By the Sea, By the Sea

Spend some time mousing around my site. You’ll see that many of the recent ship portraits I’ve done are of grand old vessels from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They are not quite steamers, not quite sail vessels. They are from the in-between era when the speed and convenience of steam were recognized, but the surety of sail was still required. So the ships sail grandly across the great pond of the Atlantic with smoke streaming aft and all plain sail set. It is a romantic and pleasing sight for sailors to see.
The complete cabin and other accommodations are not visible in my wooden portraits or in the painted work of artists like Antonio Jacobson. You did, in fact, cruise in luxury.
But beyond the lovely exteriors and the private first-class accommodations, there is an additional truth that the liner companies made much of their money from second—and third-class passengers—immigrants. So, if you were first class, the ocean passage was one of luxury, maybe less for the other in less gracious cabins and dormitories.

The many things in the portraits make the carving more interesting to me. There is the graceful beauty of the ship sailing the sea, the technological juxtaposition of sail versus steam, and a social lesson all tied up in one carvable bundle.