Repository logo
 

Almendrals, Valparaiso


Change log

Authors

Abstract

A large coastal settlement in its landscape, with a view of the Beagle; with colouring instructions.

Description

"RF" FitzRoy [bottom right corner]


Drawing, double page panorama. On 35v the sky contains some indistinct indications of distant cloud behind the background outlines of lines of hills, jagged at the horizon but increasingly less so as they approach the distant shoreline. In the right midground, there is a group of somewhat closer large flat-topped rocks with indications of vegetation growing over them, and further to the fore a ship, probably the Beagle, floats in the bay, nearly head-on to the viewer. Its sails are raised, and to its right beyond the slight shadow cast by the masts, we see a small rowing boat. The foreground consists of a vaguely sketched continuation of the foreground of 36r, which is occupied across its whole width by an uneven foreshore; there are detailed drawings of two clumps of cactus in the left and left centre, to the right of which a tuft of grass is growing, with small bushes increasingly indistinctly sketched towards the right-hand edge of the picture. The sky on 36r is blank, the horizon showing a smoothly rising hill line, with other lines of rolling hills before it. Below the horizon line, on top of a hill in the centre left, what may be a small tower stands isolated. The hills slope down to the far edge of the flat expanse of the coastal plain. On the left, the shoreline of the bay, and to its right the beach, arc rightwards from the midground and back leftwards into the foreground. To the right of the beach, the streets and the mostly single-storey buildings of the town cover the whole of the visible coastal plain. All but the closest buildings are indicated only in outline, and become increasingly indistinct into the distance. The centre right to right of the midground is occupied by an abruptly rising rocky hillock with a group of some half dozen detached single-storey houses at the top. What may be fenced gardens are shown in front and to the left of this group. A slightly zigzag pathway leads down the hillside. On the upper slope, there is a building near the right-hand edge of the picture, and another lower to the left of the path, again showing a fenced garden. Just below this, three figures in a group are walking below a bend in the path, which then passes leftwards to the right of the lowest building on the slope, where another figure is visible. The lowest building is single-storey with a pitched roof, and three openings on the aspect facing the viewer. There is some indication of a fenced garden in front and to the left, in which a figure is standing. The vertically-oriented annotation in the top left reads: "The red and yellow rough generally shows upon the ridges of the hills and up the larger part at the right of the almendrals -- The earth is at some parts as dark as this yellow and of deep red -- ---- The earth on the near hills of a light brown approaching to grey at the lower part -- the greens fresh and vivid -- distant part of the town 23 & 28". [This last phrase suggests the possibility that Martens is designating some specific shades of colour by numbers.]

Keywords

Is Part Of

Publisher

Publisher DOI

Publisher URL