Relationships
Joseph Mallord William Turner
The Fighting Temeraire
1839
Oil on canvas, 90.7 × 121.6 cm. The National Gallery, London
Turner divided the picture by temperature: a blazing orange sunset fills the right, a cool blue sky with a thin moon the left. The pale old warship moves on the cool side.
- He painted the ship white and gold, though its actual paintwork was black and yellow.
- The tug's smoke repeats the copper of the clouds, tying the dark boat to the warm side.
- Around the sun, the orange, brown, pink and yellow of the clouds go on heavily, in places raised well above the canvas.
- The sun’s pale disk is answered by a dark buoy at lower right, a value contrast that anchors the warm side.
John Ruskin observed that Turner often used his reddest sunsets to signal death.
Concepts
Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain