Museum Dogs is ending the week on a dramatic note, with a dog in the details of a wild and atmospheric painting.
Claude-Joseph Vernet was the son of an artist who specialized in decorative painting. The young Vernet first studied with his father and with other artists in and near his hometown in France, but he eventually moved on to Rome for artistic training. There, he took up painting landscapes and marine subjects; Vernet would become one of the most successful and best-known marine and landscape painters of his day. He was famous for his images of shipwrecks and storms at sea, using dramatic skies, atmospheric effects and exciting compositions to create drama and movement. And, unlike many of his contemporaries, Vernet painted from nature, observing and sketching in the countryside and at the seashore. A colleague of his wrote that “Vernet was sure to be on the beech [sic]; where he often prevailed on the watermen to put to sea, even during the heaviest storms, in a small open boat. By these means his mind becomes familiar to horrors, and his pencil capable of embodying … the elements in all their sublimity and grandeur. Vernet had a long career, and for many years his work was sought after by collectors around Europe. Even as his work started to become a little formulaic (to satisfy buyers’ demands for the sorts of painting he was famous for), his success was undiminished.[1]