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Tell them all.

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May 1840.

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The annual exhibition

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00:00:16,270 --> 00:00:18,727
of the Royal Academy in London

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00:00:18,727 --> 00:00:20,836
has been a great success.

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On display,

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all the reviewers agree

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is one indisputable masterpiece.

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Painted by Edwin Landseer,

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it’s called Laying Down the Law.

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And it features,

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as the learned judge,

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a poodle.

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It is, the critics chorus, perfect.

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Perfect in execution,

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taste and refinement.

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But there’s another painting

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hanging in the 1840 show about which

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the critics also absolutely unanimous

20
00:01:01,844 --> 00:01:04,876
in dismay and scorn.

21
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JMW Turner’s Slave Ship.

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How is it that we can see a masterpiece,

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while the critics compared it to

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a kitchen accident

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or the contents of a spittoon?

26
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Had Turner gone over the top

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with this voyage into a sweaty nightmare,

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this fantastical image of slaves

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cruelly murdered at sea?

30
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Why had a work Turner had hoped

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would make people weep,

32
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instead move them to describe it

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as a detestable absurdity?

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What was it about

35
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this particular painting,

36
00:01:54,284 --> 00:01:56,534
the consummation of Turner’s career

37
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that brought down on his head,

38
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such a storm of abuse?

39
00:02:36,122 --> 00:02:37,982
We all think we know Turner,

40
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didn’t we?

41
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He seems as comfortably British

42
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as a cup of tea.

43
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He is, after all,

44
00:02:59,519 --> 00:03:02,269
the National Gallery’s all-time favourite.

45
00:03:10,927 --> 00:03:12,954
But there was another Turner.

46
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The Turner you don’t know.

47
00:03:14,649 --> 00:03:16,540
The painter of chaos,

48
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conflagration and apocalypse,

49
00:03:18,890 --> 00:03:20,868
wild and ambitious paintings,

50
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that one critic called

51
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“a picture of nothing,

52
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and very like”.

53
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Well this is my Turner,

54
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extreme Turner.

55
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The Cockney poet

56
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just short of madness.

57
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The Turner we ought to know,

58
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the Turner we really ought to revere.

59
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This Turner was on a delirious

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and visionary trip that would culminate

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in the greatest British painting

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of the 19-century,

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The Slave Ship.

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40 years before

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the heroic fiasco of The Slave Ship,

66
00:04:43,474 --> 00:04:46,288
the young Turner could do no wrong.

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In his twenties,

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the barber’s son had already been tipped

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as the next great thing in British painting.

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With the dab of his brush,

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he could wave fairy dust

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over the genteel British countryside.

73
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And it would turn into a place

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of sublime enchantment.

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And the quality ate it up.

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Britain was fighting for its life

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against the French,

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and the romance of Albion

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had never bitten deeper

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00:05:35,100 --> 00:05:37,330
into the national imagination.

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Turner, meanwhile,

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had been a great honour.

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Fellowship of the Royal Academy at just 26.

84
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Now, he had to present them

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with a picture to mark his entry.

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He gave them this.

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Which was to say a shock.

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Dolbadern Castle in Snowdonia

89
00:06:13,439 --> 00:06:15,623
was where a medieval Welsh prince,

90
00:06:15,623 --> 00:06:18,174
Owen Gough, had met his end.

91
00:06:18,391 --> 00:06:19,662
In reality,

92
00:06:19,662 --> 00:06:22,892
it was just a modest pile of stones on a hillside,

93
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but Turner pumps up the melodrama,

94
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backlights the desolate crag,

95
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so that the castle becomes a personification

96
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of the defiant prince himself.

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The tragic symbol of imprisoned liberty.

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Just in case people didn’t get it,

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he added a little poem.

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How awful is the silence of the waste.

101
00:06:49,247 --> 00:06:51,974
Where nature lifts her mountains to the sky.

102
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Majestic solitude.

103
00:06:55,191 --> 00:06:58,132
Behold the tower where hapless Owen

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long imprisoned pined

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and wrung his hands for liberty in vain.

106
00:07:05,076 --> 00:07:07,840
Okay, so it’s not exactly Keats,

107
00:07:07,840 --> 00:07:10,414
but it is Turner reaching for the epic.

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00:07:10,414 --> 00:07:12,838
It’s all about atmospherics, not finicky,

109
00:07:12,841 --> 00:07:14,971
topographical description.

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‘Cause that’s what Britain was for Turner,

111
00:07:17,352 --> 00:07:18,932
a biological sentiment,

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an instinct in the blood,

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and an irresistibly operatic arrangement

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of light, air and water.

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Elemental, heroic, legendary.

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The painting smoothed the way

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for the young man into the ranks

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of the Academy.

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But it should have put everyone on notice

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that this was a painter

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who’d never settle

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for the charming and the pretty.

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Turner could have made

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a perfectly decent living

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raking it in

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from the pleasure and leisure industry.

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But in his fertile imagination,

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something grand and bloody

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was already stirring.

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But he still had a fortune to make.

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He wasn’t ready yet to be the maker

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of dark epics.

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It was the time to enjoy being

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JMW Turner, RA.

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He’s rolling in money and commission,

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and he buys a West End house

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for his pictures,

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himself and his old dad,

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whom he shamelessly turns into his

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all-purpose servant.

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Old Dad would stretch and prime canvasses.

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Old Dad would patrol the gallery.

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Old Dad would tend

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the vegetable garden out by the river

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and revel in his son’s fame

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and fortune.

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Good old Dad.

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But then, conventional family ties

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don’t seem to mean much to Turner.

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There’s no dutiful Mrs T at home.

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Marriage and art don’t go together,

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he said.

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So instead,

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he takes as a lover the widow of a friend,

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Sarah Danby,

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and installs her round the corner.

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He even has two children by her.

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More illicitly still,

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Sarah is the muse of his erotic imagination.

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His drawings suggest he takes

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as much pleasure in sex

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as a full moon over Buttermere.

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It wasn’t until Turner’s will was published

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that anyone knew

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about Sarah Danby and the children.

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And the erotica

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remained strictly under wraps

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in his lifetime.

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Turner chose to live part of his life

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amidst the shadows of secret fantasies.

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But when he emerged from this world

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and strolled beside the Thames,

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he indulged in another fantasy.

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That he lived in a country

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from which poverty, hunger and misery

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had been banished.

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Turner’s Thames was the place where

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the romance of England came to him

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with lyrical intensity.

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A place of almost narcotic serenity.

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This is the pleasure seeking

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public pleasing Turner.

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And perhaps, he could have settled for this

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mellow dream world,

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gently stroking

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the self-satisfaction of Regency England.

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But even as he drifted trough

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his Home Counties Eden,

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Turner must have been aware

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that alongside this idyll,

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there was another England,

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an England in distress.

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And something in Turner

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wanted to paint that England too.

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For this was the early 1800s,

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the rockiest years in all

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modern British history,

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the time when the distance between

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the fantasy Britain

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and the reality was at its widest.

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The kingdom was supposed to be

202
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a model of political and social stability.

203
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But there was a massive unemployment,

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hunger, anger,

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rick burning in the countryside,

206
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machine smashing in the towns.

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The bloody war with Napoleon’s France

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grinding on and on.

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These are hard times, radical times.

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So Turner produces

211
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a gritty image of rough Britannia.

212
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What’s your most delicious fantasy

213
00:13:47,404 --> 00:13:48,818
of old England?

214
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Summertime? A picnic?

215
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Well, here’s a hard-bitten winter dawn,

216
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and it’s no picnic.

217
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A shot hare

218
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slung around the shoulders of a girl.

219
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Rutted tracks.

220
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Two men digging a ditch,

221
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or is it a grave?

222
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You can feel the tough work of it

223
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in that hard, frozen soil.

224
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Everything impassive, unsentimental, dour.

225
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How thing really are.

226
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When did Constable ever do winter

227
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in the North?

228
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Why would Turner ever do

229
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something so flinty?

230
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Well, in Yorkshire,

231
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he has become best mates

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with someone who will change the way

233
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he sees the world.

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Walter Fawkes’s view of Britain

235
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isn’t exactly rose-tinted,

236
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and he’s not your usual country gent.

237
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He is a political militant,

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the scourge of the old Tory establishment.

239
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But the cause that’s most dear to

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his radical toff

241
00:15:20,944 --> 00:15:23,891
is the great moral crusade of the day,

242
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the abolition of the slave trade.

243
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Fawkes’s fury seeped

244
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into Turner’s imagination.

245
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One day in 1810,

246
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Turner took Fawkes’s son

247
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for a walk on the Yorkshire Moors

248
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as a storm brewed.

249
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The two of them sketch away.

250
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Turner puts his pencil down.

251
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“There, Hawkey,” he says,

252
00:16:10,897 --> 00:16:12,659
“in two years you’ll see this,

253
00:16:12,659 --> 00:16:14,245
and it’ll be called

254
00:16:14,245 --> 00:16:16,245
“Hannibal Crossing the Alps.”

255
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So a squall over the Yorkshire Moors

256
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turns into a no-holds-barred

257
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Alpine cataclysm.

258
00:16:28,658 --> 00:16:30,478
A simultaneous blizzard

259
00:16:30,478 --> 00:16:32,738
and a shaft of sickly sun.

260
00:16:32,738 --> 00:16:35,441
Hannibal’s army is the victim,

261
00:16:35,441 --> 00:16:37,669
as it clambers its painful way

262
00:16:37,669 --> 00:16:39,869
over the Alpine passes.

263
00:16:41,769 --> 00:16:43,796
Stragglers picked off

264
00:16:43,796 --> 00:16:46,086
by scary mountain men,

265
00:16:47,986 --> 00:16:49,770
while a sucking vortex

266
00:16:49,770 --> 00:16:52,520
hovers over the scene like some gigantic,

267
00:16:52,520 --> 00:16:54,491
malevolent bird of prey.

268
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Turner does something tremendous

269
00:16:58,277 --> 00:17:00,662
in the storm over the Yorkshire Moors.

270
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It’s not just scenic weather;

271
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it’s a cosmic reckoning.

272
00:17:07,182 --> 00:17:08,852
Hannibal is a hit.

273
00:17:08,852 --> 00:17:10,232
People crowded round it

274
00:17:10,232 --> 00:17:11,294
so densely,

275
00:17:11,294 --> 00:17:12,928
the gents couldn’t elbow

276
00:17:12,928 --> 00:17:14,858
their way in to see it.

277
00:17:15,258 --> 00:17:17,977
But why this picture pulls in the crowds?

278
00:17:18,019 --> 00:17:19,019
Not because it was a scene

279
00:17:19,019 --> 00:17:20,724
from ancient history,

280
00:17:20,724 --> 00:17:22,274
but because everybody knew

281
00:17:22,274 --> 00:17:24,291
it was also a modern painting.

282
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A contemporary story.

283
00:17:27,288 --> 00:17:28,826
The comeuppance handed out to

284
00:17:28,826 --> 00:17:31,206
another arrogant invader

285
00:17:31,206 --> 00:17:33,959
who crossed the Alps in search of glory.

286
00:17:34,698 --> 00:17:37,105
The archenemy, Napoleon.

287
00:17:38,027 --> 00:17:40,364
In a crushing putdown,

288
00:17:40,364 --> 00:17:42,114
Turner shrinks the mighty commander

289
00:17:42,114 --> 00:17:43,414
to a puny,

290
00:17:43,414 --> 00:17:44,414
almost comical figure

291
00:17:44,414 --> 00:17:46,585
in the remote background,

292
00:17:46,585 --> 00:17:48,211
atop an elephant

293
00:17:48,211 --> 00:17:50,931
that looks more like a dung beetle.

294
00:17:57,097 --> 00:17:59,590
You have to say this about Turner, though.

295
00:17:59,590 --> 00:18:01,951
He’s an equal opportunity pessimist.

296
00:18:01,951 --> 00:18:03,351
As much as he wants to see

297
00:18:03,351 --> 00:18:04,967
the end of Napoleon,

298
00:18:04,967 --> 00:18:07,052
he’s got a damn funny way

299
00:18:07,052 --> 00:18:08,892
of celebrating Waterloo.

300
00:18:09,352 --> 00:18:10,842
In 1817,

301
00:18:10,842 --> 00:18:13,193
does he paint victorious Wellington

302
00:18:13,193 --> 00:18:15,010
and his gallant scarlet squares

303
00:18:15,010 --> 00:18:16,820
of embattled grenadiers?

304
00:18:16,820 --> 00:18:19,010
No, he gives us a carpet of corpses

305
00:18:19,010 --> 00:18:20,834
in the blackness.

306
00:18:20,834 --> 00:18:23,497
Wives and sweethearts with their babies,

307
00:18:23,497 --> 00:18:25,831
pathetically searching the carnage

308
00:18:25,831 --> 00:18:27,441
for their loved ones.

309
00:18:32,151 --> 00:18:35,115
An apparition of pure hell.

310
00:18:38,337 --> 00:18:41,038
Rather than glorify the Iron Duke,

311
00:18:41,038 --> 00:18:42,728
it seems to exemplify

312
00:18:42,728 --> 00:18:44,750
one of his pithiest verdicts.

313
00:18:44,750 --> 00:18:47,395
The next worst thing to a battle lost

314
00:18:47,395 --> 00:18:49,075
is a battle won.

315
00:18:52,365 --> 00:18:55,073
No wonder it wasn’t until the 1980s

316
00:18:55,073 --> 00:18:58,355
that this painting was properly displayed.

317
00:18:59,166 --> 00:19:00,606
Turner’s refusal to beat

318
00:19:00,606 --> 00:19:02,086
the patriotic drum

319
00:19:02,086 --> 00:19:04,138
or wag the flag cost him patrons.

320
00:19:04,939 --> 00:19:07,118
But with the Field of Waterloo,

321
00:19:07,118 --> 00:19:09,105
he’s reached for something profound.

322
00:19:09,112 --> 00:19:11,236
A British art that will act out

323
00:19:11,236 --> 00:19:13,166
the suffering of victims.

324
00:19:20,897 --> 00:19:23,147
But, then, Turner knows all about

325
00:19:23,147 --> 00:19:25,135
the lot of the common people.

326
00:19:27,863 --> 00:19:31,562
# No power on Earth can e’er divide #

327
00:19:31,562 --> 00:19:37,009
# The knot that sacred love hath ty’d #

328
00:19:37,781 --> 00:19:43,409
# No power on Earth can e’er divide #

329
00:19:43,409 --> 00:19:48,478
# The knot that sacred love hath ty’d #

330
00:19:49,574 --> 00:19:51,576
He’s not gentleman artist.

331
00:19:51,886 --> 00:19:53,798
He was born and grew up

332
00:19:53,798 --> 00:19:56,888
in the filthy back alleys of Covent Garden,

333
00:19:56,888 --> 00:19:59,245
where every day, he rubbed shoulders

334
00:19:59,245 --> 00:20:01,835
with the desperate and the destitute.

335
00:20:02,295 --> 00:20:04,383
#... against our mind #

336
00:20:04,383 --> 00:20:07,283
# The true love’s knot they faster bind #

337
00:20:12,508 --> 00:20:14,598
This didn’t make his Waterloo

338
00:20:14,598 --> 00:20:16,828
or any of his historical epics

339
00:20:16,828 --> 00:20:18,945
manifestoes for revolution.

340
00:20:19,549 --> 00:20:23,026
They’re bigger, more disturbing than that.

341
00:20:23,698 --> 00:20:25,688
They have washing through them

342
00:20:25,688 --> 00:20:27,194
the tragic truth about

343
00:20:27,194 --> 00:20:28,452
the powerlessness

344
00:20:28,452 --> 00:20:30,737
of ordinary people when faced with

345
00:20:30,737 --> 00:20:32,797
atrocity and disaster.

346
00:20:32,797 --> 00:20:35,701
People who existed right on the edge.

347
00:20:36,975 --> 00:20:39,674
And there was someone in his own life

348
00:20:39,674 --> 00:20:41,264
who’d gone right over it.

349
00:20:44,074 --> 00:20:45,627
His mother.

350
00:20:52,063 --> 00:20:53,314
Mary Turner

351
00:20:53,314 --> 00:20:54,935
was a shrieking fury

352
00:20:54,935 --> 00:20:56,715
in the painter’s house.

353
00:20:59,935 --> 00:21:01,546
Driven mad, perhaps,

354
00:21:01,561 --> 00:21:04,798
the death of Turner’s younger sister.

355
00:21:07,357 --> 00:21:08,423
In 1800,

356
00:21:08,423 --> 00:21:10,833
she was incarcerated in Bedlam,

357
00:21:10,833 --> 00:21:12,865
disappearing from his life

358
00:21:12,865 --> 00:21:15,315
and dying 4 years later, in total neglect.

359
00:21:23,547 --> 00:21:25,557
But if Turner abandoned her,

360
00:21:25,557 --> 00:21:27,430
could there have been,

361
00:21:27,430 --> 00:21:29,141
I wonder, a haunting?

362
00:21:31,668 --> 00:21:33,635
Was Mary’s howling rage

363
00:21:33,635 --> 00:21:35,705
translated into the dark thunder

364
00:21:35,705 --> 00:21:39,314
and burning gold of Turner’s skies?

365
00:21:47,741 --> 00:21:49,534
This much I can say.

366
00:21:50,151 --> 00:21:51,481
That an acute,

367
00:21:51,481 --> 00:21:54,355
tragic sense of the frailty of human existence

368
00:21:54,355 --> 00:21:56,019
framed Turner’s life

369
00:21:56,019 --> 00:21:58,829
and powers the greatest of his works.

370
00:22:12,554 --> 00:22:14,544
So the figure who populate

371
00:22:14,544 --> 00:22:16,273
his history paintings

372
00:22:16,273 --> 00:22:18,498
are often weirdly invertebrate.

373
00:22:18,755 --> 00:22:21,292
So many rag dolls tossed around

374
00:22:21,292 --> 00:22:23,772
by the immense forces of fate.

375
00:22:37,824 --> 00:22:40,369
Painting these discarded marionettes

376
00:22:40,369 --> 00:22:42,699
was particularly wilful for someone

377
00:22:42,699 --> 00:22:45,285
who’d studied academic figure drawing.

378
00:22:45,645 --> 00:22:47,547
But then, despite the fact

379
00:22:47,547 --> 00:22:49,517
he’s been a fellow at the Academy

380
00:22:49,517 --> 00:22:51,023
for nearly 20 years,

381
00:22:51,023 --> 00:22:53,821
Turner was proving to be the odd man out

382
00:22:53,821 --> 00:22:56,383
in the play-safe world of British art.

383
00:22:59,833 --> 00:23:01,613
It’s not just what he paints

384
00:23:01,613 --> 00:23:03,589
that gets him into trouble

385
00:23:03,589 --> 00:23:05,918
with high-class critics,

386
00:23:05,918 --> 00:23:08,128
it’s the way he paints it.

387
00:23:11,037 --> 00:23:13,818
One critic despairs that Turner delights

388
00:23:13,818 --> 00:23:16,208
in abstractions that go back to

389
00:23:16,208 --> 00:23:18,318
the first chaos of the world.

390
00:23:23,158 --> 00:23:24,268
Well, my dears,

391
00:23:24,268 --> 00:23:25,798
what would you expect from the

392
00:23:25,798 --> 00:23:27,229
grubby little parvenu

393
00:23:27,229 --> 00:23:28,800
with his downmarket accent

394
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:30,600
and his upmarket house?

395
00:23:31,090 --> 00:23:33,100
There’s something obstinately coarse

396
00:23:33,100 --> 00:23:34,873
that clings to him,

397
00:23:34,873 --> 00:23:36,995
a pungent social aroma.

398
00:23:37,674 --> 00:23:39,254
When Turner visits France,

399
00:23:39,276 --> 00:23:41,118
the painter Delacroix is taken aback

400
00:23:41,184 --> 00:23:42,714
that he looks rather like

401
00:23:42,714 --> 00:23:44,814
a farmer with unwashed hands.

402
00:23:45,264 --> 00:23:47,416
Oh, there’s dirt under Turner’s nails, all right,

403
00:23:47,826 --> 00:23:49,966
but it’s likely to be gamboge yellow

404
00:23:49,966 --> 00:23:51,377
or Prussian blue,

405
00:23:51,377 --> 00:23:52,807
not farm muck.

406
00:23:53,004 --> 00:23:54,284
And the worst thing

407
00:23:54,284 --> 00:23:55,374
is that he seems to wear

408
00:23:55,374 --> 00:23:56,659
his unwashed hands

409
00:23:56,659 --> 00:23:58,784
like a badge of professional pride.

410
00:23:59,989 --> 00:24:01,319
When a young gentleman

411
00:24:01,319 --> 00:24:03,528
aspirant artist comes to see him,

412
00:24:03,528 --> 00:24:05,328
Turner grabs his lily-white hands

413
00:24:05,338 --> 00:24:06,517
and growls…

414
00:24:06,517 --> 00:24:08,395
You’re not artist.

415
00:24:13,659 --> 00:24:14,915
Turner himself

416
00:24:14,915 --> 00:24:17,431
uses his fingers to make his art;

417
00:24:17,431 --> 00:24:19,737
keeps a nail deliberately untrimmed

418
00:24:20,137 --> 00:24:22,337
so he could wield it like a claw

419
00:24:22,337 --> 00:24:24,609
to cut into the paint surface.

420
00:24:24,609 --> 00:24:26,619
He’s no dainty brush-flicker.

421
00:24:26,752 --> 00:24:28,289
He wipes and scrapes,

422
00:24:28,298 --> 00:24:31,007
attacks the surface with a pumice stone,

423
00:24:31,007 --> 00:24:32,613
spits into the paint

424
00:24:32,613 --> 00:24:34,553
and gives it a good smoosh.

425
00:24:34,873 --> 00:24:37,815
It’s this joyous urchin-like wallowing

426
00:24:37,815 --> 00:24:40,385
in the muck and slather of paint

427
00:24:40,385 --> 00:24:43,475
that Turner’s critics found so appalling.

428
00:24:43,485 --> 00:24:45,520
And one of them complained

429
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:47,330
about his perpetual need

430
00:24:47,330 --> 00:24:48,963
to be extraordinary.

431
00:24:48,963 --> 00:24:51,130
Well, yes, how very un-British.

432
00:25:20,300 --> 00:25:22,598
But Turner didn’t wanted to be boxed in

433
00:25:22,598 --> 00:25:25,068
by what Britain was becoming.

434
00:25:25,345 --> 00:25:27,093
An empire of solid,

435
00:25:27,093 --> 00:25:29,033
prosaic commercial facts.

436
00:25:29,083 --> 00:25:30,933
He needed something more,

437
00:25:30,933 --> 00:25:33,675
a place where the poetic imagination

438
00:25:33,675 --> 00:25:35,736
could drift and float.

439
00:25:40,371 --> 00:25:42,252
There was one place where

440
00:25:42,252 --> 00:25:45,042
not to be sound or solid was of the essence.

441
00:25:45,112 --> 00:25:46,188
Venice.

442
00:25:46,854 --> 00:25:48,860
For 20 years, off and on,

443
00:25:48,860 --> 00:25:50,982
Turner made the floating city

444
00:25:50,982 --> 00:25:52,232
his soul mate.

445
00:26:10,604 --> 00:26:12,383
Turner was spellbound

446
00:26:12,383 --> 00:26:14,763
and conjured from a wisp here,

447
00:26:14,763 --> 00:26:16,286
a daub there,

448
00:26:16,286 --> 00:26:18,556
the gauzy radiance of the place.

449
00:26:23,873 --> 00:26:25,865
Turner’s critics accused him

450
00:26:25,865 --> 00:26:28,205
of the cardinal sin of indistinctness.

451
00:26:28,705 --> 00:26:30,245
But here in the floating city

452
00:26:30,245 --> 00:26:32,900
where everything was liquid and slippery,

453
00:26:32,900 --> 00:26:35,363
he could embrace that indistinctness,

454
00:26:35,363 --> 00:26:37,720
make it his own particular glory.

455
00:27:36,042 --> 00:27:37,586
Turner could have been

456
00:27:37,586 --> 00:27:39,616
tranquillised by Venice,

457
00:27:40,006 --> 00:27:42,026
seduced into becoming

458
00:27:42,026 --> 00:27:44,012
an accomplished supplier

459
00:27:44,012 --> 00:27:45,782
of sensuous bliss.

460
00:27:47,172 --> 00:27:49,574
But the stagnant beauty of the city

461
00:27:49,574 --> 00:27:52,044
made him think of something else.

462
00:27:54,384 --> 00:27:57,737
He looked at Venice and he saw death.

463
00:28:13,746 --> 00:28:15,086
For most of his life,

464
00:28:15,086 --> 00:28:16,586
Turner had been the picture

465
00:28:16,586 --> 00:28:17,971
of rude health.

466
00:28:17,971 --> 00:28:21,314
Now he’s sick, losing weight, wheezing.

467
00:28:25,468 --> 00:28:26,867
He feels the grip

468
00:28:26,867 --> 00:28:29,417
of the ancient story of life and death

469
00:28:29,417 --> 00:28:31,453
in his very own bones.

470
00:28:51,810 --> 00:28:54,303
Mortality eats away at him.

471
00:28:55,488 --> 00:28:56,923
His indispensable,

472
00:28:56,923 --> 00:28:59,303
multi-tasking old dad had died.

473
00:28:59,303 --> 00:29:01,703
Not just his personal jack-of-all-trades,

474
00:29:01,703 --> 00:29:03,551
but his best friend.

475
00:29:03,551 --> 00:29:06,208
Other cherished intimates, Walter Fawkes,

476
00:29:06,252 --> 00:29:08,390
the old radical, had gone, too.

477
00:29:10,525 --> 00:29:12,795
To keep the aches and pains at bay,

478
00:29:12,795 --> 00:29:15,945
he uses a tincture of thorn apple to cope,

479
00:29:15,945 --> 00:29:17,376
a narcotic,

480
00:29:17,376 --> 00:29:19,816
which probably sends his always

481
00:29:19,816 --> 00:29:22,086
hyperactive visual imagination

482
00:29:22,086 --> 00:29:23,746
into planetary orbit.

483
00:29:24,716 --> 00:29:26,634
And from his bad dreams

484
00:29:26,634 --> 00:29:28,404
gallops a biblical horror.

485
00:29:35,980 --> 00:29:39,692
And I looked and beheld a pale horse,

486
00:29:40,085 --> 00:29:43,006
and his name that sat on him was Death,

487
00:29:43,314 --> 00:29:46,344
and Hell followed with him.

488
00:29:59,726 --> 00:30:01,755
But Turner paints his way

489
00:30:01,755 --> 00:30:03,635
out of the nightmare.

490
00:30:03,975 --> 00:30:06,692
Look closely, the skeleton is limp.

491
00:30:08,437 --> 00:30:11,478
Death is dead.

492
00:30:11,779 --> 00:30:13,809
Turner lives to paint on.

493
00:30:16,857 --> 00:30:18,528
He won’t limply surrender

494
00:30:18,528 --> 00:30:20,838
like some consumptive Romantic.

495
00:30:21,078 --> 00:30:22,713
Instead he gathers his energies,

496
00:30:22,713 --> 00:30:25,093
puts his obsession to work,

497
00:30:25,093 --> 00:30:27,439
makes the cycle of life and death,

498
00:30:27,439 --> 00:30:29,899
suffering and salvation,

499
00:30:29,899 --> 00:30:33,415
the theme of his greatest period of painting.

500
00:30:45,152 --> 00:30:47,769
He’s deep into his middle age.

501
00:30:47,769 --> 00:30:49,289
When he stares at the waves

502
00:30:49,289 --> 00:30:51,452
pounding the coast of Kent,

503
00:30:51,452 --> 00:30:52,984
he feels that rhythm

504
00:30:52,984 --> 00:30:55,104
of destruction and creation.

505
00:30:55,264 --> 00:30:57,715
Now, Margate might not seem to you

506
00:30:57,715 --> 00:30:59,315
much of a place to brood

507
00:30:59,315 --> 00:31:01,085
on historical destiny,

508
00:31:01,175 --> 00:31:02,515
but for Turner,

509
00:31:02,515 --> 00:31:04,325
it was definitely more than just

510
00:31:04,325 --> 00:31:05,636
seaside ozone

511
00:31:05,636 --> 00:31:07,786
and a stroll along the beach.

512
00:31:28,347 --> 00:31:30,956
The sea becomes something more than

513
00:31:30,956 --> 00:31:33,716
the carrier of power and wealth.

514
00:31:35,326 --> 00:31:36,886
It’s the stage on which

515
00:31:36,886 --> 00:31:40,616
the drama of British history gets played out.

516
00:31:42,596 --> 00:31:44,190
Sometimes that drama

517
00:31:44,190 --> 00:31:46,340
is fierce and turbulent,

518
00:31:46,700 --> 00:31:49,663
and sometimes it’s a comforting story

519
00:31:49,663 --> 00:31:51,723
for revolutionary times.

520
00:32:17,018 --> 00:32:20,326
So in the painting he calls his “old darling”,

521
00:32:20,552 --> 00:32:22,947
he gives us romantic wistfulness

522
00:32:22,947 --> 00:32:25,607
for the veteran battleship of Trafalgar,

523
00:32:25,607 --> 00:32:27,385
The Fighting Temeraire.

524
00:32:31,953 --> 00:32:34,544
The vessel is restored fictitiously,

525
00:32:34,544 --> 00:32:37,029
to one last heroic farewell voyage

526
00:32:37,029 --> 00:32:39,469
before being broken up.

527
00:32:40,029 --> 00:32:41,673
In Turner’s picture,

528
00:32:41,683 --> 00:32:43,833
its masts are still standing,

529
00:32:43,833 --> 00:32:45,623
its sails furled.

530
00:32:45,833 --> 00:32:48,066
But the little steam-power tug that pulls it

531
00:32:48,066 --> 00:32:50,406
isn’t some sort of modern villain.

532
00:32:50,546 --> 00:32:52,066
It’s simply a fact of life

533
00:32:52,066 --> 00:32:53,603
in the new Britain,

534
00:32:53,603 --> 00:32:55,575
a nation in upheaval

535
00:32:55,575 --> 00:32:57,235
as the Industrial Revolution

536
00:32:57,235 --> 00:32:58,585
gathers momentum.

537
00:32:59,765 --> 00:33:01,545
And Turner has perfect pitch

538
00:33:01,545 --> 00:33:03,729
for a British public torn

539
00:33:03,729 --> 00:33:05,630
between affection for the past

540
00:33:05,630 --> 00:33:07,950
and anticipation for the future.

541
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:12,528
It’s so emotionally versatile,

542
00:33:12,528 --> 00:33:13,538
this picture,

543
00:33:13,538 --> 00:33:15,088
that it lets you indulge

544
00:33:15,088 --> 00:33:16,588
whatever mood takes you.

545
00:33:16,588 --> 00:33:18,002
Feel like an elegy?

546
00:33:18,095 --> 00:33:19,855
Well, fine, then this can be

547
00:33:19,855 --> 00:33:21,887
the sunset of Nelson’s England.

548
00:33:22,027 --> 00:33:25,328
Just made a lot of money from an industrial patent,

549
00:33:25,328 --> 00:33:26,798
and feeling good?

550
00:33:26,798 --> 00:33:27,770
Fine again,

551
00:33:27,770 --> 00:33:32,400
this is the sunrise of your new industrial empire.

552
00:33:38,558 --> 00:33:40,999
But Turner’s restless imagination

553
00:33:40,999 --> 00:33:43,529
won’t settle for poignant gentleness.

554
00:33:43,529 --> 00:33:46,807
He knows the truth is more tumultuous

555
00:33:46,807 --> 00:33:50,447
and that the sea has terrible tales to tell.

556
00:33:53,618 --> 00:33:55,827
Ships in peril fill his mind,

557
00:33:55,827 --> 00:33:57,487
and those ships become

558
00:33:57,487 --> 00:33:59,667
an emblem of the country.

559
00:33:59,667 --> 00:34:02,126
The oceanic deep becomes the site

560
00:34:02,126 --> 00:34:05,126
on which imperial destiny unfolds,

561
00:34:05,126 --> 00:34:07,290
where British history will be wrecked,

562
00:34:07,290 --> 00:34:09,350
rescued or salvaged.

563
00:34:17,877 --> 00:34:19,866
The Amphitrite was a convict ship

564
00:34:19,866 --> 00:34:22,416
carrying women and children to Australia.

565
00:34:23,286 --> 00:34:24,676
But it didn’t get far.

566
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:26,852
In the channel, off Boulogne,

567
00:34:26,852 --> 00:34:28,223
the ship ran aground

568
00:34:28,223 --> 00:34:29,923
and began to break up.

569
00:34:37,768 --> 00:34:39,428
The French offered to land

570
00:34:39,428 --> 00:34:41,449
the passengers and the crew.

571
00:34:41,449 --> 00:34:43,723
But the captain, a brutal disciplinarian,

572
00:34:43,723 --> 00:34:45,389
rejected the offer on the grounds

573
00:34:45,389 --> 00:34:47,599
he had no authority to land them

574
00:34:47,599 --> 00:34:50,090
anywhere except their antipodean prison.

575
00:34:51,980 --> 00:34:54,267
The crew clung to masts and spars,

576
00:34:54,267 --> 00:34:56,377
and most survived the wreck.

577
00:34:56,767 --> 00:34:58,740
But the women and children,

578
00:34:58,740 --> 00:35:00,390
all 125 of them,

579
00:35:00,390 --> 00:35:02,490
were swept away and drowned.

580
00:35:04,140 --> 00:35:05,556
Like his Waterloo,

581
00:35:05,556 --> 00:35:07,006
it’s a painting of victims,

582
00:35:07,006 --> 00:35:09,106
so much human flotsam and jetsam.

583
00:35:09,606 --> 00:35:13,251
But this is the bare skeleton of a masterwork.

584
00:35:13,558 --> 00:35:15,872
Turner never finished or showed it.

585
00:35:31,229 --> 00:35:34,299
But the idea behind it, cruelty at sea,

586
00:35:34,299 --> 00:35:36,250
blood, martyrdom,

587
00:35:36,250 --> 00:35:38,100
retribution and salvation,

588
00:35:38,100 --> 00:35:40,267
had certainly not gone away.

589
00:35:44,260 --> 00:35:46,073
It simmered

590
00:35:46,073 --> 00:35:48,029
and then exploded in a sky

591
00:35:48,029 --> 00:35:49,679
the colour of blood.

592
00:36:30,833 --> 00:36:32,440
In the late 1830s,

593
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:33,434
one issue

594
00:36:33,434 --> 00:36:35,434
galvanised British moral outrage

595
00:36:35,434 --> 00:36:37,484
more than any other:

596
00:36:37,484 --> 00:36:38,981
slavery.

597
00:36:59,612 --> 00:37:01,901
Britain had outlawed slavery

598
00:37:01,901 --> 00:37:03,691
throughout the Empire.

599
00:37:04,111 --> 00:37:06,191
But in the Hispanic empires

600
00:37:06,191 --> 00:37:07,939
and the United States,

601
00:37:07,939 --> 00:37:10,652
it not only survived, but thrived.

602
00:37:13,739 --> 00:37:15,189
In 1840, in London,

603
00:37:15,189 --> 00:37:16,769
an International Convention

604
00:37:16,769 --> 00:37:18,297
of the Great and Good

605
00:37:18,297 --> 00:37:20,202
was planned to express

606
00:37:20,202 --> 00:37:22,422
righteous indignation at this fact.

607
00:37:22,612 --> 00:37:24,677
Turner, initiated into the cause

608
00:37:24,677 --> 00:37:26,787
so many years ago by his patron,

609
00:37:26,787 --> 00:37:28,229
Walter Fawkes,

610
00:37:28,229 --> 00:37:30,349
wanted to have his say in paint.

611
00:37:38,768 --> 00:37:40,442
And how does he do it?

612
00:37:41,068 --> 00:37:43,375
By being a thorn in the side

613
00:37:43,375 --> 00:37:44,985
of self-congratulation.

614
00:37:50,323 --> 00:37:53,253
Turner reaches back 60 years to resurrect

615
00:37:53,639 --> 00:37:56,185
one of the most shameful episodes

616
00:37:56,185 --> 00:37:58,815
in the history of the British Empire.

617
00:38:20,713 --> 00:38:24,932
In 1781, the British slaver, the Zong,

618
00:38:24,932 --> 00:38:27,042
was off the coast of Jamaica

619
00:38:27,042 --> 00:38:29,142
after a routinely profitable journey

620
00:38:29,142 --> 00:38:30,272
from Africa.

621
00:38:40,563 --> 00:38:43,382
But deep below decks, there was trouble.

622
00:38:47,486 --> 00:38:49,840
Slaves were dying at more

623
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:51,380
than the usual rate.

624
00:38:51,870 --> 00:38:54,509
And the ship’s master, Luke Collingwood,

625
00:38:54,509 --> 00:38:56,631
suddenly had a business disaster

626
00:38:56,631 --> 00:38:58,371
on his hands.

627
00:39:01,861 --> 00:39:03,942
His human cargo was insured,

628
00:39:03,942 --> 00:39:06,171
but the underwriters would only pay up

629
00:39:06,171 --> 00:39:08,031
if the casualties could be accounted for

630
00:39:08,031 --> 00:39:09,471
as losses at sea,

631
00:39:09,471 --> 00:39:10,784
not dead on arrival.

632
00:39:21,349 --> 00:39:24,549
So Captain Collingwood went below decks

633
00:39:25,772 --> 00:39:28,361
and began the merciless business of

634
00:39:28,361 --> 00:39:31,697
selecting which slaves he would swiftly turn

635
00:39:31,697 --> 00:39:33,787
into “losses at sea”.

636
00:40:12,293 --> 00:40:14,123
132 Africans,

637
00:40:14,123 --> 00:40:15,843
men, women and children,

638
00:40:15,843 --> 00:40:18,636
their hands and feet fettered,

639
00:40:18,636 --> 00:40:20,414
were thrown overboard

640
00:40:20,416 --> 00:40:22,586
into the shark-infested waters

641
00:40:22,586 --> 00:40:24,526
of the Caribbean.

642
00:40:38,782 --> 00:40:41,404
The moral horror of the case of the Zong

643
00:40:41,404 --> 00:40:42,818
was the moment

644
00:40:42,818 --> 00:40:44,538
when thousand of Britons

645
00:40:44,538 --> 00:40:46,658
abandoned their indifference

646
00:40:46,658 --> 00:40:48,612
and became campaigners

647
00:40:48,612 --> 00:40:50,562
against the slave trade.

648
00:41:05,824 --> 00:41:09,155
132 Africans perished horribly,

649
00:41:09,155 --> 00:41:11,475
but a mass movement was born

650
00:41:11,475 --> 00:41:13,568
from their martyrdom.

651
00:41:20,378 --> 00:41:22,078
Turner’s approach to this

652
00:41:22,078 --> 00:41:23,463
appalling tragedy

653
00:41:23,463 --> 00:41:24,752
was not that of

654
00:41:24,752 --> 00:41:26,922
a literal historical illustrator.

655
00:41:27,752 --> 00:41:29,802
What the great enchanter

656
00:41:29,802 --> 00:41:31,590
of the canvas wanted was,

657
00:41:31,590 --> 00:41:32,802
Prospero-like,

658
00:41:32,802 --> 00:41:35,457
to summon an apocalypse, a typhoon.

659
00:41:54,363 --> 00:41:56,256
The Slave Ship pitches us

660
00:41:56,256 --> 00:41:58,624
into the midst of a feverish dream

661
00:41:58,624 --> 00:42:00,520
of catastrophe and terror,

662
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:02,176
sin and retribution.

663
00:42:11,626 --> 00:42:13,396
The silhouetted ship,

664
00:42:13,396 --> 00:42:15,768
almost engulfed in the erupting spray,

665
00:42:15,768 --> 00:42:17,338
is both a real vessel

666
00:42:17,338 --> 00:42:19,932
and something cursed and haunted,

667
00:42:19,932 --> 00:42:22,924
like the ship of the Ancient Mariner.

668
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:27,442
Waves seethe with monsters,

669
00:42:27,442 --> 00:42:29,842
a kind of obscene piranha-like

670
00:42:29,842 --> 00:42:32,394
nibbling and gobbling.

671
00:42:37,244 --> 00:42:38,865
And the oncoming fishy monster

672
00:42:38,865 --> 00:42:39,865
is not to be catch off

673
00:42:39,865 --> 00:42:41,865
the coast of Jamaica,

674
00:42:41,865 --> 00:42:43,331
but off the canvas

675
00:42:43,331 --> 00:42:44,981
of Hieronymus Bosh,

676
00:42:44,981 --> 00:42:46,701
Hell, in high water.

677
00:42:53,685 --> 00:42:56,477
Of course, it has its imperfections,

678
00:42:56,477 --> 00:42:58,127
all that flailing flurry of action

679
00:42:58,127 --> 00:42:59,866
in the foreground,

680
00:43:00,706 --> 00:43:03,441
the mysteriously floating iron fetters,

681
00:43:03,441 --> 00:43:05,929
the flung limb that may or may not

682
00:43:05,929 --> 00:43:08,289
be detached from its torso.

683
00:43:08,929 --> 00:43:11,496
All the frantic fishy action could seem

684
00:43:11,496 --> 00:43:13,846
too fussily staged.

685
00:43:14,786 --> 00:43:15,816
In the end,

686
00:43:15,816 --> 00:43:17,888
there’s only one test that matters.

687
00:43:17,888 --> 00:43:19,168
You come into the room,

688
00:43:19,168 --> 00:43:21,025
you fix it in your sights,

689
00:43:21,025 --> 00:43:22,660
does it or does it not

690
00:43:22,660 --> 00:43:24,750
attack you in the guts?

691
00:43:24,750 --> 00:43:25,947
It does.

692
00:43:31,153 --> 00:43:33,190
Does your heart jump? Do your eyes widen?

693
00:43:33,190 --> 00:43:34,621
Does your pulse race?

694
00:43:34,621 --> 00:43:35,621
Do you feet get a bad attack

695
00:43:35,621 --> 00:43:37,313
of lead boots,

696
00:43:37,313 --> 00:43:39,565
you’re so struck down by it? They do.

697
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:46,754
For Turner has drowned you in this moment,

698
00:43:46,844 --> 00:43:48,254
pulled you into this terrifying

699
00:43:48,254 --> 00:43:50,219
chasm in the ocean,

700
00:43:50,219 --> 00:43:52,743
drenched you in his bloody light.

701
00:43:52,822 --> 00:43:54,198
Exactly the hue

702
00:43:54,198 --> 00:43:57,428
you sense on your blood-filled optic nerves

703
00:43:57,428 --> 00:43:59,615
when you close your eyes

704
00:43:59,615 --> 00:44:01,525
in blinding sunlight.

705
00:44:03,665 --> 00:44:05,864
Though almost all of these critics

706
00:44:05,864 --> 00:44:07,064
believed that The Slavers

707
00:44:07,064 --> 00:44:09,315
represented an all-time low

708
00:44:09,315 --> 00:44:11,575
in Turner’s reckless disregard

709
00:44:11,575 --> 00:44:13,314
for the rules of art

710
00:44:13,384 --> 00:44:16,214
it was in fact his greatest triumph

711
00:44:16,214 --> 00:44:18,574
in the sculptural carving of space.

712
00:44:20,244 --> 00:44:22,710
For none of the stormy atmospherics,

713
00:44:22,710 --> 00:44:26,050
the great pinwheel fury of reds and golds,

714
00:44:26,050 --> 00:44:28,341
would have the impact they did,

715
00:44:28,341 --> 00:44:29,514
were it not for that deep trough

716
00:44:29,514 --> 00:44:32,134
Turner has cut in the ocean,

717
00:44:32,134 --> 00:44:34,394
which at the centre of the painting

718
00:44:34,394 --> 00:44:37,964
makes the blackly heaving swells stand still

719
00:44:37,964 --> 00:44:40,539
as though the wrathful hand of Jehovah

720
00:44:40,539 --> 00:44:42,286
has suddenly passed

721
00:44:42,286 --> 00:44:44,336
over the boiling waters.

722
00:44:47,096 --> 00:44:49,205
For this is a day of martyrdom,

723
00:44:49,435 --> 00:44:52,065
retribution and judgement.

724
00:44:56,944 --> 00:44:58,801
But also a scene,

725
00:44:58,801 --> 00:45:01,801
Turner must have optimistically thought,

726
00:45:01,801 --> 00:45:03,739
of vindication.

727
00:45:04,739 --> 00:45:07,299
It would be a sin redeemed.

728
00:45:08,799 --> 00:45:11,923
Slavery would be defeated.

729
00:45:14,886 --> 00:45:16,682
There is, after all,

730
00:45:16,682 --> 00:45:18,635
a patch of clearing blue

731
00:45:18,635 --> 00:45:21,995
at the top right corner of the painting.

732
00:45:31,923 --> 00:45:34,066
The critics went to town.

733
00:45:34,476 --> 00:45:36,616
Turner became the butt of jokes,

734
00:45:36,616 --> 00:45:39,877
a crackpot, old loon, lost in the tempest

735
00:45:39,877 --> 00:45:42,627
with his ridiculous painting.

736
00:45:42,627 --> 00:45:45,783
And its even more ridiculous full title,

737
00:45:47,721 --> 00:45:48,976
Slavers,

738
00:45:48,976 --> 00:45:52,118
Slave Ship Throwing Over the Death and Dying,

739
00:45:52,118 --> 00:45:54,498
Typhoon Coming on.

740
00:45:57,088 --> 00:45:58,538
Punch magazine joined in

741
00:45:58,538 --> 00:46:00,444
the chorus of catcalls,

742
00:46:00,444 --> 00:46:01,514
lampooning Turner

743
00:46:01,514 --> 00:46:04,600
by inventing a painting with the title,

744
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:06,297
“A typhoon bursting a samoon

745
00:46:06,297 --> 00:46:08,557
over a whirlpool maelstrom”,

746
00:46:08,577 --> 00:46:10,521
“Norway, a ship on fire,

747
00:46:10,521 --> 00:46:12,733
and eclipse with the effect

748
00:46:12,733 --> 00:46:14,833
of a lunar rainbow”.

749
00:46:26,498 --> 00:46:27,742
But Punch

750
00:46:27,742 --> 00:46:29,912
and all the other high-hat critics

751
00:46:29,912 --> 00:46:32,300
missed the one overwhelming point

752
00:46:32,300 --> 00:46:35,309
which makes the greatest British picture

753
00:46:35,309 --> 00:46:37,349
of the 19th century,

754
00:46:38,919 --> 00:46:43,359
the perfect match between message and form.

755
00:46:45,326 --> 00:46:48,000
The payoff of the slaves’ martyrdom

756
00:46:48,020 --> 00:46:50,730
would in the end be freedom.

757
00:46:59,293 --> 00:47:01,399
So Turner has given himself

758
00:47:01,399 --> 00:47:02,969
glorious freedom

759
00:47:02,969 --> 00:47:05,259
with his brush and with his colour,

760
00:47:05,259 --> 00:47:07,139
and with his imagery,

761
00:47:07,139 --> 00:47:10,279
to convey the power of the sacred moment.

762
00:47:49,756 --> 00:47:51,816
Two years after the debate

763
00:47:51,816 --> 00:47:53,572
of The Slave Ship,

764
00:47:53,572 --> 00:47:54,898
a young Scottish admirer,

765
00:47:54,898 --> 00:47:56,638
William Leitch,

766
00:47:56,638 --> 00:47:59,124
visited Turner’s house in Queen Anne Street.

767
00:48:08,497 --> 00:48:10,437
He’d herd that the Turner gallery

768
00:48:10,437 --> 00:48:12,009
was in disrepair,

769
00:48:12,009 --> 00:48:14,312
but nothing could possibly have prepared

770
00:48:14,312 --> 00:48:16,262
Leitch for the squalor.

771
00:48:20,959 --> 00:48:22,919
I walked backwards and forwards

772
00:48:22,919 --> 00:48:24,103
in the gallery,

773
00:48:24,103 --> 00:48:26,129
feeling cold and uncomfortable.

774
00:48:26,269 --> 00:48:28,619
There was no sound to be heard

775
00:48:28,619 --> 00:48:30,002
but the rain splashing

776
00:48:30,002 --> 00:48:31,882
through the broken windows

777
00:48:31,882 --> 00:48:33,332
upon the floor.

778
00:48:34,672 --> 00:48:37,734
Leitch stood in the evil-smelling gloom.

779
00:48:38,241 --> 00:48:41,107
And as peered at Turner’s most recent work,

780
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:43,488
among which was hanging, somewhere,

781
00:48:43,865 --> 00:48:46,739
the scarlet explosion that was the unsold,

782
00:48:46,739 --> 00:48:49,670
unwanted, unloved Slave Ship,

783
00:48:49,670 --> 00:48:52,360
he felt more and more depressed.

784
00:48:53,252 --> 00:48:54,972
But this was the moment

785
00:48:54,972 --> 00:48:57,077
when the country’s favourite painter,

786
00:48:57,077 --> 00:48:59,878
once revered as the patriarch of British art,

787
00:48:59,878 --> 00:49:02,958
was written off as a senile lunatic.

788
00:49:16,148 --> 00:49:18,309
Yet the effect of the critical onslaught

789
00:49:18,309 --> 00:49:20,799
is to make him more, not less, brave.

790
00:49:20,799 --> 00:49:22,309
He’s off on his own now,

791
00:49:22,309 --> 00:49:23,870
the solitary mariner

792
00:49:23,870 --> 00:49:26,144
on a completely unchartered ocean

793
00:49:26,144 --> 00:49:27,874
of pure painting.

794
00:50:42,144 --> 00:50:44,464
Alongside all these scenes

795
00:50:44,464 --> 00:50:46,628
of oceanic turmoil,

796
00:50:46,628 --> 00:50:49,422
Turner was still capable of painting images

797
00:50:49,422 --> 00:50:51,432
of exquisite liquid calm.

798
00:50:52,082 --> 00:50:53,779
But you have the feeling

799
00:50:53,779 --> 00:50:55,879
he could do those in his sleep.

800
00:50:56,169 --> 00:50:58,701
It’s when his whirlpool of paint resolves

801
00:50:58,701 --> 00:51:01,151
itself into something weightier and mightier

802
00:51:01,151 --> 00:51:04,459
than the entertainment of the senses,

803
00:51:04,915 --> 00:51:06,055
when he reaches towards

804
00:51:06,055 --> 00:51:09,055
the truth of history and eternity

805
00:51:09,055 --> 00:51:11,738
that I think Turner is at his greatest.

806
00:51:12,673 --> 00:51:13,933
That’s when he changes

807
00:51:13,933 --> 00:51:15,909
not just British art,

808
00:51:15,909 --> 00:51:19,636
but all of art, most completely.

809
00:51:25,596 --> 00:51:26,973
And you know,

810
00:51:26,973 --> 00:51:28,583
this is why Turner still matters to us

811
00:51:28,583 --> 00:51:30,614
and always will.

812
00:51:30,614 --> 00:51:32,773
That old Cockney geezer in his battered hat

813
00:51:33,197 --> 00:51:35,103
and filthy coat transport us somewhere

814
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:38,420
the slick conformist would never dare to go.

815
00:51:38,782 --> 00:51:43,553
Into the eye of history’s storm.

816
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Into the ocean of light.