MARINE ART
D
Maarten Platje’s
Early History of the US Navy by Jon Swanson, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, and Cavalier Galleries, Inc.
utch artist Maarten Platje was inspired by the sea at a very young age. Encouraged by his father, an officer in the Royal Netherlands Navy, Maarten grew up drawing and painting the shores, lakes, rivers, and canals that dominate the Dutch landscape and found particular inspiration in the various types of ships and boats that navigated across them. Formal training at the art academy Ars Aemula Naturae (“Art, the Rival of Nature”) in Leiden, the oldest society of visual artists in the Netherlands, tempered with his ongoing interest in maritime history and ship design, led to his development as a marine painter. His academic training was complemented by a four-year term as a sailor in the Royal Netherlands Navy, where he sailed most of the world’s oceans. “In the Dutch navy I experienced life at sea myself, and I have sailed the worldwide oceans for four years. During my development and cultivation as a marine painter, this personal experience has been of crucial importance.” In 1986, Maarten Platje began his formal career as a marine artist, and since that time he has received numerous awards and honors for his richly detailed, technically accurate, painstakingly researched paintings, and realistic portrayals of historic ships. Following in the footsteps of the famous Dutch marine painter Willem van de Velde (1611–1693), who served as the official artist of the Dutch naval fleet during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Platje accepted an invitation by the Dutch navy in 1996 to embark on a frigate during NATO operations in the Mediterranean waters around the former Yugoslavia. This expedition resulted in a series of paintings illustrating various contemporary maritime actions and naval operations. These works are now on a permanent display at the Naval Museum in Den Helder and at the Museum of the Marine Corps of the Royal Netherlands Navy in Rotterdam. While he is chronologically a member of Generation X, Platje is inspired more by the centuries-old traditions of Dutch art. The formation of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), a.k.a. the Dutch East India Company, the world’s first publicly traded corporation specializing in global commerce, brought tremendous wealth to a great many people in Holland, who, in turn, commissioned artists to depict the ships that made their wealth possible. As a result, the seventeenth century, the “Dutch Golden Age,” produced myriad fine portraits of ships, seascapes, ports, and naval battles. For a limited time in summer 2019, visitors to the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, Minnesota, can view contemporary works by Maarten Platje, but with a twist on the long-celebrated Dutch tradition: Platje’s featured oil paintings depict the early history of the United States Navy, with a focus on critical sea battles from the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812, in which USS Constitution was a major player. Platje’s first visit to the United States in 1977 took him to museums and libraries that sparked a lifelong interest in American maritime and naval history. It was a 2008 visit to Boston and other historic sites that inspired him to create a series of oil paintings showing events during the first formative years of the US Navy. He explains, “I started to study the available literature and the idea was born of making a series of oil paintings depicting various historic encounters and battles in which the young American navy, in the early years of its existence, has been involved. I was convinced that the heroic naval actions of that time and the brave conduct of the commanders and sailors still have a strong appeal today.” Aside from his technical mastery of art techniques that make his paintings stand out among his contemporaries, Platje’s accuracy of detail will satisfy viewers with a critical eye towards historical information within the paintings. He investigates his subjects through contemporary records and images, such as official reports, eyewitness accounts, personal journals and diaries, admiralty records, maps, ships’ plans, contemporary sketches and drawings, period paintings, and ship models. Surviving historic ships—USS Constitution in particular—serve as primary sources as well as inspiration to convey the emotion and feel of ship and her crews at sea. His depictions of ships are technically detailed and accurate, and his renderings of water, skies, clouds, and water phenomena are based on studies of scientific data and observation. In all of his works, he strives for a “combination of an attractive composition and historical correctness. Artistic freedom may not hinder the historical correctness and vice versa.” 32
SEA HISTORY 167, SUMMER 2019