Hi there, readers. Welcome back to another Wednesday Words. Today let’s think about sailing ships in rough seas. Let’s think about ourselves as the ships and LIFE as the sea. Here’s a wonderful piece about this from The School of Life: An Emotional Education.
In the seventeenth century, the Dutch developed a tradition of painting that depicted ships in violent storms. These works, which hung in private homes and in municipal buildings around the Dutch Republic, had an explicitly therapeutic purpose: They were delivering a moral to their viewers, who lived in a nation critically dependent on maritime trade, about confidence in seafaring and life more broadly.
Ludolf Bakhuizen painted “Warships in Heavy Storm” around 1695. The scene looks chaotic in the extreme: How could the ships survive? But they were designed for just such situations. Their hulls had been minutely adapted through long experience to withstand the tempests of the northern oceans. The crews practiced again and again the maneuvers that could keep their vessels safe. …
The picture pays homage to decades of planning and experience. One can imagine the older sailors on the ship saying to a terrified novice, with a laugh, that just last year, off the coast of Jutland, there was an even bigger storm—and slapping him on the back with paternal playfulness as the youth was sick overboard. Bakhuysen wanted us to feel proud of humanity’s resilience in the face of dreadful challenges.
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Thanks for reading!
Stay calm and carry on.
Best wishes from your writer on the wing,
Charlene
John Arnett
Albert Sweitzer had an epiphany while in his canoe down the river, and it became his mantra — “Reverence for Life”.
And, as we get closer to spring and see the jonquils re-emerge after a hard winter, there’s another reminder of the resilience of life.
Good words and I like the image of ships weathering storms
Hopefully, the ship USA will weather the current Trump-Musk storm
Kathleen Brandt
I clicked on the link and saw the painting on the Rijksmuseum website. Really makes this come alive!
I like the image of ships weathering storms too… especially at the moment.