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What do you see?

October 30th, 2026

What feelings and thoughts arise when you look at this picture?

What would you see, feel and think if you looked at this picture for an hour?

That’s the experiment I set myself recently when I visited The National Gallery in London. I selected this picture ‘semi-randomly’ and looked at it for an hour. My only criterion was not to sit in front of a really ‘famous’ picture (to avoid getting in the way of other visitors).

The idea is borrowed from, Jennifer Roberts, professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. At the beginning of her course, she asks students to look at the same picture for three hours. I only lasted 60 minutes, as I’d arranged to meet someone for a drink. I ascribe my prioritisation of pints over paintings to my Scottish heritage. 60 minutes was enough to prompt an array of observations and questions though. For example, I noticed the painter, Claude-Joseph Vernet, had signed his name on one of the trunks that had been salvaged from the wrecked ship that’s at the bottom left of the painting.

I noticed that there was black smoke coming from a suburb of the town that’s visible in the distance and wondered whether a different disaster was raging there. I was struck by the fact that the dog had not run away and wondered what it was looking at in the distance.

The more time passed, the more incongruent the picture seemed to me. On reflection this is because I associate storms with being at night and in cold, wet weather. Here, a storm is raging in the middle of the day and the people are lightly dressed. Indeed, one guy in the bottom right is in his underwear. What’s that all about?!

I also noticed two guys watching the scene from the nearest ship. They seemed very passive. I wondered whether they knew people on the wrecked ship and whether they felt helpless or ambivalent. It also appeared that a distant boat had been struck by lightning. This seemed particularly unfair, as the lightning’s trajectory was going in the opposite direction to the ship and then had very abruptly changed direction.

I wondered whether the people below the lighthouse could and would help those shipwrecked and, given the direction of the wind, whether any of the ships would survive. Could those that had made it to the shore, get off the beach? In time, parts of the cliffs looked more and more like human faces. Also, I noticed there were very small flecks of paint in the clouds which caught the light. Was this an attempt by the painter to signify rain?

I could go on. The above is a small fraction of what crossed my mind.

In an age when speed is often considered ‘of the essence’ and it’s implicitly considered advantageous to do more, this exercise is a reminder that less can be more and slowing down can add richness, insight and value to an experience. Doing the exercise also illustrated the assumptions people can make: several fellow visitors asked me in-depth questions about the picture and artist and advice on what other pictures to view. They assumed I was knowledgeable about art. Those who know me will attest to how wrong that assumption is!