The Fighting Temeraire

[Scylax]

Turner's masterpiece...... the more I see it, the more I see in it. Amazing, agreed ?

[NazNomad]

I see a steam tug.

[Invictas]

Did you realise that Turner used a very large amount of artistic licence in the painting?
I will let you try and work it out,and if you can't I will tell you what it is!(I promise)

[Scylax]

I am no art critic, but I wonder if the shadows and reflections in the sea are compatible with the direction of the sun.

No matter; Turner excelled in the ethereal and evanescent, but out of interest, what are the artistic licences he has employed ?

[seadogg]

Its sailing the wrong way for where it is supposed to be going I believe.

[seadogg]

http://www.nationalga...he-fighting-temeraire

Just checked . Think this explains all.

[Invictas]

Indeed,the tug is towing the ship UPriver,therefore the Thames estuary is behind the ship,so it could not have been a sunset(as was intended) but a sunrise(which was not).
However,that doesn't stop it from being of the most iconic paintings in British art history.

[seadogg]

Invictas, Have you seen the superb Turner at Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath.
It shows a fishing vessel on a lee shore about to be wrecked. Cant remember its proper name. Any ideas?

[DTCwordfan]

Yes - should see his Lake District paintings too.

If you have walked the tops in mixed weather, you will realise some of his 'extreme' colours do exist.

[boxtops]

Much painted using the skies of Margate, which can be spectacular. The Turner Contemporary gallery opens there in April. http://www.turnercontemporary.org/about

[sandyRoe]

There's a print of it in a small hotel in northern Spain. I don't know why they'd want it, apart from the fact that it's a great picture.

[Scylax]

Seemingly, after the death of Temeraire's captain, his wife was offered this painting by Turner. She rejected the offer, since in her view any painting by a living artist was worthless.

[Invictas]

seadogg,
Is it this one,I think it must be as it seems to be the only seascape at Kenwood:~
http://www.englishher...hp?xp=media&xm=436046
there is also this dramatic painting by Turner,which is I believe in Southampton?
http://www.1st-art-ga...n-Squally-Weather.jpg

[tommytrot]

This picture is a composite and catches a mood rather than the riverscape. The sun is setting in the east...
Nevertheless the scene is exquisitely beautiful and whenever I'm in London I go to the National Gallery just to soak up the sunlight in that great painting.
In the same room, on the same wall, only about three paintings away is another extraordinary Turner of an early steamtrain crossing a bridge at Maidenhead. Look closely at it and you will see a frightened hare fleeing before the thundering train. Also not the ploughman driving a horsedrawn plough in the field below the embankment to the right on the painting - little touches for Turner's amusment...?