For some terrible reason, my phone did not save the photo I took of the little description of this painting. So I’ll take on an explorer role and analyze everything I can about it, because that’s exactly what art is all about.

To be honest, I’d been walking around for about twenty minutes prior to seeing this painting and nothing caught my eye. Everything in the MET is beautiful in its own unique sense, but I’m different in my tastes and I began realizing that as I continually struggled to find any one piece of art all that incredible. Then I saw this painting. I slowed down and began my depiction. Why is there one lone cloud in the middle of the sky? The horizon line is beautifully drawn, and every single detail of the houses is captured. There seems to be a clocktower; this might be exclusively European. Perhaps Italy, I’d say Venice? To combine a city feel with such a bustling hub of ships as the exclusive trading method puts this scene in a late 18th century, early 19th century environment for sure. Behind the most intriguing building (which somewhat resembles a mini-castle) in the middle, there is a church with a dome. Obviously this is European, now that all the details fall into place. The next thing I wondered is why a handful of the bigger ships seemed raggedy and broken down. Had a storm just hit? Was a storm imminent? To go back on my one cloud thought, I began realizing that the sky was a fair shade of grey, but there was obviously enough sunlight for the traders to see, and they didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Thus maybe a storm had just passed.

If I had the money, I’d buy this painting and frame it in one of the main rooms of my house.