Sailing ships at sea on a calm summer day.

Christian Blache's calm summer sea subject (1887) documents the more benign dimension of Nordic maritime experience — the flat calm conditions that allowed sailing ships to move through the Sound or open Baltic with the gentle breezes of a summer day. The contrast between his storm and calm subjects reveals the full range of maritime conditions he documented: from the dramatic violence of autumn gales to the languid movement of vessels in light summer airs.

Blache renders the calm summer sea through a palette of soft blues and whites — the flat sea surface reflecting the pale summer sky, the vessels moving with minimal wind tension in their sails. His handling of calm water conditions requires different technique from his storm subjects: the still surface providing a mirror for sky and vessel, the absence of wave motion creating a reflective quality quite different from the tumultuous conditions of his more dramatic subjects.