The Fighting Temeraire
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| The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1838 |
|---|
| William Turner , 1839 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 91 × 122 cm |
| National Gallery , London |
The Fighting Temeraire (full title: The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1838 ) is an oil painting by the well-known English painter JM William Turner (1775-1851) from 1839. Turner shows a contemporary scene and gives it additional content through color and composition.
Image content
The picture shows at first glance how the 40-year-old second class ship of the line HMS Temeraire , completed in 1798, is towed by a smaller paddle steamer to its last anchorage in Rotherhithe to be scrapped . 33 years earlier, the ship had played an important role in the Battle of Trafalgar by helping the beleaguered HMS Victory Horatio Nelsons against the two opposing flagships and thus contributing significantly to the victory of the British fleet. In 1839, Turner returned the masts and rigging that had already been removed to the hull for this last voyage, and a bright gold-white as the main color (in reality it was black).
Interested contemporaries recognized these details from the very first glance at the oil painting on display. At second glance it is towed without its own flag during a brilliant sunset. The steamer signals with the white flag on the mast that it is a commercial, civilian transport. The interpretation of the Nationalgalerie is that a turning point is being shown, because Turner's words do not only apply to this sailing warship:
- The flag which braved the battle and the breeze, no longer owns her.
The next warship to be launched with this name, the third Temeraire , was a steel, screw-propelled ship. But Turner uses the compositional trick of the sunset - in a figurative sense - to let the sun shine on her one last time (singular in title, keep plural in mind). Further details are the other ships on the Thames , the plume of smoke from the tugboat, the smooth water surface and the reflection of the rising moon on the left edge of the picture.
The painting hangs in the National Gallery in London today . Turner bequeathed it to his native Great Britain in 1851, along with many other valuable works, under the condition of creating a retirement home for impoverished artists (then called Almshouse ).
Ship name, designation, reception
Literally translated, the full title The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1838 reads as follows: "The Fighting Temeraire is towed to her last berth to be scrapped, 1838". The short title The Fighting Temeraire , which is also used by the National Gallery, is usually used. For readers unfamiliar with the history of Great Britain, this title easily leads to the mistaken belief that the painting depicts a naval battle. However, since the Trafalgar battle against Napoleon's invasion plans, The Fighting Temeraire has been the honorary designation for the ship HMS Temeraire , its crew and the captain, which is common in the press, in art and literature ; the French Téméraire stands for the actual ship name fearlessness . In the English ship names it is always written without accents.
In the German language the title of the picture - shortened - is also known as The Last Voyage of the Temeraire .
For the name there are these lines of songs by Henry Newbolt , "The Fighting Temeraire", 1898, about the battle, the end of the ship and the sunset at Turner:
- Now the sunset breezes shiver
- Temeraire! Temeraire!
- And she's fading down the river.
- Temeraire! Temeraire!
- Now the sunset Breezes shiver
- And she's fading down the river,
- But in England's song for ever
- She's the Fighting Temeraire.
In 2005 the picture was voted Greatest Painting in Britain in a BBC poll .
In 2016, the Bank of England announced the issue of a new £ 20 note with the image of (the young) gymnast and the image of Temeraire.
Trivia
- The painting is a tribute to the 23rd film in the James Bond series Skyfall . The room with the painting in the National Gallery of London is where James Bond and Mister “Q” meet. In this way, the painting becomes a symbol for the aging agent who has done a great deal of service to his country, but apparently no longer finds a proper place in recent times.
- The 2014 film Mr. Turner - Masters of Light shows how the aging painter, as an eyewitness to this scene, is inspired to paint the picture like this.
- The fact that he clearly depicts the tugboat leading the convoy as a side paddle steamer may show that he is open to technical innovations. His picture of a steam train on a new bridge west of London, painted five years later, is also known.
As a subject
There is an engraving of the oil painting at
- J. Hogarth by James Tibbits Willmore , who also engraved other Turner pictures, 1845
Other pictures of the ship:
- Clarkson Frederick Stanfield , Sketch for "The Battle of Trafalgar, and the Victory of Lord Nelson over the Combined French and Spanish Fleets," 1805, now Tate Britain
- Cy Twombly , Triptych: Three studies from the Temeraire, 1998–1999
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- Geoff Hunt : The Heavyweight Punch, Victory races Temeraire for the Enemy Line and HMS Temeraire (modern battle painter)
- RG and AW Reeve: The Temeraire of 98 guns… ; colored aquatint after JJ Williams (1838) (shows the hull in Southwark after a contemporary sketch)
The ship probably appears on some battle paintings (Trafalgar, 1805) without being specifically named. The Trafalgar battle is a popular subject to this day. It - or its masts - is also not clearly identified in an earlier picture of Turner from the battle, with the center on the HMS Victory .
literature
- Christine Riding, Richard Johns: Turner & the Sea. London, 2013. ISBN 978-0-500-23905-6 (English)
- Sam Willis: The Fighting Temeraire: Legend of Trafalgar. Quercus, London, 2009. ISBN 978-1-84916-261-6 (English)
- Andrew Wilton (Ed.): William Turner - Life and Work. EA Seemann Verlag, Leipzig, 2006. ISBN 978-3-86502-142-7 (Original English: 1979, JMW Turner: His Art and Life. Tabard Press)
Web links
- Explanations. National Gallery (English)
- Information about the breakdown of masts and transport to Southwark (English)
Notes / individual evidence
- ↑ here the short title "The Fighting Temeraire" was given preference over the long name Turner, since the National Gallery also uses the short title - see also National Gallery website
- ↑ The story behind the Fighting Temeraire at artgallery.co.uk
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↑ Explanations at Nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/…heroine-of-trafalgar on 7 pages.
Information at rmg.co.uk/collections/2014, towing-the-temeraire ( Memento of the original from August 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed 26 Aug 2016) - ↑ BBC, Radio 4, PM of September 5, 2005 (with over 30,000 of the approximately 120,000 votes cast)
- ↑ New £ 20 note design and personality unveiled by Bank of England. BBC of April 22, 2016 (message with picture)
- ↑ In addition an article by Andrew Graham-Dixon , quote: "... Temeraire as a personal emblem for Turner ..." - from "The heartfelt tug of time" in The Independent of July 25, 1995
- ^ Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway, 1844 , also in the NG same room 34 (under a typical English rainy sky)
