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| The Great Wave off Kanagawa 神奈川沖浪裏 Hokusai 葛飾 北斎 |
(Yes, lads, pay is in quotes for the reason you surmise. It's all virtual here, I mean the rewards are intangible. We're all famous now! What? We're not? Ah well, in my mind we are.)
So really, I have ranted too much as of late (once in a quarter seems more than sufficient, perhaps even too much from my point of view). I'm not sure why people come here to read our thoughts and the like, but I like to tell stories about history, the family, the garden, music, books I've read, movies I've watched, and so on, and so forth.
Ranting can be, I dunno, tiresome for me. So I decided that I needed to take a step back and CTFD. Yes, an acronym, C for Calm, D for Down, I leave the middle bit to your imaginations. Most of you will, no doubt, figure it out fairly quickly. No, it's not in the Acronym List, seems too crude for that. Not that there aren't other crudities over there, but well, ya know. I try to keep it clean.
So yeah, nautical art, I like it. I keep looking at the opening painting from yesterday's post (which I reproduce below so you don't have to chase a link). I like pictures of ships at sea. Sometimes just a seascape by itself is good enough. Though I do like ships and boats, and what have you.
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| Stormy Weather at Sea Frank William Brangwyn |
So paintings, nautical art, I love it.
Here are some from one of my favorite painters, Winslow Homer -
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| On the Beach |
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| A Basket of Clams |
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| Sunlight on the Coast |
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| The Herring Net |
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| The Storm on the Sea of Galilee Rembrandt van Rijn |
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| Schepen aan lager wal (Ships running aground) Ludolf Bakhuizen |
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| The Kearsarge and the Alabama Xanthus Russell Smith |
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| The Battle of Trafalgar William Clarkson Stanfield |
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| The Continental Navy frigate Confederacy From the Navy Art Gallery in the Washington Navy Yard |
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| USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere Michel Felice Corne |
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| A Perfect Wreck Tom Freeman USS Constitution vs HMS Java (Source) |
I feel better already. Nothing like a good painting to calm me down!
Who are your favorite painters. Maybe I'll do a "Readers' Choice" post.
Hey, it could happen!
I have a rather large framed poster (30"x40" or so) of a painting called "The Lightning Racing Into Falmouth" by Robert Lie hanging on the wall in my tiny apartment. It belonged to my grandfather, he glued it onto a sheet of masonite and framed it and it always hung in his house, so I claimed it. Somewhere there's a second one, but I don't have the wall space for it.
ReplyDeleteMr. Lie doesn't seem to have much on him on the Internet. A couple of clipper ship paintings was all I could find. His work looks very nice.
Deletehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/41887594@N05/7505613046/
ReplyDeleteI have a centered version of this picture as my going away plaque. It is the USS Wasp and the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor. I served 3 1/2 years on the USS Wasp as the Combat Cargo Officer. I had 3 enlisted that worked for me and there was a Marine Major on board who served as the Air Operations Officer. 5 Marines against 1100 sailors!!!
Great photo!
DeleteSo five Marines versus 1100 sailors? Ah, you guys could handle it. 😉
The swabbies were at a severe disadvantage!
DeleteI pity the poor bastards!
DeleteYa..five Marines.....1100 sailors.......oh those poor sailors!........:)
ReplyDeleteHahaha!
DeleteDon't know if you read slashdot.org. But they just put a link to the British museum photo collection. May be able to fill a few minutes there. One of the many places I didn't get a chance to see over there.
ReplyDeleteI plan on spending some time in that collection. Wow! Thanks Jim!
DeleteI like Charlie Russel. And Ace Reid. But growing up in the south plains, probably tilted my view a bit. When I see big waves, giant boats, I get a bit hydrophobic. I never wanted to go to sea, can't walk to the nearest town if you have a flat.
ReplyDeleteClosest I've ever experienced to vast empty is waving wheat fields. Miles of them up north of Lubbock county. And Hwy 90 out west of Del Rio. Once you pass the Jersey Lily, you are on your own until Alpine or Marathon. Sanderson didn't count for much. Like Asleep At The Wheel sings, I saw miles and miles of Texas. Miles and miles of miles and miles.
Maybe that's why I like Charlie Russel so much. I know the land he draws.
I've got a Charlie Russell painting as one of the blog headers (which hasn't seen the light of day yet, TR stays up there as long as she's stuck in Guam due to the virus-thingee.) Good idea for a post though, landscape paintings!
DeleteI see Ace Reid was a rather talented guy, I'll have to look at his stuff!
I hear ya, STxAR - had a girlfriend from El Paso when I was in my 20's - we'd drive from Dallas to her home a couple of times a year. That's a long stretch out past Ft. Worth. We always were tempted to test the hypothesis that we could tie down the steering wheel once we got past Abilene, take a nap, wake up 6 hours later and still be in the same lane of the highway.
DeleteDrove through Texas twice, from Texline to San Antonio, then back three months later. It is a BIG place!
DeleteSTxAR-- I hit the wrong button. See my remark about Sanderson below.
DeleteI was wondering...
DeleteTom, I had a friend in college that said they named straight stretches of road in Maryland. I wanted to take a time lapse of Hwy 84 from Sweetwater to Lubbock. Lots on long and straight in there. Texas is a big spot, and either way, from El Paso I-10 exit 0 to Orange, TX I-10 exit 880, or Dalhart to Brownsville, it's is a loooooong drive. OAFS, I've been on every inch of Hwy 87. End to end, just not on the same day.
DeleteLooks like I was on 87 all the way to Eden, then switched to 83 until Junction, then I-10 into San Antonio.
DeleteHad some really good BBQ brisket in Junction, little roadside place.
The little roadside places are the best! A lot of them used to have a condiments area, with pickles, raw onions, peppers, and sauces of various flavors and degrees of picante, and quite a few old time joints had a big wheel of cheddar cheese with a knife stuck in it that was complimentary. Just slice a hunk off and enjoy with the meal or as desert. But once the health departments started protecting us, the cheese went away. One chain in DFW, Dickey's, then substituted soft serve ice cream in place of the cheese. That was OK, but I still preferred the cheese.
DeleteAs far as big goes, I flabbergasted folks in the midwest and northeast when I mentioned that El Paso is closer to Los Angeles than it is to Orange, and if you pivot Texas up on El Paso, Texarkana and other bits on the eastern part of the state would be in the Pacific Ocean.
Going down there I spent three nights in motels. Going back, zero. Was in a hurry to make it back to mama and the bairns. Something I could do when I was younger. Wouldn't even think of attempting that now!
DeleteBrilliant images Sarge, thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe sea runs in our veins. As a sailor I cherish Psalms 107...
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep,
For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end.
Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
The sea runs in our veins.
Yes, yes it does! All life came from the sea. Once while swimming in Bermuda, I turned to a friend and asked, "Why did our species ever leave the sea, this is glorious!" Her answer? "Sharks, they swim faster."
DeleteShe had a point.
My favorite hymn is, of course, Eternal Father, Strong to Save -
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
I always tear up when I hear that...
Sanderson, you say. Charles Downie was my maternal great grandfather.
ReplyDeletehttps://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/rbdbn
I four-wheeled over a lot of the old ranch deer hunting, back in my younger days.
Cool.
DeleteGuess I'll need to do a post on Texas landscapes!
I've got about 30 years of Texas Highways magazines that would be great raw material for that! Palo Duro Canyon, the Hill Country, Big Bend and the Guadalupe Mountains, Ft. Davis and McDonald Observatory, the Big Thicket, coastal plains, piney woods, the southern end of the Great Plains, just to name a few.
DeleteI shall bear that in mind. (Not you a bear, just bear.)
DeleteGood stuff! I looked it up on the sat. East of Sanderson, on the way to Sheffield. There used to be a huge Texas flag flying next to I-10 near Sheffield. Back in the mid 60's there was a huge flood that wiped out Sanderson. It never really recovered from that. If you didn't fill up in Del Rio, you weren't gonna make it to the next real town. The gas station in Sanderson closed about 4pm.
DeleteOAFS, there are several different areas in Texas. And each one bred a different kind of Texan. Wind chapped, and sun baked up in the panhandle. The entire sky a panorama. So much dust in the air at times, you didn't hardly open your mouth to talk. East Texas has oil, and you can see the sky through the piney woods, or, if you're lucky, in a strip above the highway, made me claustrophobic. Swamp in the south east, desert out west, 12 months of farming north of and along the Rio Grande valley. In the middle, at the end of the high plains, is the Edward's Plateau. It's about 50,000 square miles of parking lot. When it rains, there isn't enough dirt there to slow down the run off. Good goat and sheep country. Coastal plains with vast black dirt farms from Brownsville up to Freeport. Brush country north of that until you hit the Edward's. Poor dirt for farming, good ranching country. Small trees, and everything grows thorns or teeth. East of that from Victoria to Dallas is heaven. Green rolling country with rivers, grass, tall trees. It's all beautiful, though. Certain cities excluded.
In my brief sojourn in Texas in the late 80s I was rather impressed by the variability of the terrain in just the small bits I saw.
DeleteIt is a very diverse state - and I don't mean diverse in the SJW sense but geographically. That's why the Big Thicket area is so interesting - about five of those zones meet and overlap in that one area. STxAR did a great job of describing everything. I would only add that in the spring (we are a little off peak right now, probably) the wildflowers along the roads and in the meadows are stunningly beautiful, especially in the clear streams in the Hill Country between Austin and San Antonio. The state is/was kinda diverse linguistically as well - my mom used to be able to tell what county a person was from by just listening to them talk for a couple of minutes - or at least get close. Had some regional vocabulary that was diagnostic - want to guess what a 'bar ditch' is?
DeleteThat first painting is based off of an area famous for rogue waves (where two or more big waves combine into a mega-wave.) And, of course, the scientists denounced the existence of rogue waves until video was captured of one hitting the bridge of an 80's era super freighter, from the bow, with the bridge located at the stern. Even though lots of evidence like ships with thrashed rigging, fish in unusual places, eyewitness accounts and so forth. Stupid scientists...
ReplyDeleteyou mean the science wasn't settled after all? :-)
DeleteBeans - Indeed it is, and it's a pretty old painting (around 1830).
DeleteTom - This is my shocked face.
DeleteThe second painting? I think the side-wheeler is a steam tug. The sailing ship is only carrying enough sail to keep her head pointed away from the wind. All of the sails are on the main mast (top sail and gallant) and the fore-mast (mainsail and topsail) and one or two headsails.
ReplyDeleteIf so, the guys in the boat may be the pilot crew or tow-line crew.
Maybe. Weird ghosty shadow just to the port of the rowboat is hard to figure out. Coffee stain? Shadow of the sidewheeler? Sunken ship? Sunken ghost ship coming to get them all???
Dunno.
Could be.
DeleteThe shadow? Captain Nemo and the Nautilus would be a guess.
I saw that shadow too and wondered what the story was. Great painting. One can spend some time there. That's a quality I like in a picture. More later.
DeleteIndeed, there's a lot going on, yet the composition is very clean, not too busy.
DeleteAs to the rest of them...
ReplyDeleteWell, it is my proud duty to always be enamored of our fighting ships, especially when they are flogging the enemy. Weird to think that one of the justifications for Royal France and Spain in supporting our revolution was to deny England access to our wood. But that is one of the many many reasons...
Thanks for showing us the Maritime Art Wing, Ships of the Age of Sail exhibit, of the Musee de Chant.
I kinda like that name.
DeleteSarge, it does one good to rant every once in a while, so no worries there!
ReplyDeleteI also like the painting, there's a seriousness and purpose to it, with unanswered questions.
Mr. Homer (Winslow, not Simpson) is also a favorite of mine. I have a cousin who used to be a conservator at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. I was visiting him in his workshop one day, and I saw a row of smaller works on a shelf, each in an individual bin. I asked him if I could look at them, and he said I could but to be careful. I pulled a couple out, they were pretty nice, then came to one that had the Homer look to it. It was about 8x10 inches, and my cousin confirmed it was by Homer. Not a print, an original. I asked him how much it was worth, and he said it would probably fetch $30-40,000! I very carefully put it back in its slot! Note that was 35-40 years ago, so I wonder what its value is today?
Another sea oriented one I like is "Watson and the Shark," and it has nothing to do with Sherlock. Very powerful and gripping.
But I think my most favorite paintings are the western landscapes by Bierstadt. They are truly magnificent. I saw the original "Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains California" on display, also in Boston at the time, and it took my breath away. It was about 7' high by 12' long, and you felt like you could walk right into it.
John Singleton Copley's painting, very nice. (Even though the shark is kinda weird looking.)
DeleteBierstadt will eventually make an appearance on the header.
Bierstadt for certain landscapes, but I'm still thinking about my favorite.
DeleteRemind me John, I'm an old fart.
Delete:)
DeleteMy favorite "Signed by the artist" lithograph is "Hot in the Canyon" by William Phillips. The only online picture I could find is Here. The view is looking over the shoulder of an F-4 at "500" feet doing "480" Knots. (If you know what I mean and I KNOW you do!) The earth around the jet's periphery is blurred, while further out front is clear. Which is exactly how I remember it.
ReplyDeleteThat's an awesome print! Too bad we can't find a better version of it!
Delete(I guess I should do an aircraft paintings post, ya know, airscapes...)
That is a nice one - just piddling around, I ran across a couple more of his showing Eagles that had a nice sense of movement to them - Range Wars was one, and this one was another - https://aviationartplus.com/advantage-eagle-by-william-s-phillips-f-15-eagle-aviation-art/
DeleteAnd dang, William Phillps is a terrific, talented artist! I could spend a lot of time just browsing his works.
You should check out the American Society of Marine Artists:
ReplyDeletehttps://americansocietyofmarineartists.com
Surprisingly, it looks like they are all contemporary. Even more surprisingly, it looks like they're all good. That suggests a decent market for good marine art.
Nice! I liked it so much I added a link to it over on the sidebar.
DeleteThanks BP!
Oh, and I was always partial to Fitz Hugh Lane. This one is particularly good:
ReplyDeletehttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Fitz_Henry_Lane%2C_Lumber_Schooners_at_Evening_on_Penobscot_Bay%2C_1863%2C_NGA_57611.jpg/580px-Fitz_Henry_Lane%2C_Lumber_Schooners_at_Evening_on_Penobscot_Bay%2C_1863%2C_NGA_57611.jpg
Another nice work. A fellow New Englander, what's not to like?
DeleteThanks!
Winslow Homer for me, as well, watercolours!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite painting with ships in it, but not really a ship picture.
http://totallyhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impression-Sunrise-by-Monet.jpg
The beginning of the "Impressionist Period" which includes my really favorite painting - perhaps TBA. By Manet.
Love Monet, love the Impressionists.
DeleteGreat paintings, but it's ok to rant a bit. It might be my schtick, but as a non-essential worker, I have been laid off! I too like the nautical art and the Dutch have a bunch of it in their Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam which I was drawn to. One of the pictures I took is titled "The Explosion of the Spanish Flagship during the Battle of Gibraltar" by Cornelius Claesz van Wieringen, dated 1621. You can see it here: https://oldafsarge.blogspot.com/2019/04/windmills-and-weapons.html
ReplyDeleteI can't really show them up, but series of naval history books by Polish authors Jerzy Pertekand Zbigniew Flisowski had my imagination captivated with great cover art...
ReplyDeleteedit here are some:
https://b.allegroimg.com/s1024/0c42a5/7d90d9c744ed9eb784b497541e5b
https://a.allegroimg.com/s1024/0c2a87/36c00f90416cb84365d05cd4499d
This is when I caught "naval history bug", I guess...
ReplyDelete