Beskrivelse

J.M.W. Turner: Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway
Kunstner	J.M.W. Turner  (1775–1851)      Alternative navne J. M. W. Turner Beskrivelse britisk maler og grafiker Fødsels- og dødsdato ca. 23. april 1775  19. december 1851  Fødsels- og dødssted London Chelsea Arbejdssted London, Britain, Italien, Tyskland, Schweiz Autoritetsdata : Q159758 VIAF: 100900492 ISNI: 0000000121454990 ULAN: 500026846 Open Library: OL5252296A DBNL: turn007 WorldCat artist QS:P170,Q159758
Titel	Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway; the painting depicts an early locomotive of the Great Western Railway crossing the River Thames on Brunel's recently completed Maidenhead Railway Bridge.The painting is also credited for allowing a glimpse of the Romantic strife within Turner and his contemporaries over the issue of the technological advancement during the Industrial Revolution (see below).
Object type	maleri
Dato	1844 date QS:P571,+1844-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Teknik	olie på lærred medium QS:P186,Q296955;P186,Q12321255,P518,Q861259
Mål	højde: 91 cm; bredde: 121,8 cm dimensions QS:P2048,91U174728 dimensions QS:P2049,121.8U174728
Samling	National Gallery    Officielt navn National Gallery Moderinstitution Board of Trustees of the National Gallery  Sted London Koordinater 51° 30′ 32″ N, 0° 07′ 42″ W   Grundlagt 1824  Website nationalgallery.org.uk Autoritetsdata : Q180788 VIAF: 144868906 ISNI: 0000000123422001 ULAN: 500125190 Open Library: OL121572A LCCN: n80081622 WorldCat institution QS:P195,Q180788
Nuværende placering	Sal 34
Museumsnummer	NG538
Samling og anskaffelsesmetode	Turner Bequest, 1856
Referencer	http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallord-william-turner-rain-steam-and-speed-the-great-western-railway  https://www.wga.hu/html/t/turner/2/205turne.html BBC Your Paintings kunstværks-ID: rain-steam-and-speed-the-great-western-railway-115073
Kilde/Fotograf	http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artwork.php?artworkid=14508&size=huge
Andre versioner	billede  image with frame

Social Commentary

Turner was a well traveled man, frequently trekking to natural wonders of mainland Europe and the British Isles to sketch them in one of his dozens of notepads. He knew of the pains one must take to travel off the beaten path and wrote of one such occasion, traveling from Rome to Paris, to a friend in 1829:

“…we never could keep warm or make our day’s distance good, the places we put up at proved all bad till Firenzola being even the worst for the down diligence people had devoured everything eatable (Beds none)…crossed Mont Cenis on a sledge – bivouaced in the snow with fire lighted for 3 Hours on Mont Tarate while the diligence was righted and dug out, for a Bank of Snow saved it from upsetting – and in the walk up to our knees in new fallen drift to get assistance to dig a channel thro’ it for the coach, so that from Foligno to within 20 miles of Paris I never saw the road but snow!”1

Fifteen years later, Turner’s 1844 masterpiece, Rain, Steam and Speed: The Great Western Railway, in a way recognizes his thrill in the speed of the new coal train and his appreciation for such technology when traveling. Yet, he subtly recognizes the progressive threat that humans pose towards the cradle of the earth.

The title follows the Turner pattern of 'nature first' in his titles, but at once you see what looks like a monstrous kiln underneath the rail bridge, and flames engulfing the ecstatic figures on the far side of the river. On top of the bridge you see the face of a demon with the body of a coal burning centipede, which itself looks like a line of glowing embers. Ahead of the train it is hard to spot the tiny hare at full sprint, trying to stay ahead of the state-of-the-art technology of the mid-1800’s. What is so interesting about this piece, Olivier Meslay points out in his book JMW Turner: The Man Who Set Painting on Fire, is that “the notion of the sublime was no longer confined to natural phenomena, but incarnated in machines created by humanity with god-like aspirations, whose new power it served to magnify” and begs to question; what should we fear more, the awe of the wild, or the annihilation of it?2

1. Meslay, Olivier. JMW Turner: The Man Who Set Painting On Fire. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2005. Pg 133

2. Ibid. Pg 107

Licensering

Dette er en troværdig, fotografisk gengivelse af et originalt todimensionelt kunstværk. Kopier af kunstværket er offentlig ejendom af følgende grund: Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse Værket er også offentlig ejendom i lande og områder, hvor ophavsrettens længde er ophavsmandens levetid plus 100 år eller derunder. Denne skabelon skal kombineres med en licensskabelon for USA, der angiver hvorfor dette værk er offentlig ejendom i USA. Denne fil er blevet identificeret som værende fri for kendte restriktioner under lov om ophavsret, herunder alle relaterede og tilstødende rettigheder. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/PDMCreative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0falsefalse Den officielle holdning, som Wikimedia Foundation følger er, at "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain, and that claims to the contrary represent an assault on the very concept of a public domain". For yderligere oplysninger, se Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag. Denne fotografiske gengivelse betragtes derfor også som værende offentlig ejendom Vær opmærksom på, at, afhængig af lokale love, kan brug af dette indhold forbydes eller begrænses i dit område. Se Commons:Reuse of PD-Art photographs.

Dette er en troværdig, fotografisk gengivelse af et originalt todimensionelt kunstværk. Kopier af kunstværket er offentlig ejendom af følgende grund: Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse Dette værk er offentlig ejendom i Amerikas Forenede Stater (USA) fordi det blev udgivet (eller registreret hos U.S. Copyright Office) før 1 januar 1929. For at et værk skal kunne lægges på Commons som offentlig ejendom skal ophavsretten være udløbet i både USA og oprindelseslandet. Hvis værket ikke er amerikansk, skal det have yderligere en ophavsretslicens, der angiver ophavsretsstatus i oprindelseslandet. Den officielle holdning, som Wikimedia Foundation følger er, at "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain, and that claims to the contrary represent an assault on the very concept of a public domain". For yderligere oplysninger, se Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag. Denne fotografiske gengivelse betragtes derfor også som værende offentlig ejendom Vær opmærksom på, at, afhængig af lokale love, kan brug af dette indhold forbydes eller begrænses i dit område. Se Commons:Reuse of PD-Art photographs.