Friday, September 12, 2014

Paintings of La Rochelle added to GeoCodedArt

La Rochelle Harbour 1762






Painting by Claude Vernet (1714-1789). Vernet is one of the finest of classical scene painters, usually focused on harbors; the subjects were mixed between sites of interest in antiquity, current scenes of his time, and hybrid imaginary scenes of unnamed locations.  In this work Vernet carefully picks a vantage point which includes the great clock tower, the towers that guard the harbor, and the activities of the folks at the water’s edge that are the essence of La Rochelle.  With a grandeur that later painters never attempted once photography came along, the artist captures far more than a single exposure of a camera ever could: the range of light and focal length which allows the adaptive human eye to appreciate the glory of the sunset, the soaring of the shore birds, the details of the activity in the harbor, and the impressive silhouette of the towers keeping watch.





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