A seascape is a photograph, painting, or other work of art which depicts the sea, in other words an example of marine art. The word originated as a formation from landscape, which was first used of images of land in art. A constructed seascape is a seascape that has been either digitally or manually altered, to suit the artists vision.

Gustave Le Gray

Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray was a French painter, draughtsman, sculptor, print-maker, and photographer. Gustave Le Gray (1820–1884) is known as the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century because of his technical innovations in the still new medium of photography, his role as the teacher of other noted photographers, and the extraordinary imagination he brought to picture making. He developed the idea of taking two pictures with different exposures and putting them together to create one final piece. He was born on the 30th of August, 1820 in Villiers-le-Bel, France and he died on the 30th of July, 1884 in Cairo, Egypt.

Comparison

The Great Wave, the most dramatic of his seascapes, combines Le Gray’s technical mastery with expressive grandeur. He took the view on the Mediterranean coast near Montpellier. At the horizon, the clouds are cut off where they meet the sea. This indicates the join between two separate negatives. The combination of two negatives allowed Le Gray to achieve tonal balance between sea and sky on the final print. It gives a more truthful sense of how the eye, rather than the camera, perceives nature.

Both could be described as landscape pictures. What kinds of landscapes do they describe?

Le Gray’s picture shows us a rural and quite aggressive shot of the ocean, presenting us with a landscape photograph capturing the waves hitting the rocks on the beach. Our eyes are immediately drawn to the gushing waves at the base of the photo, ignoring the seemingly insignificant architecture further up. Moreover, Talmor’s piece includes many different landscapes, showing different textures and tones throughout her work. They describe many different aspects of the wild ocean and beach, portraying the coastline in a completely different way that we would normally view it.

What similarities do you notice about these two pictures?

Both pictures include aspects of the ocean, showing the audience how the artist views the coastline. Both pieces include a lot of tone, capturing both the darkest and lightest tones in their pictures. Both photos also show the reality of the ocean; its carefree nature and aggressive behaviour by capturing it in a specific way.

What differences do you notice?

Le Gray clearly tried to hide the fact that he has created a constructed seascape by perfectly blending the two photos together whereas Talmor embraces her style by creating interesting pieces with cuts that stand out in the image, causing her image to appear as through a weird puzzle. Furthermore, Le Gray focused on the ocean as a whole and Talmor focused on smaller details, adding them to one outcome.

What words/phrases best describe each of these landscapes?

Le Gray’s photo has a very bold appearance, his photo embrasing the beauty of the ocean in its aggressive and wild form. His piece consists of an open landscape with nothing holding the ocean back. On the other hand, Talmor’s consists of a more abstract approach, capturing small and easy to miss details about the coastline. Her pieces are much more modern and different.