MARINE ARTISTS

I did not at any point state or suggest that anybody "just does a marine art oil painting and just happens to have it selected for an illustration." That's bullshit. The painting i used in this thread to illustrate Mr. Hunt's work was not used as a book cover or illustration.

Sorry i trampled all over your flower beds, Mr. Man. I'll not darken your silly little thread again.

Thats only true for the underbelly of the market. There are a small number of sophisticated collectors (includes museums like Bedford and Hampton Roads) where only the best of the best will do.

My comment on commercial art had nothing to do with snobbishness. As I said before, your knowledge of the market is probably limited and the way it really works is that everal levels of submissions are made until a painting is undertaken . To produce work as "fine art" with only subject, layout, and composition in mind is actually a gamble by all but the top artists, since a piece of good art will command its market level and a piece of crap will, well, a POC is always a POC. Look at the many commemorative plates that were put out in the sventies and 80's. These are actually declining in value. Or bad art work (by he whose name shall not be mentioned) has almost COLLAPSED.
Because its genre art doesnt mean that there are no standards. The annual competitions and shows are still major draws in the East Coast and around the boaty area of the West coast like Townsend Wash.

Lets just continue with showing the art and let our friends decide. Lets quit the pissin on my leg and just show the work OK? Its my thread, I make the rules.

JOHN PRENTISS BENSON, was a marine artist in the late 1800's and into the 20th century. He was brother to Frank Benson the American Impressionist. J Prentiss' marine art wasnt free of the "impressionist" and early " Howard Pyle" illustration style. Lots of visual directionals ere employed to control the field of view.


Bhenson was always influened by the mid EAst and he continued painting Dhows for his entire career. I have no idea why. Neat style though, He almost outlines his clouds and the boat to make it pop out. The softer focus is something that Ill bet he got from his brother

An aside, Frank Weston Benson, had some influence on his brothers work as you can see from one of F Bensons earlier works in the Monet style

Arent you late for anger management classes?

I've always been partial to Winslow Homer:

good stuff

Homer knew what to do to create visual tension and he always has his centers of interest just off center.

Winslow Homer reminded me of Rockwell Kent, whose marine works are being shown in the ongoing show "The CAll of The Coast" at the Portland Me, Museum. It appears that the show has ignored the entire Rockport, Gloucester, Provincetown art colonies. (I guess the work has something to do with it)

This one is the "Wreck of the D T Sheridan" by Rockwell Kent. This is almost abstract in its presentation. The only real reference to reality is the seagull flock.

Another of my favorite marine artists is Emille Gruppe, a prolific self promoting artist whose father Emille A Gruppe had founded the Rockport artists colony. Emille was a "painterly" chronicler of marine subjects. He strove not so much for realism , but mood. He was famous for his Gloucester Fogs and scenes of the New ENgland Hills.




This painting is a depiction of the Gertrude Theobod in an offshore race.You can barely see the gaffpoles.

The Women.
By John Charlton.

A fine art print of this portrait painting shows the Cullercoats lifeboat being hauled from the sea after a dramatic rescue on New Years Day 1861. The ship the Lovely Nellie, had been wrecked in a snowstorm near Whitley Bay. The lifeboat had to be towed three miles along the coast to reach the scene, as the storm prevented it being launched at Cullercoats. One version of the event says that the boat had been hauled by women, but a newspaper report at the time records that it was pulled by horses. Painted by John Charlton (1849 -1917).

an interesting aside to the story

Homer Winslow spent two years (1881 " 1882) in the English coastal village of Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear. Many of the paintings at Cullercoats took as their subjects working men and women and their daily heroism, imbued with a solidity and sobriety which was new to Homer's art, presaging the direction of his future work. He wrote, “The women are the working bees. Stout hardy creatures.” His palette became constrained and sober; his paintings larger, more ambitious, and more deliberately conceived and executed. His subjects more universal and less nationalistic, more heroic by virtue of his unsentimental rendering. Although he moved away from the spontaneity and bright innocence of the American paintings of the 1860s and 1870s, Homer found a new style and vision which carried his talent into new realms.

I found your aside interesting cause Winslow Homer was essentially omne of those artistic masters who was formally unschooled in art. He started his painting as a precocious kid and was sent off to work for Harpers when he was in his late teens by his Ponzi scheming father. Homer was required to turn Matt Brady photos into engravings for the magazine Harpers Weekly. By 1863 he was sent by HArpers to do actual battlefield art ( severing his ties to being a Brady engraver). His scenes were then celebrated in Europe (they were just newspaper art in the US) His works like "The Sharpshooter" and "The Christmas Holiday in Camp" or "The Union Cavalry Charge" were recieving medals in Europe. After the War he continued the engraving and then got into oils (suddenly). In 1872 he, during a summer vacation, just as quickly took up watercolor (HE NEVER DID ANY WATERCOLORS BEFORE) Here he was, in his late 30's and he just discovered the medium. He mastered the art of watercolor in less than a few months (the "rules" are dichotomously different than oils ) and the rest is history. He was always someone whose work didnt evolve, it materialized almost instantaneously. SO the beginnings of the topics of human misery and pathos , all seemed to be rooted in the trip to England.


Heres an early Homer Watercolor

in the 80's i worked as a picture framer in Toronto

this artist was one of our customers



Artist Oswald K. Schenk
Title The "Nonsuch" at sea
Medium pencil and watercolor

I love watercolor of the water and ships.

Heres another Emille Gruppe work. This one in oil. Its titled FIESTA. Its a scene of Gloucestermen with sails set waiting for the tide.
Ive often seen art works in the Eastport Tides Museum which showed huge masses of coastal schooners and fishermen waiting for winds and tides. There was a section of a captains log that accompanied one photo of such a mass of ships. The captain wrote that they waited four days for favorable conditions and often left in big "logjams" of boats . In the late 1800's they brought in motorized tugs and the local tug services were initiated. Ive got a painting of the Moran tug named the Ahoskie.




The neat thing about Gruppes work is the heavy impastos and use of techniques like painting in the sky after the rigging is defined. This gives the masts and lines a strong dimension

Heres a moel of the YAMATO rendered in LEGOS. (no comment except that it falls within my definition of marine art)

Now that one (the Gruppe) I like...

Yeh, its more art for an artists taste rather than a boat lover.

Following with interest. This is really interesting.