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JMW Turner, Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying
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JMW Turner, Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon Coming On, 1840 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA/Henry Lillie Pierce Fund/Bridgeman Art Library). The growth of industry and commerce in the 19th century left traditional rural skills behind and weakened our connection with nature. Turner painted sea and landscape scenes of elemental drama which he used to depict the power of nature against human vulnerability. His tempestuous works remind us of our fragile existence on earth. In this painting Turner recounts a real contemporary event in which the captain of a slave ship threw his ‘cargo’ overboard during a storm (the owner could then collect the insurance).
The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1840, coinciding with a meeting of the Anti-Slavery League. The 19th century art critic, John Ruskin, saw in it a warning of what could happen to our spiritual health should commerce influence our moral decisions.
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