While We're On The Subject

[poliphilo]

 Here, forty years after Friedrich, is another painting of arctic horror- Sir Edwin Landseer's "Man Proposes, God Disposes". 



One polar bear is tearing the British flag with its teeth, the other is cracking human bones in its jaws. What we're looking at is the imagined aftermath of the disaster that was the Franklin expedition.  The Victorians were more robust than they're often given credit for in that they tolerated and even admired this compelling image of imperial break down.

I don't know where Landseer's reputation stands at present but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think it's one of the greatest paintings of the19th century.

"Man Proposes... currently belongs to Royal Holloway College- where students "believe" it to be cursed- and that anyone sitting across from it in exams will fail. An elaboration of the legend asserts that a student once killed him or herself in front of the picture, leaving behind a note that said, "The bears made me do it." 

Comments

[cmcmck]

Sad that it's a completely inaccurate portrayal of what actually happened!

[poliphilo]

But it doesn't claim to be. If anything the actuality was even more horrific...

[cmcmck]

Slow starvation and insanity.

Have you read Michael Palin's 'Erebus'?

[poliphilo]

Plus cannibalism.

No, I haven't read Palin's book.

[mtbc]

I liked the story that the college's paintings collection was meant as a great way to pass on value to them in wills without paying inheritance tax except that, if the college tries to sell any to raise money, there's an outcry about diminishing the art collection. I might have misremembered, I heard it thirty years ago.

[poliphilo]

Serve 'em right if it's true!