On the Texel, Holland by Clarkson Stanfield. 1856. Oil on canvas, 61 x 91 cm. Collection: Guildhall Art Gallery, London. Reproduced courtesy of the City of London Corporation. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
Many of Stanfield’s sea pieces can equally well be described as sea-and-land pieces, since the artist frequently paints a bit of the shore pushing into the frame, such as the dock at the left of The Market Boat or the much larger amount of rocky coastline in Oxwich Bay, but many of his works have rough seas, even close to land, and a painting like On the Texel, Holland, which has land in the left foreground and the right distance, emphasizes the power of the sea both by the size of the waves and the two ships, one near and one far, driven at an angle by the wind, and in
Stanfield's paintings that most emphasize the power of the sea in relation to human beings and their efforts are those that depict shipwrecks, such as
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Created 3 February 2015