Artists in Europe seldom painted prominent near-breaking waves until the latter half of the 19th century, when Hokusai’s woodblock print of ‘The Great Wave’ became popular.
Vernet
Centred on Caspar David Friedrich, they were influenced by Claude-Joseph Vernet, Caspar Wolf, Philip James de Loutherbourg and Henry Fuseli.
A selection of his early paintings, and an account of the year he spent preparing and painting his masterwork, the Raft of the Medusa.
From Tintoretto in the 1560s, through the canonical Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, to Delacroix’s Shipwreck of the Don Juan.
Hyacinthus killed by a discus, a couple married as the result of a running race, funeral games, Roman spectacle, and the games of childhood.
The fall of Icarus, Raphael’s cartoon of the Miraculous Draft of Fishes, Hodler, Larsson, John Constable and others painting anglers.
What time of day is it? How cast shadows can help or confound, a painting showing Donati’s comet that can be timed precisely, and difficulties with indoor paintings.
Paintings by Giorgione, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Elisabetta Sirani, Goya, Horace Vernet, Jules Lefebvre, Klimt, Kolo Moser, and Franz von Stuck.
Rough seas on the Bell Rock with Turner, the Eddystone by Vilhelm Melbye, John Brett’s Longships and more.
From the calm of Vernet’s Italian coast, through Heligoland, to Monet at Honfleur, and the Straits of Bosporus.
