This old-versus-new imagery of the two ships testifies to Turner's ingenuity in the description of the transition from one age to another. While exalting the new era of steam power, Turner did not intend to ignore the alternative--that of the past. Temeraire's comparatively large size suggests the glory of the past. Her noble posture seems to say that she is approaching a glorious retirement rather than the final destiny of defeat. Exaltation of the new mode of power is also implicit in the positive tonality of the whole picture. The gorgeous sunlight illuminates the sky and the sea like two pieces of a mirror, neatly duplicating each other in oranges and reds. In association with the theme of the glorification of steam power in Turner's work, one might wonder if this painting could not just as well represent the sun rising as setting. Bearing in mind this hopeful tonality, one should note that it is not the imitation of a natural gradation of light but rather a creation of Turner's own notion of light in terms of color. In his brief comment on this painting, Ruskin is right to say: “That picture will not, at the first glance deceive as a piece of actual sunlight…” (68). Rothenstein further points out that “both form and space [of The Fighting 'Temeraire' ] are expressed not through chiaroscuro but colour” (58). Actually, this observation is applicable to all of Turner's paintings with steam power as subject.

IV.
Peace--burial at sea may not be as historically significant as the previous two. Nonetheless, it attains a higher level of esthetic expression. “It's severe contrast and the density of black,” according to William Gaunt, “were adversely remarked on by contemporary critics. Yet this was an intended vehemence in which the ‘expressionist’ side of Turner's art appears” (19). While, as usual, the form remains shadowy, a strong contrast of dark (black) and light (white and pale gray) substitute for the harmony of color, characteristic of Staffa, Fingal's Cave and The Fighting 'Temeraire' . This forcible juxtaposition produces an overwhelming gloom which precisely suggests the atmosphere of a burial. On the other hand, in the “heart” of the picture, the fire burns brightly, resisting the overflow of gloom. Indubitably, the fire, symbolic of hope, love, and blessings, functions here to counterbalance the pervading gloom. This synthesis of two moods of polar opposition miraculously creates a poetic serenity and contributes to a very successful Romantic elegy. Without this “flower” of fire blooming in its center, the steamboat would have been turned into a ghost ship, especially given the prominence of its mast of black sails.

V.
With Snowstorm (1842), Turner is probably the first one in the history of art to portray a steamship in danger. Basically, its composition recalls that of early sea-pieces such as The Shipwreck . Only this time the steamboat replaces the sailboat. However, the confidence, the new power, and the nobility of the steamboat in the painting previously discussed are no longer to be found in Snowstorm . One would wonder if Turner had a new perception of the steamboat when he was at work on this painting. By wrapping the comparatively tiny ship in the huge vortex of a storm at sea, Turner seems to suggest that the steamboat--merely another human construction--scarcely outdoes the sailboat in its confrontation with the elemental forces of nature.

Ruskin claims that Snowstorm is “one of the very grandest statements of sea-motion, mist, and light, that has ever been put on canvas, even by Turner” (158). But this painting was not well understood in its time. The audience was confounded by it, as Ruskin explains in Modern Painters , “for few people have had the opportunity of seeing at such a time, and when they have, can not face it” (158). Still, this explanation can not account for the apparent mysticism of Snowstorm . Actually, what troubled the viewer was its modernity of expression. Nobody, not even Ruskin himself, was in a position to recognize it. In other words, he and his peers were not yet cognizant of still another level of the effects of motion with respect to the human eye. Ironically, Ruskin was strongly oriented towards modern science in his study of “ modern” painters. In particular, when one becomes aware that Ruskin hardly mentions Rain, Steam and Speed in Modern Painters , one realizes the lack of a chapter “Of Turnerian Speed.”

Its almost Imagist title “sufficiently indicates the intention of the artist, which was evidently to give the idea of ‘Rain, Steam, and Speed’, much more than the portrait of a steam-engine or a view of the Great Western Railway."{5}  In other words, as far as the new subject is concerned, what intrigued Turner was the essence of the steam locomotive--its motion, power, and speed. What is the proper form of “steam and speed”? These formless objects must have motivated Turner, a constant researcher of light and color, to look for new ways of expression appropriate to them. In another words, a new from was needed for a new content. Turner did not revert to the classical technique to which he had previously resorted in his early paintings for rendering the elemental forces of nature. Undoubtedly, the right choice was the indistinctness of Snowstorm , which stands out as a successful expression of motion at high speed. As a matter of fact, indistinctness is the general appearance of formless things such as rain and speed. With this in mind, the blurring of the locomotive can be construed not only as an esthetically satisfying evocation of its essence but as an authentic phenomenon of motion so fast that it exceeds the capacity of the normal human eye. This conclusion can be again supported by noting Turner's representation of rain with long, slanting brush strokes of translucent white. They convey the same effect as that caused in the human visual field by fast moving objects. Not incidentally, these long streaks of rain are deliberately put on in such a way as to cut across the path of the locomotive along its track. This intersection of two types of movement enhances the viewer's sense of the speed of the locomotive. Meanwhile, the glistening confusion of the lighting adds a final touch to crown this unprecedented image of speed.

Notes

1. Some critics, however, contend that Turner's indistinctness is anticipated by the indeterminate forms of John Robert Cozens (1752-c1797/9). See Brennan 101.
2. Pictures of Turner's which feature a steamboat also include Havre, Tower of Francis I (1832), Rockets and blue lights (1840), Steamboat in a storm (1841). The reason for excluding Rockets from discussion is that its steamboat is only partly shown. Havre is done not in oil but in gouache, which renders invalid any comparison with respect to color and general effect with the paintings selected here. As for Steamboat , it is just a sketch done in watercolor.
3. In Lindsay's opinion, the vortex in Turner's work suggests “a rich and yet simple unity…, which derives…from two factors: his elimination of all intellectualized attitudes from the treatment of colour, and a realization of the pure identity of colour and light; his concentration on essential structures of movement, which are to be seen most powerfully in wind and water, but which dominate and control all forms” (200-1).
4. For illustrations of works on the steam locomotive in Turner's time, see Klingender's Art and the Industrial Revolution .
5. The words are P. G. Hamerton's, quoted from Finley's article. See Finley 29, note 1, for the original source.

Works Cited

Brennan, Matthew. Wordsworth, Turner, and Romantic Landscape . Columbia, SC.: Camden House, 1987.

Finley, Gerald. “Turner and the Steam Revolution.” Gazette Des Beaux-Arts 112 (1988): 19-30.

Gage, John. Color in Turner: Poetry and Truth . New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969.

-----. Turner: Rain, Steam and Speed . New York: Viking, 1972.

Gaunt, William. Turner . Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1971.

Klingender, F. D. Art and the Industrial Revolution . 1947. Ed. Arthur Elton. London: Evelyn, Adams & Mackay, 1968.

Lindsay, Jack. J. M. W. Turner: A Critical Biography . London: Cory, Adams and Mackay, 1966.

Reynolds, Graham. Turner . New York: Harry N. Abrams, nd.

Rothenstein, John, and Martin Butlin. Turner . New York: George Braziller, 1964.

Ruskin, John. Modern Painters . Ed. David Barrie. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

Turner, J. M. W. The Shipwreck . 1805.