French school; first third of the 20th century

French school; first third of the 20th century
"Marinas".
Oil on canvas.
They present illegible signature in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 33 x 55 cm (x2); 64 x 86 cm (frames, x2).
Set of canvases that represent in both cases a navy. One of them shows navigation, while the other shows a daily scene of the port life. The marine only began to become a genre at the beginning of the Renaissance, with the spread of landscape as an autonomous genre. Pure seascapes, however, would not become popular until the 17th century, especially in Dutch painting, reflecting the very powerful foreign trade and the large Dutch naval fleet. These same motifs would encourage the cultivation of seascapes in British painting. Later, Romanticism recovered the theme of the sea and the coast, especially in its most tempestuous aspects. Germans and Englishmen excelled in the representation of rough seas or lonely and mystical cliffs. In the 19th century the art market expanded considerably and genre painting, especially landscape painting, enjoyed great success in bourgeois circles. The generalization of plein air painting, on the other hand, favored that promenades, beaches and ports were filled with easel painters immortalizing maritime scenes. The pure seascapes were a reflection of the very powerful foreign trade and the great naval fleet of Holland. In marine painting, artists very often opted for turbulent views, dominated by gray, stormy skies and ships facing the elements.