![]() This is based on Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 5 (604-710), and follows the years of wandering enforced on the Trojan Women following the city’s destruction. In The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet from about 1643, he shows a fine view along what must be the west coast of Italy, with groups of women about to set fire to those ships. We should perhaps be grateful that Claude Lorrain was not as skilled at painting figures, as he compensated in the brilliance of light, fine architecture, and sailing ships. Claude Lorrain (1604/1605–1682), The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet (c 1643), oil on canvas, 105.1 x 152.1 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. ![]() To reduce the numbers of paintings to something more manageable, I exclude fishing boats and other smaller vessels, and most sub-genre maritime and naval paintings, such as those you might see in maritime and naval museums. In today’s and tomorrow’s articles, I look at fine art paintings which feature ‘proper’ European sailing ships. By the Second World War, there were probably only a few hundred substantial sailing ships which were still seaworthy. Anchorages which would have contained many hundreds of sailing ships were fast emptying, as sail became the preserve of the rich, or the sporting. On 1 February 1869, the Cutty Sark was launched in a final effort to prove that sailing ‘clippers’ could perform better than the new steamships.Ī century ago, sail was in steep decline. One hundred and fifty years ago, sail and steam were in competition. Despite storms, limited navigational techniques, the arduous nature of life at sea, and many other hazards, these vessels plied the seven seas in vast numbers. Two centuries ago, our coasts and ports were crowded with sailing ships which travelled the world, transferring people and goods wherever. When changes happen slowly over decades, and the photographic record is limited, paintings are often the only way to see how events have turned. There’s a great deal of human history in paintings.
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