Marine art ormaritime art is a form offigurative art (that is, painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture) that portrays or draws its maininspiration from the sea. Maritime painting is a genre that depicts ships and the sea—a genre particularly strong from the 17th to 19th centuries.[1] In practice the term often covers art showing shipping on rivers and estuaries, beach scenes and all art showing boats, without any rigid distinction – for practical reasons subjects that can be drawn or painted from dry land in fact feature strongly in thegenre.[2] Strictly speaking "maritime art" should always include some element of human seafaring, whereas "marine art" would also include pure seascapes with no human element, though this distinction may not be observed in practice.
Ships and boats have been included in art from almost the earliest times, but marine art only began to become a distinct genre, with specialized artists, towards the end of theMiddle Ages, mostly in the form of the "ship portrait" a type of work that is still popular and concentrates on depicting a single vessel. Aslandscape art emerged during the Renaissance, what might be called the marine landscape became a more important element in works, but pure seascapes were rare until later.
Maritime art, especially marine painting – as a particular genre separate fromlandscape – really began withDutch Golden Age painting in the 17th century.[3][4][5] Marine painting was a major genre within Dutch Golden Age painting, reflecting the importance of overseas trade and naval power to theDutch Republic, and saw the first career marine artists, who painted little else. In this, as in much else, specialist and traditional marine painting has largely continued Dutch conventions to the present day. WithRomantic art, the sea and the coast was reclaimed from the specialists by many landscape painters, and works including no vessels became common for the first time.
Vessels on the water have featured in art from the earliest times. The earliest known works arepetroglyphs from 12,000 BCE showingreed boats in theGobustan Petroglyph Reserve in modernAzerbaijan, which was then on the edge of the much largerCaspian Sea. Rock carvings and carved objects depicting ships have been found on several islands of the Aegean (Andros, Naxos, Syros, Astypalaia, Santorini) as well as mainland Greece (Avlis), dating from 4,000 BCE onwards.
Both men and gods are shown on river "barges" inAncient Egyptian art; these boats were made ofpapyrus reed for most uses, but the vessels used by thepharaohs were of costly importedcedar wood, like the 43.6 m (143 ft) long and 5.9 m (19.5 ft) wideKhufu ship of c. 2,500.Nilotic landscapes infresco in Egyptian tombs often show scenes of hunting birds from boats in theNile delta, andgrave goods include detailed models of boats and their crews for use in theafterlife. The central cult image inEgyptian temples was usually a small figure of the god, carried in a barge or "barque".
Ships sometimes appear inAncient Greek vase painting, especially when relevant in a narrative context, and also on coins and other contexts, though with little attempt at a seascape setting. As in Egyptian painting, the surface of the water may be indicated by a series of parallel wavy lines.Ancient Roman painting, presumably drawing on Greek traditions, very often shows landscape views from the land across a lake or bay with distant land on the horizon, as in the famous "Ulysses" paintings in theVatican Museums. The water is usually calm, and objects that are submerged, or partly so, may be shown through the water.[6] The largeNile mosaic of Palestrina (1st-century BCE) is a version of such compositions, with a view intended to show all the course of the river.
FromLate Antiquity to the end of theMiddle Ages marine subjects were shown when required for narrative purposes, but did not form a genre in the West, or in Asianink painting traditions, where a river with a small boat or two was a standard component of scholar landscapes.[citation needed] Marine highlights inMedieval art include the 11th-centuryBayeux Tapestry showing theNorman Invasion of England. From the 12th century onwards, seals of ports often featured a "ship portrait".[7] The ship functioned as an image of the church, as inGiotto's lostNavicella above the entrance toOld St Peter's in Rome, but such representations are of relatively little interest from the purely marine point of view.[8]
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A distinct tradition begins to re-emerge inEarly Netherlandish painting, with two lost miniatures in theTurin-Milan Hours, probably byJan van Eyck in about 1420, showing a huge leap in the depiction of the sea and its weather. Of the seashore scene calledThe Prayer on the Shore (orDuke William of Bavaria at the Seashore, theSovereign's prayer etc.)Kenneth Clark says: "The figures in the foreground are in the chivalric style of the de Limbourgs; but the sea shore beyond them is completely outside the 15th-century range of responsiveness, and we see nothing like it again untilJacob van Ruisdael's beach-scenes of the mid-17th century."[9] There was also a true seascape, theVoyage of St Julian & St Martha,[10] but both pages were destroyed in a fire in 1904, and only survive in black and white photographs. For the rest of the 15th century,illuminated manuscript painting was the main medium of marine painting, and in France and Burgundy in particular many artists became skilled in increasingly realistic depictions of both seas and ships, used in illustrations of wars, romances and court life, as well as religious scenes. Scenes of small pleasure boats on rivers sometimes feature in the calendar miniatures frombooks of hours by artists such asSimon Bening.
During theGothic period thenef, a large piece ofgoldsmith's work in the shape of a ship, used for holding cutlery, salt or spices, became popular among the grand. Initially just consisting of the "hull", from the 15th century the most elaborate had masts, sails and even crew. As the exoticnautilus shell began to reach Europe, many used these for their hull, like theBurghley Nef of about 1528. Lower down the social scale, interest in shipping was reflected in many earlyprints of ships. The earliest are byMaster W with the Key, who produced severalengravings of ships; for some time such "ship portraits" were confined to prints and drawings, and typically showed the ship with no crew, even if under sail. They also usually anticipated the low horizon that painting would not achieve until the 17th century.[11] The first print of a naval battle is an enormous (548 x 800 mm)woodcut of theBattle of Zonchio in 1499 between theVenetians and the Turks. The only surviving impression is coloured withstencils; most were probably pasted onto walls.[12] The earliest comparable painting to survive comes from several decades later.[13]
At the same time, artists were often involved in the expansion of Westerncartography, and more aware than might always seem evident of the scientific and nautical advances of the age. According to Margarita Russell, one ofErhard Reuwich'swoodcuts from the first printed travel book (1486) shows him trying to demonstrate his understanding of thecurvature of the Earth with a ship half-seen on the horizon. The many coastal views in the book's woodcuts are important in the development of such representations.[14] Birds-eye plans of cities, often coastal, which we would today usually consider as cartography, were often done by artists, and considered as much as works of art as maps by contemporaries.[15]
Italian Renaissance art showed maritime scenes when required, but apart from theVenetian artistVittore Carpaccio there were few artists in this or the next century who often returned to such scenes, or did so with special sensitivity. Carpaccio's scenes show Venetian canals or docksides; there are several arrivals and departures in hisLegend of Saint Ursula. In the German-speaking lands,Konrad Witz'sMiraculous Draught of Fishes (1444) is both the firstlandscape painting to show a recognisable rural location, and an atmospheric view acrossLake Geneva.
The Netherlandish tradition of the "world landscape", a panoramic view from a very high viewpoint, pioneered byJoachim Patinir in the 1520s, once again begins to include a wide expanse of water in a rather similar way to the classical paintings, which these artists cannot have been aware of. These paintings were essentially landscapes in the guise ofhistory paintings, with small figures usually representing a religious subject. A strong marine element was therefore present as landscape painting began to emerge as a distinct genre. TheProtestant Reformation greatly restricted the uses of religious art, accelerating to the development of other secular types of art in Protestant countries, including landscape art and secular forms ofhistory painting, which could both form part of marine art.
An important work by a Flemish "follower of Patenir" is thePortuguese Carracks off a Rocky Coast of about 1540 (787 x 1447 mm), in theNational Maritime Museum,Greenwich, London, "which has justly been labelled the earliest known pure marine painting".[16] This probably represents the meeting of two small fleets involved in escorting a Portuguese princess going to be married; a type of ceremonial maritime subject which remained very common in court art until the late 17th century, although more often set at the point of embarkation or arrival.[17] Another example is the painting in theRoyal Collection showingHenry VIII embarking for theField of the Cloth of Gold, which is typical in clearly showing the ships side-on, with no attempt to adjust for the high view point.[11]
A superb coloured drawing byHans Holbein the Younger of a ship crowded with drunkenlansquenets was perhaps done in preparation for a mural in London. This adopts the low viewpoint typical of the ship portrait.[18]
Pieter Bruegel the Elder is famous for his development ofgenre painting scenes ofpeasant life, but also painted a number of marine subjects, includingLandscape with the Fall of Icarus (c. 1568); the original is now recognised as lost, and the painting in theRoyal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium inBrussels is now seen as a good early copy of Bruegel's original. He also painted a largeNaval Battle in the Gulf of Naples, of 1560,Galleria Doria-Pamphilj,Rome, and a small but dramatic late shipwreck scene. A larger storm scene inVienna, once regarded as his, is now attributed toJoos de Momper.[2] Such subjects were taken up by his successors, including his sons.
The highly picturesque and historically usefulAnthony Roll was a luxuryilluminated manuscript inventory of the ships of theRoyal Navy prepared forHenry VIII in the 1540s. However it is neither very visually accurate nor artistically accomplished, having perhaps been illustrated by the official concerned.[19] As in France, 16th-century English paintings of elaborate royal embarkations and similar occasions are formulaic, if often impressive. Most used Netherlandish artists, as did representations in prints of the defeat of theSpanish Armada in 1588.The Virgin of the Navigators is a Spanish work of the 1530s with a group of ships at anchor, presumably in theNew World, protected by the Virgin.
Mannerism in both Italy andthe North began to paint fantastic tempests with gigantic waves and lightning-filled skies, which had not been attempted before but were to return into fashion at intervals over the following centuries. As naval warfare became more prominent from the late 16th century, there was an increased demand for works depicting it, which were to remain a staple of maritime painting until the 20th century, pulling the genre in the direction of history painting, with an emphasis on the correct and detailed depiction of the vessels, just as other trends pulled in the direction of increasingly illusionist and subtle effects in the treatment of the sea and weather, paralleling those of landscape painting. Many artists could paint both sorts of subject, but others specialized in one or the other. However at this date seascapes showing a large portion of sea and with no vessels at all were very rare.
TheDutch Republic relied on fishing and trade by sea for its exceptional wealth, had naval wars with Britain and other nations during the period, and was criss-crossed by rivers and canals.[20] Pictures of sea battles told the stories of theDutch States Navy at the peak of its glory, though today it is usually the "calms", or more tranquil scenes that are highly estimated. It is therefore no surprise that the genre of maritime painting was enormously popular inDutch Golden Age painting, and taken to new heights in the period by Dutch artists.[21] As with landscapes, the move from the artificial elevated view typical of earlier marine painting to a low viewpoint was a crucial step, made by the first great Dutch marine specialistHendrick Cornelisz Vroom.[22]
More often than not, even small ships fly theDutch tricolour, and many vessels can be identified as naval or one of the many other government ships. Many pictures included some land, with a beach or harbour viewpoint, or a view across an estuary. Other artists specialized in river scenes, from the small pictures ofSalomon van Ruysdael with little boats and reed-banks to the large Italianate landscapes ofAelbert Cuyp, where the sun is usually setting over a wide river. The genre naturally shares much with landscape painting, and in developing the depiction of the sky the two went together; many landscape artists also painted beach and river scenes. Artists probably often had precise models of ships available to help them achieve accurate depictions.[23] Artists includedJan Porcellis,Simon de Vlieger,Jan van de Cappelle, andHendrick Dubbels.[24]
The prolific workshop ofWillem van de Velde the Elder andhis son was the leader of the later decades, tending, as at the beginning of the century, to make the ship the subject, but incorporating the advances of the tonal works of earlier decades where the emphasis had been on the sea and the weather. The Younger van de Velde was very strongly influenced by Simon de Vlieger, whose pupil he was. The Elder van de Velde had first visited England in the 1660s, but both father and son left Holland permanently for London in 1672, leaving the master of heavy seas, the German-bornLudolf Bakhuizen, as the leading artist in Amsterdam.[25]Reinier Nooms, who had been a sailor and signed his worksZeeman ("seaman"), specialized in highly accurate battle scenes and ship portraits, with some interest also in effects of light and weather, and it was his style that was to be followed by many later specialized artists.Abraham Storck andJan Abrahamsz Beerstraaten were other battle specialists. Nooms also painted several scenes of dockyard maintenance and repair operations, which are unusual and of historical interest.[26]
The tradition of marine painting continued in the Flemish part of the Netherlands, but was much less prominent, and took longer to shake off the Mannerist style of shipwrecks amid fantastic waves. Most paintings were smallzeekens, whereas the Dutch painted both large and small works. The leading artist wasBonaventura Peeters.[27]
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The Dutch style was exported to other nations by various artists who emigrated, as well as mere emulation by foreign artists. The most important emigrants were the leading Amsterdam marine artists, the father and son Willem van de Velde. Having spent decades chronicling Dutch naval conflicts with England, after the collapse of the art market in the disastrousrampjaar of 1672, they accepted an invitation from the English court to move to London, and spent the rest of their lives painting theAnglo-Dutch wars from the other side. Artists loosely said to have "followed" their style includeIsaac Sailmaker, although he was a much earlier Dutch emigrant who had preceded their arrival in England by at least 20 years, and whose style is very different from theirs; as well asPeter Monamy, whose style derives from numerous marine painters besides the van de Veldes, such as Nooms, Peeters and Bakhuizen; and several others, such as Thomas Baston and the Vale brothers, who painted in the native English tradition.
Increasingly, marine art was already mostly left to specialists, with rare exceptions likeRembrandt's powerfulThe Storm on the Sea of Galilee of 1633, his only true seascape.[28]Van Dyck made some fine drawings of the English coast from boats offRye, apparently when waiting for his ship to the continent, but never produced any paintings. Some ofRubens's paintings involve the sea and ships, but are so extravagant and stylised that they can hardly be called marine art. HoweverClaude Lorrain developed an influential type of harbour scene, usually with a view out to a sea with a rising or setting sun, and extravagant classical buildings rising on both sides of the channel. This elaborated on a tradition of Italianate harbour scenes by Northern artists (Italian ones took little interest in such scenes) that goes back at least as far asPaul Bril and was especially popular in Flanders, withBonaventura Peeters andHendrik van Minderhout, an emigrant fromRotterdam, as the leading exponents there, andJan Baptist Weenix in the Republic.[29]
The century supplied an abundance of military actions to depict, much of them fought between the British and French navies. There were a considerable number of very accomplished specialist artists in several countries, who continued to develop the Dutch style of the previous century, sometimes in a rather formulaic manner, with carefully accurate depictions of ships. This was insisted on for the many paintings commissioned by captains, ship-owners and others with nautical knowledge, and many of the artists had nautical experience themselves.[30] For example,Nicholas Pocock had risen to be master of a merchantman, learning to draw while at sea, and as official marine painter to the king was present at a major sea battle, theGlorious First of June in 1794, on board the frigateHMSPegasus.Thomas Buttersworth had served as a seaman in several actions up to 1800. The FrenchmanAmbroise Louis Garneray, mainly active as a painter in the following century, was an experienced sailor, and the accuracy of his paintings ofwhaling is praised by the narrator inHerman Melville'sMoby Dick, who knew them only from prints.[31] At the bottom end of the market, ports in many European countries by now had "pierhead artists" at the docks, who would paint cheap ship portraits that were typically fairly accurate as to the features and rigging of the ship, which was demanded by sailor customers, but very formulaic in general artistic terms.[32]
The Venetian artistsCanaletto andFrancesco Guardi paintedvedute in which the canals,gondolas and other small craft, and lagoon of Venice are most often prominent features; many of Guardi's later works barely show land at all, and Canaletto's works from his period in England also mostly feature a river and boats. Both produced a large quantity of work, not all of the same quality, but their best paintings handle water and light superbly, though in very different moods, as Canaletto's world is always bright and sunny, where Guardi's is often overcast, if not misty and gloomy.
Naval cadets were now encouraged to learn drawing, as new coastal charts made at sea were expected to be accompanied by "coastal profiles", or sketches of the land behind, and artists were appointed to teach the subject at naval schools, includingJohn Thomas Serres, who publishedLiber Nauticus, and Instructor in the Art of Marine Drawings in 1805/06.[33] Professional artists were now often sent on voyages of exploration, likeWilliam Hodges (1744–1797) onJames Cook's second voyage to thePacific Ocean, and exotic coastal scenes were popular as both paintings and prints.
Prints had become as significant as a source of income as the original painting for some artists, for example the much-engraved French painterClaude Joseph Vernet (1714–1789), who both revived something of the spirit of the Mannerist tempest, and looked forward toRomanticism, in his large and extremely dramatic scenes of storms and shipwrecks. He was also commissioned by the French government to produce a series of views of French harbours,[2] with the strange result that many of his works showing merchant shipping are very violent, and most showing naval vessels very tranquil. He also developed a type of large Claudeian harbour-scene, at sunset and with a generalized Mediterranean setting, which were imitated by many artists. Another early Romantic French, or at least Alsatian-Swiss, artist wasPhilip James de Loutherbourg (1740–1812), who spent most of his career in England, where he was commissioned by the government to produce a number of works depicting naval victories.Watson and the Shark is a famous marine history subject of 1778 byJohn Singleton Copley.
The Romantic period saw marine painting rejoin the mainstream of art, although many specialized painters continued to develop the "ship portrait" genre.Antoine Roux and sons dominated maritime art inMarseille throughout the 1800s with detailed portraits of ships and maritime life. Arguably the greatest icon of Romanticism in art isThéodore Géricault'sThe Raft of the Medusa (1819), and forJ. M. W. Turner painting the sea was a lifelong obsession. TheMedusa is a radical type of history painting, while Turner's works, even when given history subjects, are essentially approached as landscapes. His public commissionThe Battle of Trafalgar (1824) was criticised for inaccuracy, and his most personal late works make no attempt at accurate detail, often having lengthy titles to explain what might otherwise seem an unreadable mass of "soapsuds and whitewash", asThe Athenaeum described Turner'sSnow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth making Signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead. The Author was in this Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich of 1842.[34]
The new force in painting, theart of Denmark, featured coastal scenes very strongly, with an emphasis on tranquil waters and still, golden light. These influenced the GermanCaspar David Friedrich, who added an element of Romantic mysticism, as inThe Stages of Life (1835); hisThe Sea of Ice is less typical, showing a polar shipwreck.Ivan Aivazovsky continued the old themes of battles, shipwrecks and storms with a full-blooded Russian Romanticism, as inThe Ninth Wave (1850).
River, harbour and coastal scenes, typically with only small boats, were popular withCorot and theBarbizon school, especiallyCharles-François Daubigny; many of the most famous works of the most important Russian landscapist,Isaac Levitan, featured tranquil lakes and also the huge rivers of Russia, which he and many artists treated as a source of national pride.Gustave Courbet painted a number of scenes of beaches with cliffs and views looking out to sea of waves breaking on a beach, usually with no human figures or craft. During the 1860sÉdouard Manet painted a number of paintings depicting important and newsworthy events including his 1864 'marine' painting of theBattle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama, memorializing a sea battle that took place in 1864 during theCivil War in the United States.[35]
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The ship portrait genre was taken to America by a number of emigrants, most English likeJames E. Buttersworth (1817–1894) andRobert Salmon (1775 – c. 1845). TheLuministFitz Henry Lane (1804–1865) was the earliest of a number of artists who developed American styles based in landscape art; he painted small boats at rest in tranquil small bays.Martin Johnson Heade was a member of theHudson River School, and painted tranquil scenes, but also threatening storms of alarming blackness.Winslow Homer increasingly specialized in marine scenes with small boats towards the end of the century, often showing boats in heavy swells on the open sea, as in hisThe Gulf Stream.Thomas Eakins often painted river scenes, includingMax Schmitt in a Single Scull (1871).[2]Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton (1820–1891) has the reputation of being one of the finest lithographers of 19th-century nautical scenes and ship portraits.[36]
Later in the century, as the coast became increasingly regarded as a place of pleasure rather than work, beach scenes and coastal landscapes without any shipping became prominent for the first time, often including cliffs and rock formations, which had earlier been mostly found in scenes of shipwreck. Many later beach scenes became increasingly crowded, as holidaymakers took over the beaches of Europe.Eugène Lepoittevin painted maritime subjects ranging from naval battles and shipwrecks to scenes of fisherman at work and swimmers relaxing at the beach atÉtretat inNormandy.Eugène Boudin's scenes of the beaches of north France strike a familiar note to the modern viewer, despite the heavy clothing worn by the ladies sitting on chairs in the sand. TheImpressionists painted many scenes of beaches, cliffs and rivers, especiallyClaude Monet, who often returned to Courbet's themes, as inStormy Sea in Étretat. It was hisImpression, Sunrise (1872), a view over the waters of the harbour atLe Havre, that had given the movement its name. River scenes were very common among the Impressionists, especially by Monet andAlfred Sisley.[2]
The Spanish painterJoaquín Sorolla painted many beach scenes, typically concentrating on a few figures seen close up, in contrast to the smaller figures of most beach paintings. American artists who painted beaches and shores, typically less populated, includeJohn Frederick Kensett,William Merritt Chase,Jonas Lie, andJames Abbott McNeill Whistler, who mainly painted rivers and the canals ofVenice. Towards the end of the 19th century, theAmerican painterAlbert Pinkham Ryder created moody and darkly visionary early modernist seascapes. TheFauve andPointilliste groups included fairly tranquil waters in large numbers of their work, as didEdvard Munch in his early paintings. In England theNewlyn School and the naive fisherman-artistAlfred Wallis are worth noting.
The rather traditional British marine artist SirNorman Wilkinson was duringWorld War I the inventor ofdazzle camouflage, by which ships were boldly painted in patterns, achieving results not dissimilar toVorticism, inspiring the naval ditty: "Captain Schmidt at the periscope / You need not fall or faint / For it’s not the vision of drug or dope / But only the dazzle paint".[38] When the American navy adopted the idea in 1918,Frederick Judd Waugh was put in charge of design.
Specialized marine painters concentrating on ship portraits continue to the present day, with artists such asMontague Dawson (1895–1973), whose works were very popular in reproduction; like many, he found works showing traditional sailing ships more in demand than those of modern vessels. Even in 1838 Turner'sThe Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, still probably his most famous work, displayed nostalgia for the age of sail. Marine subjects still attract many mainstream artists, and more popular forms of marine art remain enormously popular, as shown by the parodic series of paintings byVitaly Komar andAlexander Melamid calledAmerica's Most Wanted Painting, with variants for several countries, almost all featuring a lakeside view.[39] Marine art was also a specialty ofcontemporary realistAnn Mikolowski (1940–1999), whose work includes studies of the U.S.Great Lakes andAtlantic coastlines.
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As noted above, a river with a small boat or two was a standard component ofChinese ink and brush paintings, and many featured lakes and, less often, coastal views. However the water was often left as white space, with the emphasis firmly on the land elements in the scene. The more realist court school of Chinese painting often included careful depictions of the shipping on China's great rivers in the large horizontal scrolls showing panoramas of city scenes with the Emperors progressing across the Empire, or festivals like the one shown above.
The turning-away from long-distance maritime activity of both the Chinese and Japanese governments at the time of the Western Renaissance no doubt helped to inhibit the development of marine themes in the art of these countries, but the more popular Japaneseukiyo-e colouredwoodblock prints very often featured coastal and river scenes with shipping, includingThe Great Wave off Kanagawa (1832) byHokusai, the most famous of all ukiyo-e images.
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