At the time of this painting, marine art in its modern form was less than a hundred years old. Henning shows the influence of Gustave Courbet's "landscapes of the sea" and of subsequent artists like Claude Monet, albeit in more representational form. A wave arriving at shore is secondary to the power of several elements in the painting--sky, cloud, ocean, wave, foam, and rock--each with its own distinctive style, each complicated by variations of light.
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