After the Storm

Willem van de Velde the Younger and Studio

National Gallery of Art

We look across choppy waves at a sailboat canting at a sharp angle, with several others floating nearby or in the distance, all beneath a sky filled with charcoal-gray clouds in this horizontal painting. In the bottom third of the canvas, the battleship-gray waves are topped with frothy white crests. The boat closest to us is slightly left of center, and its mast tips wildly to our right. Sunlight catches the straw-yellow sail as it pulls taut in the wind. At least two men crouch or bend over in the wooden vessel below, as white spray kicks up off the far side of the boat. Two white seagulls, tiny in scale, fly closer to the water’s surface to our left of that boat. The next closest vessel is to our right, and it is nearly swallowed in shadow. Two men huddle at one pointed end of the narrow boat, and a crimson-red sail flaps loosely in the wind. At least four more boats in the distance, along to the horizon, range in size from a small sailboat to a three-masted ship. The sail of the smallest boat also tips sharply to our right, but the tall masts of the ship are upright, and those sails are furled. Dark clouds billow up from the horizon, but break near the upper left corner. The sky beyond is pale apricot peach, and a few streaks of light reach the water’s surface.