A Sea port: gale rising

Callcott's A Sea Port: Gale Rising from around 1840 shows him treating marine subjects with the atmospheric drama of approaching weather — a subject that English painters had developed from the Dutch marine tradition while adding the meteorological intensity that Constable and Turner had made central to British landscape painting. By 1840, Callcott was Sir Augustus Wall Callcott — he had been knighted in 1837 — and his position as one of the establishment's leading artists was secure. His late marine paintings show the influence of Turner, whose weather effects and atmospheric ambition had raised the standard for marine painting to a level that Callcott absorbed without slavishly imitating.

Callcott renders the approaching storm with dramatic atmospheric effects, using dark, turbulent tones in the sky contrasting with the choppy water. The ships and harbor structures are painted with careful detail while the overall composition creates a sense of impending natural drama. The brushwork is more energetic than Callcott's calmer landscape painting.