View to Seaward from Montreal Island
Description:
The frame is split between a rocky shore bordering an icy sea and an expanse of gray sky, with clouds scudding low on the horizon. Five people sit around a pot on an outcropping of rock to the far left: One appears to be a woman, another is reclining on his/her side facing away from us, and one is sitting and looking almost at the viewer. Walking towards this group is a man in a tall hat, carrying a case—perhaps an artist, either Back himself (thus a self-portrait) or E.N. Kendall, an artist who accompanied Back on another trip.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009, Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Location:
Accession Number:
Thordarson T 183
Height (in centimeters):
10
Width (in centimeters):
16
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)Founding of the Royal Geographic Society (1830)
Associated Places
Montreal IslandAssociated 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
Another instance of meta-imagery in Sir George Back's work, View to Seaward from Montreal Island illustrates a quiet moment in the expedition and records without any great aesthetic flair both the landscape of the Canadian Arctic and the variety of people involved in the expeditions.Theme
British. Landscape. Exploration. Arctic.Significance
In "The Rock Record and Romantic Narratives of the Earth," Noah Heringman writes:The rocky landforms of Romantic poetry . . . famously resist reading, generating images that articulate the otherness of the physical through the literal and metaphorical opacity of rock. This aesthetic response to the materiality of rocks and landforms is, however, inseparable from the emerging economic category of natural resources. … [Shelley's] model of an ‘infinite mine,’ with its latent natural history, generates what might be called a historiography of the earth. (53)In keeping with these observations, George Back's often picturesque and/or sublime diction is mitigated, or made more complex, by his sharp geological observation, which both buttresses his validity as an experienced explorer and offers data for future economic exploitation by his mother country. In the case of this image, it is not merely the diction that subverts the picturesque or sublime, but the scene itself in its unimpressive view and calm, didactic tone. Indeed, breaking from his usually embellished descriptions, Back notes:
The coast here was much lower and shelving than the precipitous and bold one we had left; but we observed the same naked and round-backed rocks as at Point Beaufort; differing, however, in color, the latter being composed almost entirely of light flesh-tinted feldspar and splintery quartz, whilst these consisted wholly of a dark gray feldspar with minute granular quartz, and perhaps hornblende. Among the debris on the beach, it was not a little surprising to find fragments of limestone, though no rocks of that formation had yet been passed. (Narrative 398)
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 the Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of the Great Fish River, and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean, in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835; by Captain Back, R.N., commander of the expedition. Illustrated by a map and plates. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. MDCCCXXXVI.Featured in Exhibit:
Engraver:
Delineator:
Image Date:
1836
Publisher:
John Murray
