Man Proposes, God Disposes, The Painting Inspired By The Lost Franklin Expedition
Edwin LandseerEdwin Landseer created the painting in 1864 — just 19 years after the Franklin Expedition was lost.
Just two decades after Sir John Franklin’s expedition was lost on its way to the Northwest Passage, artist Edwin Landseer unveiled his painting Man Proposes, God Disposes, which depicts the aftermath of the lost Franklin Expedition as two polar bears tear into the crew’s remains.
Today, the painting is on display at Royal Holloway University of London, where there is a tradition of covering the painting during exams. According to the BBC, many students believe that looking at the painting during exams will cause them to fail — or possibly even drive them mad.
The superstitious practice came about due to an urban legend that claimed that in the 1970s, a student who viewed the painting felt compelled to die by suicide during her exam. Supposedly, after staring into the polar bears’ eyes, the student fell into a trance-like state of madness and etched onto her paper, “The polar bears made me do it.”
This, of course, never happened, but the urban legend spread and eventually led to the ritual of covering the painting during exams. Given that the painting itself depicts a horribly gruesome historical tragedy — and that it was completed while Sir Franklin’s wife was still alive — the piece is perfectly suited to paranormal speculation.
