The Slave Ship J.M.W Turner
[pic]
The Slave Ship
Slavers Overthrowing the Dead and Dying - Typhon coming on (“The Slave Ship”)
Turner, John Mallord William (1775-1851)
Romantic Landscape Painter
1840; Oil on canvas, 90.8 x 122.6 cm; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;
Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
Declare the Typhon's coming.
Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
The dead and dying - ne'er heed their chains
Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!
Where is thy market now?"
JMW Turner displayed this poem with his Slave Ship in 1812
Poem by Robert Bloomfield
The Slave Ship painting by British Artist Turner is said to have been inspired by the practice of the late eighteenth century Atlantic slave traders who would throw the dead and dying slaves overboard in order to collect the insurance money paid out upon their death but only if they drowned. Turner is said to have been influenced by the ‘Zong Massacre of slaves 1781’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship)
In this essay I intend to discuss three aspects of the work. The first will be the subject matter of the painting the second will be the composition and finally the style and colours in which it was painted.
With The Slave Ship it may have been a personal relationship between the Artist and his subject matter or it may have been that he was enrolled among other artists for example like Johan Moritz Regundaz 1802-1858 and Auguste-Francois Biard 1979-1882 to advance the Abolitionists cause worldwide through their art. ‘The British Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade: its emblem of 1787 with a chained black slave begging to be freed and a diagram of a slave ship illustrating the inhuman way in which Africans were stowed when crossing the Atlantic’. (A World History of Art – Hugh Honour and John Fleming P. 656) Although slavery was abolished in Britain at the time that this painting was painted it was still thriving in Europe, the
The Slave Ship
Slavers Overthrowing the Dead and Dying - Typhon coming on (“The Slave Ship”)
Turner, John Mallord William (1775-1851)
Romantic Landscape Painter
1840; Oil on canvas, 90.8 x 122.6 cm; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;
Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
Declare the Typhon's coming.
Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
The dead and dying - ne'er heed their chains
Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!
Where is thy market now?"
JMW Turner displayed this poem with his Slave Ship in 1812
Poem by Robert Bloomfield
The Slave Ship painting by British Artist Turner is said to have been inspired by the practice of the late eighteenth century Atlantic slave traders who would throw the dead and dying slaves overboard in order to collect the insurance money paid out upon their death but only if they drowned. Turner is said to have been influenced by the ‘Zong Massacre of slaves 1781’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship)
In this essay I intend to discuss three aspects of the work. The first will be the subject matter of the painting the second will be the composition and finally the style and colours in which it was painted.
With The Slave Ship it may have been a personal relationship between the Artist and his subject matter or it may have been that he was enrolled among other artists for example like Johan Moritz Regundaz 1802-1858 and Auguste-Francois Biard 1979-1882 to advance the Abolitionists cause worldwide through their art. ‘The British Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade: its emblem of 1787 with a chained black slave begging to be freed and a diagram of a slave ship illustrating the inhuman way in which Africans were stowed when crossing the Atlantic’. (A World History of Art – Hugh Honour and John Fleming P. 656) Although slavery was abolished in Britain at the time that this painting was painted it was still thriving in Europe, the
Bibliography: Tate Gallery. London 1976 Cat no 173 page 111. The poem is The Farmer 's Boy [Winter] by Robert Bloomfield lines 245-62. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship (A World History of Art – Hugh Honour and John Fleming P. 656) http://www.victorianweb.org/art/crisis/crisis4e.html (George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University) http://britishromanticism.wikispaces.com/Art (Landow, George P. “Turner’s Slave Ship.” The Victorian Web. 27 December 2004. 4 May 2007) http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/turner.shtml (Simon Schama’s Power of Art) John Ruskinshttp://everything2.com/title/The+Slave+Ship(Modern Painters (1846); John Ruskin) http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/turner.shtml (Simon Schama’s Power of Art)