Creation Date
1828
Height
12 cm
Width
20 cm
Medium
Genre
Description
One of two notable images by Sir George Back with a meta-artistic feature (a man sketching in the foreground), "Iceberg Adhering to Icy Reef" depicts the severely difficult landscape of the Canadian Arctic as simultaneously challenging and becalmed. This paradoxical depiction, in turn, suggests the difficulty of portraying such a landscape in an understandable manner.
A jagged icy cliff on the left descends to a pool of water; beyond these immediate ice formations, a plain of ice or water extends to the far horizon, where more cliffs rise against building clouds. An artist—possibly E.N. Kendall, or possibly Back himself— perches on a pile of rubble to the left of the frame, sketching or painting on a piece of paper. A gun lies near his feet, balanced on some rocks. Another man is negotiating the iceberg, either attempting to climb it or to make his way closer to the artist.
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.
"Lieutenant Back occupied himself in sketching the different views from the reef; from one of which the annexed engraving has been selected; conveying an accurate delineation of our position on Icy Reef" (Franklin 143). Franklin, not nearly the aesthete that Back is in his own narrative, informs us that Back's work is an "accurate delineation," reinforcing the usefulness of Back's artwork as a visual record of the expedition. (This distinction between the two men is also noted by I.S. Maclaren in his essay, “The Aesthetics of Back’s Writing and Painting," found in Romantic Science: The Literary Forms of Natural History; 287.) More interesting, however, is the possibility that Back has here drawn a retrospective self-portrait, one which simultaneously describes his comfort with and control of the landscape; this combination is reinforced by the image of the jauntily upturned rifle at his feet. There is also the significant chance that this image portrays E.N. Kendall, the other artist on Franklin's expedition, in which case the same implications apply regarding the imperialist "capturing" of the view; in addition, the classic trope of meta-artistry becomes relevant. This image, finally, has the potential to convey sublimity in the awful-looking ice shapes and building clouds, but this sense is mitigated by the size of the human figures (not artificially diminished) and the overall calmness of the scene. In many of its aspects, then, the image might be considered picturesque.
Locations Description
Based on the latitude and longitude provided by Franklin, this image depicts a location on the northeast coast of Alaska, close to the Yukon Territory border.
Publisher
John Murray
Collection
Accession Number
Thordarson T 1872
Additional Information
Bibliography
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