3-035-481 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

A Storm on a Mediterranean Coast, 1767. Claude-Joseph Vernet depicted a storm's aftermath: dark clouds above an angry sea, a shipwrecked boat and its anxious survivors, and listing ships in the distance. As the sea furiously beats against the shoreline, waves explode beyond the rocks in a froth of white. The motion of the waves, the distant rain shaft, the battered ship, and even the bodies of the fleeing castaways fill the scene with strong, opposing diagonal lines. The lighthouse standing solidly upright at the painting's center counters all of this activity.