New £20 Banknote

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I was very pleased to see that Turner and the 'Fighting Temeraire' are to appear on the new £20 banknote:

**LINK**

Colin

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

The Fighting Temeraire

[Steve Walker 1Participant @stevewalker1]

I'm pleased too. Some years ago I travelled to London with the express intention of seeing the painting.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I suppose I am in a minority when I say that I can't see anything realistic or attractive in the Fighting Temeraire painting. Looked at a load of Turner paintings on the internet this morning, and didn't like a single one of them!

Bob

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Bob

'Realism' i.e. looking like the real thing, was never JMW Turner's driving force, which is why he and Constable never hit it off. He is best described as a romanticist landscape painter and his work prefaced the style of painting known as impressionist – a word which speaks for itself. If you approach The Fighting Temeraire simply as a picture of a steam tug pulling a decrepit hulk through a fog then it's not very attractive or realistic, but if you look at it as a representation of the silent passing of the age of sail then it's haunting, sad, magnificent and any number of other such words.

I held pretty much the same sort of opinion as you about paintings until I came face to face with a real Leonardo – in this case a small Madonna and Child in the Hermitage Museum. I was utterly transfixed, and I'm still not sure why. You could criticise many of the so-called great masters for being unrealistic but the galleries still pack 'em in. You can't fool all of the people all of the time – although I do wonder sometimes about Salvador Dali!

Dave M

Edited By Dave Milbourn on 09/05/2016 10:32:12

Edited By Dave Milbourn on 09/05/2016 10:32:33

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I have seen the original of The Fighting Temeraire a few times and there is no doubt at all that it is a masterpiece.

It evokes the dying of the age of sail and is a lovely thing to see. This is why good art will always surpass photographs as it distils the essence of the subject matter. I am surprised that you don't like it Bob as this is not far removed from what you do with your own creations in representing and suggesting detail rather than mechanically trying to reproduce it, ie. no knots etc. I don't suppose you are much attracted to Van Gogh either!

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I seem to be of the same opinion as Dave M, apart from the fact that when Temeraire was scrapped in 1838, it certainly did not indicate the passing of sail because in Britain, as they were still building sailing ships for a further 70 years, although the final boom of sailing ship construction in the UK was the entire decade of the 1890s!

To me, the proportions of the ship look all wrong and it is almost "blurred!" It looks like an onion with shorts masts! I think it was Turner (may be wrong) that painted a picture of a steam locomative that looked (to me) rather like a bottle on wheels

Agree that Leonardo da Vinci was a "real" master painter. As for Van Gogh, I enjoyed the film (on TV a few weeks ago) but find his paintings far too "gaudy!"

Not much hope for me then, as I do attempt to get as close a resemblance to the original as possible on a small scale, but would not like to be compared with Turner

Bob

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

This sort of thing is more in my line!

Bob

**LINK**

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Here's a link to the National Gallery's website page **LINK**

Be careful! Websites like this can lose you an afternoon!

Dave M

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Lovely picture Bob. We have a large Montague Dawson print of Ariel and Taeping on our living room wall.

The paintings by Geoff Hunt used on the covers of the Jack Aubrey books are also very good. And, as far as something a bit more modern is concerned, you have the two books of merchant ship paintings by Robert Lloyd.

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Yes, Geoff Hunt and Robert Lloyd are both excellent painters. But as for the Jack Aubrey books, again I am one of the few who find them boring in the extreme! At present reading Caribbee by Julian Stockwin, one of the better naval fiction writers (Napoleonic era).

Bob

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Bob

Turner more than most people of his generation realised that the new industrial age was the beginning of the end for traditional values and the way that people were going to live.

The Fighting Temeraire was a visual metaphor illustrating that no matter how grand or indestructible a thing might seem it will eventually fall victim to the progress of technology.

In its heyday the Temeraire was the most magnificent ship of the line and with the rest of the Royal Navy it ruled supreme and yet Turner portrays it as a sad hulk, stripped of its masts, rigging and finery, it is dragged to its doom by the symbol of new technology a dank and dirty little steam tug.

In later times HG Wells and George Orwell both picked up on the same subject, the passing of a simpler and somehow purer life to a time where machines dominate our world.

Art appreciation is of course down to individual tastes so, if I may I will show you a series of photos that might instil some of the feelings that the Fighting Temeraire does with me.

 

 

 

 

The MV Joseph

 

 

Beached and being scrapped in India

 

 

A sad end

 

 

 

Edited By Paul T on 09/05/2016 14:14:21

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Ah, Bob, I'm not too keen on Stockwin's Kydd character although I agree that the Aubrey series can be a bit of an acquired taste although O'Brien does a very good job in depicting his protagonists as real people. He wasn't a very nice man himself by most accounts though.

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Still think the Temeraire is a pretty awful excuse for a painting though! I am more moved by this sight:

**LINK**

My old ship, RMS Windsor Castle, on the scrapping beach at Alang, India!

"They didn't hold no service for to mark her dying day,

But her sisters hooted mournful as she passed,

And a brace of dirty tugboats came and hustled her away,

With her colours drooping sadly at the mast!"

————–

Spent five years in that ship!

——————-

I portray the passing of the old order myself from time to time, but I try to have a high degree of accuracy as well. Here, we have the tramp steamer Dartford, preparing to take bunkers from a coal hulk, a former steel clipper!

Bob

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

I remember one idyllic summer's evening, sitting outside The Plough at Wysall with a bunch of friends from school, slurping Burton's finest and talking our usual rubbish. Some pretentious types at the next table began a very loud conversation about art and artists – dropping names like confetti and "how so-and-so managed to convey the essence of the subject while such-and-such often missed it" ……blah blah ad nauseam. My friend Trevor was clearly becoming a little irritated by this twaddle, so he leaned foward and said to no-one in particular "Well I'm personally blown away by the work of C Reginald Dalby. I'm surprised none of you have mentioned him. Surely he must be up there with the classic painters of this country like Constable and Turner?"

"I'm ashamed to say that his work has somehow escaped my attention" said one twittering little girl. "What style best describes his work?"

"Portraits" said Trevor, pausing with magnificent comic timing before adding "He paints faces……..on trains"

**LINK**

We fell about laughing. Happy days!

DM

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Great story

Here is another of my offerings that should bring a tear to the eye of navy buffs! A prison hulk, formerly a 74-gun ship-of-the line.

Bob

[Steve Walker 1Participant @stevewalker1]

When I travelled to see the Temeraire I already knew the painting was 'wrong'. If I remember correctly some of the faults are that the chimney and mast on the tug are the wrong way around, the Temeraire wouldn't have had masts, let alone sails, and the sun couldn't have been where it is on the picture. However, I had spent some years reading about the greats of the British Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries and this was one of those pictures that, against that background, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I don't care if it's right, it's the sense of connection that it conveys that was important to me.

I can't believe that Bob, of all the modellers comments I read, can't identify with the feeling, if not the painting. It's certainly one of the 'British' paintings I would urge the SNP to grab if we become independent! Do you want me to list some others? In this country we have been blessed with fabulous maritime artists.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I, on the other hand, cannot see what any of you see in it! To me, it is resembles an onion with short masts! My wife, who is an artist, is also of the same opinon! Perhaps I spent too many years at sea. I am glad none of the "great" artists ever portayed merchant ships in a similar manner! – or did they?

Bob

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Art is a very personal thing. I don't find the 'Old Masters' very interesting, usually too gloomy for me, but I can see from the expertise employed why they should appeal to many people.

I wasn't all that impressed by the Mona Lisa either, it is a much smaller painting than most people expect.

I frequent a ferry enthusiast website (some good travel offers) and most of the people on there are quite enthused at the appearance of modern car ferries. My efforts to persuade them that they resemble floating bricks compared with the graceful ships of yesteryear are met with total incomprehension.

Colin

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Being an artist is so much more than just being skilled at moving paint around until it looks stroke for stroke like something real. If that's all you want to achieve then why not buy a camera? Far more realistic and much less messy.

DM

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Daev,

I am in total agreement with you on that. I do prefer a photograph to a painting any day! But some things cannot be captured on a camera, so a painting has to do! I did try my hand at painting years ago, but, as you say, it is messy, and I was never very good at it! I occasionally make diorama models where I try to capture the "essence" of the scene, but most of my work shows pristine models of the ships as they came out of the builders yard. Here is a River Thames scene with a rusty collier with a sailing barge and coal barge alongside.

We all have different tastes and I have always been in a minority with mine, not liking warships, ferries, Jack Aubrey, modern paintings, Turner, Monet, Van Gogh, Victory, Cutty Sark, galleons, modern cruise ships to name a few! The HMS Warrior is great!)

Bob

Edited By Bob Wilson on 10/05/2016 17:56:08

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

HMS Warrior is plastic! Inside anyway; amazing what you can do with GRP to simulate boilers and steam engines. Still, I do agree it looks great although not so much at the moment as it was closed a couple of weeks back. There are a lot of timber repairs needed to the bulwarks etc.

And Bob, it is not THE HMS Warrior, just HMS Warrior although strictly speaking, once a ship is decommissioned it is no longer entitled to the HMS prefix. Thus the derelict aircraft carrier tucked away at the back of Portsmouth dockyard is 'the former HMS Illustrious'.

Colin (in pedantic mode)

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Colin,

You are quite right about it not being The HMS Warrior. I was initially going to just say the Warrior, and after putting "the" in, changed my mind to putting HMS Warior in brackets, but made a hash of it forgot to remove "the" and missed out the left hand bracket. Later, when I noticed, and came to edit it, the edit facility had timed out, but I am surprised anyone noticed!

I never knew the engines were GRP, they looked real enough, but I don't mind plastic, in fact I use a lot of it!

Bob

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Although I don't particularly like warships, I have built a couple of them, because someone suggsted that I didn't do them because they were too complicated. Here is my first attempt, HMS Norfolk. Then I built HMS Dreadnought before losing interest in them again.

Although my photographs would not make a £20 note, they have made it to a set of first day covers.    I took the photographs of the RMS St. Helena, and they were chosen for the commemorative stamps here:

http://www.delcampe.net/page/item/id,350803174,var,St-Helena-2012-FDC-30th-Anniv-RMS-St-Helena-Commission-Falklands-War-5v-Cover,language,E.html

Bob

Edited By Bob Wilson on 10/05/2016 19:47:16

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

My father was an artist, with whom I had many interesting discussion about art. His very firmly held view was that what constitues a good painting in and of itself has very little, if anything at all, to do with such things as subject matter, degree of realism or amount of detail.

All these are of course matters that are likely to evoke reaction and emotion, and as such he found them worthy of consideration and opinion, but they were still to him very much secondary issues. What really mattered for him was how well form and colour worked within the confines of the (essentially two-dimensional) surface as delimited by a paintings outer edges.

For my part, I clearly did not inherit his capacity for reading form, and so I have never been able to really see what he obviously saw; one (and possibly two) of my brothers did, and from many years of discussions with my father and brothers, I have come to the conclusion that their's was and is a minority view for the simple reason that such levels of sensitivity to form is a relatively rare commodity.

Of course, none of the above has ever stopped me from enjoying the art I happen to like in my way: if I like something, that is enough for me, and I have never felt any particular need to have my personal judgements of taste justified by anybody else, nor do I really care to sit in judgment on other people's tastes or preference — as the old maxim goes, de gustibus non est dispuntandum …

/Mattias

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