Aurora are works of art in their own right. Of course artists have been reproducing aurora in paintings and illustration since it was possible. Below are some examples of aurora in art, including various media. It’s interesting to see how the aurora can even be reproduced using woodcut.
Frederic Edwin Church (American), Aurora Borealis, 1865, 56×83, 1911.4.1, Smithsonian American Art MuseumAlexander Leydenfrost (1888 – 1961) 1940s illustrationKonstantin Korovin (Russian, 1861-1939) Northern Lights 1895For three decades from 1901, Anna Boberg visited the Arctic and painted it.At the Back of the North Wind, Jessie Willcox Smith, 1919‘Our Little Friends of Eskimo Land Papik and Natsek ‘ by Frances Carpenter published 1931Fun in the Frozen North back cover a 1950s pop up book arranged and illustrated by Molly B. ThomsonEdward Whymper (British mountaineer and illustrator, London, 1840 – Chamonix, 1911), Aurora Borealis, color woodcut, with watercolorNorthern Lights by Meyers Konv-Lexicon, 1870John Patience – The Snow QueenLeonid Zolotarev – The Snow QueenOla (Northern Lights) by Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire, 1932‘Aurora Borealis’ Woodcut print by Finnish artist Aukusti Tuhko. 1937 Aurora Borealis in High Latitudes. from the book William MacKenzie’s National Encyclopedia (1891), a colored illustration of the beautiful polar lights in the night sky Kinder des Nordlichts, 1957, I. & E. Parin D’Auliar depicting the Lapps who herded reindeer, wide awake wild animals and the Northern LightsAuthors & illustrators Edgar Parin d’Aulaire, Ingri Parin d’Aulaire, 1972 The Open Road For Boys Magazine. This human generated electricity looks like aurora.
Explorations in the Icy North: How Travel Narratives Shaped Arctic Science in the Nineteenth Country
Harsh conditions, intense isolation, and acute danger inevitably impacted the making and communicating eighteenth-century scientific knowledge leading up to the first International Polar Year in 1882. In her new book, Explorations in the Icy North: How Travel Narratives Shaped Arctic Science in the Nineteenth Country (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), Nanna Katrine Lüders Kaalund demonstrates the instability of nineteenth-century scientific practices and the challenges of producing travel narratives about the harsh Arctic field by comparing an array of transnational arctic travel narratives, including British, Danish, Canadian, American, and indigenous perspectives. On their return to the metropole, explorers and their backers discovered that organizing and controlling perceptions of their venture became as tricky to navigate as the expeditions themselves. Noting the ambivalent relationship among religion, commerce, and scientific interests, Explorations in the Icy North examines tensions between the types of scientific results expected from exploratory missions based on differing focuses of trading companies and religious missions. Uncovering the transnational nature of Arctic exploration, Kaalund reveals how far beyond the metropole explorations and the narratives that followed ultimately influenced the understanding of field science, helping to establish Western perspectives about the arctic. While grappling with issues of institutionalization and professionalization of science, Explorations in the Icy North provides meaningful insight, explaining the need for research stations created by the end of the century while detailing the significance of public consumption of science through the lens of the travel narrative.
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
