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Description/Analysis:
This painting was drawn by Richard Norton of
Edgartown, Massachusetts. Norton served on the whaling ship Iris and as the ship's
logbook keeper. The logbook itself documents the journey of a whaling ship on
its voyage to the Pacific Ocean between 1843 and 1847.
In the painting chosen from the Iris'
logbook, one notices that the drawing is actually a
"composite" picture. It portrays both the
hunting of whales and the eventual processing of their
blubber and oil. In the foreground of the image, Norton
depicts a number of small boats that are used to draw
close to a whale and to harpoon it. In the background,
the artist portrays a whale that has been killed and
is tied to a whaling vessel. The secured whale is being
butchered. Norton portrays a "blanket" piece
of blubber being hauled aboard a vessel. These "blanket"
pieces would be  boiled
down in large kettles so as to extract their valuable
oil, a process known as "trying" the whale
oil.
Beyond the painting's wonderful artistic detail, this watercolor
documents the appearance of New England whalers in the Pacific. With the rapid
depletion of whales in the Atlantic and the continued demand for whale oil in
the 1840s, New England ships and their crews searched for new whale hunting grounds
off the coasts of Alaska, Japan, and New Zealand.
The Martha's
Vineyard Historical Society has over 125 ship logbooks in its collection. It is
not rare to see whales depicted in the logbooks of whaling vessels. Indeed, logbook
keepers used stamps (in the shape of a whale) to record the number of whales killed
and processed. However, what makes Richard Norton's detailed paintings so valuable
is their attention to the documentation of the actual whale hunt.
Questions to Consider:
1. Who is the intended audience for this logbook
drawing?
2. How does the artist convey the dangers of hunting whales?
3. Do you get a sense of the organization of the crew? Can you identify the specialized
skills involved in hunting and processing a whale?
4. How does Norton represent
the Pacific Islands to his audience?
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