How to Depict a Tempest
Wind over sea and land: torn clouds, bent trees, fallen men, foundering ships
Chapter [147] sets out how to paint a storm (fortuna): the painter should study the wind's effects and render broken, torn clouds driven along, sandy dust raised from the shore, branches and leaves flung through the air, and trees and grasses bent to the ground. Men are shown fallen and rolled in the dust or clinging to trees, shielding their eyes, with hair and garments streaming downwind. The sea is full of eddying foam among high waves, and ships founder with torn sails, broken masts, and crews clinging to the wreck and crying out. The passage breaks off mid-sentence and continues on the following folio.
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Studying the wind's effects to paint a storm
The painter should consider and record the effects of wind blowing over sea and land, which moves and carries away everything not fixed to the earth. The scene is built from these observed effects rather than invented.
Torn clouds, flying leaves, and bent trees
Broken, torn clouds are driven along the wind with sandy dust from the shore; branches, leaves and other light things are flung through the air; and trees and grasses bend to the earth, their branches twisted and their leaves overturned as if following the wind.
Men fallen or clinging against the gale
Some men lie fallen and rolled in their garments and the dust, almost unrecognizable; others stand behind trees, clasping them so the wind cannot drag them off, or bow to the ground with hands over their eyes, clothes and hair straight in the wind.
The stormy sea and foundering ships
The troubled sea is full of eddying foam among high waves, the finer foam raised like a thick mist. Ships have torn sails fluttering with broken ropes, masts snapped and fallen, hulls laid crosswise and shattered, and crews clinging to the wreck and crying out.