Notwithstanding his sketchy and architecturally structured landscapes, no doubt owing to his academic training in that discipline, this Mar Cantábrico seascape created by Vaquero Palacios expresses volume, movement and a freedom in the use of the paintbrush, as if the artist wished to bear witness to the impetuousness and ferocity of the sea.
 
The artist’s chance to exhibit his work in Paris and New York galleries was critical in making him known and earned him widespread recognition.

Vaquero Palacios must have painted this work at the time when he decided to forego the bright palette of his earliest compositions, swapping it for a more sober spectrum defined by greyer and more bluish tones, scattered with touches of white that bring to mind the foam on a stormy sea.
 
In this work the sea is the absolute protagonist, occupying the whole of a composition lacking any other spatial reference. Equally significant in those rhythmically breaking waves are the atmospheric reflections the artist was so keen on, introducing a novel visual effect.