Joseph Vernet Tied to a Mast During a Storm

A wooden boat pitches on a churning green sea while a man clings to the tall mast, arms wrapped tight, riding out the fury of the storm. This is the French painter Claude-Joseph Vernet, and the story behind the scene has become something of an art legend. Vernet was famous for painting the sea, and the tale goes that to capture a real tempest he had himself lashed to the mast of a ship so he could study the waves and wind up close without being swept overboard. Down on the deck, other figures brace themselves and struggle with the rigging as the boat tilts hard to one side.

The artist here is Horace Vernet, Joseph's grandson, who came from a whole family of painters and clearly enjoyed turning his ancestor's daring story into a picture. The style is full of Romantic drama, with heavy storm clouds, a flash of lightning to the right, and a distant shipwreck barely visible in the murk on the left. Whether the mast story is entirely true or partly embellished over the years, it makes a fitting tribute, showing a painter so devoted to the sea that he risked his life to understand it.