VORTEX AND TEXTURE
  • The 'vortex' composition:
    • in seascapes, oblique lines predominate; compositional effects based on oblique lines have prevailed in marine painting from the 17th century onwards.
    • the slanting lines can group into a complete spiral; such a spiralling composition or 'vortex' (vortex means whirlwind) has frequently been used for seascapes and cloudscapes to emphasise the stormy motions of the elements which envelop the figures and the buildings; it became the main structural motif in Romantic landscape painting
    • some 20th century artistic movements eventually made the vortex into a major structural element of semi-abstract paintings.

see the website of the Tate Gallery for examples of seascapes
engraving after Turner, St Michael's Mount in Cornwall (Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England, 1814)
see the Grove Dictionary of Art (University subscription) under 'vortex'
  • The impasto texture : atmospheric effects of sea and clouds are usually rendered with thick brushstrokes which suggest the texture of the elements. The visible brushstrokes fuse as it were with what they are supposed to represent. This is one of the uses of the 'impasto' technique.
on 'impasto', see the Glossary on the Tate Gallery website (section 'Tate collection')