Since man first set out on the sea for commerce or transport, artists have depicted the ocean in artwork. The earliest known images of ships date back thousands of years. Ships were also a common motif in ancient Egyptian art, where artists used stylized symbols to represent water. In the seventeenth century, the Netherlands became a marine superpower, causing a surge in popularity in seascape paintings. These were commissioned by merchants, captains, and municipalities made wealthy by trade, among others. Sometimes artists included portraits of specific ships in their paintings. Notable Dutch Golden age seascape painters include Willem van de …
Since man first set out on the sea for commerce or transport, artists have depicted the ocean in artwork. The earliest known images of ships date back thousands of years. Ships were also a common motif in ancient Egyptian art, where artists used stylized symbols to represent water. In the seventeenth century, the Netherlands became a marine superpower, causing a surge in popularity in seascape paintings. These were commissioned by merchants, captains, and municipalities made wealthy by trade, among others. Sometimes artists included portraits of specific ships in their paintings. Notable Dutch Golden age seascape painters include Willem van de Velde, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Jan Porcellis. British Romantic painters in the nineteenth century made the sea their subject as a way of representing the power and glory of the natural world, and man’s insignificance in comparison. The most celebrated of this group, Joseph Mallard William Turner painted vast, energetic canvases of angry seas, his dynamic splatters of paint conjuring the cold bite of the sea spray.
Across the ocean, American painter Winslow Homer made a name for himself in the late nineteenth century with his watercolors and oil paintings of the Atlantic. Dazzled by the vigor of the ocean, he made these works from his home in Maine. Fittingly for an island nation, Japan, too, has a rich tradition of seascape images, including the iconic Katsushika Hokusai print The Wave (1830). Many Japanese images of the sea include fishermen, a common occupation in a maritime country. Today, artists who represent the water in their work build on a long legacy, but also refer to a ubiquitous feature of nature, which can appear peaceful but is ultimately much more powerful than man alone. Those who have made the sea a subject of their work include Yayoi Kusama, Richard Diebenkorn, Mark Bradford, and Clifford Ross.