1825

A Shipwreck

British, 1781 - 1851

J. M. W. Turner, the greatest English marine painter of the nineteenth century, dazzled the public with mid-ocean wreck subjects that were large, spectacular, and widely known through engravings. Although he worked from memory and imagination, Turner brought a convincing and terrifying new naturalism to his depiction of the sea. Perhaps inspired by the poetry of William Falconer’s “The Shipwreck” (1762) or the horror of newspaper accounts of a recent disaster at sea, Turner joined the thrill of the sublime with an interest in the plight of particular humans trapped in dreadful circumstances.