We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.ISSUE NO. 118
Spring 2009
REVIEWS
NON-FICTION - CELIA LENDIS
Lynne Andrews - Antarctic Eye: the visual journey. Self-published: Studio One, Hobart, 2007
‘It is a cold July day in 1988 in Hobart, a city poised on the edge of the great Southern Ocean...’ is how Lynne Andrews opens her beautifully illustrated book, Antarctic Eye: The Visual Journey. She then goes on to discuss its inspiration, which was her powerful response to a major exhibition of the first three Australian government-funded artists to travel to Antarctica – Bea Maddock, Jan Senbergs and John Caldwell. Inspiration so strong that it led to Andrews making three journeys to Antarctica and undertaking a Masters degree on the subject (the thesis of which forms the basis for this self-published book). This book won her the University of Tasmania Prize for the best book by a Tasmanian Publisher at the 2009 Tasmania Book Prizes.
Antarctic Eye: The Visual Journey is a stunning, lavishly produced, hardback; a fantastic example of great design and production values. The book provides an overview of two-dimensional artworks and images of Antarctica by mainly British and Australian artists, photographers and scientific illustrators.
Though it is more of a well-researched coffee-table book than a scholarly work, Andrews succeeds in providing a good survey of visual works and publications on Antarctic subjects and so provides a valuable starting point for further research and study. The book makes enjoyable reading for nonspecialists and those interested in Antarctic studies and the history of the region. The author’s interpretations of the images that she surveys are written in clear English.
Andrews has focused to a great extent on the romantic, symbolic and picturesque aspects of Antarctica rather than the gripping, more brutal realism seen in numerous books that tackle the expeditions of the early twentieth century. Sidney Nolan’s works are one exception and, in this context, they resonate with a greater sense of the extreme isolation and conditions in the region than in other publications on his work.
The book provides an interesting context for re-evaluating the work of the contemporary artists included here – both apart from the rest of their body of work and in relationship to other artists who are working with similar subject matter. In the introduction, Andrews proposes that there is an emerging genre of art known as ‘Antarctic Art’ and provides a definition to explain her premise. It does not entirely convince me that the artists included in this book would describe themselves as Antarctic artists, but the collection of works about Antarctica in one volume is certainly a worthwhile exercise.
Part One of the book closely follows the arguments of Bernard Smith, one of the giants of Modernist Australian art history. This is an interesting overview for general readers, but the author could have made more of the opportunity if she had considered some more recent writers as well (both Paul Carter and Ian McLean spring to mind, but there are certainly more). That said, the illustrations are wonderful and Andrews has provided a good overview of the role and impact of visual imagery in exploration, discovery and early scientific journeys up until the mid-nineteenth century.
In Part Two, Andrews takes a different approach and describes some of the major expeditions of the ‘heroic period’ (c1895-1932) through the works of some of its major image-makers – such as Frank Hurley and Herbert Ponting. Here are the legendary expeditions of Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton, with all their Victorian drama, tragedy and derring-do – shown in images. Hurley’s and Ponting’s photographs are wonderful, not as prolific as in specific books about their works (and some of the more iconic images are obviously, but regrettably, beyond the means of this publication), but a representation of them nonetheless.
The early twentieth century is the era that follows the first landing on the Antarctic continent itself and is all about the race to the South Pole. Many of the expeditions are funded on the back of promises to publish the resulting photographs made by men such as Ponting and Hurley, who took all manner of cameras, lights, film and darkroom equipment with them on each journey. The information is fascinating and Andrews successfully conveys the importance of photography in the construction of the myths and images that we have of Antarctica and its history in contemporary times.
Part Three of the book takes up nearly a half of its extent and is interesting for its examination of a number of contemporary artists, but lacks a rationale or connection to the previous two sections of the book. Andrews could have made much stronger links between the three parts of the book and there was scope to be more adventurous when tackling both her approach to the research and writing of the book and to the works that she chose. For instance, there seems to be a deep connection between the very modern satellite map of Antarctica (page 21), the oil painting by Edward Seago, Near Base, O, Grahamland, Antarctica (Antarctica black) 1957 (page 131), and the sensual watercolour by Jorg Schmeisser, I am Leaving (2002), with which Andrews closes the book. Discussions of these kinds of relationships and cross-over influences would have provided another layer of analysis.
When I ask myself if this book changed my world, then the answer is yes. Andrews has delivered an excellent survey of visual material that provides an overview of the way Antarctica has been perceived and visually recorded over the last four hundred years. The inclusion of mapping, drawing, printing and painting shows us that the way we derive our knowledge of a place and record our experience of it is not just through written journals, photographic documentation and scientific reporting. In fact, this book reminds us that we should question the veracity of these mediums as much as any visual image. This beautifully produced book generously opens the conversation on the art of Antarctica.
CELIA LENDIS works as a professional writer and editor for educational, charity and arts organisations in the UK and Australia. Her subjects include landscape, art and human geography. She works as a copy editor for the Geographical Association of the UK and is completing a Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing.
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