|
I think it is supposed to depict a glorious sunset.
|
|
I can see a bit of moon now if I look and it is broad daylight.(Broadish!)
What a dirty old sky for it to try,in it's declining form to try to spread it's beautiful soft light through. Full of the very smogand smuts that are destroying it.
That horrible.devlish little tug represents nothing good in the picture and the ship is so serenely beautiful and helpless.
|
|
The tug is in the forefront and the sail ships in the background, some almost ghostly. To me the tug is saying I'm the future, I'm stronger, you sail boats are history.
The sun is also setting pointing to the end of the day or could it be an end of an era? The symbol of the industrial revolution and the progress being made perhaps?
The tug is ugly next to the sail ships. Progress may be ugly but it has to happen, perhaps that's the depiction.
Thanks Sharon, I enjoyed this. Got me thinking :-S better go and lie down now ;-)
|
|
I'm gobsmacked Sharron. You've certainly seen a lot in it. I'll look at it with new eyes now.
It must be evening mustn't it? The sun is setting and there is a tiny crescent of moon just above the Temeraire. I think there is quite a bit of artistic licence there as apparently the sun should be setting in front of the ship rather than behind it.
Not sure what it means. Perhaps it is just a commentary on the decline of Britain's naval power. I also vaguely remember reading something a while ago about the ship representing Turner himself contemplating his own death. I don't get that just from looking at the picture though.
Interesting thread. Hope a few more people post.
EDIT: Whoops I wasn't quick enough.
|
|
Interesting. Wiki gives the timing as sunset.
However before being broken up the ship was at Sheerness and the tug is taking it up river i.e. going west towards Rotherhithe. There is nowhere upriver of Rotherhithe that could have berthed a second rater at that time.
If it was the morning then the wind would have been blowing west to east, much more likely than the other way.
I had always assumed sunset but now you ask morning looks to be correct especially when you read this:
"up the Thames" - the sun is behind the ship so she was sailing east, it can only have been morning.
"Sale and disposal
Kennedy received orders from the Admiralty in June 1838 to have Temeraire valued in preparation for her sale out of the service. She fired her guns for the last time on 28 June in celebration of the coronation of Queen Victoria, and work began on dismantling her on 4 July.[56] Kennedy delegated this task to Captain Sir John Hill, commander of HMS Ocean.[56] Her masts, stores and guns were all removed and her crew paid off, before Temeraire was put up for sale with twelve other ships. She was sold by Dutch auction on 16 August 1838 to John Beatson, a shipbreaker based at Rotherhithe for £5,530.[56][64] Beatson was then faced with the task of transporting the ship 55 miles from Sheerness to Rotherhithe, the largest ship to have attempted this voyage.[56][64] To accomplish this he hired two steam tugs from the Thames Steam Towing Company and employed a Rotherhithe pilot named William Scott and twenty five men to sail her up the Thames, at a cost of £58.[56][f]
Last voyage
Print of the hull of a sailing ship without masts or rigging aground on mud beside a river.
Temeraire laid up at Beatson's Yard, Rotherhithe, by artist J. J. Williams, 1838–39
The tugs took the hulk of the Temeraire in tow at 7:30 am on 5 September, taking advantage of the beginning of the slack water. They had reached Greenhithe by 1:30 pm at the ebb of the tide, where they anchored overnight.[56] They resumed the journey at 8:30 am the following day, passing Woolwich and then Greenwich at noon. They reached Limehouse Reach shortly afterwards and brought her safely to Beatson's Wharf at 2 pm. The Temeraire was hauled up onto the mud, where she lay as she was slowly broken up.[56] The final voyage was announced in a number of papers, and thousands of spectators came to see her towed up the Thames or laid up at Beatson's yard.[65] The shipbreakers undertook a thorough dismantling, removing all the copper sheathing, rudder pintles and gudgeons, copper bolts, nails and other fastenings to be sold back to the Admiralty. The timber was mostly sold to house builders and shipyard owners, though some was retained for working into specialist commemorative furniture.[56]"
|
|
I'll start then!
Quite controversially, I see it as a dirty,smoggy morning and the beautiful Temeraire as symbolizing the Enlightenment.
That quite startlingly phallic black steam tug I see as rape of society.It is dragging the beauty of the Enlightenment into the dark depravity of the Industrial Revolution.
Over to you?!
|
|
What do you think, is it morning or evening?
|
