Exquisite mementoes
All alone on page 313 of this spectacular book, a tattered but heroic flag flies in a painting of an icy wasteland. It is a remarkable picture for two reasons: first, because it was done by the Arctic explorer Edmund Wilson in 1912, when he and Captain Scott learnt from that very flag that the Norwegian Amundsen had reached the South Pole before them; and second, because it is a hauntingly beautiful work of art. For this collection of paintings, drawings, notebooks and diary pages of travelling action by men and women down the centuries astonishingly illustrates how talented they often were — not just in reaching (or not reaching)
