Shakespeare often wrote of the sea, depicting the tumultuous human world as tides rising and falling like the ocean.
Europeans treated the sea in art with subtle differences. The Dutch liked to use cartographically recognized precision to depict the complex structure of large ships, as though painting a ship's portrait. Harbor scenery and storms beside reefs filled costly canvases, with countless details contained within vast spaces.
In the eyes of the Spanish, the ocean had already been placed under the gentle, motherly protection of the Virgin Mary. Maps, nautical charts, altar cloths, and church wall hangings were all decorated with images of the sea. The British, meanwhile, liked to paint the majestic Royal Navy, harbors, and hectic moments of victory amid complex naval battles. France, on the other hand, had few paintings of the sea, apart from the thirteen harbor landscapes Claude Lorrain painted at Louis XV's commission.
As Georgiana admired the oil paintings in Rubens's home, she kept wondering when she might find an opportunity to tell him that she wanted to trade Claude's paintings for Turner's. At that moment, Carolan came to inform her that Adrian van Rijn, the Dutch Minister for Magic, had arrived. Georgiana went to the drawing room to meet him.
The Netherlands had once had many Puritans because it was relatively religiously free. When Protestants in the Spanish Netherlands were persecuted, some fled to the Netherlands. This made Dutch clothing far less lavish than Catholic attire. In winter, to fend off the all-pervading cold, people wore fur-trimmed outer robes. By custom, the wealthy tried their best to avoid wearing things that displayed their status and wealth. Instead, they spent great sums of money and ingenuity on their homes, and Mannerism, even more ornate than Baroque, was highly popular in the north.
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