Introductory Post

Gallery Name:  The Gallery at U.C. Santa Cruz

Located on the campus of U.C. Santa Cruz

Gallery Director:  Samuel B. Lamace, PhD

Works of art shown have a connection to the ocean and are restricted to paintings.

Exhibition Introduction

Title of the Exhibition:

Exposition de Navires et Bateaux des Mers

 

 

Artists being shown in the exhibition:

 

Claude Monet

James Edward Buttersworth

JMW Turner

Johan Jongkind

James McNeill Whistler

Ludolf Backhuysen I

Vincent van Gogh

Edouard Manet

Homer Winslow

Claude-Joseph Vernet

 

This is an exhibition of maritime paintings, taking the viewer from a regatta on calm seas, through increasingly rougher seas, to the finale of a shipwreck in stormy seas.  Man has always had a fascination with the sea and the vessels which make their way upon them.  These paintings bring with them an emotional connection to remind us that while the ocean can be peaceful, providing a pleasant place to have fun, she can also be unforgiving when respect is not given.

Regatta at Argenteuil

Regatta at Argenteuil

Monet, Claude

Oil on Canvas

19 x 29 inches

1872

Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris France.  After an art exhibition in 1874, a critic insultingly dubbed Monet’s painting style “Impression,” since it was more concerned with form and light than realism, and the term stuck.  Monet struggled with depression, poverty, and illness throughout his life.  He died in 1926.

http://www.biography.com/people/claude-monet-9411771 1926.

Two years before the Impressionist movement officially came into existence, Monet painted this scene which has all its features, in particular the famous fragmented brushstroke. Regattas at Argenteuil was painted in natural light, because tin tubes and portable easels allowed artists to leave their studios and paint outside. Monet sought to capture the fluidity of air and water and the way they changed with the light. He explained what he was trying to do: "I want to do something intangible. It's appalling, this light that drifts off and takes the colour with it".

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/painting/commentaire_id/regattas-at-argenteuil-3036.html?cHash=514c2d0e72

All paintings were selected solely on the basis that they fit within the theme of boats or ships, and that I felt emotionally moved by them

Schooner Agnes

Schooner Agnes of the Atlantic Yacht Club

Buttersworth, James Edward

Oil on Canvas

12 x 18 inches

1880

J.E. Buttersworth was born in England in 1817 and was the son, and student, of Thomas Buttersworth (1768-1842) – the well-known British Marine artist.  James settled his family in West Hoboken, New Jersey and set up a studio in Brooklyn.  James died in New Jersey on March 2, 1894.

http://www.rehs.com/James_Edward_Buttersworth_Bio.html

Buttersworth frequently accepted direct commissions from yachtsmen, as is likely the case here. The sharp details and gracefully drawn lines of the racing schooner AGNES are well represented, as is her yacht club pennant, personal ‘A’ signal and crisp American ensign on display in the soft breeze. Just enough sunlight is shown breaking through the heavy coastal atmosphere, stylizing the sky as Buttersworth’s own. AGNES lasted more than 25 years before selling to foreign owners.

http://www.vallejogallery.com/artist.php?name=James Edward Buttersworth&suid=&id=37&

All paintings were selected solely on the basis that they fit within the theme of boats or ships, and that I felt emotionally moved by them

The Fighting Temeraire

The Fighting Temeraire

JMW Turner

Oil on Canvas

90.7 x 121.6 cm

1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, better known as J.M.W. Turner, was born on April 23, 1775, in Covent Garden, London, England.  As a landscape painter, Turner brought luminosity and Romantic imagery to his subjects.  Turner died on December 19, 1851, in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London England.

http://www.biography.com/people/jmw-turner-40806

The painting was thought to represent the decline of Britain's naval power. The 'Temeraire' is shown travelling east, away from the sunset, even though Rotherhithe is west of Sheerness, but Turner's main concern was to evoke a sense of loss, rather than to give an exact recording of the event. The spectacularly colourful setting of the sun draws a parallel with the passing of the old warship. By contrast the new steam-powered tug is smaller and more prosaic.

Turner was in his sixties when he painted 'The Fighting Temeraire'. It shows his mastery of painting techniques to suggest sea and sky. Paint laid on thickly is used to render the sun's rays striking the clouds. By contrast, the ship's rigging is meticulously painted.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-fighting-temeraire

All paintings were selected solely on the basis that they fit within the theme of boats or ships, and that I felt emotionally moved by them

Entrance to the Port of Honfleur

Entrance to the Port of Honfleur

Jongkind, Johan Barthold

Oil on canvas

16 5/8 x 22 1/4 in. (42.2 x 56.2 cm)

1864

Johan Barthold Jongkind (June 3, 1819 – Feb. 9, 1891) was a Dutch painter and printmaker regarded as a forerunner of Impressionism who influenced Claude Monet.  In 1878 with his wife, painter Josephine Fesser, Johnkind moved to live in the small town of La Cote-Saint-Andre near Grenoble in the southeast of France where he died in 1891.

http://www.topofart.com/artists/biography/Johan_Barthold_Jongkind/

Every summer, Jongkind returns on the Norman Coast, between Trouville and Honfleur. There, a deep change takes place in his work, points of view are getting larger and more diversified, and the subtil game of light becomes the central element of his paintings and watercolours. He applies himself to better translate it by means of multiple decompositions in small colored strokes, avoiding dark and flat colors he used to paint low and cloudy heavens at his beginnings.

Jongkind stands by his roots, his love for sea and ships, his education as a naturalist painter, demanding observer of the real world : far from the crowdy world of estivants, he prefers the approaches to harbours where he paints fishermen or sailors at work.

http://www.impressionniste.net/jongkind_johan.htm

All paintings were selected solely on the basis that they fit within the theme of boats or ships, and that I felt emotionally moved by them

The Thames In Ice

The Thames In Ice

Whistler, James McNeill

Oil on Canvas

30 x 22 inches

1861

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born on July 11, 1834, in Lowell, Massachusetts.  He was educated in St. Petersburg, Russia, and then attended the United States Military Academy at West Point.  Establishing himself as a painter in Paris and London, Whistler developed his distinctive style, utilizing muted colors and simple forms.  Whistler died in 1903.

http://www.biography.com/people/james-abbott-mcneill-whistler-9529133

The boats here are rendered with an almost dry brush over a thinly painted background.  The masts and sails are accurately drawn, not merely suggested, as they would be in later river paintings.

Painted after Whistler finally settled in London, this painting and other works in ‘the Thames set’ show the artists fascination with life along the river.  The French realist influence is much in evidence, but the treatment of the distant factories, the sky and the water foreshadows the evocative mood of the later Nocturnes.

The Great Artists, Book 14
Whistler
Funk & Wagnalls
1978

All paintings were selected solely on the basis that they fit within the theme of boats or ships, and that I felt emotionally moved by them