Response to Rain, Steam and Speed by Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner has out-prodiged almost all former prodigies. He has made a picture with real rain, behind which is real sunshine, and you expect a rainbow every minute. Meanwhile, there comes a train down upon you, really moving at the rate of fifty miles a hour, and which the reader had best make haste to see, lest it should dash out of the picture....as for the manner in which 'Speed' is done, of that the less is said the better, -only it is a positive fact that there is a steam coach going fifty miles and hour. The world has never seen anything like this picture .
This was Thackeray's response to Turner's Rain, Steam and Speed upon seeing it at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1844. A large canvas displayed in the place of honour on the back wall of the East room of the exhibition, the painting was at the time and important and provocative comment on modern technology in general and more specifically on the steam locomotive and the Great Western Railway that was featured so prominently in the title. This painting was significant because although this was not the first time railways had been the depicted in art, it was the first time for this kind of subject matter to be taken up on such a large scale and for public display.
Both Ian Carter and Gerald Finley assert that despite the criticism already written about this complex work it remains engaging and still retains layers of meaning that have not been brought to light. Rain, Steam and Speed can be read as a celebration of new technology and the new Britain that was forming in its wake, a lament for a passing 'golden' age, or as Carter suggests as a combination of the two, it "is about loss but also about progress. To be more precise it is about the casualties of progress and the impossibility of not changing.'; In other words, this painting presents the viewer with a visual metaphor depicting the dialectic, between change and stasis, between the old and the new, that arises in the condition of modernity. Using this perspective as a starting point, this paper will explore some of the themes of this difficult work and examine some of the issues that surround this still evocative painting.
The "history of former ages exhibits nothing to be compared with the mental activity of the present. Steam which annihilates time and space, fills ma...
... middle of paper ...
...rience of 'the modern age'. It participates in the discourse about change and progress that arises in the condition of modernity, by calling up the dialectic between the (often devalued) past, and the present becoming future (i.e. change/progress) that defines it. The assertive locomotive, harbinger of the modern world, that charges into the center of this painting make clear the urgency of this, this dark 'rational' machine must tear through the fields of a 'natural' golden age, for this is what it means to be modern. This evocation of the dialectic nature of modernity was at the heart of the colonial project. In an age of imperialism where the dominant discourse was social Darwinism a nation had to become a 'progressive, civilizing force' in order to justify its imperialist/capitalist endeavors (enacted against a 'less civilized' anachronistic other — at home and abroad), as well as stave off colonization by a more progressive adversary. Thus, even though this painting embodies, on one level, the contemporary anxieties about new technology, it also participates in a larger discourse about progress, capitalism, colonialism and ultimately the condition of modernity itself.
Reinhardt, Richard. Workin' on the Railroad; Reminiscences from the Age of Steam. Palo Alto, CA: American West Pub., 1970. Print.
Pette, Jack, and Roger Hensley. "19th Century Trains ." Angel Fire . Art Today , 2001. Web. 28 Feb.
The setting is London in 1854, which is very different to anything we know today. Johnson’s description of this time and place makes it seem like a whole other world from the here and now....
In the Enseigne, art is also shown to serve a function that it has always fulfilled in every society founded on class differences. As a luxury commodity it is an index of social status. It marks the distinction between those who have the leisure and wealth to know about art and posses it, and those who do not. In Gersaint’s signboard, art is presented in a context where its social function is openly and self-consciously declared. In summary, Watteau reveals art to be a product of society, nevertheless he refashions past artistic traditions. Other than other contemporary painters however, his relationship to the past is not presented as a revolt, but rather like the appreciative, attentive commentary of a conversational partner.
“It was a new discovery to find that these stories were, after all, about our own lives, were not distant, that there was no past or future that all time is now-time, centred in the being.” (Pp39.)
...ces an extensive dialogue within the text with an image of the train, arousing a modern anxiety of doom: the destructive capabilities of rapidly growing technology are seizing an innocent and aweless existence.
ABSTRACT: British Avant-Garde art, poses a challenge to traditional aesthetic analysis. This paper will argue that such art is best understood in terms of Wittgenstein¡¦s concept of "seeing-as," and will point out that the artists often use this concept in describing their work. This is significant in that if we are to understand art in terms of cultural practice, then we must actually look at the practice. We will discuss initiatives such as the work of Damien Hirst, most famous for his animals in formaldehyde series, and that of Simon Patterson, who warps diagrams, e.g., replacing the names of stops on London Underground maps with those of philosophers. Cornelia Parker¡¦s idea that visual appeal is not the most important thing, but rather that the questions that are set up in an attempt to create an "almost invisible" art are what are central, will also be discussed. Also, if we concur with Danto¡¦s claims that "contemporary art no longer allows itself to be represented by master narratives," that Nothing is ruled out.", then it is indeed fruitful to understand art in terms of seeing-as. For application of this concept to art explains what occurs conceptually when the viewer shifts from identifying a work, as an art object, and then as not an art object, and explains why nothing is ruled out.
The definition of modern is relative to the time and space in which a historian might describe a society, situation, or technology, or as the Oxford Dictionary defines it as, “Of or relation to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past.” The problem with this, however, is that it is often difficult to look back on an historical event and differentiate between what was actually modern about that time and how historians impose a sense of modernity on an event that was the opposite. In Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern, Latour explores the origins of modernity and how it “is always being thrown into the middle of a fight,” somehow “defining, by contrast, an archaic and stable past.” Only one removed from the historical event can look at it as an outsider, and even then it is difficult to remove ties that relate current history to that of the past. The readers of history cannot help but see it with a lens that is tinted with the problems of today.
Before Impressionism came to be a major movement (around 1870-1800s), Neoclassical and Romanticism were still making their impacts. Remembering last week’s lesson, we know that both those styles were different in the fact that one was based on emotion, while the other was practical and serious. However, one thing they both shared was the fact that the artists were trying to get a message across; mostly having to do with the effects of the French Revolution, and/or being ordered to do so. With Impressionism, there is a clear difference from its predecessors.
Modernism indicates a branch of movements in art (Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism; Cubism; Expressionism; Dada, Surrealism, Pop Art. Etc.) with distinct characteristics, it firmly rejects its classical precedent and classical style, what Walter Benjamin would refer to as “destructive liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage”; and it explores the etiology of a present historical situation and of its attendant forms of self-consciousness in the West. Whereas Modernity is often used as ...
Love has the power to do anything. Love can heal and love can hurt. Love is something that is indescribable and difficult to understand. Love is a feeling that cannot be accurately expressed by a word. In the poem “The Rain” by Robert Creeley, the experience of love is painted and explored through a metaphor. The speaker in the poem compares love to rain and he explains how he wants love to be like rain. Love is a beautiful concept and through the abstract comparison to rain a person is assisted in developing a concrete understanding of what love is. True beauty is illuminated by true love and vice versa. In other words, the beauty of love and all that it entails is something true.
Mankind does not realize he is a slave because of the illusion of progress. Thoreau observes that mankind has constructed trains that run on a rigid sched...
At the beginning of the industrial revolution in England during the mid-nineteenth century, the railroad was the most innovative mode of transportation known. The British Rail system was a forerunner in railroad technology, uses, and underground engineering. Though the rail system was extremely slow at first and prohibitively expensive to build and run, the British were not to be dissuaded in their pursuit of non-animal driven transportation. The most advanced mode of transportation prior to the introduction of the rail system was the horse drawn omnibus on a track, called a tram. This paper will examine the rail system from a cultural perspective, presenting the impact the railway had on everyday lives in Victorian London and its surrounding communities.
The setting for this novel was a constantly shifting one. Taking place during what seems to be the Late Industrial Revolution and the high of the British Empire, the era is portrayed amongst influential Englishmen, the value of the pound, the presence of steamers, railroads, ferries, and a European globe.
Rosen, William. The Most Powerful Idea in the World : A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2010.