The Tale of the Temeraire (Turner's Masterpiece and the Battle of Trafalgar)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 3/6/2009 | Mary Tompkins Lewis

[mojito]

In the late summer of 1838, H.M.S. Temeraire, a once-glorious remnant of the Battle of Trafalgar of 1805, was towed up the Thames to the wharf at Rotherhithe, to be broken up and sold for her fittings and oaken timbers. J.M.W. Turner's painting of the doomed ship's final passage, in which he summoned her illustrious past by rechristening her the "Fighting Temeraire," never left his possession and became part of his bequest to the nation after his death in 1851 at age 76. Enshrined in the National Gallery in London since 1856 and embodying a nostalgic nation's memory of an age when it ruled the waves, Turner's canvas remains among his best-known and best-loved works. Even today, as scholars debate the meaning of its ambiguous but deeply stirring imagery, "Fighting Temeraire" elicits a charged emotional response.

Exactly 40 years before she met an ignominious end upriver, the Temeraire was launched to considerable fanfare at Chatham. A massive man-of-war of the Second Rate equipped with 98 guns (ships of the First Rate had 100 guns or more), vast stores of ammunition, three decks and a trio of towering masts, the Temeraire first served as flagship to the formidable Channel Fleet, a bulwark of Britain's maritime defense.

[mojito]

A melancholy masterpiece. See the painting at the link.

[iceskater]

Art and history ping for you!

[Tenniel2]

In 1838 Turner memorialized the end of the pre-industrial age. Today his painting serves equally well as an epitaph for the country and culture that gave birth to the modern world.

Vale, Albion.

[6323cd]

[mojito]

Thanks for posting the painting directly to the thread.

[6323cd]

I love Turner. He’s one of my favorite painters.

[patriciaruth]

I just finished reading this article in the Wall St. Journal weekend edition and also lots of other wonderful articles on books and plays and culture.

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