Antarctica Things To Do

We visited Salem, Massachusetts for an artist's view of Antarctica... shown in an exhibit of some of the most beautiful paintings created at the turn of the century... but so pertinent to today's discussions on global warming.
I couldn't say it any better than the review which I have included below. Please take the time to read and absorb this message....

Journey to Salem is worldwide tour; Polar exploration exhibit riveting.
Publication: Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, MA)
Byline: Chris Sinacola

Two centuries ago, a young man in Massachusetts who wished to see and know something of the world might sign on a ship leaving the port of Salem, bound for adventure in the China trade, the whaling grounds of the great oceans, or perhaps a perilous adventure to the frozen latitudes.

Unlike those distant times, these days most of us can't easily take time for an ocean-going voyage of discovery. If we wish to gain a better perspective on our changing world, however, we can go back to Salem, and specifically to the Peabody Essex Museum, to view the inspirational "To the Ends of the Earth: Painting the Polar Landscape."

The exhibition is most timely. You don't have to be a polar bear to have noticed that Earth is currently experiencing what one might call, quite literally, a bipolar disorder. Conditions in the far northern and far southern regions of our planet simply aren't what they used to be.

While I don't normally think of an art exhibition as having the power to shape public-policy debate, as I viewed this show last week, I realized once again that art has a power other media lack.

Unlike TV, radio or the Internet, art quietly sits there. It doesn't take your calls, ask for money, or allow you to post rude comments. It does challenge you to open your eyes, mind and brain to new possibilities.

The polar exhibition, which runs through March 1, focuses on the work of s everal famous artists who journeyed to the Arctic or Antarctic between the early 19th and mid-20th century, including Americans Frederic Edwin Church, William Bradford and Rockwell Kent, Canadian Lawren Harris, and several Europeans.

Many people, of course, have watched TV specials on climate change, and know that serious trouble is brewing in the far north and far south.

The difficulty is that very few of us have been far enough north or south to experience firsthand what the most extreme places on Earth are really like. Serious and informed debate often founders owing to an ignorance of reality, and even generally reputable Web sites and media outlets can misrepresent reality through carelessness or subtle bias, or carefully select data to fit a political agenda.

The beauty of "To the Ends of the Earth" is that it presents the work of eyewitnesses who tackled the polar regions in an era before radio, satellite phones or GPS navigation. They were armed in the early years only with paintbrush and canvas, diaries and logbooks, and later with still and movie cameras. Their testimony will astound you and deepen your understanding of and appreciation for our planet.

For example, staring at Church's "Aurora Borealis," a wall-sized painting from 1865, my first reaction was that atmospheric displays such as the one he depicts are simply impossible, and could only occur on the moons of Saturn or Jupiter. Bradford's "Sealers Crushed by Icebergs" is one of several paintings that show ice formations that this viewer at first assumed were exaggerations. And the bright orange sunsets that several of the artists depict couldn't really occur, could they?

The answers, of course, are that all these wonders of the polar regions are very real, overwhelming in their intensity, and largely still with us. Some aspects of these landscapes are also imperiled. But it does little good to wring one's hands, hide one's head and assume the problems will go away. Nor does it help to condemn our species as the prime cause of all the planet's ills and assume we can do nothing to change matters.

On the contrary, only informed debate and intelligent policy will save us and the planet.

One way toward such debate and policy is to seek the best science available, at sites such as the National Snow and Ice Data Center, http://nsidc.org, where you can learn the good news that the Arctic ice this fall is significantly larger in extent than a year ago, along with the ominous news that that figure is well below the average extent for most of the previous 30 years.

Another way is to open your eyes to the wonder of the planet, and let your interest and involvement grow from there. To that end, the public owes a debt of gratitude to Samuel Scott, the Peabody Essex Museum's associate curator of maritime art and history, for putting together an exhibition that anyone with an interest in our planet simply should not miss.

Contact Chris Sinacola by e-mail at csinacola@telegram.com.

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