This is a great painting. Moby Dick returns to see the damage he wrought to the Pequod and her crew. It took me a few seconds before I was able to put all the visual elements together. My eye first went to the wreck, with a few of the crewmen still floating near the surface. Then I followed one of the lines down into the deep, noticing the other crew-members, already drowned; which leads to the crew-member in the forefront; who, in utter despair, is reaching for the surface as his last breath escapes him. I like how the bubbles coming up play alongside the hemp lines descending into the deep. It wasn't until my eye hit the bottom of the page that I was able to take in Moby Dick behind all the carnage. When I first saw the picture my mind filled in the white mass as a cliff rising from the sea floor, or a coral reef or something. As my eye was following the massive form on the way up, I was able to discern the jaw of the whale, and the entirety of the scene came into focus for me. I saw the eye, the scars, Moby's winkled brow, the line he's wrapped in, and the entangled harpoon. In my minds eye, I could picture Ahab's entangled body, just outside the scene.Excellent work and great attention to details given in the novel. The artist's website is here: bbqtako
This image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
