“The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner
The Fighting Temeraire is an oil painting by the English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. The painting depicts the HMS Temeraire, a battle-aged and decommissioned gunship being towed by a paddle-wheel steam tug to her last berth in 1838 to be broken up for scrap.
This painting was an immediate success for Turner, with the critics and the public, but he never sold it. Turner refused offers to buy the painting, having determined to leave it to the nation. He called this work his “darling.”
The HMS Temeraire played a distinguished role in Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and thus became a celebrated gunship known as the ‘Fighting Temeraire.’
The 98-gun ship was one of the critical vessels that took part in the Battle of Trafalgar at which the British decisively destroyed the Napoleonic naval threat.
Britain was bracing itself for invasion by Napoleon, who had brought together fleets from France and Spain, to neutralize the British navy.
Success at the Battle of Trafalgar sowed the seeds of the colonial power that was to follow the British victory over Napoleon.
Thirty-three years after her best-known battle, the ‘Temeraire’ was decaying and no longer in use, and her last voyage was to be towed up the Thames to be broken up at a south-east London shipyard.
This composition depicts a glorious sunset, through which sails a short, dark tugboat, pulling a ghostly sailing ship.
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 forever
She’s the Fighting Temeraire.
By Henry Newbolt, ‘The Fighting Temeraire’, 1898
J. M. W. Turner was eighteen years old when Britain entered the Napoleonic Wars, and he, like the nation, was strongly patriotic.
The Temeraire was a famous ship from her heroic acts at Trafalgar, and her sale by the British Admiralty and later scrapping attracted much press coverage. This painting had a symbolic meaning for Turner and his audience.
It was immediately appreciated for its symbolism and the atmospheric style used by Turner to explored the interplay of the water and the effects of the setting sun.
Many of Turner’s paintings can be found in museums across the world, depict famous landscapes and seascapes.
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 – 1851), later more commonly called J. M. W. Turner, entered the Royal Academy of Art in 1789, aged 14, and his first watercolor was accepted for the Royal Academy summer exhibition of 1790 when Turner was 15.
From a young art student trained in executing topographical watercolors, he became one of the most original artists of his time.
Turner was a Romantic painter, printmaker, and watercolorist, today known for his vivid coloration, imaginative landscapes, and turbulent marine paintings. A
s a private, eccentric, and reclusive figure, Turner was controversial throughout his career. He left over 2,000 paintings and 19,000 drawings and sketches.
The Fighting Temeraire
- Title: The Fighting Temeraire
- Subject: A 98-gun ship tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1838
- Artist: J. M. W. Turner
- Date: 1839
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 91 cm × 122 cm (36 in × 48 in)
- Type: History Painting
- Museum: National Gallery, London
J.M.W. Turner: Painting The Fighting Temeraire
Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Name: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Born: 1775 – Covent Garden, London, England
- Died: 1851 (aged 76) – Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, England
- Nationality: English
- Movement: Romanticism
- Notable works:
- The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons
- The Fighting Temeraire
- Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino
- The Burning of the Houses of Parliament
- Newport Castle
- The Grand Canal, Venice
- Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway
- Dido Building Carthage
- Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth
- The Slave Ship
- Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps
The Fighting Temeraire, by J.M.W. Turner
A Tour of the National Gallery
13th Century Paintings
- “The Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Narrative Scenes” by Margarito d’Arezzo – 1264
- “The Virgin and Child” by Master of the Clarisse – 1268
- “Crucifix” by Master of Saint Francis – 1270
14th Century Paintings
- Wilton Diptych – 1395
- “The Annunciation” by Duccio – 1311
- “The Healing of the Man Born Blind” by Duccio – 1311
15th Century Paintings
- “Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan van Eyck – 1434
- “The Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello– 1440
- “Venus and Mars” by Sandro Botticelli – 1483
- “Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan” by Giovanni Bellini– 1501
16th Century Paintings
- “Mystic Nativity” by Sandro Botticelli – 1550
- “Virgin of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci – 1506
- “The Madonna of the Pinks” by Raphael – 1507
- “The Raising of Lazarus” by Sebastiano del Piombo– 1519
- “Salvator Mundi” by Andrea Previtali – 1519
- “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian – 1523
- “The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – 1533
- “Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo – 1540
- “Saint George and the Dragon” by Tintoretto – 1558
- “The Family of Darius before Alexander” by Paolo Veronese – 1567
- “Diana and Actaeon” by Titian – 1569
- “The Rape of Europa” by Paolo Veronese – 1570
- “The Death of Actaeon” by Titian – 1575
- “The Origin of the Milky Way” by Tintoretto – 1575
17th Century Paintings
- “Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio – 1601
- “Samson and Delilah” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
- “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary” by Diego Velázquez – 1618
- “The Judgement of Paris” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1635
- “Aurora abducting Cephalus” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1637
- “Equestrian Portrait of Charles I” by Anthony van Dyck – 1638
- “Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez – 1651
- “The Courtyard of a House in Delft” by Pieter de Hooch – 1658
- “Self Portrait at the Age of 63” by Rembrandt – 1669
- “A Young Woman standing at a Virginal” by Johannes Vermeer – 1670
18th Century Paintings
- “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Sebastiano Ricci – 1713
- “A Regatta on the Grand Canal” by Canaletto – 1740
- “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough – 1749
- “Eton College” by Canaletto – 1754
- “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby – 1768
- “Self-portrait in a Straw Hat” by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – 1782
19th Century Paintings
- “Portrait of Doña Isabel de Porcel” by Francisco Goya – 1805
- “The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
- “Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
- “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
- “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
- “The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
- “Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
- “Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
- “Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
- “The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
- “Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
- “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
- “Tiger in a Tropical Storm” by Henri Rousseau – 1891
- “After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
- “Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898
20th Century Paintings
- “Misia Sert” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir – 1904
- “Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt – 1904
- Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) by Paul Cézanne – 1905
- “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows – 1912
- “Water-Lilies” by Claude Monet (National Gallery, London) – 1916
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The Fighting Temeraire by J. M. W. Turner
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“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
– William Shakespeare
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Photo Credit: 1) J. M. W. Turner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons