The Wreck of the Amsterdam, an anonymous oil on canvas from c. 1630, is part of the “Turmoil and Tranquillity” exhibit at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, United Kingdom

SALEM, Mass. Warning: Don’t expect to find a lot of familiar names in “Turmoil and Tranquillity: The Sea Through the Eyes of Dutch and Flemish Masters, 1550-1700,” a traveling exhibit of Dutch marine paintings that recently dropped anchor at the Peabody-Essex Museum. Works by the Big Three of Dutch art — Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals — are nonexistent. And there’s only one canvas (though admittedly it’s a beauty) by the great Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael.

Still, if you love great painting — or if you just have a weakness for all things nautical — the show’s lack of star-power shouldn’t be a problem.

Why? Well, for one thing, there was a lot of talent floating around Flanders and Holland during the 17th century. Geniuses like Hals, Rembrandt and Vermeer may have been at the top of the artistic pyramid, but lesser lights such as Jan Peeters, Abraham Storck and the deliciously named Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom weren’t far behind.

What’s more, many of these second-tier artists weren’t shy about borrowing from their better-known contemporaries. Rembrandt, for example, often used dramatic contrasts between light and dark to lend extra emotional weight to his portraits and religious scenes. Well, guess what? The technique works just as well on the high seas, where it adds visual and emotional drama to paintings such as Bonaventura Peeters’ Sunlight on a Stormy Sea and Andries van Eertvelt’s Dutch Yachts Racing.

Vermeer, meanwhile, is famous for infusing his paintings with a special kind of light — a cool, crisp, even glow that transforms even ordinary settings into something almost otherworldly.

But as paintings by the likes of Ludolf Backhuysen and Adam Willaerts attest, Vermeer wasn’t the only Dutch artist with a knack for light and atmosphere. (Backhuysen, in particular, has a Vermeer-like talent for rendering the effects of natural light, a talent he puts to good use in paintings such as The Merchant Shipping Anchorage off Texel Island, a luminous view of merchant ships outlined against the Dutch coast.)

In fact, if you can get past the show’s single-minded focus on ships at sea — and if you don’t mind a few tongue-twirling last names — “Turmoil and Tranquillity” has a lot to offer.

Organized by England’s National Maritime Museum and drawn almost entirely from its own collection, the show features 70 works that span the full range of Dutch marine painting, from peaceful harbor views to dramatic scenes of storms, shipwrecks and naval battles.

Indeed, if nothing else, the show proves Dutch artists were just as inventive in their handling of marine subjects as they were in other areas such as portraits and still lifes.

Granted, many of the staples of marine painting — ships tossing helplessly on stormy seas, waves crashing against craggy cliffs, warships blasting each other to kingdom come — were around long before Holland’s 17th-century “Golden Age.” But Dutch artists were among the first to make such subjects the main focus of their work, rather than simply grafting them onto larger portraits or historical scenes.

In the process, they created a new genre — the seascape — that’s still going strong today.

The show also complements the Peabody-Essex’s own collection. From the Colonial era onward, the vast majority of American marine painters have learned their craft from the British, who learned theirs from the Dutch. That makes the Peabody-Essex, which boasts one of the great collections of American marine art and artifacts, an ideal port of call for the exhibit (which, as it happens, is making its only North American stop in Salem).

So, why did so many Dutch and Flemish painters take to the sea, artistically speaking?

Partly, it’s a matter of geography. Traditionally and accurately known as the Low Countries, Holland and Flanders (now part of present-day Belgium) occupy some of the lowest-lying habitable land in Europe. Coastal areas, in particular, are locked in a constant battle with the sea, with each side claiming an occasional victory over the other. Given this longstanding — and often soggy — relationship, it’s no wonder that Dutch and Flemish artists developed a special interest in marine-related settings and subjects. Indeed, it would have been surprising if they hadn’t.

The other crucial factor is history.

From about 1575 to 1700, Holland enjoyed an unprecedented period of political freedom and economic prosperity. In Dutch city-states like Utrecht, Haarlem and Amsterdam, political power shifted away from traditional centers such as the court and the church and toward a new class of wealthy merchants. (As for Flanders, it spent most of the 17th century under Spanish occupation. During this time, most of those who could leave, including many artists, fled north to Holland.)

As money began pouring into Dutch coffers, the demand for works of art also began to rise. At the same time, the kinds of artworks that appealed to Holland’s self-made merchants and businessmen were different from those that had previously appealed to kings and churchmen. In contrast to the grand portraits and sweeping historical scenes that had dominated European painting since the Renaissance, the average Dutch burger preferred simple fare such as landscapes, still lifes and genre scenes.

And, of course, marine paintings. In fact, many of the show’s paintings may have started out as private commissions, either from wealthy ship owners eager to show off their prized vessels or from naval officers determined to commemorate famous battles.

The Bible, too, offered a rich source of marine imagery, with Old Testament figures such as Noah and Jonah offering ready-made stories of sin and redemption. Likewise, almost any depiction of ships at sea could be invested with religious meaning, with storms, waves and darkening skies all suggesting the dangers that awaited those who strayed from the true path, and calm seas and clearing skies hinting at the rewards of faith and salvation.

To help make sense of these competing themes and styles, the show is divided into sections, each devoted to a different aspect of Dutch marine painting.

The opening section, “The Sea — A New Subject,” explores the development of marine painting, beginning with two of the genre’s earliest practitioners: Flemish painter Andries van Eertvelt and the Dutchman Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom.

Interestingly, both artists seem to have had a thing for fast-paced action scenes, with Eertvelt contributing a dramatic racing painting (Dutch Yachts Racing) that rivals anything from the America’s Cup and Vroom depicting a busy port of call in the Dutch East Indies (Ships Trading in the East).

Vroom’s son, Cornelis, also had a taste for adventure. In one of the show’s most striking paintings, he shows a squadron of Spanish men-of-war attacking a fleet of corsairs manned by Barbary pirates. Not only does the painting capture the look and feel of a naval battle — a Spanish cannonball, for example, has just ripped through one of the corsairs’ mainmasts, sending frightened pirates spilling into the water — but the scene has eerie similarities to the recent spate of pirate attacks off the coast of East Africa.

Another section, “A Sea of Symbols,” examines artists’ use of religious imagery. Here you’ll find some of the show’s most beautiful paintings, among them Bonaventura Peeters’ Seascape with Sailors Sheltering from a Rainstorm, which uses a rainbow to symbolize the power of religious faith (although most of the sailors seem more intent on passing around a liquor-filled flask), and Cornelisz Verbeeck’s A Ship in a Rough Sea, which shows a well-laden merchant ship (a symbol of greed and worldly success) trapped between a rocky coast and a fearsome sea monster.

Sections devoted to scenes of the Dutch coast (“Vistas of the Netherlands”), European ports of call (“Far Horizons”) and depictions of famous naval battles and Dutch settlements in the New World and the Far East (“Patronage, Battles and the Exotic”) round out the exhibit.

Then again, there’s nothing to prevent individual viewers from charting their own course through the exhibit. In that spirit, let me suggest a possible itinerary:

Start with Eertvelt and Vroom in the show’s opening section, then steer toward Ludolf Backhuysen (he of the luminous Merchant Shipping Anchorage off Texel Island) and Pieter Mulier the Younger (whose Fresh Breeze in the Mediterranean deftly mixes Dutch and Italian influences). Be sure to drop anchor in front of Jacob van Ruisdael’s Vessels in a Fresh Breeze, but don’t neglect lesser known talents such as Jan Porcellis (one of the show’s biggest surprises), Simon de Vlieger and the father-and-son duo of Willem van de Velde the Elder and Willem van de Velde the Younger.

Granted, with its sea chest filled with only 70 paintings, “Turmoil and Tranquillity” may not be the last word on the subject of Dutch marine painting. Still, it’s a pretty good start.

“Turmoil and Tranquillity: The Sea Through the Eyes of Dutch and Flemish Masters, 1550-1700” runs through Sept. 7 at the Peabody-Essex Museum, East India Square, Salem, Mass. For more information, call (866) 745-1876or visit www.pem.org.

bvansicl@projo.com