“Power can be held in the smallest of things,” declared a 2001 movie poster for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The maxim applies to magical rings as well as to tugboats. What would the shipping world be without the latter? Tugboats were on hand to...
Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also called The Great Wave, (pictured above) does more than delight the eye. It is an eloquent expression of the traditional Japanese attitude towards the sea as something to be admired and feared at the same time. The woodblock...
Les enfants n’ont ni passé ni avenir, et, ce qui ne nous arrive guère, ils jouissent du présent. (Children have neither past nor future, and, that which hardly happens to us, they rejoice in the present.) ~ Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères (1885)What has happened to...
The sailing ships in days of yore were so splendid that they inspired countless paintings, including The Return to Amsterdam of the Second Expedition to the East Indies (pictured above) by Dutch Golden Age artist Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom (c.1562–1640). Those who built...
In a previous article, I shared some works of art to highlight the noble tradition of saving lives at sea. I felt that that was too meagre a serving for such a great topic. So here's a sequel. I trust that those who love art will find it as flavourful as the...
Ship models may never have the emotional or imaginative power of a seascape painting by Ivan Aivazovsky. Even so, they can be a delight to look at. Dutch models from the 19th and 18th centuries are so well crafted that they bring to life real ships and boats that have...
I was a bit shocked when I recently watched the RT television report about German boat captain Pia Klemp facing charges in Italy for aiding human traffickers. She and her crew are credited with rescuing more than a thousand North African migrants who tried to reach...
Mention the Netherlands (or Holland) and some things immediately come to mind. Windmills, canals and dykes, tulips, clogs (called klompen by the Dutch and immortalised by Vincent van Gogh in his 1889 painting), and cheese. The list of Dutch cultural icons would not be...
Many have been awed by the Notre-Dame de Paris (pictured above in a 1912 painting by American artist Florence Vincent Robinson). Who wouldn't be? This most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages wears the badge of antiquity (almost 200 years in the making,...
Jill Friedman of Lake Jackson, Texas, is an old salt who holds United States Coast Guard licences for Unlimited Master and DPO (Dynamic Positioning Operator) Unlimited. It is not only her professional credentials, however, that make her stand out. Captain Jill is an...
Countless artists have painted or made drawings of fishermen. However, Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) did so with unusual passion. Viewing his works, one is left feeling that the artist, not only possessed great talent, but had a genuine...
Few themes in art are as enduring and inspiring as that of mother and child. Throughout the centuries, the subject has seen many iterations, either religious or secular. Its fascination to artists and humanity as a whole is not at all surprising. Works of art...