Why is JMW Turner’s biggest painting so misunderstood?

As museums around the world celebrate JMW Turner’s 250th birthday, it’s time to recreate his beloved, blessed painting, the Fighting Temererer.

JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire became a national celebrity when it was first announced in 1839, and its fame endures to this day. It was once voted My favorite British paintings It’s working now £20 banknotes. However, the widely accepted interpretation of this iconic painting’s message may in fact contradict Turner’s true intentions.

The title “Temerer” refers to the Royal Navy’s 98 gun warship depicted in the background of the painting. It was a hero in British defense against France during the Napoleonic Wars, but it attracted the national attention in 1838, when it was dismantled and the portion sold. Turner’s paintings depict this ocean gladiator, a former running ocean gladiator, towing the Thames, a river polished by a more recently invented steam-powered tugboat.

A short segment of the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall Capture popular views of paintings. In the scene, Bond (Daniel Craig) meets his new director of research and development, Q (Ben Whishaw), at the National Gallery in London, and sits in front of the Battle Temerair. “It always makes me a little depressed,” says Q, a young, tech-savvy Q, with a pointed jibe to 007, a traditional field agent. “The grand old warships are ignorantly discarded.”

This reflects the widely believed belief that painting evokes a sense of nostalgia and decays the glory of its people. According to this view, the ghostly Temererer is the heroine of the painting and the villain of the tugboat. In the 19th century, British writer William Makepeace Thackeray called the small ship “a little, mean, demonic steamer,” and American novelist Herman Melville called the “pygmy steam sachet” compared to “Titan Temerea.”

It is clear why Turner’s original audience sympathizes with the humble HMS Temererer and is saddened by her fate. In 1804 she played an important role in blocking off French ports and protecting the British coast. However, her best moment took place on the afternoon of October 21, 1805 in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of southwestern Spain.

At this pivotal time, the Battle of Trafalgar, a fatal sea battle between the British Royal Navy and the Spanish and French combined fleet, was at its climax. Admiral Nelson’s flagship HMS victory led the attack, but the French ship was attacked by redubedable. The smoke from the cannons resulted in a surge in HMS Temererer, followed by a war-hungered fleet of British ships. Temeraire blows up Redoubleable with his gun and endures Cannon Volleys’ hail in return. But like a stubborn award fighter, Temererer weathered the match. She bravely protected her flagship and played a key role in the ultimate victory of the Royal Navy in the Battle of Trafalgar.

Turner was 64 years old when he painted Fighting Temererer. He was born in 1775 on a descent slope on his London heel near Covent Garden, but was able to register at the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 14. He was also a fierce entrepreneur. He opened his own private gallery, sought for wealthy patrons, and was always keeping an eye on new art projects that were both attractive and lucrative. On one level, Fighting Temererer achieves a wide range of desire for popularity by exploiting the national pride of people.

But there is a more important message to learn from painting than its patriotism or sentimentality. It’s about many malicious tugboats: the true focus of painting.

Steam power was a new mechanical wonder of Turner’s era, and his attitude towards this recent technology was far more complicated than Thackeray, Melville, or Q realised. Snowstorms – Other Turner artworks such as Steamboats (1842) and Rain, Steam, Speed ​​(1844) allow us to see his appeal to modern machines and its transformational influence on individual experiences, the environment, and society at large. This is in stark contrast to Turner’s great rival, John Constable, whose parents came from elites, whose paintings tended to overlook some of the most seismic changes that formed the British Isles at the time.

In the police’s iconic 1821 painting, The Hay Wain, an old-fashioned cart slowly moves away from the viewer towards the idyllic English landscape. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire gives us the exact opposite.

This reflects modern reality. When the Fighting Temerrail was painted, the Royal Navy was increasingly using steamships to tow larger ships. Moves were already underway to replace the fleet of sailing ships with new steam frigates. However, the end of Temeraire did not reflect a routine upgrade of armament. This was a unique revolution for sailors. Seafarers around the world have relied on wind and sales and all plants for thousands of years. Nowadays, steam engines can allow seafarers to overcome the whims of gusts of wind, shallow waters and tide patterns, prioritizing nature itself. The future was steaming, but in the 1830s it was no one’s guess yet how this was about to influence the future of transportation, trade and naval combat. What Turner knew was that going back to Homer’s Odyssey, sailing served as a deep symbol of his life journey in art and literature. And by having his paintings hitch unforgettable old and new, he shows us a persuasive pervert.

Turner was awakened to the artist’s responsibility in an era of irreversible historical change. For him, his old skills of drawing wooden sailing ships, his rigging, sails and ornate carved figures have become obsolete. He recognized that the challenge for all modern artists (and all members of society) is to discover the beauty and importance of newness that was not previously depicted in art, such as iron funnels, pistons, valves, and paddle wheels. In Fighting Temererer, his rise to this challenge is captured in a highly memorable, uncompromising symbol.

Turner even adapted his painting skills to represent the technological and social transformations of the world around him. He used newly invented paint shades such as Lemon Yellow and Scarlet Lake in Fighting Temererer. Pigment analysis of the painting shows that he struck matter from the kitchen, adding paint to achieve the desired effects such as fats, cooking fats and even salad oils.

His interest in new technologies and his quest for innovative technologies that represent them directly influenced the next generation of previous generation painters. Claude Monet and Kamille Pissarro were both surprised by Turner’s art. Turner’s sculpture of rain, steam and speed (drawing a fierce train over the Maiden Bridge) First Impressionist Exhibition held in Paris in 1874 – A crucial event in the history of contemporary art.

Often it is accepted as a melancholy image, a lonely lament for the glory of the past, and a path of lost life. But this misses that essential point. Fighting Temererer is about the inevitability of change and the inevitability of change rather than nostalgia. The most important lessons to learn from Fighting Temererer are about Turner’s attitudes and outlook. It embodies that he refuses to dare to newness or be enslaved to traditional artistic values. His quest to discover the beauty and grandeur of modern experiences and leave behind the past is spectacularly displayed at Fighting Temererer. And these qualities are his lasting legacy to contemporary art.

The 250th anniversary of JMW Turner’s birth is on April 23rd, 2025.