Velieri di Camogli: immagini del mare a confronto

This study compares the sea image represented in a number of paintings depicting sailing ships of Camogli shipowners in XIX century. These pieces of art have been collected in the local Museo Marinaro Gio Bono Ferrari and in the sanctuary of Nostra Signora del Boschetto. The paintings in the museum are intended to celebrate the qualities of the ships and to show the social role played by their owners while the paintings collected in the Sanctuary are ex-votos, offered to the Marian temple in memory of episodes that had put at risk the sailors’ safety.These are opposing visions of the sea, on the one hand it is represented as a source of wealth and social pride, and on the other it is represented as a cause of danger. The analysis brings out how “the idea of landscape represents […] a way in which some Europeans have represented to themselves and to others the world around them and their relations with it, and through which they have commented on social relations” (Cosgrove 1990, 23)