Wooden Ships & Iron Men is a stunning look at ships that were built, not for war or for comfort, but for fishing, durability and speed. It celebrates the art of Thomas Hoyne while also providing a testament to the fishing boats and schooners of a bygone era and the men who worked them, sailing from the coastal villages of New England and Canada, battling the sea and weather and competing with other ships to fish for cod and halibut on the Grand Banks.

The book provides a fair amount of detail about the artist's process, through interviews and speeches he gave during his lifetime. It describes how he used model ships to "pose" his paintings. It also explains how a diagnosis of cancer spurred his artistic journey -- even though the two years he was given to live turned into 17, during which time he produced an incredible body of work.

The focus of course is the art itself, and it is gorgeous in every last panel. The amount of detail Hoyne lovingly painted is incredible.

Hoyne doesn't paint ships in all their majestic glory, sailing on high seas with all sails flying in a brilliant white. These paintings depict working men on working ships, and the artist paints them in true, realistic hard labor. The sails are ragged and patched. The paint sometimes is stained, the decks cluttered. Coal steamers belch black smoke into the sky.

Stare at his paintings too long and you'll feel the spray in your face, your hands burn on the ropes, the waves toss under your feet.

Besides providing details on the paintings themselves, the book also tells a lot about the ships -- their names, the differences in their construction over the years, their successes and, in some cases, their ultimate destruction at sea.

My only dissatisfaction here is the number of paintings that are reproduced in tiny, playing card-sized images where the detail is impossible to discern. Still, I am grateful for the number of full-page spreads!

As the authors note in one chapter:

Thomas Hoyne, in painting after painting, has caught the spirit of the great skippers at the height of their powers. He has left us an indelible record of the skill and bravery of these giants who went down to the sea in fragile wooden ships.

Wooden Ships & Iron Men: The Maritime Art of Thomas Hoyne is a great book for anyone who appreciates the age of sail.