SWIM HISTORY
THE ART OF SWIMMING
A sampling of master artists who have captured on canvas the allure of water and swimming
ELAINE K HOWLEY
Swimming is beautiful, not just for the soul, but the eyes too, as many master artists have shown throughout history. The lack of clothing and the intimate, sensual feel of water against skin has long been a draw for artists to explore themes and subjects that might otherwise be off limits. And swimming’s necessarily limited wardrobe allows skilled painters to reveal their talents depicting the human form while simultaneously tackling the challenge of depicting that most fluid and dynamic of elements: water. Here, a smattering of artists reveal their creativity and enthusiasm for swimming and water.
SWIMMING FOR HIS LIFE
In 1749, a 14-year-old cabin boy named Brook Watson was swimming in Havana Harbor, Cuba, when he was bitten by a shark. Twice. The teenager lost his right foot and nearly his life, but his shipmates from the Royal Consort managed to rescue him just before the shark struck a third time. Gravely injured, Watson was taken to hospital where his leg was amputated at the knee. It took him three months to recover, but he went on to become a successful and very wealthy merchant and politician. Some 20 years after the attack, Watson commissioned American painter John Singleton Copley, (1738–1815) to memorialise his encounter with the shark in oils.
Considered by many art historians to be the foremost painter in America at the critical time just before its break with Britain, Copley had decamped to England at the beginning of the Revolutionary War; staying in his native Boston seemed incompatible with continued career success, given the conflict raging and his friendships with some of the leaders of the uprising for independence that could put him at philosophical and political , odds with some of his patrons.