Beneath a blazing sunset, a small, smoke-belching steam tug tows the Temeraire, a veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar, to the breaker's yard. Turner's elegy for the age of sail was once voted the greatest painting in Britain.
Key facts
- Artist
- J. M. W. Turner1775–1851 · English
- Date
- 1839
- Period
- Romanticism1790–1850
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 90.7 × 121.6 cm
- Location
- The National Gallery London, United Kingdom
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#9A896C#726149#9E9A8F#55402D#B6B1A2Background
HMS Temeraire was a 98-gun British ship of the line. At the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 she followed Nelson's flagship Victory into the enemy line and came to her aid at a critical moment, earning the name “the Fighting Temeraire”.
In 1838 the decommissioned Temeraire was sold for scrap and towed by two steam tugs up the Thames from Sheerness to Rotherhithe to be broken up. Turner, then in his sixties, is said to have witnessed the scene and finished the painting the following year.
Turner called the painting his “darling” and refused all offers to buy it; he bequeathed it to the nation along with much of his work.
Technique & composition
Turner did not record the facts faithfully: the Temeraire's masts had already been removed, but he painted them standing tall, pale as a ghost. is small and black, spewing smoke, a stark contrast.
The right half is dominated by , painted in thick impasto, reds, oranges and yellows blazing and reflected in the water. The left half is cool blue and silver. Warm and cold, new and old, occupy opposite sides.
In his later years Turner increasingly valued light and colour for their own sake, dissolving the outlines of objects into the atmosphere, a technique that anticipated Impressionism.
Details
Symbolism
The end of an era
stands for the old age of sail and heroism; the smoking steam tug for the new industrial age. The setting sun marks the end of a glorious era.
Sunset and moonrise
On the right the sun sets; at upper left a quietly rises. As one day ends, another era begins.
The buoy
The dark on the water at lower right has been likened to a coffin or tombstone, adding mourning to this “funeral”.
Stories
- Did you know?
In a 2005 poll by BBC Radio 4 listeners, the painting was voted the greatest painting in Britain.
- Did you know?
The polymer £20 note issued in 2020 carries Turner's self-portrait and this painting.
- Did you know?
Geographically, the tug was heading west up the Thames, so the setting sun should have been ahead of it; Turner moved the sun to the right for the sake of the composition.
Legacy
The Fighting Temeraire is a masterpiece of British Romanticism and a turning point in Turner's late style. His treatment of light and atmosphere influenced the Impressionists; Monet studied Turner closely during his exile in London in 1870.
It has become part of British national memory; in the film Skyfall, James Bond meets the new Q in front of this painting.
