A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas

Joseph Vernet's Shipwreck in Stormy Seas from 1773, in the National Gallery, is one of his dramatic tempest paintings that combined the sublime terror of storms at sea with the human drama of shipwreck. Vernet's storm paintings were among his most popular works, satisfying the eighteenth-century taste for the sublime—the aesthetic category of awe-inspiring terror that Edmund Burke had theorized in 1757. These paintings influenced the development of Romantic marine painting, from Turner to Géricault.

Vernet renders the storm with dramatic contrasts of light and dark, the crashing waves and windswept clouds creating a convincing atmosphere of maritime catastrophe. His technique balances theatrical drama with convincing observation of sea and weather conditions.