MARINE ARTISTS

where?

"Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool" (1919 ) by Edward Wadsworth

OOPS, forgot to post the painting. This is the cover painting of his marine art book. He also did the cover illustrations for most of the Mowat, and MAnserrat books.

I always was amazed at how the "Razzle Dazzle" paintings of WWI ships was able to corrupt the enemy from estimating the heading and speed of the thus painted ship. Im not sure that they used Dazzle inWWII because of airplanes did much of the locating and , of course, there was marine radar.

Far superior in doing artwork of the days of sail, and better in my never humble opinion than your boy Mayger is Geoff Hunt, who is probably best known for the series of painting he did which were used as covers for the Patrick O'Brian novels.

You can view galleries of his work by clicking here.

Keep it up, you guys. I like this kind of stuff.

I dont recognize the term "superior" in upper echelons of marine art. Every one of those in the MArine art Academies are there for a reason, . Since most are "Commercial Artists", their works , we must remember, first have to fit an editors demand for all the book production info to fit on the book cover. Most of Maygers work has a brooding sea which is used for titles, blurbs etc.andss , in that respect, he and another artist, Charles Evers, were quite successful. (Highly sought out by publishers and collectors). ANYWAY, Its MY choice for Mayger as fisrt fav. We all may have our individual favs, but hardly "superior".
Ill see if I cant find a Charles Evers.

GODDAM IT, the edit function is locking me out after a few minutes. I noticed that I listed Chas Evers, I meant CARL EVERS.

Most of MAygers work has been in doing work of WWII sea battles and shipr rescues.
Im gonna run off and see what I can find on Evers.

One of the things I am trying to convey is presented in the most recent cover of MArine ARtists Quarterly. Its a cover depicting a detail of a class sailboat race like the WHitbread or Americas' Cup. The painting, MUST conform to the cover art needs of the pubisher. If the painting doesnt offer enough clear space for the titles and articles, then the painting is sent back to the artict for "scrubbing up".

Another Artict of recent note is another Christopher, Chris Blossom . I dont hear of his work as much as in the recent past when he was commissioned to do ad art for several movies.

Heres a Chris Blossom work of an Eastport Pinky, (a double ended sardine boat common to the Passamaquoddy to Boston fish runs). The neat thing about this one is the ability that Blossom demonstrates in attaining deep color saturation in a WATERCOLOR. His secret has been to use a little guache in with his watercolors in a means that Ive always wanted to learn.

weird, on a recheck edit. the Jinishian gallwries lists the Blossom work as an OIL. and the MAQ lists it as a watercolor. I guess the internet can **** up also.

EITHER way, a good sea state in this painting. Marine Art, like anything else, is the artists trying to show their best stuff. Many times, you can see a piece of work by a real great artist that doesnt look too good. Thats just baseball and marine art.
Wildlife art, where I used to exhibit, is the same thing. You can ahve one dud painting and because youve spent time on it, you maybe have too much time invested in the work to be really objective enough. SO, instead of listening to your wife wo tells ya to lose the one painting, you exhibit it and its the only work that everyone hates . SO it sits there like a GIANT PUSTULE .
but I digress.

The reason i described Hunt as "superior" is because not only is there a high quality in terms of artistic quality, but Mr. Hunt also gets the technical details of how sailing vessels were rigged and handled at sea correct. Here's a perfect example of what i mean:



This shows HMS Surprise with her "stunsails" (studding sails) rigged out. (Look at the long, narrow strips of canvas at the side of the sails at the top of the first and second masts, those are the studding sails.) If you look carefully you can see that the way the yards are braced, the wind is coming from very far aft of the port quarter. If you were standing on deck facing forward, you would feel the wind on the left side of your neck, but it wouldn't even brush your face. It would not be directly behind you, but just to the left of directly behind you. Almost all marine artists when showing a ship with stuns'ls rigged shows them to port and starboard of all the sails on both the main mast and the fore mast, which is just stupid. If you were running before the wind, or with a quartering wind far aft, setting stuns'ls on your main mast on both sides would effectively rob the sails on the foremast of their wind, defeating the purpose of putting out your stuns'ls in the first place. Additionally, stuns'ls were almost never rigged on the courses (the lowest sails of the main and fore masts).

This painting is delightfully accurate. The stuns'ls are rigged on the starboard side of the tops'l (top sail) and the togarns'l (top gallant sail), and on the port side of the fore tops'l and the fore togarns'l. This means that they are being most effectively used. The implication is that there is a good steady wind, but not of great force. It appears that they have just let fall the main course (lowest sail on the middle mast), suggesting that although the wind is steady and seems reliable, it is not so strong that it would threaten to carry away any sails or rigging. Note also that the royals (the fourth sail from the bottom) are set. The entire picture says to me that they have a steady but not especially strong breeze coming over the taffrail on the port side, very far aft, but not so far aft that they are actually running before the wind. By setting royals (the fourth sail up from the deck) it implies that they are attempting to get the most from a steady wind which is not terribly strong. The stuns'ls set on the starboard side of the tops'l and the togarns'l don't rob any of the sails of the fore mast of their wind, and the stuns'ls set on the port side of the fore tops'l and fore togarns'l don't rob the jibs and forestays'l of any wind. Note also that they don't have any stays'ls (stay sails) set other than the fore stays'l, which would also otherwise rob sails forward of the stays'ls of their wind. They are setting as much canvas as possible in the most efficient manner to get the greatest benefit from the available wind.

This is a much higher quality of technical representation than you can necessarily expect from all marine artists.

That's interesting. I can usually spot a watercolor immediately, but it didn't cross my mind here, until I read your description.

To put this in very simple terms, the stronger the wind, the fewer sails you need to set--the fewer you want to set. Note in that painting that Surprise doesn't "have the bone in her teeth," she doesn't show a strong bow wave--she's not moving very fast. She either has just braced the yards around and set the studding sails (most likely) to get the most out of a weak but steady wind which has just come up, or the wind though steady is very weak (possible, but less likely) and is not moving her fast enough to throw up a bow wave.

The favorite wind of sailor in those days was what they called a "fine tops'l breeze," which means the wind is strong enough that you actually reduce sail to get more speed. You would clew up your courses (the bottom sails on the first and second masts) and rely on your top sails and top gallant sails (and possibly, probably your royals) to drive the vessel, and then rig out your stay sails (rigged between the masts, and resembling jibs) to sail as fast as possible on a bowline, meaning sailing with the wind coming from near the front of the vessel, and coming strong. You want less sail because carrying more sail could actually threaten the sails, yards and rigging.

Im not gonna keep playing that "my dog is uglier than your dog " game, frankly its kinda adolescent. ALL the major marine artists strive for accuracy, but accuracy is but one of te aspects that make a great marine painting.
COMPOSITION and COLOR, are two aspects that, in the first GEof Hunt painting, was only mildly interesting. I dont like marine paintings that PLOP the focal point ead center in the canvas. Its a gimmick that doesnt require any input from the viewer. The artist totally takes over and begins a visual "lecture". That is not what makes a great painting. Give me a a great composition, great laying out of the focal point so I have to work to create the total scene. (If the ship is coming in or going out of the field of view, it represents a better thought out presentation.
SEASTATE and the accuracy of its presentation is also important to me. When I look at Blossoms sea state in the one Im attaching as well as the previous sardine carrier, Ive actually liived those seas states and have seen them in action in Northern waters. Your second Hunt painting is also a good representation of seas state and cxonveys a proper rigging for that weather. If you look close enough, you can see the direction that the breezes are blowing from the sea alone.

So, Ill present my paintings without the "Good better bestes" personal judgement. These are all very accomplished artists who, many, like Blossom and evers, have invested many years actually working on sailing shipes (Blossom) or as a war time reporter on tin cans and cruisers, (so that evers work gets a feeling of where all that oil goes)

Heres another Blossom work showing the "BAnk Fogs" that occur in Northern Waters as these Gloucestermen set out nets . Look how you are manipulated to follow the net boats and the second Gloucesterman sneaking behind the first schooner.

Oh bite me . . . what a grouch. You didn't have your coffee yet this morning? I consider any work of art which is in a genre such as this to be superior if it has more verisimilitude. So sue me.

Total bullshit set. Every artist in this league is able to produce great scene or a dud. So nuff said. AN artist will view the various painings differently tahn will a sail nut. Most paintings I have to show are actually "Iron bottoms" an d not sail

My previous Chris Blossom got lost. I will re find it cause the atmospheric perspective was brilliant

Heres another Blossom painting that gets the feeling of the season into your bones .

I look at marine art prices on ASKART and get a sense that there is an elite group of artists with Carl Evers and John Prentiss Benson as the "top earners" per painting. They are both sufficiently dead and so their paintings are in the several hundred k mark. Hunt, Blossom,Fred Waugh, and Gordon Grant re in a second tier of the market. Even though their prices are creeping up (original fine art paintings, not book illustrations or commercial art)

You've got a little bit of snobbishness of your own goin' on there, FM. All of Mr. Hunt's paintings from which book covers were made were originally oil on canvas. From those, photolithography was used to produce lithographs, with the stones broken up after a limited run of prints. Mr. Hunt's work is sufficiently highly regarded that the gallery for which i originally posted a link is offering to purchase copies of those prints which are in good condition.

This is genre art. People will buy it just because it has to do with the sea, or ships, or sailing ships--and some artists will put out any old crap to exploit the market. It's no different in other genres. If someone were to produce a painting of the battle of Shiloh, for example, and got the representation of the scrub woods with heavy undergrowth wrong, or got the uniforms (or rather, lack of uniforms) wrong, or otherwise committed glaring historical errors--they'd have a downscale market among enthusiasts who lack the knowledge to judge the accuracy of the representation. They probably wouldn't care that discerning collectors of military art wouldn't give their work a second glance--and they certainly would never command the highest prices for their work.

The same applies to the genre of marine art. The people to whom you refer as the highest money earners will obviously accurately depict the seas, the vessels, the weather conditions--because if they don't, they're not going to get the big bucks from the collectors with money who aren't going to be fooled by those matters.

It is because Mr. Hunt's works have artistic merit and are accurate depictions of the conditions of sea and sky and the rigging of vessels that i consider him a superior artist. If i live long enough, maybe he'll die and i can find out if his paintings start commanding the highest prices.

Heres another artist who understands and bemoans the "old marine art market". In which the clients agent, like the MArston Agency would contact the dealers like jehinian and put artists and clients together.

NOBODY just does a marine art oil painting and just happens to have it selected for an illustration. You obviously have no idea how the market works. If there is an assignement (like the CAptain and Commander series) a successful artist is almost 100% syre to submit sevral working drawings to the publisher or the movie studio and these are "worked out" well before anybody slops any oil or guacxhe onto a canvas or ill board. Ive been in that market with my mentore Jck Coggins. He did many "Golden Books" and I was a student who he allowed to submit work . Id watch as Coggins went over many sheets of comments on his (and one or two of mine) sketches by the golden book publishers. The final drawings were then done and resubmitted and only after several levels of approval were given, wed actually do the work.

I took several courses at PArsons on the "business of art and illustration" and I learned quite early that one doesnt waste huge amounts of efforts on a technique that could occupy months of valuable time, only to find out that the work wont fit the book cover because the gold lettering (for example) doesnt lie well with a background of light blue sky. ALl this is worked out in severe detail before the final works are committed to canvas.

This is a work by Allen who had it used as a museum leaflet and the lettering <I suppose, fit just right. Imagine if the background conflicted with the writing