Jan Porcellis

Jan Porcellis (1580/84 Ghent – 29 January 1632 Zoeterwoude) was a Dutch marine artist in the seventeenth century. His works initiated a "decisive transition from early realism to the tonal phase", fostering a new style and subject in marine painting by focusing on overcast skies and rough waters, a radical break from maritime art's previous focus on the grandeur of ships in historical settings. This style of greater simplicity surrounding maritime art, with the majority of the canvas displaying sea and sky, set the grounds for later works in this genre.

Life

Early life and career Ships in a Storm on a Rocky Coast by Jan Porcellis. Oil on canvas, 1614-1618, Hallwyl Museum. Jan Porcellis was born at Ghent, around 1580 or 1584.

His early paintings date from 1612. His style became recognizable because of the use of many different light hues, exemplified in paintings such as Storm at Sea, which includes light effects previously unseen. Also notable from this period is Porcellis' rendition of Sea Battle at Night which, as its name indicates, features a marine conflict in dim light, with enemy ships barely visible and a gradual recognition of the subjects. He gained more popularity because of the detail in his paintings, particularly in portraying the Beach View of Haarlem, various of which were found scattered in other European places and palaces, such as Palazzo Venezia in Rome, or in the collection of the Emperor of Germany. In these years Porcellis' series of twenty etchings, Verscheyden Stranden en Water Gesichten, was published in Haarlem by Jan Pietersz.

Storm at Sea was the only representation of battle at night in Dutch art. In Porcellis' era, the ship was considered a metaphor for the human soul and sea voyage a symbol for human life. In account of which, the marine themes such as storm at the sea or shipwreck remind the spectator of human frailty and divine power. Whether Porcellis' paintings have a moral message is uncertain, but the arrangement as seen in Sea Battle by Night, where the fights go on the distance while fishing continues in the foreground, seems to inspire thinking on human mortality. These seascapists, more often than not, followed Porcellis in his depictions of anonymous ships surrounded by vast expanses of sea and sky (Slive 217).

Works Ships in a Storm on a Rocky Coast (c. 1614-18), Hallwyl Museum, Stockholm, Sweden. Dutch Vessels in a Strong Breeze (1618), National Maritime Museum, London Dutch Ships in a Gale (c. 1620) Stormy Seas (1629), Alte Pinakothek, Munich Vessels in a Moderate Breeze (c. 1629), Los Angeles County Museum of Art Seascape (c. 1630), Hermitage, Saint Petersburg Fisherman Hauling Nets (1630) Vessels in the Strong Winds (c. 1630) Single-Masted Damlooper and Rowboat on a Breezy Day, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Shipping in Stormy Seas Sea Battle at Night Calmy Seas, Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux