In last week’s reading we have learnt that recreation at a sea has only become relevant, because humans have culturally produced the sea to be a place to go to take a break. I was reminded of that and saw correlations between the article “Blue Humanities” and last week’s reading. As being said in Gillis’ article, “nations turned away from the sea as a place of work that writers and painters turned their full attention to the sea itself. They turned it, as never before, into a place of spiritual and physical recreation […] they gave it new cultural status, a higher aesthetic power” (Gillis). What I found to be interesting about that, is that this transformation once again reflects broader shifts in societal values and attitudes towards nature and the environment. Apart from, it resembles people’s desires in an ever-changing world (the time of industrialization). Now that industries developed and people moved to the cities, they also got disconnected to the natural world. The sea thus got romanticized as a consequence and beach activities first got developed, “It was in the era of the thoroughly landlocked industrial revolution that the sea first became a part of mainstream mainland culture”. The middle class of the late 18^th century was looking for an unknown natural place, far away from urban cities, to call their new place of recreation.

Another interesting aspect I found in the text is that the sea “became a symbol of eternity, a comfort to those who, having lost their faith in divine dispensation of everlasting life, came to see in its apparently timeless flows evidence of nature’s immortality and a secular promise of life everlasting”. Through what is shown above, one can argue that some of the late 18^th century people started to lose their faith in religious concepts of eternal life. Looking at the sea and seeing the waves and tides come and go, gave the people a sense of security, knowing that now nature is immortal.