Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway
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| Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway |
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| William Turner , 1844 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 91 × 121.8 cm |
| National Gallery , London |
Rain, Steam and Speed - the Great Western Railway ( Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway ) is an oil painting by the English painter William Turner (1775-1851), from the 19th century. The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844 . It is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London .
The motif
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was one of several private British railway companies that had been formed to develop the new mode of transport. Their goal was initially to connect Bristol with London. The line ran from London Paddington Station to Taplow .
It is widely accepted that the location depicted in the painting is the Maidenhead Railway Bridge over the Thames between the locations of Taplow and Maidenhead . The view is turned east towards London. The bridge was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and inaugurated in 1839.
Turner's work is an exception in the landscape painting of the time, which is mostly devoted to more idyllic themes (see adjacent painting by Carl Spitzweg ), as the achievements of the industrial age - steam and speed , i.e. the steam of the steam engine (steam locomotive) and new higher transport speeds - theirs early find artistic expression.
literature
- John Gage : Turner: Rain, Steam and Speed , London 1972
- Gerald E. Finley: Angel in the Sun: Turner's Vision of History , McGill-Queen's Press 1999, ISBN 0773517472
- Inigo Thomas: The Chase . In: London Review of Books 38: 2, October 2016, pp. 15-18.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Maidenhead Bridge , networkrail.co.uk, accessed on July 16, 2014