No applause for them from the shipping press. Nor glowing tributes at fancy awards dinners. Yet, maritime pilots quietly perform work that is nothing short of heroic.
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Calm seas in art: 7 seascapes to soothe the spirit
There are those — the Type A personalities usually— who cannot be satisfied with tranquility. They need and crave for action. Some even thrive in conflict. But surely, most humans long for some moment of peace and calmness. The following works of art, I hope, will soothe the spirit of those who seek such moments.
Can you imagine a seascape painting by Michelangelo?
Wouldn’t it be great to see some marine art by Michelangelo? Alas, the man who is held to be one of the greatest artists of all time (pictured above in a portrait by his contemporary, Daniele da Volterra) did not paint seascapes.
A voyage to old Venice (before the tourism plague)
I have never travelled to Venice. But thanks to the power of art, I feel that I have been there many times and navigated its canals on board a gondola and walked across the famous Rialto Bridge. The paintings and etchings shown below depict the Venice of old. This was...
Sea by moonlight: 14 paintings that can mesmerise
The sea captivates. The sea by moonlight captivates even more. It can mesmerise. Alas, those who do not sail or live near the seashore may not have the opportunity to behold the beauty and grandeur of a moonlit seascape. For the delight of such unlucky souls, I am...
Seeing ghosts at sea: some haunting artworks
I do not celebrate Halloween. Nor do I believe in ghosts, which are said to be abroad at this time of the year. Even so, I find it fascinating how ghosts have floated from ancient folklore and mythology into the sphere of pop culture. They have become part of the...
Heroic spirits: five select paintings of fishermen at sea
Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea has been universally praised since its publication in 1952. A review which came out that year in The New York Times said of the short novel: The excitement and tension of the old man's adventure, the magnificence of the great...
Sea, sky and the sublime: Caspar David Friedrich’s art
The art world has not run out of praise for the 19th-century German painter, Caspar David Friedrich (shown in the above inset, a portrait by fellow German artist Gerhard von Kügelgen). Perhaps it never will. Peter Schjeldahl, art critic of The New Yorker magazine, had...
Power of the small: tributes in art to tugboats
“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...
Beauty and terror: ocean waves in Japanese art
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...
The joy of childhood and the sea celebrated in art
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...
Remembering the beauty of ships and cars of yore
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...