Work at the Sea

Around the globe and since time immemorial, fishing has stood for the natural vocation of the sea in addition to seafaring. This is visualized in the Belvedere’s maritime collection in a variety of facets, from the farewell “A Venetian Family” by Ludwig von Beniczky to the return “After Fishing” by Sieghilde Pirlo-Hödl and the sale of seafood, for example, at the fish markets in Venice (Carl Feiertag) or on Tenerife (Ernestine Rotter-Peters).

In the artists’ depictions at the sea, the relationship between humankind and nature is questioned and corrected in humility, for example, via the figural marginal position in Caspar David Friedrich’s “Seashore with Fisherman”, a forlornness in the vastness of the “Dutch Seashore at Low Tide” by Hermann Mevius or Joseph Rebell’s proportional theory of forces on the “Coast near Naples with Fort and Net Drawing Fishermen”. “The Ship Puller” (Towboat) by Sigmund Ferdinand Ritter von Perger seems quite content with his day’s work; on the other hand, one would hardly want to exchange places with the athletic “Stone Carriers of Ragusa”, whom Karl Mediz has dressed in their local costume.

The “Ship Discharger” by the Belgian painter and sculptor Constantin Meunier stands out as an inversion in this sequence of pictures, having introduced the worker into the sculpture with one stroke. Slightly larger-than-life size, he pauses on the implied plank freely swaying between the deck and the quay wall in the contrapposto, self-confidently holding both arms on his hips, and looks into his future: “There he stands now, upright, in his powerful simplicity. One senses a hidden, tremendous driving force that is relaxed in the moment. This art is calm and strong, although it is bursting with energy” (Émile Verhaeren, “La Libre Esthétique”, 1899).

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