As Marinus = at sea, motives such as ships, sea, ocean and port are popular and frequently used themes in Navy arts. Early up the sixteenth century both professional artists and laymen took up the theme of the navy and brought it to the canvases. Various artists were instantly attracted by the power and beauty of the water, recreating both mythological and historical scenes. Emperor William II expressed himself on the subject with the words: “If I had the talent, I would not have been an emperor, but a mariner,” he also tried in this high art. The pictorial genres are numerous in the sea painting, as the motives can be represented in all the stylistic aspects of painting, mostly categorized as Landscape painting.
Stormy paintings brought Symbolism, Realism and other styles to the sea:
Willem van de Velde the Younger – Dutch men-o’-war and other shipping in a calm, 1665
On German Dutch sailing ships in a windstill about 1665, thus forming the oldest painting of our series.
Willem van der Velde the Younger studied the ship’s drawing with his father. The duo were paid as a court painter from 1674 and was present at every maritime event. Father and son signed their paintings with the addition of the older or younger ones.
Caspar David Friedrich – Die Lebensstufen, 1835
A painter of Romanticism, the man who added a new importance to landscape painting, painted directly from the soul. Melancholy and heavy, but also boundless love lies within his paintings. The life stages is a painting full of allegory. The five represented people are in different levels of life, from young to old. The oldest among them stands with their backs to the viewer and also seems to be turned away from the world, while the younger generation, with a view or a body, stand openly to the viewer and build the exact antithesis of the older generation. The drama is reflected differently in the water, the largest and presumably the oldest ship is just before the strand, while the smaller ships are on the sea and slip away from their future.
Leon Spilliaert – Blauw-rode marien, 1906
For the Belgian painter and draftsman Leon Spilliaert the Belgian North Sea coast was inspiration. Numerous paintings, attributed to symbolism and expressionism, were painted, often soaked in a touch of loneliness and fear. In his later years, he increasingly dedicated himself to portrait painting. Blauw-rode marien impresses with its color and the displayed width.
Winslow Homer – Breezing Up (A Fairwind), 1876
Winslow Homer, linked to realism, painted many marine paintings. Breezing Up (A Fairwind) shows a seafaring boat with four inmates on the open sea. This work is dynamic, the boat is a little crooked in the turbulent waters and it makes its way. The work is an oil painting, Winslow Homer took three years to complete it.
Singulart on the high seas
The Navy is also a motive of wonderful paintings on our artist’s platform. Discover the maritime art of Françoise Watin, Anne Böddeker and Rosy Auguste.
Françoise Watin
Françoise Watin was born in Algeria and grew up on the windy sea coast. Their works enter into an inexhaustible dialogue with the sea. Françoise Watin is a painter of the sun and free nature.
Bateaux sur la Méditerranée, © Françoise Watin, Singulart Artist
Anne Böddeker
This German artist Anne Böddeker explores her subjects serially: the sea in its intensity and contradictory nature, the transience of the moment and the human longing for the perfection of nature.
wildes Meer,© Anne Böddeker, Singulart Artist
Rosy Auguste
Fascinated by the infinite, serpentine, straight, short and strong movements of the sea, Rosy Auguste succeeds in translating these almost mythical forces into the canvas.
LA COLERE DE SEDNA, © Rosy Auguste, Singulart Artist
Set your sails with us and discover our maritime paintings!
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