A sailboat meets the sea head-on, foam rising at the bow as it lowers off a wave. There is no visible skipper, no horizon, no landscape—only sails, sea and a vessel in motion. This is the dynamic moment captured in Bow On, an oil-on-canvas painting by maritime artist Michel Brosseau.
Brosseau often emphasizes form and texture over concrete narrative. “Here, three elements converge: the taut, trimmed, immaculate sail; the slackened foresail, its every fold visible; and the streaming foam,” he explains. “I chose to conceal [the skipper] behind the sail, as if only the elements mattered, and man had little place among them. It evokes that indeterminate moment when the boat, having faced a wave, lowers itself in a shudder of foam before meeting the next.”
Brosseau’s oil paintings—distinctive for their graphic and contemporary style—are depictions of the nautical world’s animate and inanimate symbols, renderings of forces in action.
Born in Nantes, France, in 1954, and later based in Bordeaux, Brosseau has long drawn inspiration from the maritime heritage in these coastal cities, where trade with the West Indies flourished during the 18th century. “I think it’s this nostalgia for a traditional sea lifestyle that used to fascinate me and still does,” he says.
After studying political science and law, Brosseau worked as a journalist and political activist before turning to painting as a full-time career. His early maritime works leaned into Surrealism, depicting fantastical scenes of flying boats and parted seas.
Brosseau often works from photographs and he draws inspiration from his coastal travels, especially the sailboats, harbors and architecture of Martha’s Vineyard. His travels have also brought him to Harbour Island in the Bahamas, often called the Martha’s Vineyard of the Tropics. There, he fell in love with historic Dunmore Town, where he returns often to paint.
Courtesy of the J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, jrusselljinishiangallery.com.
