowledged.

The North Americans Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk climbed the same route in 2012 route almost free – almost without technical aids. On the way back, they removed all the hooks. The Austrians David Lama and Peter Ortner succeeded 2012 with the first free ascent along the “Compressor Route”. But despite the media mega-success: the avant-garde climbs elsewhere: for example, on Torre Egger in the center of the picture. For its ascent the Norwegians Bjørn-Eivind Artun and Ole Lied were honored with a Piolet d’Or in 2011. Or at Cerro Riso Patron, which is 50 kilometers south, worth that price in 2016.

Compressor Route

The compressor of the Italian Maestri still hangs just below the peak of Cerro Torre – two hooks of the compressor route are still there.

Mazeno Ridge

The German Mount Doom Nanga Parbat has much to offer: the Rupal Wall is the highest wall in the world. It is the first of the eight-thousanders summited without oxygen. The biggest challenge on Nanga Parbat in recent years has been mastered in 2012. The over 50 years old British and Piolet d’Or winners Rick and Sandy Allen spent over a week in more than 7,000 meters of altitude and climbed Nanga Parbat via one of the hardest traverses in the world.

Muztagh Tower

Many little known mountains raise public interest today. 2012 three Russians were 17 days in the steep walls of the 7.000 meter Muztagh Tower in the lonely Muztagh Baltoro in the neighborhood of K2 mountain. They towed the entire board behind them. The spectacular ascent secured the climbers not only a Piolet d’Or, but the mountain awareness.

Jianglangshan Mountain

China opens more and more for tourists. The beauty of the nature is becoming clearer. Even the Jianglang in the Chinese province Jianglang is a beautiful mountain, which is visited by many local tourists. The American Jeb Corliss flew 2013 with a wingsuit through this mountain.

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I love this 😊

— Jeb Corliss (@jebcorliss) May 17, 2017

Dead Body

Every day people are dying. To climb mountains is not hazard-free sport – even in the Alps each year several people die. Only that usually we can bury our dead. Reinhold Messner and Hans Kammerlander brought to the attention of the world that is virtually impossible to do so at high altitude, as they covered this dead body with his anorak high up the Gasherbrum.

Olymp Mytikas Summit

Sacred Mountains are fashionable – an annual pilgrimage brings hundreds of people from the West amongst others to Chinas Kailash or the Machapuchare in Nepal. The luck though already is in Greece – Mount Olympus is likely the most famous sacred mountain in the world. Many peaks crown him, and at the highest and most difficult-to-climb the Pantheon was built, the meeting point of the twelve Greek Gods living on the mountain.

Concept of the 20 contemporary Landscape Paintings

“Lord, let me return to my brothers, that I may warn them, so that they stay away from this place of torment.”

The monk John Bremble from Canterbury, 1188 while crossing the Alps

Mountains were threatening barriers. We did not know that they can be beautiful.

Since the 11th century we know distorted representations of the Alps, such as by Giotto. Leonardo da Vinci painted the first realistic rocks. Landscapes were studied closer by Caspar Wolf (Staubachfall), Claude Joseph Vernet or Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the 18th century, and in the 19th century Joseph Anton Koch turned landscape paintings into an art object. During the same period postcards, photography and performances brought first the British and then the world closer to the mountains. Their beauty – and its dangers.

Man conquers more and more space of the earth. Today millions of people are hiking or skiing in the mountains. Even in remote valleys of the planet, mountain tourism has become an economic factor.

Painting is no longer needed today – the documentation of nature has long been provided by photo and film. The media bring the mountains into the living room.

It is difficult today to satisfy the thirst for adventures of mountain climbers; to scale new peaks need new horizons. The way of ascent varies – free climbing and ever more exotic sports replace classic expeditions. Inexperienced participants get further and futher.

This series shows twenty modern landscape paintings. The mountains – well known and newly discovered once – start with the Lauterbrunnen Valley, the valley where Caspar Wolf and Claude Joseph Vernet painted waterfalls.

Making Off

I’ve flown with Google Earth around the world for more than five years, I have studied the highest mountains in the world and I even climbed Mount Elbrus (highest peak in Europe). I read books, scrolled Internet articles and I painted several sets about mountaineers.

From 60 mountains I finally selected 20 mountains to paint, three more are included in the oil paintings. Nevertheless, the painting was part of the journey: some pictures I destroyed, others I painted over several times. My landscape paintings look different today, as a short time ago.

Also concerning the ground: Criticism of garbage on the mountain and destruction of nature is not new. This series is presented deliberately simple, to organic substrate made of cardboard. The sujet, the motif is important. The beauty of nature. You do not need a pompous canvas frame.