Vanderdecker

Depicted here is the storm-shrouded deck of a seventeenth-century sailing ship. The sails are
full, though battered by the winds and rain, and the brass nameplate of the ship is concealed by the
raging seas.
A pale reddish light washes the streaming decks of the ship, and the sailors move here and
there, strangely unaffected by the gale-force winds and sheeting rain. They batten hatches and trim
the lines, their pale bodies remarkably wasted and thin.
On the fo'c'sle stands the captain, feet planted wide apart for balance. He wears a black
Dutch felt hat, and his clothing is unrelieved black except for the length of red silk he wears tied
around his waist as a sash. The ends are worn and frayed, trailing off into ragged fringes that are
blown straight back by the wind. His black cloak billows and flutters about him like a living thing,
and his face bears a twisted, sardonic grin, as if he had just heard some particularly good joke.
The ship sails endlessly into the jaws of a storm, the sky blackened by clouds and fractured
by lightning. Ahead of them is a whirlpool, but the sailors seem not to notice or care, and there is
nobody in the lookout post.
The scene, taken as a whole, is disturbing, especially when you note that the sailors are
actually skeletons garbed only in rags of clothing, and the Captain's eyes glow bright red, like twin
coals, in his deathly pale face. The title of the painting is carved and painted to resemble bones in
the dead black frame. "Vanderdecker-- the Flying Dutchman".