El mar en las colecciones del Museo del Prado / The Sea in the Collections of the Museo del Prado

The sea is a subject of painting. As an immense, fearsome domain beyond total human mastery, for artists the sea was more fantastical than real, the site of storms, shipwrecks and battles. It was also the mysterious sphere where the actions of the gods, the feats of heroes and the miracles of the saints take place, stories worth painting.

Later it was depicted as a smooth, gleaming surface subjected to the rigours of cartography, a natural extension of the land over which civilisation governed. And lastly, it has been an element of seduction for artists: a landscape of varied sentimental resonances and a source of artistic challenges.

This book brings a selection of 100 works from the Museo Nacional del Prado together with six brief, thought-provoking essays by Fernando Checa, Daniel Crespo, María de los Santos García Felguera, Matteo Mancini, Miguel Morán and José Juan Pérez Preciado on the sea; on how it has been a prime subject for painters, patrons and audiences; and on the prominent presence of its blue waters in the collections of the Museo del Prado.