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Paper short abstract:

The emotion of the sublime evaluated the paintings and literature depicting rough sea or shipwrecks. In the early 20th century, there are many impressive examples in seaside resorts postcards represented the storm with tidal waves. It will be analyzed the differ of trend that depends on the nations.

Paper long abstract:

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the emotion of the sublime, that spread in Europe, except some countries, was reflected in paintings of horrid natural landscape. For seaside towns, there are numerous representations of bad weather: shipwrecks, high tide, waves, rough sea, stormy night etc., particularly by the British and French painters. Also in the world of literature, it increased to appear high wave's scenes or shipwrecks. After the discovery of pleasure in seaside resorts, it began the boom to build piers for get as close as possible to the pounding waves to enjoy this performance especially in England and Germany.

From the second half of the 19th century, some French artists are enthusiastic of the high waves itself. In addition, not only impressionist painters, but also composer like Debussy were influenced by the Japanese woodcut, which often represented the big waves.

In the early 20th century, the tourist postcards depicting the high waves of the English and French seaside resorts are more numerous than that of other nations. There are many impressive examples with following caption: Rough Sea, High Tide, Tidal Wave, Dog Wave, Storm, Stormy Day, Stormy Night, etc. and sometimes with a quote of some phrases on the waves of 18th-century poem by James Thomson as: «Wide dash'd the waves in undulation vast».

Conversely, there were very few examples of Italian wave's iconography, although Italy has a large number of the seaside towns, because of the absence of the flowering of sublime emotion in Italy.