Marine painting is a genre of painting that depicts marit.mes subjects. Such works are referred to as seascapes. Until the 19th century, the sea was never depicted on its own; watercraft of all types, sizes and numbers were the main subjects.

Seascape as a genre of European art has its origins, unsurprisingly, in the Netherlands. No other seafaring people in the world created more seascapes than the Dutch. In fact, marine painting should be seen as an extension of Dutch landscape painting, as the boundary between land and sea was always fleeting in the Netherlands.

Marine painting began its rise in the 16th century in the Netherlands, where it reached its first peak in the 17th century. The paintings reflected the marit.mes dominance of the Netherlands in world trade – a fact that was repeated in art. Large three-masted ships and proud East Indiamen, who completed the journey around the Cape of Good Hope to the East Indies in around three months, were often the focus of attention. Of course, the warships that defended the rebellious northern provinces against the Spanish navy in their struggle for independence, were also painted. The ships painted during the ‘Golden Age’ were usually part of a heroic narrative.

This changed in the 19th century. People and art now looked more inward. The horrors caused by the long-lasting Napoleonic Wars and the associated economic decline created a new awareness of the fragility of human existence, and the ship on high seas, buffeted by high waves, was the best symbol of this.

At this t.mes Dutch marine painting experienced a strong revival, but the focus was no longer on triumphant magnificent sailing ships as symbols of a strong and victorious state, but rather on the romanticism of human destiny, loneliness and fragility. Sea storms and ships in distress were now increasingly painted.

Raden Saleh limited himself exclusively to this theme. All the marine paintings he produced, I currently know of 18 works, show ships in distress on northern seas. Masts are already broken and drifting in the raging waves, almost always with a barrel floating near the damaged ship, and above it all, huge mountains of clouds are building up. Most of the t.mes a hole opens up in the clouds and a patch of blue sky appears as a glimmer of hope – as if to say: life is a stormy shower, but in the end, everything will be fine.

Saleh himself had arrived in Antwerp on 20 July 1829 on the ship Raymond. They had been at sea for months, and he would have experienced many of the horrors he later painted.

It can therefore be assumed that, unlike most marine painters of the 19th century, Raden Saleh knew what he was talking and painting about: the unbridled power of nature, the waves and the winds, and the infinite vulnerability of human beings – but also the resilience and courage of the sailors who, despite all the lurking dangers, repeatedly took the risk. Raden Saleh knew all this well.

The painting we discussing here, a Dutch Three master in distress, painted in 1836, is the first seascape by Raden Saleh we know. Could the ship, which looks like a proud Indiaman, be the “Raymond”? The Ship he travelled on in 1829?¹

Most of the other ships in his “storm at sea” paintings are smaller vessels. Unique in this painting is also it’s colouring. The brownish and greenish colour palette that dominates the painting is not found later in Saleh's many seascapes. They are much brighter in colour. However, other artists, such as Andreas Achenbach (1815–1910) and Hermanus Koekkoek the Younger (1836–1909), later revisited these dark tones and incorporated them into their marit.mes works. After all they make sense and are much closer to reality: when the storm rages, the sky is not bright and blue, but covered with dark clouds, and the sea is turbulent and dark.

It is noteworthy that the captain of the ship has taken precautions: the sails are gathered and secured, offering no surface for the storm to attack.

The ship is being steered by an experienced sailor! Nevertheless, one or two objects have already gone overboard. For example, the barrel, popular with Raden Saleh. He rarely and reluctantly dispenses with this prop and usually places a seagull on it. However, the seagull also indicates that the safety of land cannot be too far away.

Just as Saleh learned very early on to paint snow and ice and to convey the cold of a Dutch winter's day tangibly on canvas, he also learned early on to depict the spray of rising waves and the resulting transparency of the sea convincingly and masterfully. He certainly acquired this skill in the studio of his teacher Andries Schelfhout, a jovial and affable man who was able to inspire his students.

Adolf Schäfer (who was later to become the first photographer in Java) wrote in his journal “Dresdner Wochenblatt für vaterländische Interessen (4/8/1840) about a seascape Raden Saleh had submitted to the annual Dresden Academy exhibition:

Similarly approving was Johann Gottlieb von Quandt, the leading art theorist of the t.mes and friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He commented on this Storm at Sea by Raden Saleh:

Raden Saleh was very pleased by these friendly reviews, which were also most certainly mirrored in personal conversations at evening gatherings, and felt that his decision to paint large hunting pictures and sea tempests had been right. This he expressed in a letter he wrote at the end of 1840 from Dresden to his mentor, the Dutch Colonial Minister J. C. Baud:

Raden Saleh tried his hand at the sea storm genre because it played a decisive role in Romanticism’s Zeitgeist of the 19th century. Romanticism, which permeated the entire continent as an intellectual current, drove the motif of shipwreck to a climax that was at the same t.mes its end point.

Raden Saleh was born in Java, and although he and his family were very open to the enlightened and scientific ideas of Europe, they were nevertheless strongly influenced and inspired by the rich Javanese culture and its values. Among the fundamental values of this culture are the pursuit of balance and equilibrium. The world can only be in order when all forces, powers and feelings find their place in balance. Exuberant and uncontrolled feelings and forces of nature are not part of the desired harmony. Here, in the genre of marine painting, Saleh temporarily deviated from this fundamental theme of his culture. But only for a few years. He painted most of his marine paintings between 1838 and 1842. After that, he only painted a few commissioned works, such as in 1875 during his second trip to Europe in Coburg. On this second trip, however, he did not board a sailing ship, but a steam-powered French luxury liner that sailed from Singapore through the Suez Canal and the calm Mediterranean Sea to the port of Marseille. Sea storms with sailing ships were therefore strange anachronisms, just as the ageing Javanese painter with his young wife had become an anachronism in Europe in 1875.

But in 1836, when he painted the here discussed storm at sea, he was no anachronism, but an respected artist approaching the height of his technical abilities and in no way inferior to his European colleagues.

¹ The ship flies the Dutch flag. Many, or most of his later ships in destress fly the American flag of the 13 states, which was officially valid between 14 June 1777 and 1 May 1795. In 1840 the stars on the flag of the United States of America had doubled already. Where did Raden Saleh pick up his (poor) knowledge about American flags? Maybe it’s interesting to note, that the first painting of Raden Saleh exhibited in the US was a storm at sea. The catalogue entry reads: “No. 17, Raden Saleh, A squall. The artist is an oriental prince. This painting is one of those remarkable pieces of imagination which genius can only paint from memory, since it has no opportunity to observe such a scene for long. The storm is raging, and below the high shore an American ship lies in wreck, while further away another is trying to escape the impending danger. The fury of the hurricane, the force with which the high waves are thrown against the surf, the fury of the elements and the gloom of this spectacle are depicted very vividly and impressively.” Catalogue of Oil Paintings and Statuary, by Modern Belgian Masters, exhibiting and for sale. De Braekeleer, Jr, New York,1853.

We thank Dr Werner Kraus for this catalogue entry.