marine oil paintings

From an Upcoming Christie's Sale

2012-02-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

Edward Moran, Fishing Boat in the English Channel, 45 x 32 inches
William Trost Richards, Brigantine Shoals, 27 x 20 inches
Frederick Judd Waugh, Surf on the Roaring Main, 30 x 40 inches

Joel Rea

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Joel is an Australian artist who lives on the Gold Coast of Queensland; a region famous for its surf beaches.

Though it had very little physical effect here, The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami made a big impact on the collective psyche of the predominantly coastal-dwelling people of Australia. Our nearest neighbour, Indonesia, was devastated, with the loss of an estimated 167, 000 lives.

www.joelrea.com.au

June Carey

2012-01-04T01:42:00.000-08:00

June Carey is an American land and seascape painter and wife of the late maritime artist David Thimgan (see below).

These compositions work so well because, if you divide the image in half vertically or horizontally, each half contains a balance of the two main elements - rock and water.

june carey arts

Love Interest

2011-12-15T20:29:00.000-08:00

Emile Friant, Alone
Alfred Guillou. Farewell
Rowland Wheelwright, The Enchanted Shore

William Stanley Haseltine

2011-12-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

Nice use of verticals vs horizontals in these works.

A Blog on Armenian Seascape Painting

2011-12-09T00:10:00.001-08:00

Arsene Chabanian

Here's a link to the blog:
Armenian Seascape Painters

Michael Zeno-Diemer

2011-12-03T01:59:00.001-08:00

The German maritime artist Zeno Diemer (who died in 1939) was not afraid to use strong contrasts. His paintings have that typical German precision but are in no way lacking in energy. He is a favourite of mine whose work I've posted before.

The use of a warm colour (red in the ships) acts as a foil to the the cool colours in the waves. Golden yellow in the sky contrasts with the Prussian or Cobalt Blue waves.

Martine Emdur

2011-11-13T21:26:00.001-08:00

Sea Weave V, 183 x 167 cm

Martine Emdur is a successful Australian artist whose work has been posted here before. She works on a large scale, and this prompts me to add to comments I have made previously about scale in painting.

On of the realities of the art market is that large scale works are often favoured by galleries dealing in contemporary works, not only because the price (and therefore the commission) is usually higher, but because they suggest an artist who has confidence and maturity, and who is established to the point where their work is being hung in large gallery spaces.

Also, wealthy clients, or their interior designers, look for large pieces that are not lost on the vast wall areas of office building foyers, board rooms, or upper-end-of-the-market living rooms.

As I've said before: there is a correct scale for every subject, and big is not always better, but vastness certainly does give impact, and can make people stop and really look at something that they may not have noticed before. This was an observation made by Georgia O'Keeffe - she wanted busy city people to pause and see what she saw in the intimate and timeless world of flowers, so she painted them on a vast scale.

Her recent paintings of water have struck a chord with the public: people are willing to wait two years to buy one.

Gallery director Ali Yeldham, suggests Emdur's work is so popular because everyone can relate to water.

"Her work is very therapeutic," says Yeldham. "It evokes calmness, a stillness. When the gallery is hung with her paintings it becomes soothing and tranquil. After September 11, we found people would come in just to be around them, to seek some solace. They have that effect."

Even though artists have always painted water, Emdur has developed a unique way of rendering liquid landscapes.

"They were captivating images. I knew there was something very special about them," says Yeldham. "Martine's paintings evoke the memories of childhood, of past experiences so many of us have had at the seaside, in that place."

Her shows have moved away from the figurative and have become more about the water itself. The refracted light. The movement.

"It's just water. No peripherals. I've spent a really long time trying to learn about how it all flows and how to paint it. The patterns. The flow, the light going through it. The circles of light in the water. It's hard to describe.

Read full article

Dimitrie Florian

2011-11-07T00:47:00.000-08:00

Romanian

Peter Graham

2011-10-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

In his depictions of rugged coastlines, the Scottish Painter Peter Graham (1836-1921) made use of strong contrasts between fine detail and expressive brushstrokes, and between white spray and dark rocks. He usually added seabirds which served to integrate these contrasting elements in the composition. he worked on a large scale, to convey the awesome grandeur of his settings.

Pocock Fine Art Gallery

2011-10-14T20:25:00.000-07:00

Some marine works from Pocock Fine Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Gordon Hope Grant, Down-Easter.

Louis Gabriel Eugene Isabey, The Approaching Storm.

Emile Gruppe.

Fiona Pocock Corn.

Claybord Panels

2011-10-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

Recently I was looking at the website of the artist/illustrator Kinuko Y Craft, who likes to work on a small scale with very fine detail (often using 00 size brushes). She mentioned that she uses Claybord pre-prepared panels as her support. Made by Ampersand, they have a very smooth surface, making them suitable for miniatures and fine work. The clay provides an absorbent surface that takes paint well.

If your aim is to produce a hyper-real image, you don't want a textured support that draws attention to to the surface and destroys the illusion of depth. But for plein air work, surface textures such as the brush marks of un-sanded priming, can add interest, energy, and a kind of honesty.

To get this level of smoothness with home-prepared supports would take a lot of sanding of multiple coats of primer or gesso, waiting for each coat to dry. Some might find the surface too smooth for their style of painting. I have yet to try them myself. Would welcome comments from those who have.

The panels, which are supposedly more archival than masonite, are also made with a box-like cradle suitable for hanging unframed (you might have to clean up the edges for presentability if you are a messy painter). The sides are also paintable. They are not cheap, but if you don't want to spend time preparing panels, they might be a good option, and you can save on framing costs if you use the deep cradled panels and hang them unframed for a clean, modern look.

The thin un-boxed panels would be the most convenient for plein air trips. Plein air painters often use slotted boxes to separate wet panels during transportation.

William Trost Richards

2011-10-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

detail

The slightly pink sky, probably of early morning, sets off the emerald hues in the waves - a color scheme the American marine painter, Trost Richards, used many times. The sky color is brought into the troughs of the waves where they reflect it.

Louise Britton

2011-09-25T03:58:00.000-07:00

Louise Britton is an artist living in Seattle, Washington. She spends part of each year on Edisto Island, South Carolina, in a small cabin on land that has been in her family for generations. Her work has a dreamlike quality, though traditionally rendered in meticulously realist technique.
These fine works remind me a little of Magritte, though they are not overtly surrealist.

www.louisebritton.com

Victorian Kids and the Sea

2011-09-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

Alma-Tadema, The Inundation of the Biesbosch in 1421.
Sir Edward Poynter 1836-1919, Outward Bound, Tate Gallery.

Sir John Everett Millais, 1829-1896, The Boyhood of Raleigh.
Charles W Nicholls.

James Perry Wilson

2011-09-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

The American painter James P Wilson (1889-1976) is best known for the diorama paintings he produced for natural history museums.

To help him create the illusion of reality he thought about light and atmosphere in scientific terms.

The art and illustration blog Gurney's Journey has an interesting post on his technique and theory.

Atmosphere

2011-08-26T05:01:00.000-07:00

This depiction of a rocky coast in moonlight, by an unknown Russian artist, is in the tradition of romantic painters such as Aivazovsky. Not only is it full of drama and mystery, but it's beautifully composed.

Paul von Spaun

2011-08-17T04:19:00.000-07:00

The German or Austrian painter Paul von Spaun (1876-1932) is known for his depictions of the coastline of the Italian island of Capri, where he lived for many years.

Edward Seago

2011-08-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

Edward Seago (1910-1974), Storm at Sea 1956-7.
I think this is one of a series of sketches the artist made from the deck of a ship visiting the Antarctic. An iceberg is visible on the horizon.

William Trost Richards

2011-07-28T06:02:00.000-07:00

Cliffs of Cornwall
Source: Questroyal Fine Art

detail

The Quality of Mystery

2011-07-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

Oswald Achenbach, Fishermen

The two light sources in this 19th century work are the moon and a torch held by one of the fishermen. The warm light of the torch helps bring the foreground of the scene forward, while the cool, silver lunar light, filtered through the smoke of a smouldering volcano (Vesuvius perhaps), makes the background recede.

The artist has chosen to conceal both these light sources, imbuing the painting with an engaging sense of mystery; a quality that seems to have been aimed for in the 19th century but is often neglected in these days of sound bites and instant information.

The equilibrium of a square format helps create a mood of tranquility.

Achenbach (2 February 1827 – 1 February 1905) was a German landscape painter. Born in Düsseldorf, he received his art education from his brother, Andreas Achenbach. His landscapes generally dwell on the rich and glowing effects of color which drew him to the Bay of Naples and the neighborhood of Rome.

Diane Mannion

2011-07-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

Gulfscape #1, 6 x 6 inches.

This delightful wave study is by the Florida-based artist Diane Mannion.
Read her notes on painting the Gulf of Mexico, on her blog

Joyce Pekala

2011-07-08T07:01:00.000-07:00

The strength of this image lies in it's simplicity, the unusual viewpoint and the strong contrast between the cool blue shadow and the warm beach.

Reflections

2011-07-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

These are watercolors, not oils, and wonderful ones at that, by the American master watercolorist, Steve Hanks.

Reflections are an important means of evoking the water element and the marine environment.

“The ocean made a strong and lasting impression on me. It was good for the soul to be out in the water—surfing, swimming, or simply getting in touch with its mysterious power.”

-From Steve's website

Painting from Field Sketches

2011-06-21T01:42:00.000-07:00

Vardøhus festning, ca 1870

Norwegian painter, Peder Balke (November 4, 1804 – 1887), hiked around his native Norway, sketching the landscape; later using the sketches as the basis for studio oil paintings, in a romantic style.

This was the way landscape painters worked at that time. In any case, the inclemency of the Scandinavian climate would not have lent itself to completing works on site for most of the year.

Plein air painting is more the norm these days, but there are some advantages to developing paintings from field sketches: the finished work tends to be less literal and more 'essential'. The artist has to rely more on memory, which may infuse the painting with greater emotional depth. We tend to remember the essence of a place, rather than details. Also, it's difficult to complete large canvases on site.

Kelly McConnell Cox

2011-06-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

Courage, 60 x 60 inches

Power, 30 x 30 inches

Kelly's facebook page

Textured supports

2011-06-10T23:06:00.000-07:00

Konstantin Westchilov (Russian), Rocky Coast.
Some of the art auction houses have zoomable images of the lots. This allows you to see the brushstrokes up close, and is very instructive. By looking closely at the distant cliffs, this painting looks as if it's been done on the rough side of masonite; a texture I find distracting. I prefer the look of canvas. But Westchilov seems to have applied the paint thickly enough to cover it.
As a general rule, the thickness and texture of the paint should be reduced from foreground to background. This helps create the illusion of distance. The distant cliffs in this work have been painted thinly and this is where the texture of the support is quite visible, to the point where it becomes a bit of a problem (see cliff in bottom detail). There are some paintings where the artist has deliberately chosen to express the texture of the support, but this is usually in an area of the painting where is simulates the weave of fabric in clothing, for example.
Some say that masonite contains acid and eventually degrades, potentially destroying a painting, but perhaps it depends on the manufacturing quality. The more thoroughly the masonite is primed the better, to create a barrier between the oil paint and the wood acids in the masonite.
I love Westchilov's brushstrokes in the waves.

Hugo Schnars-Alquist

2011-05-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

Marine, 110 by 181cm
German, 1855 - 1955

Thomas Hoyne

2011-05-31T02:34:00.000-07:00

Blue and Orange

2011-05-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

On the Suffolk Coast

I love the way Willard Leroy Metcalf has used just a touch of orange, in the form of light from the setting sun striking the hull of the boat, to complement the blue in this work. Complementary colors make each other appear more intense, producing a richer painting. Here they have been used with great subtlety and imagination. The orange patch draws attention to the huge fish.

Complementaries produce an interesting grey when mixed together. If the two colours are only lightly mixed, preserving a little separation, the resulting grey will have an iridescent quality a bit like shot silk.

The greys in the clouds may have been mixed this way.

Tranquillity

2011-05-13T22:59:00.000-07:00

Two Ladies in a Rowboat, 38 x 28 inches

Alfred Thomas Bircher (1837-1908) was a luminist and one of the last painters of the Hudson River School, one of the best-known schools in American art. With the advent of Modernism, the luminist style - and landscape painting in general - fell out of favor; however, in more recent times Bricher's work has seen a revival, and he is now recognised as one of the foremost marine painters of the 19th century.

While storm-whipped waves provide a seascape with drama, the more tranquil moods of the sea give scope for the luminist exploration of light reflecting on the surface of water.
Bricher painted many of these calm, reflective coastal scenes. He often contrasts the smooth, mirror-like surface of the water with rugged cliffs and highly textured clouds.

As a lover of maritime life and the sea he purchased a home in the 1890s close to the sea in the New Dorp section of Staten Island where he had views of the Atlantic Ocean and Raritan Bay. He lived and painted at the shore in New Dorp until his death in 1908.

detail

Horace Champagne

2011-05-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

This pastel piece, by the Canadian artist Horace Champagne, keeps superfluous elements to a minimum in order to focus on the power and beauty of the surf. A glimpse of neutral grey rocks and sky, a single sea bird, is all that's needed to set the stage for the drama of waves and spray. White at the top is balanced by white at the bottom, linked via a zigzag path of foam.

Virginie Demont-Breton

2011-04-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

After the Storm

Virginie Demont-Breton (1859-1935), was a French painter known particularly for her depictions of fishermen and their families. She was the daughter of the painter Jules Breton.

Square Format

2011-04-24T03:06:00.000-07:00

Jaume Laporta was born in Barcelona, in 1940, to a family with a long artistic tradition. He started painting when he was 14 years old.

After moving to the Costa Brava, he found himself attracted to the beauty of the Mediterranean, and decided to devote himself to capturing it's fishing and seafaring life.

In his oil and pastel paintings, Laporta tries to maintain a realistic feel while playing with his media and brushstrokes to avoid slavish reproduction of the real world.

I seem to be posting a lot of square format paintings lately. I often wonder if CD covers, and the square thumbnails on Flickr etc, have increased public acceptance of square images.

An artist once told me many years ago: "Never try to sell square paintings, people don't like them." But public acceptance of square canvases seems to have increased since then, perhaps due to CD covers and the square thumbnails in Flickr etc.

It's best to chose a format that suits the subject, but chosing a square format can help an artist to break out of cliched compositions.

Geoff Hunt

2011-04-23T03:58:00.000-07:00

HMAS Belona
Nina and Pinta Racing Home, 1493.
I think I've posted the top image before but this one is of better quality.

A photo of UK marine artist Geoff Hunt using a mahl stick: a support for the brush hand, padded at one end so as not to damage the canvas. A mahl stick is particularly handy for detail work... and for fending off stray animals who wander into the studio.

Here's a link to instructions for making your own mahl stick: kimcpell artblog

Geoff's work combines painstakingly accurate detail with dramatic compositions.

Lisa Adams - Update

2011-04-15T04:46:00.000-07:00

Black Sails

Lisa Adams is a self-taught Australian artist whose meticulously representational works have a disquieting element that has been described as "surreal" or "magic realist", but rises above the psychoanalytical baggage of those movements.

See more of her work at her blog: lisaadamspaintings.blogspot.com

On the Scent

Arnold Bocklin

2011-04-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Left: Attack by Pirates
Below: Mermaids at Play, 1886

Arnold Bocklin (Boecklin) (Swiss 1827-1901) has been seen as a precursor of Surrealism. At times his work can be gloomy, morose and overblown, which is perhaps why he fell from favour during the Modernist period.

Clement Greenberg wrote in 1947 that Böcklin's work "is one of the most consummate expressions of all that was now disliked about the latter half of the nineteenth century."

The seascape, often populated with mermaids, was a genre that appears to have preoccupied him.

I find him an exceptionally imaginative and skilled artist, and can see his influence in a lot of contemporary magic realist or neo-surrealist art.

His son, Carlo Bocklin, was also a talented painter.

Michael Whelan

2011-04-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

The Seawall, 36 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

Michael Whelan is an American artist who, after a very successful carreer as an illustrator of science fiction and fantasy books, has moved into exhibiting gallery paintings based on his own personal visions.

michaelwhelan.com

Dynamic Viewing

2011-03-31T07:08:00.000-07:00

I just found out about the dynamic viewing feature introduced by Blogger. You just type the word "view" at the end of the URL in the address bar above and then the blog appears with a drop down menu offering different ways of seeing the posts, including a mosaic or flip cards of thumbnail images from the whole site. This sure beats going through the whole blog page by page to browse the images. Try it. Might not work if you have an older browser.

Here's what the flipcard option looks like:

Sunlight through fog

2011-03-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to an article about William Ritschel and his ability to capture the iridescent effect of sunlight through fog, a condition often found on the west coast of the US.
virtual art academy

Fundraiser for Japan

2011-03-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

Tsunami painting by Oscar Favre. One of many donated by artists for an auction raising money for Japan.

Here's a link to the project website:
http://tsunami.cfsl.net/

Neil Pinkett

2011-03-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Neil Pinkett, Crashing Waves, Sennen Quay.

This image of the sea overflowing a seawall reminded me of the horrific scenes of the tsunami in Japan.

Neil Pinkett is from Cornwall, England; another coastal region that has inspired seascape artists.

Neil paints with a knife in order to convey the rugged power of the Cornish landscape.

He is gradually progressing towards bigger works.

Larger works have more impact and stretch a painter's technique.

You often have to learn to paint with the whole arm and body rather than just the hand.

Generally it's best to start small and gradually work your way up to larger canvases over time.
neilpinkett.co.uk

Josette Nicolle

2011-03-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

Top: Affrontement, 80 x 80 cm
Bottom: La Vague Folle

Josette Nicolle is an a painter from Brittany, France. This is a coastline which has inspired many artists for two hundred years or more.

Foam and spray are chaotic but still have form and shadow. Most of it has been suggested with expressionistic brushwork but there are also small areas of precise detail which give the impression of reality. It's not necessary to reproduce photographic detail over the entire canvas. In fact, doing so usually destroys the sense of a real, moving subject.

In the top painting the random nebulousness of the spray is nicely contrasted to the crisp, defined edge of the wave as it runs up the sand.
The medium is acrylic and oil. Acrylics are used in the initial layers of the painting. You can't paint acrylic over oil. Acrylic paint is often used as an underpainting as it's cheaper and much faster drying.

Ron Bolt, Canadian, 1938-

2011-03-09T02:32:00.000-08:00

Reposted from in the real art world blog

Juan Martinez Abades

2011-03-09T02:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to a blog devoted to this Spanish painter of seascapes or 'marinas':
juanmartinezabades.blogspot.com

Beachcombing

2011-03-09T02:15:00.000-08:00

The Sea Hath Its Pearls, by William Henry Margetson, hangs in my local art gallery, the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The AGNSW has a large collection of Victorian art, and is well worth a visit if you are in this neck of the woods.

Note the border of tessellated crabs on the gilded frame.

The round, port-hole-like format suits marine-themed paintings.

Javier Torices 1968-

2011-03-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

These views of the coasts of Ibiza and Cadiz, by Spanish painter Javier Torices, have been executed in mixed media on board.

The square format is perfect for interesting cropped-in compositions, close up views of water focussing on the abstract patterns of ripples and reflections. The muted palette brings out striking tonal contrasts which strengthen the design. The contrasts between rough sand or rocks and smooth water, between shimmer and shadow, are particularly effective.
Although work of this level of accuracy is normally based on photographs to some extent, the video on his website shows the painter working both on site and in the studio. In any case there is enough painterliness to make the artist present in the work. Some photorealist painters deliberately seek to remove all trace of themselves from the painting.
These are quite large pieces: 100 x 100cm and 180 x 180 cm.

Javier's website

Jeronimus van Diest

2011-02-28T04:29:00.000-08:00

Shane Couch

2011-02-19T05:53:00.000-08:00

Shane Couch is an English painter of nautical scenes and seascapes, born in 1963.

website

Palette Knife

2011-02-12T22:41:00.000-08:00

Mian Situ probably used a palette knife for this seascape.
His historical paintings are amazing: website

"Paint it Big"

2011-02-05T05:26:00.000-08:00

Martine Emdur, Sea Weave V

This close up view of seaweed swirling in the tide, by the Australian artist, Martine Emdur, is intimate but painted on a huge scale: 168 x 183 cm.

Sometimes the only way to make people stop and look at the beauty you wish to convey to the world, is to blow an image up to wall size.

This was the conclusion that Georgia O'Keefe came to about painting flowers:

“So I said to myself – I’ll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.”

Other artists have said that there is a right scale for every painting.

A tiny painting can also captivate the viewer if it possesses a gem-like beauty.

Painting Nature's Moods

2011-01-30T02:11:00.000-08:00

The American artist Katherine Kean paints the sublime and mysterious moods of nature with a fine touch.

On her blog she mentions that she uses cadmium orange mixed with ultramarine blue (complementary opposite color) and a little alizarin to produce a rich and interesting near-black color.

See more of Katherine's work at her website: www.katherinekean.com

George Wesley Bellows

2011-01-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

Comber c. 1913

Bellows studied under Robert Henri, at the New York School of Art, and became one of the Ashcan School artists, known for their gritty realism, and modernist desire for truth to materials. Reacting to the softness of American Impressionism they often chose dark, muddy tones. Not only was their choice of subjects realist, they wanted the paint, and the application of paint on canvas, to be free of illusionistic effects.

Robert Henri "wanted art to be akin to journalism. He wanted paint to be as real as mud..."

Like other members of the Ashcan school, Bellows worked as a commercial artist, which would have produced his rapid style and eye for strong images.

Ludolf Backhuysen

2011-01-22T23:46:00.000-08:00

Ludolf Bakhuizen (or Backhuysen) (1630 – 1708) was a German-born Dutch Golden Age painter who was the leading Dutch painter of maritime subjects after the two Willem van de Veldes (father and son) left for England in 1672.
Backhuizen specialized in scenes of ships caught in storms, exploiting the dramatic tonal contrasts of white sails and spray against dark clouds and deep wave troughs. He is said to have risked his life while venturing out into stormy seas to observe the forces of nature. The clouds in these works are wonderful, and just as important as the waves.

Painting on Silver

2011-01-15T19:21:00.000-08:00

This square painting by the American artist Katherine B Young, is one of a series painted on silver leaf. I imagine this would give a wonderful reflective quality for waterscapes. The oil paint layer would have to be transparent enough to reveal the silver underneath, requiring the use of a glazing medium. This is a largish piece (36 x 36 inches).

Point Lobos Surf, 24 x 30 inches
Artist's website

Zen Sand

2011-01-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

Through it's encounter with Japanese art, in the late nineteenth century, the western seascape began to exhibit characteristics of Zen-inspired painting: simplicity, empty space and quiet, subdued tones. Norwegian/Danish painter Peder Krøyer captured the luminous emptiness of sandy expanses at Skagen, Denmark, where a community of Danish and Nordic artists gathered, especially during the final decades of the 19th century. Krøyer was the unofficial leader of the group.

A Zen contemplative mood persists in contemporary marines such as this work by the Australian painter Peter Churcher (lower image).

Boldness

2011-01-07T18:16:00.000-08:00

Paul Hampden Dougherty (September 6, 1877 – January 9, 1947) was one of America's most important marine painters. He was elected to membership of the prestigious National Academy of Design and was one of the most honored painters of his era. Often compared to Winslow Homer, Dougherty (pronounced dog-er-tee) became internationally recognized for his American Impressionism paintings of the coasts of Maine and Cornwall in the years after the turn of the 20th Century. His work has been described as bold and masculine and his artistic production consisted of many paintings of breakers crashing against rocky coasts and mountain landscapes, but he was more versatile than many viewers realized. Dougherty painted still lifes, created prints and even sculpted.

The son of a prominent attorney, Paul Dougherty graduated from law school and passed the bar, but chose art over the law. His artistic training was relatively brief but through natural talent and a prodigious work ethic, he quickly came to prominence. A sophisticated and erudite man and a world traveler, Dougherty sketched and exhibited extensively on both the east and west coast of the United States, in the British Isles, throughout Europe and in Asia. He spent the first half of his career based in the east, but he moved west in 1928 and eventually spent the summers in Carmel and the cooler winter months in the desert. Dougherty won almost every major award at the annual exhibitions of the National Academy of Design in New York as well as a Gold Medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. By 1915 many American museums had purchased his works for their permanent collections.

Boldness and rigour is not simply a matter of energetic, decisive brushstrokes but comes through in clarity of composition and design.

Pattern

2011-01-01T23:45:00.000-08:00

Stephen Strickland is based in the Southern US.

Top: Boarder's Beach
Bottom: Packing Up 2, 30 x 30 inches

The visual possibilities of figurative representations repeated over and over to make texture and the puzzle-like effects of positive and negative shapes are significant to me. This configuration made from an aerial view gives me the freedom to see the abstract, two dimensional arrangement of parts to a whole.

- From the artist's website

Underwater Marine

2010-12-28T02:29:00.000-08:00

Four Leaping Sailfish and Halfbeak, 24 x 43 inches.
Bonefish, Four Bones up with the Tide.

Another sub-genre of marine art is the underwater marine.

The American artist and illustrator Stanley Meltzoff (1917-2006) was a master of this type of scene, skillfully combining wild-life painting and underwater seascape. He was probably the originator of this genre.

stanleymeltzoff.com

Women On Deck

2010-12-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

Emanuel Phillips Fox, Australian, The Ferry.
Julius LeBlanc Stewart, American, On the Yacht Namouna, Venice.
Raoul Du Gardier, White Calm, Telfair Museum.

This is a kind of sub-genre of nautical painting that seems to have been popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It had plenty of scope for interesting compositions combining figures, cloth, linear elements (both curving and straight) and seascape.

A Peaceful Christmas

2010-12-19T07:02:00.000-08:00

James Tissot, Christ Asleep During the Storm
Not sure of the medium here. Could be gouache or watercolor, or a combination.

Tissot (French, 1836–1902) is best known for his depictions of fashionable Parisian women (as in the centre image: HMAS Culcutta, painted in 1877, which looks like an oil), but in his later years he turned to illustrating scenes from the Old and New Testament.

The Hull of a Battle Ship (bottom image) definitely looks like an oil.

Decisive Brushstrokes

2010-12-13T19:27:00.000-08:00

These plein air studies, by David Simons, work well because the artist has chosen subjects which are simple yet contain interesting shapes and relationships.

Good plein air painting is characterised by decisive brushstrokes - as few as possible to convey the scene - varied to produce interesting patterns. Brushstrokes should follow the form of an object.

Both studies are 16 x 20 inches.

Sothebys Auction - American paintings

2010-12-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

Top to bottom: William Trost Richards, Frederick Judd Waugh

Bird's Eye View

2010-12-05T17:10:00.000-08:00

The Golden Rose, oil on paper on panel, 2007, 36 x 3ft 12 inches

Farseekers - Journey, oil on paper mounted on masonite, 27 x 32 inches

These illustrations by the New York based artist, Donato Giancola, are striking in their use of aerial perspectives. Though the works are quite large, Giancola has chosen paper mounted on panel for his support.

When working in fine detail, paper is a good option as it provides a smooth surface unobtainable with canvas without lots of priming, sanded between coats. Paper, however, needs to be mounted on a panel or canvas support, with an archival glue, to prevent buckling and damage.

Artist's website

Nacreous Color

2010-11-28T17:07:00.000-08:00

Top: 15.5 x 39.5 inches

The Circle of the Sea

The American painter (Thomas) Alexander Harrison 1853 - 1930, was best known for his marines. In The Circle of the Sea, he has captured the nacreous (pearly) effect of evening light.

Harrison rented a ramshackle cottage near the Brittany town of Beg-Meil, and each evening raced to the dunes to watch the sun set over the ocean. In late-summer 1896, he was joined there by struggling writer Marcel Proust and composer Reynaldo Hahn. He opened their eyes to how light plays on water:

"We have seen the sea successively turn blood red, purple, nacreous with silver, gold, white, emerald green, and yesterday we were dazzled by an entirely pink sea specked with blue sails."

Hahn is considered the inspiration for the title character in Proust's attempted first novel Jean Santeuil, but another character, "C", seems to be based on Harrison, along with aspects of the character Elstir, the painter in Remembrance of Things Past.

His brother, L. Birge Harrison (1854 -1929), also a painter, particularly successful in snow scenes, was a pupil of the École des Beaux Arts, Paris, under Cabanel and Carolus-Duran. Another brother, Butler Harrison (d. 1886), was a figure painter.

F Judd Waugh

2010-11-24T19:57:00.001-08:00

Bricher

2010-11-24T19:56:00.001-08:00

More from Vose Galleries

2010-11-24T19:55:00.000-08:00

Bruce Crane, Boats at Rest, 16 x 24 inches

At Vose Galleries

2010-11-24T19:51:00.000-08:00

Don Demers Vose Galleries

Movement

2010-11-23T23:17:00.000-08:00

Edgard Pieter Jozef Farasyn, 1858-1938, 28 x 43 cm

Painterliness in the waves and sky, contrasted to the crisp fine detail of the fishing boats, gives a sense of movement.

Though the brushstrokes in the waves are painterly, they conform to the planes of the waves.

Academic Art

2010-11-19T04:46:00.000-08:00

William Bouguereau, L'orage (The Storm)

This is not technically a marine painting but it is suffused by a marine atmosphere.

Ideology

2010-11-19T03:29:00.000-08:00

Lately I have become increasingly aware of certain ideological disputes within the art world. Whenever ideology creeps in - whether left-wing or right-wing - painting suffers. The main divide is between conservatives and progressives. In the complex world of art movements conservatives have become at times radical reactionaries, while progressive artists have sometimes re-explored the painting of the nineteenth century from a slightly ironic viewpoint.
I have an admiration for the technical skills of the nineteenth century painters, but recognize that much of the work from that period is sentimental, superficial and even kitsch, or born out of attitudes no longer tenable today, such as Imperialism and Eurocentrism. As with any period of art, much of it is just mediocre. At the same time, I think a lot of people look at a quality Victorian painting and automatically see something tainted by Imperialism, sexism or some other oppressive ideology of the past, without really pausing to consider it as paint applied to canvas.

There are a lot of nineteenth century works on this blog, but the intention is not to take a conservative, anti-modernist stance, as the Art Renewal Centre has done. The reason there is so much nineteenth century art posted is that I feel there is a lot that can be learnt about image-making, from that period.
There are works from the modern movement also represented here, but it's pretty obvious that the golden age of the seascape was the 19th Century. However, there are many contemporary artists turning to the genre from a fresh angle, and I seek to include their work whenever possible.

For further reading on this topic I recommend this open letter to the ARC by the artist Mark Vallen

The academic Artist William Bouguereau, foe of the Impressionists, is one of the ARC's heroes, though they do, perhaps reluctantly, include some Impressionist work on their site.
This is a contemporary reworking of one of his marines, La Vague, by the Worth 1000 vandals :).

Montague Dawson at Vallejo Gallery

2010-11-16T03:12:00.000-08:00

Rounding Cape Horn
Escaping Smuggler
Vallejo Gallery

Jamie Wyeth

2010-11-11T02:51:00.000-08:00

Top: The Sea, Watched, oil on canvas, 30 x 48 inches.
Bottom: The Rookery

American painter, Jamie Wyeth, is the third generation of artists in the Wyeth family.

Dramatic Lighting

2010-11-05T07:20:00.000-07:00

Source: J Russell Jinishian Gallery
Russ Kramer, The Wizard and the Queen
Donald Demers, Sunrise at Sea
Christopher Blossom, Silhouette

The Tao of Composition

2010-10-31T21:04:00.000-07:00

Lands End, San Francisco, 13 x 16 inches

In this piece by the American landscape painter, Raymond Dabb Yelland, the rocky foreground is roughly equal in area to the muted tones of the background sea and sky, forming a kind of Yin Yang composition. The small rock in the waves on the left helps marry the two halves. It's always good to add a little of the Yin in the Yang, and vice versa.

Frederick Judd Waugh

2010-10-25T23:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to a great post on the painting notes of F. Judd Waugh, the great master of surf painting: art and influence blog.

His seascape palette included three blues: cobalt, ultramarine, and cerulean. Viridian green combined with cerulean blue produces the turquoises in his foreground waves. Cerulean and viridian are essential for capturing the hues of seawater. He added the cool red, Alizarin crimson, to his skies to suggest distant rosiness. He also included cadmium red and yellow in his palette, warm colors suitable for foreground rocks and sand; and burnt and raw sienna would have served for underpainting cliffs and rocks. Sea foam needs to be a bright and opaque white. He used "permalba" white and ivory black (a cool black tending towards blue, suitable for the sea).
I'm not sure what was in the permalba white manufactured in the early 20th century but on a painting forum I read that the permalba white in art shops today is not very opaque.

Some books on F. Judd Waugh:

Paintings of the sea.

Memorial Exhibition: Paintings of the Sea By Frederick Judd Waugh, N.a., 1861-1940

More poetry

2010-10-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

Frits Thaulow, Solitude, Christiana Fjord

Frits Thaulow (1847 - 1906) was a Norwegian impressionist painter. The best Impressionists, including Monet, often made use of punchy tonal contrasts, and used black, though there is a misconception that they completely avoided it and only used pastel shades.

Edward Moran 1829-1901

2010-10-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

Top: Shipwrecked
Bottom: Sailing in Rough Seas

Edward Moran's works invoke a poetic mood. Something to aim for in painting any subject.

In Shipwrecked, the white lighthouse represents hope, and is contrasted to the dark waves on the left.

Moran sets off the lighthouse, and the white waves breaking on it, by placing an area of grey rain behind.

Marine Paintings: Edward Moran- Masterpainter (Volume 1)

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida

2010-10-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

The energy of the brushwork recalls the work of Van Gogh. The orange and blue areas intensify each other.

Montague Dawson

2010-10-08T04:24:00.001-07:00

These are two images of Dawson's The Fleet Messenger, found on different websites. They demonstrate that reproductions can differ greatly from the original, and each other.

Thanks to the blog underpaintings for originally posting this work.

Another Newlyn School Artist

2010-10-04T02:34:00.000-07:00

Mary McCrossan, Wind and Surf.

There are often purple/violet shades to be seen in the wet beach.

Line

2010-09-30T04:06:00.000-07:00

Harold Knight, English, Harvesting the Sea
Source: newlyn school painters blog

Gustave Courbet - French

2010-09-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

Schooners

2010-09-19T03:24:00.000-07:00

The three masted schooner "Atlantic" at the start of the Transatlantic Race, May 17th 1905

A wonderful example of contemporary marine painting by the New Zealander AD Blake.

Henri, Robert, Monhegan Island

2010-09-13T02:26:00.000-07:00

Monhegan Island.

Painting with a limited palette (in this case almost monochrome) can create powerful images, and allows the artist to concentrate on elements of painting other than color, such as tone, brushwork and composition.

Edward Henry Potthast - American

2010-09-08T06:14:00.001-07:00

Ray Roberts

2010-08-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

After the Storm

The small touches of pink in these two works, by the American painter Ray Roberts, are very important to their success.
Link to gallery here.

John Anderson 1947-

2010-08-12T05:26:00.000-07:00

The seascapes of Australian painter John Anderson draw in equal parts from his imagination and from his experience of the Australian coastal environment. His use of chiaroscuro contributes to the sense of images emerging from an inner dream state.

"I like to make paintings that show the puzzle of existence. Something that when people look at it they say, yes I have felt that."

- John Anderson

Peter Graham - British 1836-1921

2010-08-05T03:31:00.000-07:00

Ocean Surge, White as the Sea Bird's Wing,138 x 183 cm

Sea Stack, 36 x 24 inches

Visual Paths

2010-07-31T02:38:00.000-07:00

Crossing the Bar, 1922, 26 x 38 inches

The artist has used a zigzag line of foam to lead the eye through the painting.

Clarkson Stanfield - English

2010-07-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

A Dutch Dogger Carrying Away her Sprit,1846

Oil paintings of seascapes and shipping in the Dutch style had been collected in Britain since the Dutch started making them in quantity. British artists also painted similar scenes to meet the demand from collectors. Clarkson Stanfield was regarded by many of his contemporaries as the best British marine oil painter of his time. His dramatic and accurate depiction of the sea in rough weather was thought preferable to Turner's misty and poetic paintings.

Here the artist shows a fishing boat in difficulties in a storm, with the power of the waves manifest against the tiny craft. The Dogger Bank in the North Sea was one of the best areas for fishing, but was prone to sudden squalls, making the life of a poor fisherman even more hard and dangerous.

Frederick Clarkson Stanfield (1793-1867) was a painter in oils and watercolours, mainly of landscapes and marine views. The son of an actor, J. F. Stanfield, he went to sea as a young boy and was press-ganged into the Royal Navy, but he left the service after being injured. He painted stage scenery for theatres in London, where he was a friend and rival to the Scottish painter, David Roberts (1796-1864) with whom he also collaborated, making dioramas and panoramas.

Source: Victoria and Albert Museum website

Clarkson Stanfield, View on the Scheldt, 1826

Fidelity & Poetry

2010-07-20T01:59:00.000-07:00

Isle of Skye

The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, California, is currently presenting an exhibition of oils, watercolors and drawings by the American landscape painter William Trost Richards.

Richards was influenced by the British art theorist John Ruskin and his doctrine of truth to nature. Ruskin thought that, through close observation and accurate depiction of the natural world, artists would reveal evidence of the Creator's hand. But Richard's work is more than simply faithful to nature, it has a human poetic quality. The human artist is, afterall, a part of the natural world. To be true to nature, an artist must also be true to human nature. While depicting the outer world, an artist should also express the inner world.

Richards concentrated on seascapes in the latter part of his career, when traditional landscape painting began to fall out of favour but there was still a market for romantic images of the sea's wild, lonely, spaces. Throughout his long career he stuck to a painstaking realist style, resisting the trend toward tonalism. Though his work may be considered conservative, he is one of my favorite masters of the genre because of his ability to convey a sense of the transcendental. Since his school days, Richards had a strong interest in literature and poetry, and this seems to have benefitted his work.

Read more at the Cantor Arts Center exhibition website.

Image courtesy Cantor Arts Center

Image Making

2010-07-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

Claude Monet, The Rock Needle seen through the Porte d'Aumont, 1885

By looking for unconventional viewpoints and qualities of light, great painters like Monet breathed new life into the seascape genre of painting. In choosing this unusual keyhole view, he was clearly interested in image-making not just plein air painting.

Image-making gives a work an iconic quality that remains in the imagination of the viewer for a long time.

To make a strong, interesting image it is necessary to simplify and unify the composition and avoid scenes that have been painted to death.

Image-making can involve the use of some kind of visual ambiguity. In this work the eye sees the gap in the rock as both a figure and a frame.

McClelland Barclay

2010-06-29T21:07:00.000-07:00

McClelland Barclay (1891-1943) was an American commercial artist/illustrator who produced several posters for the US navy. He was lost at sea during the Pacific War in 1943.
This piece is similar in style to the work of Frederick Judd Waugh.

Ivan Aivazovsky

2010-06-25T00:08:00.000-07:00

Ivan Aivazovsky, The Survivors, 47.5 x 64 cm

detail

Aivazovsky was a master of atmosphere. To see more works by this Armenian/Russian artist click on his name in labels.

Australian Painters

2010-06-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

Rupert Bunny,1864-1947, Tritons at Play c 1890, 73 x 91 cm

Fred Leist, Sinking of the Southland
Rick Amor, born 1948, People Watching the Sea 1994, 64 x 117 cm
Penleigh Boyd, 1890-1923, The Fairy Bower, Manly, 71 x 81 cm
Neil Taylor, Early Sandstone, Acrylic

The sea is a very important part of life for many Australians, and the beach is pretty much a sacred place here. Most of the population lives on the coast and arrived by boat, across the oceans, in relatively recent times. Not surprisingly then, the country has produced some talented painters whose work is inspired by the sea and the coast.

David James - English 1853-1904

2010-06-10T03:15:00.000-07:00

A north-westerly wind, Land's End, 25 x 50 inches

Michael Zeno Diemer - German 1867-1939

2010-06-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

Running with the Tide, 38 x 55 inches.

Sailboat, 23.5 x 32.75 inches.

A fishing vessel running before the wind off the Albanian Coast, 44.5 x 59.7 cm.

To see another painting in an older post, click here.

Francesco Hayez, Italian, 1791-1881

2010-06-01T02:38:00.000-07:00

Flight from Chios, 82 x 104 cm

detail

Hayez's subtle use of light emerald greens, complemented by pinks and reds, is particularly appealing.

The painting depicts a boatload of Greeks and Turks fleeing fighting that broke out between the two nationalities on the island of Chios.

From the Sotheby's catalogue note:

The horrific plight of the Chians quickly became a cause célèbre throughout Europe, written up as a vivid example of the barbarism of the infidel. The subject in turn inspired painters, as recorded most famously in Eugène Delacroix's monumental oil painting Massacre at Chios that was exhibited to great acclaim at the Paris Salon of 1824. Although keenly aware of Delacroix's composition, when Hayez addressed the subject he did not depict the carnage of the event; but dwelt instead on the complex rapport between the Chians and the Ottomans. In Hayez' oil both captors and captives make off from the island by boat. Although saved from the immediate terror of events on Chios, the women are still, quite clearly, subjugated to their Turkish overlords - a clear reference to Greece's indefatigable spirit in the face of long-standing Ottoman oppression.