Towards a Blue Art History

The visual arts have a privileged position in exploring human connections to the ocean. During the modern and contemporary periods, they have been associated with its scientific, popular, poetic, mythical, imaginative, and political approaches. Artists have indeed proposed original aesthetic and conceptual frameworks by embracing the characteristics of the oceanic environment and human relationships with marine animals.

This Colloquy assesses the importance and critical role of the arts in blue humanities, or ocean humanities. It approaches this broad question through three main themes that showcase such interchange, covered by the contributions: the blurred boundary between artistic productions and scientific goals in visual ocean depiction (Clara Langer, Guillaume Le Gall, Christina Heflin); the emotions and ethics of fishing (Ambra Zambernardi); and valuing ocean biodiversity compared to valuations of cultural heritage (Forum). Each of these themes is both at the center of the scientific interests, and close to the heart, of each contributor. They have been selected as the most topical issues among a number engaged at the interdisciplinary symposium 'A Blue Art History,' held at the Marine Station of Endoume and the Mucem in Marseille, France (2024, organized by Juliette Bessette, with Margaret Cohen as the keynote speaker).

These themes bring together interdisciplinary points of view and expertise in a common effort to pay long and sustained attention to works of art (still-life painting; underwater photograph and sculpture; artistic assemblage; dance performance; and drawing). Varied outlooks from researchers in ocean sciences and humanities, artists, and museum professionals are gathered here as new avenues for rethinking present human organization towards the ocean through the arts. At a time when the ocean is in the spotlight both for its role in regulating the Earth's climate and for a renewed attention to marine life and biodiversity, these questions also intertwine at many points with urgent ocean conservation issues.

Acknowledgements : “A Blue Art History” Symposium scientific committee (Christina Heflin, Daniel Faget, Thierry Perez, Anne-Sophie Tribot) and organizational committee (TELEMMe, Mucem) ; GDR OMER (CNRS) ; Aix-Marseille University ; with special thanks to Marie-Pierre Ulloa.

Curators

Juliette Bessette

Margaret Cohen

Naer het leven – Linking Early Modern Dutch Still Lifes to Scientific Imagery through the Example of Marine Animals

Essay

This contribution compares depictions of sea animals in early modern Dutch still-lifes with other types of images: emblems from the 16th and 17th century, scientific prints from treatises published between the end of the 14th and the 18th century, and finally drawings by still life artists themselves.

Photographing the Landscapes of the Underwater World at Banyuls-sur-Mer

Essay

This article explores the following question: at the end of the nineteenth century, how did the scientific community, among others, come to be increasingly preoccupied with underwater photography, and how could this world, and its attributes, be made visible?

Eileen Agar and the Undersea Marvelous

Essay

New

As a reflection on representations on biodiversity in art, this contribution considers the breadth of marine species highlighted in one work by British Surrealist, Eileen Agar (1899-1991). Much of her work relates to the natural world, especially the sea as an ecosystem and all the life within it, referred to here as the marine.

Calar Tonnara: Ethnographic-based Artistic Narratives Around Tuna Fishing in the Mediterranean

Essay

Zambernardi introduces readers to the tonnara: the system through which one of the giants of the sea, the bluefin tuna, has been fished on these shores for millennia. Through ethnographic research over several years, sailing with crews of rais (fishing chiefs) and tonnarotti (tuna fishermen) in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, Zambernardi explores the tonnara from the inside to show how this fishing method works and what is left of it today.

Considering the Art Museum in an Oceanic Culture: Underwater Art, Biodiversity and the Preservation of a Heritage in Flames

Forum

 A discussion between Louise Contant, head of collections at the French Musée national de la Marine, Lisa Cubaynes, art history student specializing in underwater museums, and Thierry Perez, marine ecologist with a strong perspective in ocean conservation. Moderated by Juliette Bessette, historian of art and science.