Description on the Fighting Temeraire
The Fighting Temeraire
The Fighting Temeraire, a landscape oil canvas painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner in 1839, stands 90.7 centimeters tall and 121.6 centimeters wide at The National Gallery in London.
At first glance, eyes are drawn to the regal, silent gliding form of the Temeraire and its partner slicing through the glass-like water. Both figures are encased in a triangular-shaped haze of sky blue. With its three masts drawn up and broken spar jutting forward, impotent and incapable, the ivory white bodied, golden wooden rimmed elegance is being tugged by a smaller paddling steamboat. The light, timid brushstrokes and colors Turner uses on the ship gives it an ethereal, ghostlike look. So much, in fact, that the reflection of the craft is almost submerged in the serene waters. On the other hand, the tugboat, depicted in light wooden brown and tinged with a dimmed sunny yellow and green complete with auburn smog billowing from its long black pipe, is seen and reflected much more clearly.
Above, a little to the left of the ship, hovers a pallid lunar sliver. To the right, the setting sun lingers on the verge of the horizon-its blend of scarlet, golden, orange rays reaching out and reflecting off the clouds and river. The blithe sky is blanketed by an assortment of clouds ranging from cottony white to various shades of grey.
In the misty background, an array of smaller boats and big ships sail, receding into the distance. Near the middle right-hand edge of the painting lies what seems to be a port-lined with factories, shops, houses, and a dock-where two darkened people in a dingy are observing the scene. In the bottom right corner of the art work, a shadowed buoy float bobs in the water. There is nothing in the painting that really snags attention away from the Temeraire’s sad journey to her impending doom.
My first impression of the painting was that it was beautiful. The scenery is gorgeous: a magnificent ship and the joining of sky and
The Fighting Temeraire, a landscape oil canvas painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner in 1839, stands 90.7 centimeters tall and 121.6 centimeters wide at The National Gallery in London.
At first glance, eyes are drawn to the regal, silent gliding form of the Temeraire and its partner slicing through the glass-like water. Both figures are encased in a triangular-shaped haze of sky blue. With its three masts drawn up and broken spar jutting forward, impotent and incapable, the ivory white bodied, golden wooden rimmed elegance is being tugged by a smaller paddling steamboat. The light, timid brushstrokes and colors Turner uses on the ship gives it an ethereal, ghostlike look. So much, in fact, that the reflection of the craft is almost submerged in the serene waters. On the other hand, the tugboat, depicted in light wooden brown and tinged with a dimmed sunny yellow and green complete with auburn smog billowing from its long black pipe, is seen and reflected much more clearly.
Above, a little to the left of the ship, hovers a pallid lunar sliver. To the right, the setting sun lingers on the verge of the horizon-its blend of scarlet, golden, orange rays reaching out and reflecting off the clouds and river. The blithe sky is blanketed by an assortment of clouds ranging from cottony white to various shades of grey.
In the misty background, an array of smaller boats and big ships sail, receding into the distance. Near the middle right-hand edge of the painting lies what seems to be a port-lined with factories, shops, houses, and a dock-where two darkened people in a dingy are observing the scene. In the bottom right corner of the art work, a shadowed buoy float bobs in the water. There is nothing in the painting that really snags attention away from the Temeraire’s sad journey to her impending doom.
My first impression of the painting was that it was beautiful. The scenery is gorgeous: a magnificent ship and the joining of sky and
References: Turner, J. (1839). The Fighting Temeraire [Painting]. Retrieved from http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-fighting-temeraire