A powerful seascape painting that initially seems to invoke the pastoral bliss of maritime life. A single sailing ship is docked on the rocky shores of a romantic cove. To its left a small row boat holds the only human figures of the painting, four tiny simple figures rowing to a small island rock. The rowers push toward the rock cove, with high villa-topped cliffs sweeping up to the ethereal clouds above. These heavenly billows encase the late afternoon sun. With its warm radiating natural light, the sun stand in contrast to the catastrophic scene in the far distant right, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. With billowing red-ash clouds Vesuvius spits out its sublime wrath, flame and lava break up this otherwise calm scene. Below the fiery eruption the city of Pompeii, while visually tiny, is full of human life. Buildings, shops, homes of real people are being destroyed. Not by man or the ravages of war but the forces of nature, uncontrolled and ambiguous.
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