Krakatoa: The Catastrophic Event

Lithograph of Krakatoa, unknown author, from the scientific paper; The eruption of Krakatoa, and subsequent phenomena by Royal Society (Great Britain)

What could inspire an artist to create? I would say that a dramatic fiery explosion that results in giant blizzards and strangely colored skies would do the trick, especially for landscape painters. To understand artwork that represents a natural disaster you have to know about that natural disaster. Also I’m a huge earth science nerd, so I just think this subject is really interesting. So we will start off by looking at exactly what happened on August 27, 1883.

Krakatoa is a volcanic island located in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. It was formed by the Indo-Australian plate colliding with the Sunda plate and then sliding underneath the Sunda plate. When the Indo-Australian plate reaches a certain depth under the Sunda plate it begins to melt, creating magma that floats upward. The Krakatoa volcano was formed by the magma as it nears the surface of the earth due to subducting tectonic plates.

It was reported that earth tremors had been happening all day on August 27 and then there were four successive blasts of the volcano throughout the day. The last eruption was so powerful it blew the island to pieces, and it was heard across the Indian Ocean 4600 kilometers away. The majority of the island sank into the caldera, a large cavity formed by the magma exiting the chamber via the volcano. The rest of the island was blasted throughout the Sunda Strait as large chunks of rock. The power of the fourth explosion also triggered a tsunami that was about 30 meters high and killed around 36,000 people. As usual, the tsunami takes the most lives, even though it is the most short lived part of the disaster. The volcanic ash that was shot up into the sky by all four eruptions reached the stratosphere and encircled the equator within 13 days of the initial eruption. With this fine ash present in the atmosphere light filtered through differently causing vivid red, blue, and green skies at sunset. The volcanic ash also blocked some of the sun’s light. This lowered the global temperatures by at least 1.2 degrees celsius. That is a very large temperature change that has huge global consequences.

Anak Krakatoa, the 'Child of Krakatoa' erupting in summer of 2018. Image taken from https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/child-of-krakatau-spews-ash-and-lava

In fact in 1888, the United States experienced the worst blizzard ever recorded. It was known as the Great White Hurricane. It’s frightening how one natural disaster can trigger more and more, in a cycle that never ends. The global temperatures did not stabilize until many years after the initial explosion. Krakatoa has continued to erupt on a much smaller scale since 1883 forming a new island called Anak Krakatoa which means ‘child of Krakatoa’. As you can see, the Krakatoa eruption of 1883 was a force to be reckoned with. It affected over half of the globe. In the next post I will talk about the art movements going on while Krakatoa spewing its fiery breath.

Works Cited:

Bagley, Mary. “Krakatoa Volcano: Facts About 1883 Eruption.” LiveScience, Purch, 14 Sept. 2017, .

Hamblyn, Richard. “The Krakatoa Sunsets.” The Public Domain Review, The Public Domain Review, 26 Apr. 2018, publicdomainreview.org/2012/05/28/the-krakatoa-sunsets/.

“Krakatoa.” YouTube, uploaded by History and Econimics, 26 August 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha4LQGe6NxY.