Boats off the coast, storm approaching
John Sell Cotman British
As he approached fifty, Cotman abandoned oil painting after a number of his works failed to sell and instead refocused his ambitions on watercolor. This luminous seascape demonstrates his mature mastery of the medium. The fishing boat threatened by a storm may allude to the artist’s personal struggles, but more obviously it pays tribute to J. M. W. Turner’s famous painting Dutch Boats in a Gale (1801; National Gallery, London), as both works are centered on a sharply canted, golden-sailed fishing boat, distant warship, and looming clouds. More generally, Cotman is declaring his admiration for seventeenth-century Dutch seascapes while also demonstrating how watercolors can effectively convey effects of light and weather. To produce the milky, foam-topped waves, for example, he experimented with mixing flour paste into his washes.
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