Foggy Island
Description:
A man, apparently one of the “Esquimaux,” stands in the right quarter of the frame with a club on his shoulder, looking directly at the artist/viewer. He is on a beach. Against the foggy sky in the background there are dim images of teepees (or tents) and the hulls of boats; a few men stand around a fire. A vague pool of light illumines the man. A calm sea comes into shore on the left.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009, Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Location:
Accession Number:
Thordarson T 1872
Height (in centimeters):
12
Width (in centimeters):
19
Printing Context
In his book, Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1875 (2007), Russell A. Potter writes: "Beginning with the Buchan expedition to the North Pole in 1818 (on which then Lieutenant John Franklin served as second officer), nearly every expedition licensed the sketches of its artistically inclined officers to panorama exhibitors.” This was partially a by-product of the fact that “for each major expedition” that the Admiralty launched, “an official representation had to be provided, not just textually but also visually”—that is, the narrative examined here. Meanwhile, panoramas (an “all-encompassing” visual technology for which Robert Barker first received his patent in 1796) were “almost exactly coeval with [the] public fascination with the North” (Potter 5-7). Indeed, Potter contends that the Arctic was “the most ‘sublime and awful’ spectacle of that already spectacular era,” which fact was emphasized by the “60 Arctic shows—including 22 moving panoramas, 3 fixed panoramas, 12 lantern expeditions, 4 mechanical automata theaters, and 4 exhibitions of “Esquimaux” or Arctic natives” between 1818 and 1883” (12).Associated Events
Founding of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours (1804)With the formation only in 1804 of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, this medium of painting was not commonly thought of in the years of Back’s youth as a professional art. But at the close of the 19th century the transition began to occur from topographical draughtsmanship, which the academies taught military students, to picturesque renditions of nature. (Maclaren 293)
Associated Places
Foggy Island BayAssociated Texts
Sir George Back variously painted or drew his images while on his expeditions, depending on the weather; in very cold temperatures his paints would freeze, so they were frequently rendered useless. These originals appear to be scattered among various private collections.Subject
This image is primarily remarkable for its dissimilarity to other images by Sir George Back. "Foggy Island" is partially a realistic depiction of a certain stage of Franklin's journey, in which the team was caught in fog; partially a portrait of an anonymous man (unmentioned in the narrative) who seems to be an "Esquimaux"; and partially an example of what Russell Potter calls the "Arctic Sublime."Theme
British. Landscape. Exploration. Arctic.Significance
More a portrait than anything else, “Foggy Island” defeats the picturesque convention of variation via the foggy atmosphere and plain setting, instead suggesting the sublime in the unknowability of the landscape—an effect emphasized by the obscurity of the fog. It is also another instance in which John Franklin refers directly to "The annexed sketch taken by Lieutenant Back," which, he says,conveys a better picture of our encampment, and of the murkiness of the atmosphere, than any description of mine could do, and points out the propriety of designating this dreary place by the name of Foggy Island. As an instance of the illusion occasioned by the fog, I may mention that our hunters sallied forth, on more than one occasion, to fire at what they supposed to be deer, on the bank about one hundred yards from the tents, which, to their surprise, took wing, and proved to be cranes and geese. (Narrative 155)In this case, the "illusion" is arguably an allusion (if not directly intended, still worthy of notice) to the Romantic obsession with phantasmagoria and the uncanny effects that such phenomena and corresponding artwork had on the viewer. The deer—a large, terrestrial animal—appears to transform and take wing when it is seen in its "true" form as a group of "cranes and geese." At the same time, this observation could also be interpreted as dry and didactic, in keeping with the rest of Franklin's writing: a record, merely, of the well-known problems inherent to hunting and navigating in a thick fog. Interestingly, Franklin completely ignores the man who is arguably the subject of the engraving, a fact which is all the more remarkable given how infrequently Back made images in which the subject's gaze meets that of the viewer/artist. The pool of light around the "Esquimaux" further heightens the strangeness of an already uncanny image.
Function
Stuart C. Houston notes that:The world’s greatest naval power and its underemployed navy after the end of the Napoleonic Wars found the continued presence of large blank areas on the world map an irresistible challenge. John Barrow, the powerful second secretary to the Admiralty, had strong backing from the newly important scientific community to renew the search for the Northwest Passage after a long wartime hiatus. (xiv)In addition to simply providing visual aids for a travel narrative, then, Back’s images must be seen as integral to the literal illustration of those “large blank areas” that Britain wanted to conquer. Expedition imagery during the Romantic period addressed other needs as well, including the translation of “otherness”—which the Arctic so easily exemplified in its comparatively uninhabited starkness—into a culturally understandable, and thus accessible, space for national expansionism and the application of identity. Furthermore, in ostensibly drawing accurate portrayals of the landscape (which Franklin frequently confirms), Back created scientific records designed to both titillate and inform the British public and scientific community.
Bibliography
Ames, Van Meter. “John Dewey as Aesthetician.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 12.2 (1953): 145-68. Print.Long Title
Narrative of a second expedition to the shores of the Polar Sea in the years 1825, 1826, and 1827, by John Franklin, Captain R.N., F.R.S., &c. and commander of the expedition, including an account of the progress of a detachment to the eastward by John Richardson, M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., &c., surgeon and naturalist to the expedition, illustrated by numerous plates and maps, published by authority of the right honourable the secretary of state for colonial affairs, London: John Murray, Albemarle-Street, 1828.Featured in Exhibit:
Engraver:
Delineator:
Image Date:
1828
Publisher:
John Murray
