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Ocean Art and Literature
The ocean has been described in pictures and words in every culture. Images of sailors and vessels appear in the traditional media of painting and drawing, but also in the decorative arts, utilitarian items, ephemeral objects, even carved in rock walls of mountains and deserts. Museums, of course, are predictable sources for these works, but they can also be found in expressions of popular culture, past and present, in fiction and non-fiction, in films, poetry and song.
Below is a preliminary list of useful links. Much of this material is not easily discovered on the Internet. Ocean literature may also be found in Publications. To suggest relevant sites, please contact us.
Cape Farewell brings artists, scientists and educators together to collectively address and raise awareness about climate change. Created by David Buckland, Cape Farewell has led three expeditions into the wild, beautiful and icy High Arctic, a place for artistic inspiration and scientific enquiry.
'Articles on climate change appear almost daily in the newspapers, and on television and it can appear that such issues are beyond our control. This is why we are trying to use the personal experiences of renowned artists, and the creative vocabulary of art rather than science, to raise an awareness that everyone individually can help alleviate the impacts of climate change...'
Bergit Arends, Art Curator at the Natural History Museum, London
This gallery at Britain’s National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, offers an overview of the sea in European visual culture from the 16th to 21st centuries.
A voyager's record in art of boats and maritime life around the world.
Lists auctions, art galleries, and museums with marine art collections, and offers articles on marine art history, links to marine photography and maritime research sites, and a library of titles on marine art.
Insider information from the one of the contemporary marine art world’s leading galleries; offers issues of the Quarterly, images of new works, information about historic marine art, and links to gallery exhibitions.
A gallery of members' work is an outstanding feature of this site on contemporary American marine art. ASMA is a membership organization aiming to recognize and promote marine art and history, and to encourage the interests of artists, historians, marine enthusiasts and others.
An art expedition to Antarctica traces the stars above the South Pole onto the ice, and will be repeated at the North Pole: an astonishing physical "snapshot" of the stars.
The Institute For Figuring is crocheting a coral reef: a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.
Arden Scott's environment provides much of the inspiration for her artwork, which most recently has centered on the creation of elegantly simplified sculptures of boats, canoes and other pleasure craft.
The Australian National Maritime Museum's display of its renowned Saltwater Collection... eighty spectacular Indigenous bark paintings that double as legal documents.
All of these works were painted by artists among the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land in the late 1990s to explain their traditional ties with the region's coastal zone - their 'saltwater country.' Click here for image gallery.
Musician and composer Terje Isunget ( http://www.isung.net) creates musical instruments out of ice and composes and performs original compositions. Here, he collaborates with Dr. Peter Wasilewski ( http://www.frizion.com), a NASA scientist, who "(paints) with light on a canvas of ice."
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