This week, Ms Carr-Gomm discusses J.M.W. Turner’s ‘The Fighting Temeraire’.
J.M.W.Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, 1838, 91 x 122 cm, oil on canvas, National Gallery London
On the left of the composition, a ghostly ship is pulled by a hardy little tug boat across a glassy sea.They glide from left to right where a blazing sun fills the sky as it gently sets to end another day.
The Fighting Temeraire, launched in 1798, was a 98 gun ship made of more than 5,000 large oaks, manned by 750 and, fighting beside Nelson’s Victory, she was a heroine of the Battle of Trafalgar. During the confusion of the battle she was badly wounded and, temporarily repaired, she limped home, was put out of commission and her ensign and guns were withdrawn. She served as a prison ship, a receiving ship where seamen waited before being sent on active service and a victualling ship keeping stores ready for dispatch; her last days were spent in Sheerness at the mouth of the Thames. Over the years, her masts were removed, she no longer carried sails, she was reduced to an empty hull. In 1838 she was deemed to be of no further use and was sold to a Rotherhithe ship-breaker for her timber.
Although Turner claims he saw the Temeraire pass by, his painting is a glorious fiction. He has restored her dignity by replacing her masts and rigging, brushing over her empty gun ports and masking the place where she had proudly flown the red, white and blue of the Union Jack with the fiery smoke of the tug. No ship of this size would be on the move just before nightfall and the artist has boldly reversed the movement of the sun – the Temeraire makes steady progress west towards London with the sun setting in the east behind her. Turner has given her a stately, silent journey as she is tugged up river to her last berth*.
*The full title of Turner’s painting is The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy the following year with the lines
The flag which braved the battle and the breeze,
No longer owns her.
