An act of God

Arthur Briscoe (1873-1943) was an etcher and painter of marine subjects. Educated at Shrewsbury School, he studied art at the Slade School under Fred Brown and at the Académie Julian in Paris and then spent his time sailing. Briscoe painted and wrote on yachting subjects including Handbook on Sailing under the pseudonym of Clove Hitch. Briscoe portrayed not just sailing vessels and the sea itself but, in particular, he delighted in portraying seafaring men at work.

Briscoe's original prints are now generally acknowledged as the finest marine etchings of the 20th century, as they display both the artist's intimate knowledge of the sea and his mastery of the etching needle. In particular, Briscoe conveyed the motion of the sea itself and the varied effects of light and shade with extraordinary economy of line. In 1926 Briscoe made a superb scale model of the Cutty Sark, a vessel which appears intermittently throughout his sketchbooks.

An act of God depicts a storm-battered square-rigger on the open seas, sailing in the direction of the viewer. The mast nearest the bow appears to have been felled, and is at 45 degrees. The mood of the etching is bleakly minimalist. Briscoe's etching needle notations tellingly denote the seas, clearly calmer following the disaster (or act of God) that the ship has recently incurred. Small uprights denoting crew members has indicated that they - and the ship but only just - have weathered the storm.

See: http://www.campbell-fine-art.com/artists.php?id=128

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   March 2018