William Hodges was frustrated. The young artist had been hired to accompany James Cook on his second voyage of discovery. Cookâs task was to find the elusive great southern continent-if it existed. And if itdidnât.theadmiralty was confidentthat he would find other new lands and peoples. Hodgesâs job was to record these new worlds for posterity, putting his artistictalents to the service of science. Six months into the voyage, Hodges looked out on a landscape stranger than any he had ever imagined: there was no land-just sea, sky and ice. His artistâs eye took in the agitated water, the ^ strangely bright light and the towering columns of ice. But Hodges couldnât paint it. If he warmed his frozen fingers by the stove in the shipâs great cabin, he could wield his brush for a few moments. But atthese temperatures his oil paints were too stiff to work.
ON 24 February 1773, Captain James Cook decided to quit the cold and stormy waters of the far south and head for warmer climes. He had spent two months searching for signs of a great land mass in the southern Indian Ocean, dodging icebergs and skirting fields of pack ice that stretched as far as his lookouts could see. Now, after a stormy night that might so easily have spelled disaster for his two tiny ships, Resolution and Adventure, Cook turned away from the ice and set a new course for New Zealand and the Pacific.
It was none too soon. Cook had provided his men with thick âfearnought jacketsâ and an extra glass of brandy each morning, so they could âbear the cold without Flinshingâ. But shrinking supplies and constant fear of shipwreck had begun to take their toll. They had seen extraordinary sights as they probed south, but that morning they came across a spectacle that captivated everyone. âWe passed by one of the most Curious Islands of Ice I ever saw,â wrote astronomer William Wales. âIts form was that of an old Square Castle, one End of which had fallen into Ruins, and it had a Hole quite through it whose roofâŠexactly resembled the Gothic arch of an old Postern Gateway.â Even Cook was lost for words. The view, he wrote in his journal, âcan only be discribed by the pencle of an able painterâ. The ship had an able painter in William Hodges, the first professional artist sent on a voyage of discovery. But when the voyage was over and he delivered his paintings to the Admiralty there were no icebergs, only a couple of sketches that have since been lost. The omission was puzzling. After all, Hodgesâs task was to show the world what the explorersâ journals could not.
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In May this year, art experts at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich solved the long-standing puzzle, or at least part of it. During preparations for an exhibition of Hodgesâs work, conservator Caroline Hampton was examining a well-known painting, A View of Pickersgill Harbour in Dusky Sound, New Zealand, and noticed that the paint was unusually thick in places. The museum is about to scrap its old 1960s X-ray machine but there was a packet of film left in the cupboard, so Hampton decided to run a quick check on the painting. And there beneath the luxuriant forest of Dusky Sound was a very different scene, with a rough sea, hints of a bright, light sky and two sculpted masses of ice. These were the icebergs that had caused so much excitement that February day, says Pieter van der Merwe, a specialist in marine paintings at the museum.
At the end of the Antarctic summer, temperatures on deck would have been around freezing, and even in the great cabin the temperature would rarely have risen above 10 °C. Geoff Quilley, curator of the exhibition, believes Hodges made a few quick sketches, then waited until the temperature rose enough to start work on a proper painting somewhere en route to New Zealand. Why did Hodges paint over his icebergs? Perhaps he was dissatisfied with the painting or, more likely, when Resolution reached Dusky Sound, he felt the lush green forests more deserving of his talents than the frigid monotones of the Antarctic.
Although his talents were prodigious, Hodges had been hired as a last-minute substitute after wealthy naturalist Joseph Banks pulled out of the expedition, taking his entourage of scientists and artists with him. Banks had accompanied Cook on his first voyage to the Pacific, but this time his party was so large a whole new deck was added to Resolution to fit everyone in. When the ship set out, it proved dangerously top-heavy. The deck was removed and Banks walked out. Now, instead of famous society painter Johann Zoffany, there was a 28-year-old âlandskip painterâ. âHodges rose to the occasion and produced an unforgettable image of an extraordinary other world,â says long-time admirer David Attenborough. âHe was the right man in the right place.â
Painting aboard ship was a far cry from the studio, but Hodges improvised his techniques to suit his new subjects and difficult conditions â Antarctic cold and storms, tropical heat and insects. And there was the problem of painting moving targets â a passing coastline, a fidgeting Pacific islander, even the progress of a waterspout that threatened to capsize his ship. Within a few weeks, Hodges had developed a seamanâs eye for weather, painting skies as meteorologically accurate as a seasoned officerâs descriptions in the log. In the far south his drawings project cold. In the tropics you can feel the heat. âThey capture the atmosphere as well as the topography,â says Attenborough.
During the three-year voyage, Cook crossed the Antarctic circle three times â the first ship to go so far south. He eventually reached 71° 10 S, but never found Antarctica. Between these forays south, he explored the Pacific, moving from one island group to another. This long-distance island-hopping offered the expeditionâs naturalists, Johann Reinhold Forster and his teenage son George, a chance to study theories about the rise of human civilisation from âsavageâ to sophisticate, a hierarchy they based on looks, social structure, crafts and how friendly and inquisitive the people were. As the Resolution sailed from New Zealand to Tahiti, Tonga to the New Hebrides and then discovered New Caledonia before sweeping across the ocean to Easter Island and the Marquesas, they met people at every step on the road to âcivilisationâ.
Everyone agreed that although the Tahitians lagged far behind modern Europeans, they were probably as civilised as the ancient Greeks. They were beautiful, technologically advanced, especially in building boats, and had a well-developed society. More than that, they showed huge interest in their visitors, a clear sign of superiority. The Forsters placed the New Hebrideans and New Caledonians at the other end of the scale â considering their boats cruder, the people uglier and either uninterested in the strangers or downright unfriendly. The Maori of New Zealand fell somewhere in between.
What the Forsters observed, Hodges painted. His Tahitians have bright, lively faces; the New Hebrideans lack the same spark. His Tahitian boats are so detailed you can see how they were made. âAnd in Tahiti the people in his paintings look directly at the viewer, a sign of intellect and engagement,â says Quilley. In the New Hebrides, they have turned their backs or look away.
Cookâs account of his second voyage is filled with Hodgesâs illustrations. Europeans who had been enchanted by sailorsâ tales of a Pacific paradise could now see something of it for themselves. When Hodges exhibited his big set-piece paintings, however, the critics were harsh. He had mastered the intense light and steaming humidity of the tropics and the startlingly bright colours, and painted with a grace and freedom that broke with the conventions of the day. But the Morning Chronicle complained that his paintings had an âunfinishedâ look. Worse, those who praised Hodges admired his fertile imagination â when he had taken great care to paint exactly what he saw. It wasnât long before he set off on a new adventure â as the first European painter to record the sights and scenery of India.