Toil and Terror at Sea

8 rooms in JMW Turner

Turner was fascinated by the darker side to life at sea. He painted storms, shipwrecks and terrifying atmospheres over and over, leaving many of them unfinished

The sea swelled in Turner’s imagination during the last twenty years of his life. He painted it more frequently and more boldly, placing atmosphere centre stage. He wanted us to feel the sea’s power and volatility as if we were there, swept up in a swirling vortex of wind and waves or the foreboding bleak, open water.

His paintings of steamships and whale hunts showed how modern technology and marine industry could be painted with great profundity. Turner’s take on them as battles between man and nature brought a new dimension to the art of terror, the Sublime. To our eyes, polluting steamships and the hunting of whales might also open up questions about the environmental cost of humanity’s relationship with the sea. Turner’s depictions of shipwrecks highlighted how the faults and flaws of humankind could be the cause of maritime disasters, too.

In late life, Turner regularly visited the resort towns of the Kent coast, particularly Margate. He felt an affinity with mariners and allowed his neighbours in London to think he was a retired Admiral. On a visit to Turner’s studio, the US sea captain Elisha Ely Morgan is said to have seen ‘through all the fog and mystery’ ‘how much real sea feeling there was in him and his work’.

Tate Britain
Main Floor Clore Gallery
Room 35

Getting Here

Ongoing

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth exhibited 1842

This is one of Turner’s most daring paintings. In a battle between modern machine and nature, a steamboat faces a blizzard. Its black fumes join the whirling vortex of snow and sea. Turner claimed he ‘got the sailors to lash me to the mast to observe [the storm]...for four hours’. Although it can’t be proven, it shows that Turner wanted us to see this dizzying scene as an authentic record. When he heard it had been ridiculed as ‘soapsuds and whitewash’, he responded: ‘I did not paint it to be understood, but... to show what such a scene was like’.

Gallery label, October 2023

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, A Disaster at Sea ?c.1835

This unfinished painting probably depicts a real tragedy. It may show the Amphitrite, which left London for New South Wales in August 1833 carrying 108 women convicted of crimes, and 12 of their children. When it ran in to difficulty near Boulogne, France, the captain refused offers of rescue. The Amphitrite broke up and only three people aboard survived. In 2022 another possible subject, the Hibernia, was identified. Leaving Liverpool in December 1832 it carried 209 emigrants seeking new prospects in Australia. It caught fire in the South Atlantic, leaving 153 dead. Reports revealed there were not enough lifeboats for all.

Gallery label, October 2023

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Seascape with Storm Coming On c.1840

The colouring of this unfinished seascape gives it a sense of energy. Warm tones sit alongside cooler tones. The colours, built up through many layers of paint, give it movement and depth. The sky is tinged with warmer, sunnier tones of red and yellow, while the ‘storm’ in the title likely refers to the deep grey cloud on the left. The unidentified grey-black mass at the centre stands out in stark contrast. Turner may have been thinking of shipwrecks or of whales, as seen in other paintings displayed nearby. Even without knowing what the artist intended, this dark and mysterious shape remains a compelling focal point.

Gallery label, January 2025

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Yacht Approaching the Coast &�Բ��;��.1840–5

In this unfinished sea painting the light of the sun, reflected by the water, dazzles the eye and obscures the view. This visual effect echoes the progress of Turner’s own work on the painting. He returned to areas of the canvas over a period of several years, covering the original subject. Dark shapes that appear through the layers might be boats. The buildings on the left may represent Venice. By reworking the canvas Turner has shifted the focus of this painting from the yacht to a less tangible subject – that of light itself.

Gallery label, October 2023

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Rough Sea &�Բ��;��.1840–5

Despite being left unfinished, this canvas already conjures the atmosphere of a choppy sea under a cold, misty sky. Turner has dragged and dabbed his paintbrush to suggest the roughness of the sea. The brushstrokes in the corners are similar to those in other works where he has created a whirling vortex of waves and clouds. The dark shape to the left of the centre could be a large ship or a pier. A reddish-brown shape on the right may be the sail of a distant boat.

Gallery label, October 2023

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Whalers exhibited 1845

This painting shows the violence and danger of a whale hunt. Turner uses an arc of white paint and downwards strokes of grey – a flurry of rain and wind – to draw attention to a whaler dressed in white. He draws back a lance, aiming for a bleeding whale. Turner had read about whaling in Thomas Beale’s Natural History of the Sperm Whale (1839). Describing a hunt in Japanese waters, Beale talked of the whale as ‘a victim to the tyranny and selfishness’ but also the ‘great power’ of man. Turner was no doubt drawn to this tension – between the idea of whalers as heroes and murderers.

Gallery label, October 2023

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flaw Ice, Endeavouring to Extricate Themselves exhibited 1846

Whaling was a major British industry in Turner’s lifetime. Modernising cities used whale oil to light streets, and factories used it for oiling machinery. Whalers heated blubber to make oil. As Turner’s title indicates, this could also melt ice that had trapped whaling ships. The subject allowed Turner to show off his skill in creating atmospheric effects, from the glow of the fire on the left to the pale sunlight illuminating icebergs in the centre. Turner exhibited four paintings of whaling at the Royal Academy. He hoped, but ultimately failed, to sell these to a patron of his, Elhanan Bicknell, an investor in whaling industry.

Gallery label, October 2023

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, A Wreck, with Fishing Boats &�Բ��;��.1840–5

Turner creates texture here with a palette knife, applying paint in sharp flicks to suggest a frothing, rough sea. Although it is unfinished, the layers of colours Turner uses to form the sea – white, grey, blue, brown – already create a sense of depth and complexity. A blue-grey hulk of a wrecked ship lies on the horizon with two smaller brown boats beside it. Its cold tonality lends a sense of foreboding. Shipwrecks loom large in Turner’s work, reflecting the very real sense of threat faced by those who took to the sea.

Gallery label, October 2023

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