English school; c. 1800.

English school; c. 1800.
"Navy."
Oil on canvas.
It has a frame of the twentieth century with faults.
Measurements: 107 x 153 cm; 122 x 168 cm (frame).
In this work the author places us in front of a navy starring several boats and two small boats where you can see the figure of several sailors. The sailors sketched with rapid brushstrokes are worked with a great virtuosity, so that the actions of each of them can be appreciated. Further on, we see a low horizon over which we can guess the sky filled with clouds that perfectly defines the horizon. The scene stands out for the great dynamism and expressiveness achieved by the author through the waves and the attitudes adopted by the protagonists of the painting.
Ships and boats have been represented in art since antiquity, but the marine only began to become a genre at the beginning of the Renaissance, with the spread of landscape as an autonomous genre. Pure seascapes, however, would not become popular until the 17th century, especially in Dutch painting, reflecting Holland's powerful foreign trade and large naval fleet. These same motifs would encourage the cultivation of seascapes in British painting. Later, Romanticism recovered the theme of the sea and the coast, especially in its most tempestuous aspects. Germans and Englishmen excelled in the representation of rough seas or lonely and mystical cliffs. In the 19th century the art market expanded considerably and genre painting, especially landscape painting, enjoyed great success in bourgeois circles. The generalization of plein air painting, on the other hand, favored that promenades, beaches and ports were filled with easel painters immortalizing maritime scenes. The pure seascapes were a reflection of the very powerful foreign trade and the great naval fleet of Holland. In marine painting, artists very often opted for turbulent views, dominated by gray, stormy skies and ships facing the elements.