Arctic spectacles : the frozen North in visual culture, 1818-1875 /Russell A. Potter.

"Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1875 illuminates the nineteenth-century fascination with visual representations of the Arctic, weaving together a narrative of the major Arctic expeditions with an account of their public reception through art and mass media. In a century that saw every corner of the globe slowly open to the examining eye of Western science, it was the Arctic - remote, mysterious, untamable - that most captured the imagination of artists and the public alike. Its impact could be seen in a range of visual media, from fine art to panoramas, engravings, magic lantern slides, and photographs, as well as hybrid forms of entertainment in which Inuit were 'exhibited' alongside a cabinet of assorted Arctic curiosities while Western gentlemen looked on. Drawing from the illustrated press, panoramas, and dioramas of the era, as well as oft-overlooked ephemera such as handbills and newspaper advertisements, Potter shows how representations of the Arctic in visual culture expressed the fascination, dread, and wonder that the region inspired and continues to inspire today."--Provided by the publisher.