The Slave Ship, By J. M. W. Turner

The renowned piece Slave Ship by J.M.W Turner was viewed by critics as a ‘kitchen accident’ and over the top (Simon Schama's Power of art). This painting represented slaves killed at sea. The intentions of this were to make viewers weep, but was actually viewed as absurd. (Simon Schama's Power of art). Turner was viewed as mad, yet created the greatest British painting in the 19th century. Starting at a young age, Turner created sublime paintings that represented British and French issues and incredible imagination. This painting was based off the factual event of 132 African Americans being thrown overboard into shark waters of the Caribbean. The slave trade had become a great problem of Britain, creating a movement that influenced this painting. The Slave Ship shows us such terror and sin.
A vessel in the background being sucked into the water.
If you look closely you can see monsters in the sea. This image can be hard to view with its blurry appearance. It portrays such struggle and fight in the water. Slaves drowning and being swallowed up by the sea. Turner attempts to catch his viewer’s attention with the various hues and intensity and rage. The opening canal down the center of the image creates a feeling of something powerful beyond measure, as if a hand is opening up the waters. Defeating slavery and sin is apparent in this image. The patch of blue at the top right signifies a sense of hope. Turner has given us a feeling of freedom in the way he paints the brush strokes and colors, freedom being conveyed as the powerful message. Though he was written off as a senile lunatic, he changed British art and dared to paint images that no other conformist ever
would.
The second image I chose to compare to Slave Ship, is called Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps. This painting shows the difficulties of Hannibal’s soldiers attempting to cross the Maritime Alps. The black storm dominates the sky, positioned to come towards the soldiers in the valley, with a colorful sun breaking up the darkness of the image. Hannibal may be riding an elephant just visible in the distance. The large animal is shrunken in comparison to the storm and landscape. The violent snowstorm is whirling around the sun as rain is pouring down with large fallen boulders to dramatize the event. Turner’s painting is a response to Jacques-Louis David’s portrait of Napoleon Crossing the Alps. Along with many others of Turners paintings, this image broke the basic rules of composition. Having irregular composition and no geometric axes or perspective. I believe that in both paintings Turner shows us something “brave and different.” He was a strong believer of painting what he could see, not what he knew. He was different in the sense of using colors, lights, and atmospheres in which a way other artists had never used before. His style became more free with the use of a mostly clear palette, the process of sublime where all recognizable form is diluted. Resembling more of a water color than a painting on canvas. These techniques are apparent in both paintings, along with the expressive and intensive use of color. When comparing these two paintings you can see Turner’s painting style focused on landscape, but more so the effects of light and color, and the natural atmospheric elements. In comparing these two paintings, you can see the romantic style driven by his personal life, feelings and imagination. His landscapes vary from the sublime to the picturesque. Both of these paintings exploring atmosphere along with his detailed attention to use of light and color. In the Snow Storm he paints the expression of a man’s vulnerability in the face of nature’s overwhelming force, while in the Slave Ship it illustrates that nature is superior to man. The Sublime, as it was known, became the dominating aesthetic of Turner’s work and was expressed in the dramatic potential of sun, seas, mountains, and waterfalls, as well as cataclysmic events such as storms, avalanches, and fires (J.M.W Turner National Art Gallery). Turner does a good job of evoking the concept of the ‘sublime’ in both images. The idea of the sublime in The Slave Ship, is the utter powerlessness and terror of humanity in the face of nature; by dramatizing the strength of the waves and sun. Turner uses The Slave Ship to show the definition of sublime by the use of his quick, haste brush strokes than elegantly planned lines, aids in the passionate portrayal of the painting. In the Snowstorm Turner creates the “sublime catastrophe” which shows the insignificance of humans compared to the awesome power of nature. His use of color and big sections of different shapes foreshadow impressionists during the 19th century.