Storm off Cape Ampeglio

"Storm off Cape Ampeglio" from 1912 records Corinth's engagement with landscape as dramatic theater, a tradition stretching from Turner and Delacroix through the German Romantic seascape painters. Cape Ampeglio lies on the Italian Riviera near Bordighera — a coastline beloved by European artists including Claude Monet, who had worked there in the 1880s. Corinth's visit to this stretch of Mediterranean coast in 1912, during his recuperation from the previous year's stroke, produced several landscape works charged with the restless energy of his post-illness practice. The storm motif suited his post-stroke expressiveness: turbulent sea and sky offered a subject that demanded the same agitated, sweeping brushwork that his partial paralysis now generated naturally.

Marine storm painting demands swift, dynamic marks to suggest the movement of water and cloud, and Corinth's post-stroke technique was well suited to the subject. Broad diagonal strokes would carry the energy of breaking waves, while rapid horizontal dragging could suggest spray and mist. Color likely ranges from deep grey-greens and indigos in the sea to lighter, more aerated tones in disturbed sky.