On Storms, Ships, and Railways. J.M.W. Turner

Abstract

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) was a Cockney-speaking Londoner born in Covent Garden (1, 2). His life encompasses the time of intense development of industrial infrastructure in England, including the networks of canals and railways. It was also a period of particularly interesting interactions between artists, scientists, and industrialists. Turner lived close to the River Thames and not far the from Somerset House on the Strand, which was, in the second half of the 18th century, the hub of science and the arts. It housed the Royal Society and the Royal Academy. This close proximity greatly facilitated exchanges between scientists and artists. In addition, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, founded in 1754, promoted new inventions. Later, the Royal Institution (founded in 1799) aimed to achieve wider public understanding of natural philosophy (3). Literature and the arts in the second half of the 18th century were departing from the strict rationality of the Enlightenment. What became known as the romantic movement stressed the value of emotions and imagination. The romantics emphasized the importance of the “universe within” each individual (4). In England, poets were the main proponents of romanticism: William Blake was the precursor, and later generations included William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor …