# Ships Running Aground in a Storm [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [BACKHUYSEN, Ludolf]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 173,5 x 341 cm ## Commentary While Dutch primacy in merchant shipping offered high rewards, its risks were equally significant. On their long journeys to the Mediterranean, the New World, Africa, and the East, merchant vessels were perennially endangered by warfare, piracy, treacherous shores, and storms. Several painters, most dramatically Ludolf Backhuysen, specialized in ships adrift in tempests. Backhuysen executed this painting \(his largest surviving one\) as if he were observing the disaster in the midst of the roiling seas, thus engaging beholders in the unfolding tragedy, encouraging them to empathize with the ships and their crews and to contemplate the powers of God, beyond full comprehension. But even as such paintings acknowledge the fragility of Dutch seaborne success, their distant shafts of sunlight usually hold out hope for reversals of misfortune. A brighter future may still save Backhuysen's ship at left, its Dutch flag unfurled against lightening skies. Collectors occasionally hung a tempest painting opposite a sunny shipping scene, implying that the power of God and nature, whether terrifying or benevolent, is always magnificent. <P> <TABLE ALIGN=LEFT CELLPADDING=5 BORDER=1 WIDTH=320 BGCOLOR="\#99CCCC"> <TR VALIGN=MIDDLE><TD><IMG SRC="/support/gif/listen.gif" BORDER=0 VALIGN=MIDDLE> Suggested listening \(streaming mp3, 10 minutes\):<BR><A HREF="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/music1/18\_cent/vivaldi\_rv253\_storm.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return true"><B>Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in E flat major RV 253 op. 8 No. 5 \(Storm at sea\)</B></A> </TD></TR></TABLE> ## Related artworks - [A Fishing Pink]() - [Dutch Coastal Vessels]() - [Dutch Vessels off a Coastline on a Breezy Day]() - [Dutch Vessels on the Sea at Amsterdam]() - [Fishing Boats and Coasting Vessel in Rough Weather]() - [Shipping by the Dutch Coast]() - [Ships in a Stiff Breeze]() - [Ships in Distress in a Raging Storm]() - [Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast]() - [Ships on the Zuiderzee before the Fort of Naarden]() - [Small Dutch Vessels]() - [View from the Mussel Pier in Amsterdam]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()