When it comes to flooding the more things change the more they stay the same

This year parts of the United Kingdom have suffered serious flooding due to the frankly unacceptable quantity of rain we have experienced this winter.

We have all seen the dramatic and striking images of the flooding and it led me to wonder how artists have rendered the floods of years gone by. So here are just a couple of the interesting works and comparisons I came across.

The flooded fields of Holland and Somerset:

Flooded Fields in Holland with Silver Birches, Unknown Artist The Shipley Art Gallery

 

Flooded high streets:

Nuneaton Floods Warwickshire John Woodward Lines 1975 Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery

A train takes a treacherous journey along the coast in Saltcoats Scotland and a similar event in 1894:

 

Durston Somerset, Flooded out Thomas H Heawood 1894 Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust

 

Take to the boats!:

A Flood Leon Augustin Lhermitte Manchester City Galleries 1876

Two red cars years apart brave the roads:

 

Floods Roland Vivian Pitchforth c.1935 Tate

 

High tides causing huge waves such as this one over the breakwater in my beloved island of Alderney:

1953 Floods in Southwald, Suffolk Frank Forward 1953 Southwald Museum

Flood waters in Chertsey after the Thames burst it's banks:

Llugwy in Flood 1881 Benjamin Williams Leader Oxford College Anon II, University of Oxford

Whether in paintings or in current day photos nature never ceases to put me in awe.