Ronny Moorgat

Belgian, (Contemporary)

Ronny Moortgat is one of the foremost contemporary artists of marine painting. Following in the footsteps of the great maritime masters of the twentieth-century, he depicts his subjects with great discipline, capturing every minute detail of the vessels.

Moorgat’s skill in portraying contemporary and historic ships with such accuracy, whilst also imbuing their unique spirit in his paintings, is due to his lifelong passion for the sea and all that sail on her. This passion was born from growing up by the River Schelde close to Antwerp, Europe’s second largest port, and watching the hustle and bustle of the shipping from a very young age.

Trained as a technical draftsman, Moortgat has since combined his own more Impressionist approach with the strictly classical. Loose brushstrokes and the evocation of detail and atmosphere characterise his work. Further to maritime scenes, Ronny also paints landscape and still life scenes, the latter of which evoke the style of the Flemish Old Masters and bear testimony to his classical artistic education. In recent years, Moortgat has turned his attention to majestic, large scale battlescenes which depict small ship engagements in the period 1793-1815 as the Revolutionary and Napoleonic conflicts in Europe expanded to the scale of a proto-world war. This was the real beginning of the Royal Navy as the unchallenged thassalocratic power.

The Battle of Quiberon Bay , depicts a martitine batte which took place in 1759. This battle was the decisive naval engagement of the Seven Years War, a crushing victory by the Royal Navy over the French Fleet in their own coastal waters. Moortgat emphasises the rough seas that defined the engagement. The British three-decker in the foreground, possibly the 100-gun Royal George, is shown with most of her gun ports closed due to the swell of the violent North Westerly wind.

Quiberon Bay was a hugely important battle, and heralded the start of a half-century when Britain clamped down on the waves and became the world’s maritime hegemon. It was also seen as the premier victory in Britain’s Annus Mirabilis of 1759. With Britain and Prussia facing every other major European power, the Royal Navy had to hold the seas while Frederick the Great won the continental land war. As the conflict raged in the Indian and American theatres, the war is often described as the first ‘World War’, and as such control of the seas was critical to the eventual Anglo-Prussian victory.

Nantucket Habour

Oil on Panel 30 x 40 cms / 12" x 16"