Turner's Rain, Steam, and Speed | Talks for All | National Gallery
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- This is part of our 'Talks for All' series. Christina Bradstreet talks on J. M. W. Turner's 'Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway', painted in 1844.
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Of course Christina meant to say "when Pissaro and Monet visted the National Gallery in 1870 or '71, this was the painting ....". It's impossible to underestimate the influence Turner had on the Impressionists. But Chriatina does a great job in stressing all the added meanings in Turner's work, such import that the French often eshewed in their landscapes.
I could watch this for hours 😍
Thank you NG for these Talks and the professionalism of the presenters ; a great lift under lockdown 👍
This was amazing! Thank you so much for bringing me literally inside a painting I love but I realized i knew very little.
May 2022 here: Thank you for the interesting talk on this amazing painting by Turner. For me, I think there are two main focal points of the artwork - 1) the train 2) the hare. While (IMHO), it may be certainly tempting to look at it as though the train is the main Protagonist, the hare, I believe, was put there by Turner for good reason (certainly his request to have the hare repainted to ensure it's survival seems to point to the idea that it is important to the painting). Rather than the train bearing down on the hair in a destructive way, I see it as the hare not only having fun with the technological beast - but the hare (nature) defeating the train and still being the fastest. It would be odd, I think, for the hare to be in the middle of a bridge and not take a detour prior to the bridge to save itself (unless it's very lost!). In the painting we have people on foot, boats, ducks or birds in the water (I think), plus a secondary bridge that may denote other forms of transportation. The train, despite it's technological glory - is still being defeated by a little hare. I do like the notion of the painting exploring the 4 elements (earth, wind, fire, water). One other "element" (not sure if it actually is - just my theory!) is the 5th element - gravity. None of the 4 elements would exist in nature without gravity - fire wouldn't breath, water would not fall as rain or stay in the oceans and would float, earth wouldn't stay on the ground to grow nature, and wind would not exist to pollinate or spread seed etc.). You can clearly see gravity at work at it's different levels as well - starting North with the clouds rising up to the top of the painting then rounding East, the sunbeams on the right lighting down from the East to the South, the water moving from the South of the bridge to the other bridge to the West. And like the motion of the train, it feels like those elements are swirling. Where would I be situated in the painting? I'd sit in that third class topless (lol) because (despite being in gainful employ & having spent the coin needed to sit in the other classes) I'd want the 5 sense real experience - the cold on my face with flashes of heat from the fire in the engine room, the smell of the soot/smoke/nature as we go past it, the feeling of the wind & rain on my skin, the view of everything whirling past, the taste of the coal & the rain, and the noise of the train, the whistle & nature. I probably need to spend time looking at other paintings by Turner, but it does feel like he wasn't painting classic scenes like those in traditional mythology paintings, but rather painted modern scenes realising perhaps, one day, in the future, they would be looked at as Classics.
Thanks for your talks. The Rain, Steam, and Speed painting gives me the feeling that Turner was expressing the new industrial age but also the departing past, maybe his past. The passengers were seeing landscape and people in a completely new way. I am sure Turner was well aware of this, He was also seeing in a new way! The precursor of the impressionists!
I've always liked this painting however it was fascinating to hear it explained. I've always wondered how Turner got the viewpoint, I live not that far away and can't think where he was placing the viewer.
I like how he painted the engine.....powerful and strong colors, really stands out !!
Turner was a master of the layered meaning and his paintings always seem to say multiple things as once so I think it would be foolish to assign a still meaning to a painting that was so clearly for a multitude of attitudes to view. It's probably one of the few paintings that seems to not only invite but confirm the contradictions and conflict that the Victorian era felt about the arrival of steam power. Visually to me the storm evokes a close up of the yellowish steam and smoke produced by the engines; a perfect storm for the arrival of this new technology aided by the sideways slant indicating rain. The atmosphere is charged with power, certainty and inevitability just as a storm is often inevitable.... Only this storm is made of industrial power. Its also fascinating to see how the ideas of romanticism is being played off against the realities of the Victorian experience. More and more that pastoral dream is becoming simply that; a dream left behind in the wake of the trauma that was the industrial revolution. It would certainly fit alongside the pattern of Turner's past subjects that focused on mythology. A blunt force rocketing (heh) out of this romantic classical daydream with powerful storm cloud gathering. Interestingly enough the Broad gauge which lasted until the standardisation act 1846 and had to be replaced so there is an irony to the hare of tragedy because in a sense what can seem new then will be out stripped by the storms of progress
@JONATHAN SUTCLIFFE not everyone has seen the film and it's not very popular now.
lovely presentation!
Brilliant talk. So illuminating about a painting I'd loved but never understood - and hadn't ever noticed the man ploughing the field! I feel Turner was perhaps negative about the effect of the speed entering and dominating modern life - the train the only dark thing in the painting, off centre, and the hare - and he was right. And agree with Julischka's comment below.
What I saw in the picture before watching this video: A train on a bridge.
What I see now, after having watched the video: Orion forever chasing a hare while being surrounded by fire, air and water.
Amazing!
I appreciate those talks a lot and it is great to be able to watch them as well. I miss quite a few of them as I am often away from London, so thank you to The National Gallery. Christina is always very clear and covers a lot.
The first time I saw a Turner, I thought it was a shame that the museum would display such a terribly damaged painting. I was a little angry. I did not know that Turner painted that way.
me:
no one:
literally no one:
turner: I DREW A TRAIN
I still don't 'get' Turner.
I have tried, and this is the nearest I have been to a bit of appreciation.
Maybe I should go and see it for real.
What an excellent job. I look forward to all these presentations!
Excellent presentation of Turner's masterpiece. Thank you for sharing.
I think this painting shares some of the sentiments of "The Fighting Temeraire", in terms of technology moving towards the future, heralding the end of the old and the emergence of the new.
Look, I like Turner, but this one is just too vague, too difficult to decipher, too lacking in detail, too impressionist.
Mr turner basically was experiencing what we experienced, before "cellphone" he saw the BS that was coming from afar
Great talk, Ms. Bradstreet. 50+ years ago Turner's paintings were behind out trip to London and the Tate Gallery. Never got to the National but your imagery thru the Net brings it back. Thanks so much.
Thanks for this very interesting talk! I'm just in the middle of writing a book about Taplow, across the river from Maidenhead, and part of the book is about the coming of the railway. I have been concentrating on Brunel and his wonderful 'Sounding Arch' Bridge, but I shall certainly now mention this wonderful painting!
Thank you very much for another fantastic insight into my favourite artist. Really enjoy this format and totally agree with Christina that Turner was less interested in presenting literal depictions in the majority of his works, he appears to focus on evoking an insight into the symbolic weight of change. Also, the Hare, is there for me 😉 😂
Christina, you did an excellent job. Thank you so much.
I haven’t been able to connect with Turner.
Christina did a wonderful job of this talk about one of the favorite Turner
Marvelous, Ms. Bradstreet-- I never noticed most of the items you point out. Great fun...
A fascinating insight! thank you so much.
This is one of my favorite all time paintings. So many other famous paintings i can't connect with, not this one.
Oh....Wow! Actually I didnt know about William Tuner at all until BTS RM mention about him. Thank you for this video..I'm start learning 💜💜💜💜💜💜
amazingly good talk about this painting, thank you for all your insights and they really added to my enjoyment of the painting.❤
Came to this after rewatching The Art of Gothic, where it's really railroaded in to the narrative presented and it didn't really fit with other commentary I'd seen. So I really appreciate the look at other elements around the train, and the consideration of multiple meanings in the painting.
Thanks.
Hello
Yeet
Really enjoyed this presentation. I appreciate your interpretation of the painting in so many levels that you put across to think about. Looking forward going again to NG to evaluate and ponder your opinions. Well done 🤝👋☘️
Thank you for such a fun and exciting look at this painting, great allusions. Here I am 2 years after your talk, further down the track, smiling at the illusion of time! And about to see the Turner show in Boston, you have given me new ideas and things to look for my coming experience of Turner!
Wonderful presentation ma’am xxxx
I love her enthusiasm.
I don't like this painting. Looks muddy, messy. It feels like it's unfinished or if he didn't know how to clean his brushes. (I know from experience)