Review of Christopher Heuer Into the White

Journal article : Review

Extract:

The subject of this intermittently rewarding book is a fascinating one: European Renaissance travels in, and descriptions of, the Arctic, and how these might (or might not) relate to the canon of Renaissance art. It musters a beguiling collection of material: published accounts of icebergs and harsh overwinterings, haunting narratives of remote sanctuaries crowded with carved wooden figures with blood on their mouths, engravings and broadsheets reporting on the north and its inhabitants. One of the most fascinating subjects is the nineteenth-century discovery of bundles of prints that were abandoned in 1596–1597 on Nova Zembla by Dutch explorers, prints which congealed and froze in lumps of papier-mâché into the Arctic soil, to be recovered in the twentieth century and, in part, conserved and painstakingly, painfully re-separated into their irreparably damaged original sheets (why?) by Rijksmuseum conservators. Also of interest is a glance at the encyclopaedic, illustrated account of the north...

Authors: Davidson, P

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: Oxford Art Journal
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 333–335
• Publication date: 2021-09-25
• Acceptance date: 2021-01-21
• DOI: 10.1093/oxartj/kcab019
• EISSN: 1741-7287
• ISSN: 0142-6540
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR
• Subtype: Review