Andreas Achenbach

Andreas Achenbach painted the sea at its most dramatic: fishing boats caught in squalls, waves breaking on jetties, heavy skies over northern coasts. He was one of the founders of the Düsseldorf school of landscape painting, and his mix of careful realism and Romantic mood made him hugely popular in the nineteenth century.

Born in Kassel, he studied at the Düsseldorf Academy and then in the landscape class of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer. He travelled in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Italy, and his storm pictures of the Norwegian coast made his name. He lived to 94, was made an honorary citizen of Düsseldorf and taught or influenced many younger painters, including his brother Oswald.

The Städel Museum in Frankfurt has his Storm on the Norwegian Coast of 1837. In his seascapes, look at how the light breaks through the clouds onto one patch of water.