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...
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...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.
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 ...
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.
passengersâ€like a city in a nightmare. The street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest and with its freshly painted shutters, well polished. brass and general cleanliness and gaiety of noteâ€'. The diversity between these two quotes shows how the higher and lower classes differed which reflect the Victorian way of life. However, if you look at the story in more depth, the reader begins to see a deeper meaning hidden in the words of the novella.
...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.
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.
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...
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....
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.
However, it was not easy for the railroad industry to promote their innovative new mode of transportation. With vision and ingenuity, the pioneers of the early American railroads were able to surmount all obstacles that stood in their way and led the Nation into a “transportation revolution.”
In this essay, I shall try to examine how great a role colour played in the evolution of Impressionism. Impressionism in itself can be seen as a linkage in a long chain of procedures, which led the art to the point it is today. In order to do so, colour in Impressionism needs to be placed within an art-historical context for us to see more clearly the role it has played in the evolution of modern painting. In the late eighteenth century, for example, ancient Greek and Roman examples provided the classical sources in art. At the same time, there was a revolt against the formalism of Neo-Classicism. The accepted style was characterised by appeal to reason and intellect, with a demand for a well-disciplined order and restraint in the work. The decisive Romantic movement emphasized the individual’s right in self-expression, in which imagination and emotion were given free reign and stressed colour rather than line; colour can be seen as the expression for emotion, whereas line is the expression of rationality. Their style was painterly rather than linear; colour offered a freedom that line denied. Among the Romanticists who had a strong influence on Impressionism were Joseph Mallord William Turner and Eugéne Delacroix. In Turner’s works, colour took precedence over the realistic portrayal of form; Delacroix led the way for the Impressionists to use unmixed hues. The transition between Romanticism and Impressionism was provided by a small group of artists who lived and worked at the village of Barbizon. Their naturalistic style was based entirely on their observation and painting of nature in the open air. In their natural landscape subjects, they paid careful attention to the colourful expression of light and atmosphere. For them, colour was as important as composition, and this visual approach, with its appeal to emotion, gradually displaced the more studied and forma, with its appeal to reason.
Rosen, William. The Most Powerful Idea in the World : A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2010.
“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.)