Burning boats and burning questions: my first week

Maybe my favorite facet of artwork historical past is standing in entrance of a chunk of artwork imaging all of the wildly completely different individuals who have stood taking a look at it earlier than me. However standing is perhaps the fallacious phrase, since in the beginning of this week I used to be kneeling on the ground of the St Andrews Museum Collections Centre gazing at a lithograph of a polar bear. If I need to think about somebody who’s my exact opposite then I solely want to consider Fridtjof Nansen, a previous rector of St Andrews. An arctic explorer, humanitarian, and beginner artist (however highly effective patron) his suggestion to the scholars of St Andrews in his rectoral tackle entitled “Journey” was to burn their boats behind them. This was the system he used to cross Greenland in his profitable expedition of 1888-1889: the group went from east to west in order that dwelling was at all times forward to stop the will to return to their boats. Regardless of the rousing sentiment and notable success he fabricated from himself with this philosophy, Nansen and I’ll sadly be utilizing completely different strategies to attain our targets. I don’t assume a great adage for researchers is to burn their metaphorical boats, since returning to previous readings that we beforehand thought pointless as soon as we realise their absolute necessity is way too frequent. I believe preserving the boats as particularly as doable might be the higher suggestion. Any boats I’ve burnt have been unintentional casualties and I rue the day I by accident closed Google, shedding round ten JSTOR articles because of my shoddy submitting system of preserving tabs open till my pc actually overheats.

However I digress. I used to be proven across the Wardlaw Museum and Collections Centre with my advisor, stunning myself with my pleasure at seeing the Nansen works on show. My analysis surrounds the works that our previous rector had created and bequeathed to the college assortment. Although his time as an arctic explorer and consultant to the League of Nations have been well-documented, his hyperlinks to the Lysaker Circle, a Norwegian artwork group, have been much less examined. This group have been a major voice within the independence motion from Sweden, and Nansen was equally a key determine on this course of. I hope that my analysis on the St Andrews assortment can make clear him as each the political nationalist and the inventive particular person. Definitely, the self-portraits felt revealing of each: his assured pen strokes of his face in profile supplies the viewers a view of him as a statesman, not the rugged explorer that originally rose to fame. As an artwork historical past pupil I can’t verbalise the world of distinction seeing an paintings in individual makes to the viewing expertise. As an alternative of seeing these works as a group of pixels on a display, I might see the indents of the place he put pen to paper to immortalise his personal picture. Comprising of two landscapes and two portraits throughout these two buildings it was stunning how expansive the concepts for my eventual outputs grew to become based mostly on what felt like little materials. Probably the most thrilling/daunting facet about my first week researching has been how a lot I’ve discovered and the way little time and phrases are afforded to me by the 6 weeks and 3000 phrase essay. I really feel like I can safely say that every one Laidlaw students are going through this dilemma.

In any other case, my first week has consisted of about as a lot studying however extra emailing than I anticipated. Fortunately the emails have allowed me to be launched to beautiful folks whose enthusiasm in serving to me discover a sure e book or use a sure web site has solely elevated my very own pleasure for the challenge. It seems that my considerably romanticised view of sitting alone amongst stacks of books in a quiet library tracing the affect of plein air portray on the Norwegian nationalist motion of the late nineteenth century (regardless of being a really nice Thursday afternoon) was not the complete image of researching. As an alternative, I’ve discovered that analysis just isn’t an impartial endeavour. Quite, my conversations with my advisor and different specialists within the museum, library, and College of Artwork Historical past have been by far essentially the most inspiring moments of my first week. 

With one week down and solely 5 to go, the checklist of questions that I’ve swiftly scribbled down in my ‘Nansen Pocket book’ has grown bigger than I might have ever imagined. Sadly, or fortuitously, relying in your perspective, these will solely improve within the coming weeks once I discover the first sources which are Nansen’s illustrated accounts of his expeditions and journey to Norway to go to his dwelling, Polhøgda, which was embellished by numerous artists from the Lysaker Circle. Once more, I am positive that my fellow students are in the identical boat  – however let’s not be too fast to tug out the matches simply but.