Full title | A Landscape at Sunset with Fishermen returning with their Catch ('Calme') |
---|---|
Artist | Claude-Joseph Vernet |
Artist dates | 1714 - 1789 |
Series | Two Landscapes: A Sunset and a Storm |
Date made | 1773 |
Medium and support | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 114.5 x 163.5 cm |
Inscription summary | Signed; Dated |
Acquisition credit | Acquired with a donation from the American Friends of the National Gallery, London, made possible by a gift from David H. Koch, 2004 |
Inventory number | NG6600 |
Location | Room 40 |
Art route(s) | C |
Collection | Main Collection |
This is one of two paintings originally commissioned as a pair by Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, in June or July 1772. However, concerned that the King was slow to pay, Vernet instead sold the pictures to the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India).
This painting, originally known as ‘Calme’, was painted first. It shows an imaginary harbour as fishermen return with their catch on a tranquil summer’s evening. The golden setting sun is at the centre of the composition above the misty horizon, its light illuminating the undersides of the clouds and reflecting off the ripples on the calm sea. A ship has just arrived – it is just possible to make out the tiny figures on its mast yards furling the sails – and is being towed by two launches into the harbour.
‘Calme’ and its pair ‘Tempête’ are two of Vernet’s greatest marine paintings, and the only great pair of marine views by him in a British public collection.
This is one of two paintings originally commissioned as a pair by Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, in June or July 1772. However, concerned that the King was slow to pay, Vernet instead sold the pictures to the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India).
‘Calme’, which Vernet painted first, shows an imaginary harbour as fishermen return with their catch on a tranquil summer’s evening. The golden setting sun is at the centre of the painting above the misty horizon, its light illuminating the undersides of the clouds and reflecting off the ripples on the calm sea. At the entrance to the port is a lighthouse and some fortifications; a classical temple stands on the left-hand shore at the foot of a high wooded mountain. A ship has just arrived – it is just possible to make out the tiny figures on its mast yards furling the sails – and is being towed by two launches into the harbour.
In his letter to Clive’s agent, the English banker Henry Hoare, Vernet wrote about this painting: the ‘foreground is bedecked with numerous figures: fishermen unloading their catch from a boat, women waiting to get hold of them; a fisherman with a rod with his wife sitting next to him make a contrast to the sun’s disc, which is striking; overall this picture has a rich, harmonious composition.’
Light, shadow and atmosphere are the true subjects of Vernet’s painting, the figures in the foreground merely a foil to the hazy meeting of water, light and air. The painting follows in the tradition of the Italianate seaport paintings of Claude such as A Seaport of 1664, and Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula of 1641. In the pendant painting, ‘Tempête’ (‘Storm’), Vernet explores contrasts of light and extremes of weather.
Vernet’s landscapes and seascapes and the effects of weather were perceived as true to nature, and the ships in his marine views were based on careful observation. The nearest ship seen here is a two-decker of 50 guns with a correct build for the 1770s, probably a warship since it is flying a long naval style pennant, an exaggeratedly long Dutch flag, and possibly an East Indiaman.
Vernet’s paired seascapes were intended to have an emotional effect on their viewers, the serene beauty of ‘Calme’ contrasting with the sublime horror of ‘Tempête’. He was exploring fashionable ideas expressed in Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757; first French edition 1765) – a text that had a significant influence on the Romantic and Gothick movements in European art and literature.
These are two of Vernet’s greatest marine paintings and the type of work for which he was most famous in his day. They are the only great pair of marine views by him in a British public collection.
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Two Landscapes: A Sunset and a Storm
These two paintings, originally known as ‘Calme’ and ‘Tempête’ (Calm and Storm), were commissioned as a pair by Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, in June or July 1772. However, Vernet instead sold them to the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India), who had been impressed by two similar seascapes the artist had exhibited at the Paris Salon the previous year.
‘Calme’, which Vernet painted first, shows an imaginary harbour as fishermen return with their catch on a tranquil summer evening. ‘Tempête’ depicts a rocky shoreline buffeted by a violent sea storm. Two ships roll in the giant swell while another lies shattered against the rocks.
These are two of Vernet’s greatest marine paintings and the type of work for which he was most famous in his day. They are the only great pair of marine views by him in a British public collection.
At the 1771 Paris Salon, the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India) saw a pair of marine paintings by Vernet. He was so enchanted with them that he commissioned the artist to paint a similar pair, only larger, for him. When Vernet quoted 12000 livres, Clive balked at the price. The paintings he eventually bought early in May 1773 were not those he had commissioned, but a smaller pair that had been commissioned on behalf of Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, in June or July 1772 for 9,600 livres. According to the letter that Vernet wrote to Clive’s agent, the substitution was made because the King was slow to pay.
The painting originally known as ‘Calme’, which Vernet painted first, shows an imaginary harbour as fishermen return with their catch on a tranquil summer evening. The golden sun is at the centre of the painting, its light illuminating the undersides of the few clouds and reflecting off the surface ripples of the water. Light, shadow and atmosphere are the true subjects of Vernet’s painting, the figures in the foreground merely a foil to the beauty of the hazy meeting of light, air and water. The painting follows in the tradition of Claude’s Italianate seaport views such as A Seaport of 1664, and Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula of 1641.
The painting originally called ‘Tempête’ depicts a rocky shoreline buffeted by a violent sea storm. Two ships roll in the giant swell, sails tied down, or tattered by the turbulent winds and lashing rain. Bolts of lightning streak from the dark thunder clouds that cover the sun, but the lighthouse lamp is not lit. Huge waves crash over the shore, pouring like waterfalls back down from the cliffs. The remains of a ship lie shattered against the rocks in the lower right foreground. Figures carry salvaged goods up the beach, while an unconscious woman is laid out on a rock, her friends overwhelmed with despair. Further down the coast there is a break in the clouds and sunlight bathes the mountainous landscape. It appears that the devastating storm has arrived suddenly and without warning, leaving no time for the lighthouse lamp to be lit. Perhaps the distant sunlit landscape is to give us hope that the storm will soon abate.
Vernet intended his contrasting seascapes to affect our emotions and to leave us awed and inspired by the majestic power and beauty of nature. In this, he was exploring fashionable ideas expressed in Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757; first French edition 1765) – a text that had a significant influence on the Romantic and Gothick movements in European art and literature. Burke proposed that beauty stimulates love and relaxes, while the sublime excites horror and creates tension. When we realise that the horror of the sublime in the arts is fictional, this causes the negative feelings to dissipate and creates a sense of pleasure.
These are two of Vernet’s greatest marine paintings and the type of work for which he was most famous in his day. They are the only great pair of marine views by him in a British public collection.


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