Beside the purely marine painting, the picture that is concerned solely with the sea and ships that sail on it, there is a place for the coast subject. It is true that the coast scene is, more often than not, only a landscape into which the sea is introduced as a subsidiary interest, but under this heading can be included also those views of harbours, estuaries, cliffs, and beaches, which many painters have treated with distinction of style and charm of sentiment. Yet even the coast scene in which the actual nearness of the sea is only suggested owes its character to the sea. Only the sea could have carved those cliffs into their impressive shapes, or could have piled up those masses of huge rocks. Only the winds which blow in from the sea could have moulded that range of sand dunes or could have twisted those stunted trees into their curiously picturesque forms. Only as a protection against the savage strength of the sea has that breakwater been built behind which the fleet of fishing boats lies in shelter. And from the sea come those driving mists and slow-moving banks of fog which throw a veil of mystery over the landscape and give a new aspect to even the most familiar objects. The scent of the sea is in the air, the sound of its waves is unceasing, its influence is all about; the coast is, indeed, but the subject of the sea and owes to it allegiance. It is in this spirit, unquestionably, that many artists have painted the coast, with a sense of the dominating power of the sea and a conscious acknowledgement of its influence. They have appreciated the dramatic value of the persistent struggle between the sea and the land, a struggle of which the evidences are not to be mistaken; and they have felt the nature of the resistance which the land, an unwilling subject, offers to the encroachments of its tyrant. Even in pictures which represent the coast in its most peaceful moments, when the sea ripples lazily round the rocks under the light of the summer sun, the scars left by the assaults of waves driven by past storms cannot be concealed. Fragments torn from the cliffs strew the shore, the wreckage of the land is heaped up waiting for the inevitable moment when the sea, renewing its attack, will swallow up what it has already half destroyed. The note of tragedy is always present, there is always a suggestion that the sea is merely waiting its opportunity and that when the time comes it will rend and overwhelm and assert its ruthlessness without mercy or restraint.