Arctic Art

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William Browne, “Noon in Mid-Winter,” from “Ten Coloured Views,” 1850 (Collection of Glenbow, Calgary)

Ideas of the Arctic as a singular, far-flung and extreme place are easy to find throughout history and persist even today. Canadian archaeologist and author Robert McGhee says the ancient Greeks thought Greenland existed at an unreachable location far beyond the North Wind. And, in the Icelandic Sagas, Greenland was described as a place of exile where men were tested at what was believed to be the world’s farthest limit. More recently, the Canadian Arctic was presented as a harsh and peripheral space in travelogues, poems, sublime artworks and illustrated articles from 19th-century writers and explorers.

Stories of the Far North, part of the popular and collective consciousness of the West, continue to captivate southern audiences. The Arctic: Real and Imagined Views from the Nineteenth Century, on view at Calgary’s Glenbow Museum until Jan. 6, exposes the constructed nature of such narratives.

Amidst a backdrop of recent and forthcoming regional and international exhibitions fixated on colonial themes like Arctic beauty and terror or heroic polar quests, this project takes a different and thoughtful direction. Lead curator Travis Lutley and Inuit exhibition consultants Sophia Lebessis and James Kuptana engage in tales of British expansion into the North, Romanticism in visual art and Inuit legends, skills and wisdom.

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Anonymous, “Qajait (Kayak) Scene, Inuit Kalaalit,” early 20th century (Collection of Glenbow, Calgary)

Displays and text panels weave dynamic stories. First-hand accounts, British and American artworks and expedition artifacts are contrasted with Inuit observations, clothing, tools and sculptures. Pieces such as William Browne’s Noon in Mid Winter from Ten Coloured Views, 1850, are juxtaposed with Inuit work such as Qajait (Kayak) Scene, Inuit Kalaalit, by an anonymous artist. In effect, the show presents two different worldviews and a multi-stranded narrative of places, peoples and motivations.

Importantly, the curators underline the fact that British national pride and public interests dictated the kinds of messages contained within much of the Arctic imagery of the 19th century. As author and art critic Liz Wells has explained, identity is never singular or fixed, but rather the result of interacting influences and discourses. Indeed, both the real and the imagined places of the Arctic, as well as the identities of the people who live there, have been forged largely by foreign interlopers and consumed by a spellbound public to the south. This exhibition reminds us how easy it is to forget that representations are simply stories of ourselves and others, with truth often the most illusory character of all. ■

The Arctic: Real and Imagined Views from the Nineteenth Century is on view at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary from Sept. 29, 2018 to Jan. 6, 2019.