What home is complete without a seascape on the wall?

The sea provides a backdrop to all our lives – even in our homes, for we seem to have an indefatigable appetite for seascapes. Romance, beauty, danger and power are all part of this enduring fascination with and appreciation of the sea.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), one of the mostloved painters of seascapes, spent his formative years on the waterfront. He was brought up by the River Thames, then schooled at Margate on the Kent coast. From his first-exhibited oil painting entitled Fishermen at Sea in 1792, waterscapes run through the heart of his prolific oeuvre. So obsessed was Turner with capturing the truth of the elements, he allegedly had himself tied to the mast of a ship in a storm – an experience that gave birth to Snowstorm Steam- Boat Off a Harbour Mouth in 1842 (above).

Though an accepted genius today, Turner’s abstract style drew criticism from contemporary figures, not least Queen Victoria. Not at all amused by his heroic endeavours, Her Majesty is said to have considered the artist mad and declared that Snowstorm looked as if it had been painted with ‘cream, chocolate, eggs and jelly’ and depicted nothing but ‘soap suds and whitewash’.

Even now, interpreting his works is not without its problems. Ian Warrell, Art Curator at the Tate, discovered in 2003 that two Turner paintings, presumed to have been of Venice in all its romantic glory, infact depicted the Solent and the dock city of Portsmouth on the south coast of England. As a result, Festive Lagoon Scene, Venice (1840–5) and Procession of Boats with Distant Smoke, Venice (1845) have been renamed The Arrival of Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth, 8 October 1844 and The Disembarkation of Louis-Philippe, 8 October 1844 respectively.

An artist at work

A talk with Cornish Artist Glyn Macey reveals that painting seascapes today retains all the mystery and fascination that so captivated Turner. Glyn explains: ‘I love working outside in all weathers – to capture that exhilaration is a joy. It comes down to trying to capture the fleeting light, the wave crashing, the energy that the moment contains.’

Glyn, who works in whatever media are to hand, continues: ‘I love to really explore a particular location throughout the year, and experience all of its various moods. The challenge of trying to capture those differences is what gets me up in the mornings. Most of the paint is swept on using my hands and fingers; I can get much more movement into the work than I can with a brush.’

Born and raised on the coast, Glyn grew up watching the Penlee lifeboat launch. ‘Those sights, sounds and smells stay with you. I still have drawings of the Solomon Browne that I made when I was about 8.’ Glyn was 12 when that lifeboat was lost with all hands. ‘I remember some of my friends at school had relatives in the crew. Fast-forward almost 30 years and my best friend at school is now Coxswain.’

Last year Glyn painted at 180 locations from Aldeburgh to Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bournemouth to Dungeness, Jersey to Lindisfarne. ‘It seemed to make sense to use the project as an RNLI fundraiser and I’m delighted that it raised over £22,000,’ says Glyn.

Shipwrecks on the shore

The opening article of the very first Life-boat journal was written a year after Turner’s death. It is a stirring call to arms to enlist the ‘sympathy of a maritime country’ to help protect those ‘whose business is in the great waters’ against the ‘horrors of shipwreck’.

The statistics that follow are a solemn reminder of why the RNLI was founded. In 1850 alone, 692 vessels were shipwrecked with a loss of over 780 lives. Wreck figures from single storms follow: we learn that 103 vessels were lost on 13 January 1843.

It is perhaps easy to think of paintings depicting rigging disappearing under mountainous waves as something of a cliché. But the figures sharply remind us how real a scene this was. It is little wonder that it fired the imagination of artists and was such a recurrent theme in paintings. The advent of lifeboats and corklifejacketed crew rowing to the rescue could only add to the drama.

Value of the visual

The RNLI’s subsidiary charity the RNLI Heritage Trust has in its care over 116 such paintings. Heritage Manager Dr Joanna Bellis and Heritage Collections Officer Carolyn Anand have a vast challenge of a job that sees them restoring, preserving and archiving everything ‘lifeboat’ from the minutiae of a lock of hair to a whole boat.

‘Archival information is incredibly important,’ asserts Carolyn. ‘Every organisation must have a sense of where it’s come from, and the RNLI’s sense of identity and its past is one of its biggest strengths.’ The archive documents the technical progression in boats, stations and kit, but it’s also the best source for emotive stories that capture the heart.

Film and Image Manager Eleanor Driscoll agrees: ‘A picture really is worth a thousand words.’ Eleanor has responsibility for the RNLI’s 26,000-strong library of photographs dating from 1863 to the present day. ‘Images inspire, motivate and renew interest in a way that words alone can’t.’

RNLI images are used within the charity’s Christmas cards and calendars, in newspaper articles and television programmes. Direct mail, information leaflets, posters and of course the Lifeboat are all brought alive by images old and new. Artworks are loaned out and reproduction rights are sold to publishers.

The RNLI collection

Some paintings are hung within the charity’s Headquarters in Poole for the inspiration of staff while others are at relevant public locations, where conditions are appropriate. For example, Grace Darling and Henry Blogg pictures have found their natural home in the respective RNLI museums in Northumberland and Norfolk.

Currently hung in the Lifeboat College in Poole is one of Carolyn’s favourite works, Launching of Hoylake Lifeboat, 1933 (shown opposite, left). ‘We received it from the artist’s estate in 1992,’ she explains. ‘Gwendoline Violet Turner [no relation] was just 13 years old when she painted it and won a competition. It perfectly captures the time and has so much detail. You can just feel the two men pulling the lifeboat, and the crowd is so vivid!’

The college also offers a public space for current artists who have an interest in the maritime and the RNLI. Exhibitions are quarterly and the best-selling artists donate a proportion of their sales. In 2009, the college had its first artist in residence. Minna Harvey observed lifeboat crews training and recorded her year in a series of pastel sketches.

A source of sadness for Carolyn is that bequeathed artworks more often arrive with no background information and their identity unknown. But sometimes fate intervenes … The RNLI received a painting of Grace Darling (above right) as a legacy from BBC Radio Archivist and Producer Madeau Stewart. The work was familiar – a copy was already on display in Bamburgh – but there was a key difference. This one was acknowledged as a copy of a painting by Charles Achille d’Hardivillier.

Carolyn takes up the story: ‘This was a name I recognised from the inscription on some books sent to Grace. I knew him to be the French art master who accompanied to Scotland the young Duc de Bordeaux, the pretender to the throne of France. He’d obviously heard about this young heroine who was the absolute media star of her day. From there I found out that the original was sold at Sotheby’s in 1990.’

Embracing digital

We now live in a digital age, bombarded with images and information from every quarter, and it’s been vital that the RNLI establishes its own place within this. Where once a rescue was captured in a single painting, today we have video caught by a passer-by and immediately disseminated to a vast array of media.

The RNLI is now able to supply superb images itself from those in the thick of the action. With the help of Pentax in 2005 it provided every lifeboat station and lifeguard unit with a waterproof hand-held digital camera so that they could generate their own imagery when appropriate. This has now developed into a phased roll out of video cameras on lifeboats, and helmet cameras for lifeguards and inshore lifeboat crew.

The RNLI’s Photographer of the Year competition was born out of this initiative and is now in its fifth year. Eleanor describes its success: ‘We have 200–300 images sent in by our volunteers each year that we can then catalogue into our library and keep for future use. Local media are always keen to run stories about the winners too, so it’s a good-news story all round.’

That’s not to say the RNLI doesn’t need to commission works from professionals. When something special is required, Eleanor has a reliable list of suppliers. Among them is Nigel Millard, whose many photo credits eager readers of the Lifeboat magazine may have noticed. Based in Devon but working internationally, Nigel has been involved with the RNLI since 2004.

By undertaking commissions at a tiny fraction of the daily rate he’d normally charge, and giving the RNLI full rights to reproduce the results, Nigel has saved the charity £10,000s as well as creating a distinctive and high-class portfolio for both parties. His heartfelt interest in the charity even led him to volunteer for his local lifeboat station and, after full training, he is now a crew member. In recognition of his considerable contribution, Nigel will be receiving the RNLI’s Individual Supporter Award at the Annual Presentation of Awards ceremony in May.

Of course, despite all technological advances, the sea hasn’t changed. It is just as captivating and unpredictable as it ever was. It will never cease to amaze, thrill and frighten. And we will never tire of enjoying its timeless essence at a safe distance in our art.

• See winning images from the 2009 RNLI Photographer of the Year competition on page 18.
• Buy RNLI images via the online print store rnli-photostore.co.uk or make individual requests by email to [email protected], by phoning 01202 663335 or by post to the Film and Image Unit at RNLI eadquarters.
• See Glyn Macey’s work at sailingart.co.uk.