2026/04/01 by Isabelle Gapp, Nora Høegh, Lauren Rawlins
Arts and Humanities · Environmental Science · Immunology and Microbiology · #History of Science and Natural History #Polar Research and Ecology #Alexander von Humboldt Studies
paper · doi:10.1093/arthis/ulag018
Abstract This essay examines the glacial watercolours and scientific drawings produced by the Danish geologist Andreas Nicolaus Kornerup during an 1878 expedition, led by J. A. D. Jensen, onto Sioqqap Sermia (Frederikshåb Isblink) in southwestern Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland). Focusing on Kornerup’s depictions of the glacier’s vast crevasses and prominent nunataks, we argue that these field sketches do more than illustrate geological features: they offer a visceral account of glacial movement, geology, and biodiversity. Long treated as scientific illustrations, Kornerup’s works instead invite an interdisciplinary visual and historical analysis that bridges art history and glaciology. Situating his watercolours within nineteenth-century scientific fieldwork, Danish colonial visual culture, and broader shifts in European landscape painting, this essay provides the first sustained art-historical and archival study of Kornerup’s glacial imagery. Drawing on his letters, notebooks, and sketchbooks, we trace how ice, geology, flora, fauna, and human presence were observed and visualised together as part of a dynamic glacial ecosystem. Framed by the urgency of contemporary climate change, we propose a glacial art history that ‘thinks with’ glaciers, centring them not as inert backdrops, but as active participants in artistic, scientific, and environmental histories of the cryosphere.