Image credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Seascape is a term for art depicting the sea, modelled after the word 'landscape'. Seascapes show ocean views, with or without human activity. Maritime art usually refers to ship portraits, or paintings and drawings of boats. The earliest seascapes usually centred on recording vessels: from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, developments in shipbuilding, along with developing naval powers and increased overseas trade meant new demand for records of ships, expeditions and naval victories – some artists, from the Dutch Golden Age onwards, even specialised in marine views.
