"Turner's Modern World"

After our stroll through British painting history I toured the Tate's "Turner's Modern World" exhibition, which, through five large rooms, examines the tumultuous times through which he lived and worked; and his response to them. I thought I knew a good bit about Turner, but this large exhibition, as the previous ones I've seen at the Tate, added new layers and dimensions to my appreciation. Turner's dates, 1775-1851, saw vast change in the world...the height of colonialism, the loss of colonies, the rise of steam, locomotives and steam ships, the growth of the Industrial Age, rapid urbanization, revolution in France, the Napoleonic Wars and a changed Europe, vastly increased travel, the slave trade and its abolition, at least in Great Britain, succession to Victorian times, and great political and social reform in the UK. To name a few. Turned experienced and painted these times and changes, to an extent that no other painter did. He was no revolutionary; his progressive political views are only subtly visible in his choice of subjects and in his work. His experience of the changing world also affected his work over the decades, with radical changes in style, an emerging new language of representation, seen in few other artists. I'm still processing all this, but below are just a few items from the exhibition, not in any particular order. Some just appealed to me, some are just famous, all support the themes of the exhibit in some way or another...

Interior of a Cannon Foundry, watercolor, 1797

A small watercolor he did in a morning to show a friend's son the
size of then-modern warships; Nelson's Victory carried a crew of
875...

The Field of Waterloo, 1818, quoting Byron's line "friend, foe,
in one red burial blent"

Ploughing up Turnips, Near Slough, 1809; new farming policies
dispossessed small farmers...Windsor Castle in the distance

George IV at the Provost's Banquet, 1822; Turner tried mightily
for Royal patronage, but never got even close

Slave Ships Throwing over Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming
On, 1840; they also threw slaves-to-be at the approach of
any warship that might have caught them at the slave trade

Burning of the Houses of Parliament, 1834; removed explicably
from the exhibition

Salisbury, from Old Sarum, 1827; the point here would appear
the storm of reform about to break: for centuries, abandoned
Old Sarum had sent two MPs to Parliament, elected by eleven
absentees; the reforms of 1832 would change that and more

Rain, Steam, and Speed--The Great Western Railway, 1844;
Turner was the first to paint railways, steamships, etc.

Snow Storm--Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth making Signals
in Shallow Water, and going by the lead. The Author was in this
Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich, 1842. OK, he was
not into the whole brevity thing. Muy famoso.

The Thames Above Waterloo Bridge, 1835; showing two steamships
not far away from where the first were built; there was already 
public concern about their waves eroding the banks, about smoke
pollution, etc.

The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to be Broken
Up, 1839; towed by a steam tug; Turner's favorite, which he
refused to sell, but willed to the Nation...to be displayed, as it
usually is, at the National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square

Whalers Entangled in Flow Ice, Attempting to Extricate

Themselves, 1846; perhaps a comment on the failing British

whaling industry 

War. The Exile and the Limpet, 1842; after Napoleon's death,
and apotheosis in France; displayed alongside...

Peace. Burial at Sea, 1842; commemorating the death of his
friend David Wilkie, of typhoid fever, and who was denied a
funeral and burial on land