The Sea in Painting
The sea, water and beaches, harbours and ships have always had a great tradition as motifs in art because they symbolise longing and departure, the force of nature and harmony in equal measure. From Caspar David Friedrich to Emil Nolde and Andy Warhol to Gerhard Richter, the list of those who were fascinated by the atmosphere on the coast is long. Max Beckmann wrote in 1915: "If I were the emperor of the earth, I would ask as my highest right to be alone on the beach for one month a year." Max Pechstein and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff are even said to have met me once in rowing boats on Lake Leba in Pomerania. Claude Monet, who grew up in the French port city of Le Havre, also documented his great love of water in numerous pictures. "I would like to be always by or at the sea, and when I die, I would like to be buried in a buoy," he is said to have once said. Lyonel Feininger spent a lot of time on the Baltic Sea: " At the beach, towards evening, there was a mirror-like smoothness and strange cloud formation. Colours I see here by the sea, impossible to describe."
