Keelmen Heaving Coals by Moonlight
Description:
“To the right, the keelmen and the dark, flat-bottomed keels that carried the coal from Northumberland and Durham down the River Tyne are silhouetted against the orange and white flames from the torches, as the coal is transferred to the sailing ships. To the left, square riggers wait to sail out on the morning tide. Behind these ships Turner suggested the distant cluster of factories and ships with touches of gray paint and a few thin lines.” (curatorial notes)
Copyright:
Copyright, 2009, Romantic Circles.
Accession Number:
1942.9.86
Height (in centimeters):
92
Width (in centimeters):
123
Provenance
Painted for Henry McConnell, a cotton-spinner in Manchester (Hamilton 31).Exhibition History
Exhibits9 May, 1835
No. 955:
J. M. W. Turner, R.A.—And such a night!
—a flood of glorious moon-light wasted upon
dingy coal-whippers, instead of conducting lovers
to the appointed bower. That, when it is Mr.
Turner’s object, however, to call up associations
of romance and beauty, he is ‘powerful at it.’”
23 May, 1835
No. 15,798:
W. Turner. One of those masterly productions by which
the artist contrives to convey very striking effects with just so
much of adherence to nature as prevents one from saying they
are merely fanciful. It represents neither night nor day, and
yet the general effect is very agreeable and surprising.”
Marks Description
Signed on the buoy at lower left: JMWT (Hayes 279).Associated Places
Tynemouth, LondonAssociated Texts
Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore (1834) by J.M.W. Turner:Subject
Turner’s use of Romantic elements gives beauty and significance to the industrial subject of this painting. The moon shines brightly through the clouds, so that the back of the image is obscured in light. The smoke on the right and the blinding light of the moon, combined with the generally foggy atmosphere of the painting, obscures the ordinary objects on the water, such as the ropes and torches, and makes them more abstract. The conservation notes inform us that[t]ypical to Turner’s approach to painting, the basic elements of nature fuse; earth, air, fire, and water meld here under the luminous beams of the moon. Although the coolness of the light denotes a nighttime view, there is little sense of darkness. The artist has transformed nature with a flooding, all-pervasive moonlight.Another commentator observes:
A common factor in this pendant pair (Keelemen Heaving Coals by Moonlight and Venice:The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore) as in many sea or river paintings by Turner, is the open foreground defined by gathering boats, which adds to the illusion of the stage, where figures fall back to await, or participate in, a coming action. (Hamilton 34)
Significance
Turner uses Romantic elements here to transform the ordinary into the poetic and the mysterious; this painting exemplifies how the subject of the sea lends itself to such a transformation. For example, "the artist used light to obliterate and liberate forms so that they could exist in poetic strangeness” (conservation notes). Furthermore, this scene hints at Turner's belief that humanity was part of nature, “that the source of well-being lay in the harmonious relation of man with his environment” (conservation notes); in this case, the human toil and smut of the Industrial Revolution combine with the natural setting of the sea.Bibliography
Brook-Hart, Denys. British 19th Century Marine Painting. Suffolk: Baron, 1974. Print.Long Title
Joseph Mallord William Turner, British, 1775-1851, Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, 1835, Oil on canvas, 92.3 x 122.8m (36 3/8 x 48 3/8 inches), Widener Collection, 1942.9.86, NGA.Featured in Exhibit:
From the Collection:
Painter:
Image Date:
1835
