The Fighting Temeraire

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The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up
J. M. W. Turner, 1838
Oil on canvas
91 × 122 cm
National Gallery, London

The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up is an oil painting executed in 1838 by the English artist J. M. W. Turner, (c.1775-1851).

It depicts one of the last second-rate ships of the line which played a distinguished role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the 98-gun ship HMS Temeraire, being towed towards its final berth in East London in 1838 to be broken up for scrap.

The painting hangs in the National Gallery, London, having been bequeathed to the nation by the artist in 1851.

1 Description
- 1.1 Symbolism
- 1.2 Historical inaccuracies
2 Greatest painting in a British art gallery
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Description

When Turner came to paint this picture he was at the height of his career, having exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, for 40 years. He was renowned for his highly atmospheric paintings in which he explored the subjects of the weather, the sea and the effects of light. He spent much of his life near the Thames estuary and did many paintings of ships and waterside scenes, both in watercolour and in oils.

Turner frequently made small sketches and then worked them into finished paintings in the studio. He was present when this ship was towed and made some sketches of it. However, he appears to have used some license in the finished painting, which has taken on symbolic meaning.

[edit] Symbolism

The composition of this painting is unusual in that the most significant object, the old warship, is positioned well to the left of the painting, where it rises in stately splendour and almost ghostlike colours against a triangle of blue sky and rising mist that throws it into relief. The beauty of the old ship is in stark contrast to the dirty blackened tugboat with its tall smokestack, which scurries across the still surface of the river "like a water beetle".^{[citation needed]}

Turner has used the triangle of blue to frame a second triangle of masted ships, which progressively decrease in size as they become more distant. Temeraire and tugboat have passed a small river craft with its gaff-rigged sail barely catching a breeze. Beyond this a square-rigger drifts, with every bit of sail extended. Another small craft shows as a patch of white further down the river. In the far distance, beyond the second tugboat which makes its way towards them, a three-masted ship rides at anchor.

On the opposite side of the painting to Temeraire, and exactly the same distance from the frame as the ship's main mast, the sun sets above the estuary, its rays extending into the clouds above it, and across the surface of the water. The flaming red of the clouds is reflected in the river. It exactly repeats the colour of the smoke which pours from the funnel of the tugboat. The sun setting symbolises the end of an epoch in British Naval history. (Venning, 2003)

Behind Temeraire, a gleaming sliver of the waning moon casts a silvery beam across the ocean. As the sun rises, it will disappear from sight, symbolising the passing of an era.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Historical inaccuracies

Some apparent inaccuracies have been pointed out, which may, in part, be explicable.

The ship was not known as the "Fighting Temeraire". It was actually known to her crew as "Saucy Temeraire", however the appellation "Fighting" is probably just an emotive description on Turner's part.^[1]
Although not an old ship, Temeraire had suffered considerable damage at the Battle of Trafalgar and according to witnesses the hull of the ship had deteriorated badly. This is not apparent in Turner's picture.
Before being broken up, the ship had been lying in the Chatham Dockyard as a hulk, having been used for a time as a prison ship. It had no masts or rigging or other superstructure, as depicted in the painting.^[1]
There were two steamboats towing the hull, rather than just the one in the painting.^[2] In the painting, a second paddle-wheel tug can be seen making its way up the river.
It has also been pointed out that the ship was being towed up the River Thames (westbound), so the sunset could not have been behind it.^[2] Indeed it must be a sunset and not a sunrise, because of the placing of the cresent moon in relation to the sun.

[edit] Greatest painting in a British art gallery

In 2005, The Fighting Temeraire was voted the greatest painting in a British art gallery.^[1] The painting, which hangs in the National Gallery in London, won 31,892 votes, more than a quarter of the 118,111 cast in a poll organised by the BBC Today radio programme. In second place was John Constable's The Hay Wain, Édouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère was third, and The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck was fourth. Any painting displayed in a British gallery was eligible for the vote.