JMW Turner was a Romantic English painter who lived from 1775 until 1851. He is best known as “the painter of light,” and he is credited with bringing landscape painting on par with historical painting, which had previously been regarded as the superior argument.
Turner is best known for his oil paintings, but he is also considered to be one of the most accomplished landscape painters to work in watercolour.
After exhibiting his work at the Royal Academy of Art in London for a period of forty years, Turner was at the pinnacle of his career when he decided to paint this image.
He became well-known for his atmospheric paintings, in which he investigated themes like as the elements, the sea, and the effects of light, and which, in some way or another, contributed to the development of the Impressionist movement. He lived the better part of his life in close proximity to the Thames River, where he was inspired to create numerous ship paintings and oil and watercolour images of waterfront life.
The Fighting Temeraire, which was painted by Turner and finished in 1839, is one of many works that the artist left to the National Gallery of London in 1851. The National Gallery of London is currently in possession of The Fighting Temeraire.
It was one of the last ships of the linea to be classified as a second category vessel and had a notable contribution to make at the Battle of Trafalgar. In the piece, the 98-gun ship HMS Temeraire is in the process of being dismantled and is being towed to its final berth in Rotherhithe, South East London in the year 1838.
The arrangement of the vessel, which serves as the subject of the work, is peculiar in that it is placed to the left side of the painting rather than in the middle of the canvas.
The Temeraire is portrayed so that it appears nearly translucent, its gleaming brilliance standing in stark contrast to the grimy and dingy tugboat that is dragging it along.
The observer may have feelings of melancholy as a result of viewing the image. The ship is being pulled toward its destruction, and the overall impression is one of regret and melancholy.
