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The Starboard Battery and the Deck of the Corvette "Najaden"
C.W. Eckersberg (Danish, 1783–1853)
1833
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- height 22.5 cm, width 22.5 cm, height 31 cm, width 31 cm
- Culture
- Danish
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
Eckersberg began work on this painting of a section of a ship’s deck during a fourteen-day voyage in Danish waters on the corvette Najaden in July of 1833. The view is unusually narrow and restricted for an Eckersberg painting. He would have been visually fascinated by the many straight lines formed by the ropes and sails, offset by the tense curves of the sails – seemingly chaotic, yet governed by clear structure and meaning. Everything serves a function and is subjected to the overall design and purpose of the ship. To Eckersberg, this undoubtedly served as an expression of the higher divine order that he perceived in life (cf. Fischer 1983). Hardly any other painting by Eckersberg can match this one for stringent, consistent geometry; here he pares back all narrative content to a minimum.
