The Fighting Temeraire

We were in London for some important meetings – more about that later….and a garden party that was rather posh.

 

Not as posh as the p(a)lace where these two live, but it was at the bottom of their garden.

Before that we had been in the part of East London which had been regenerated for the London Olympics in 2012, the event we were invited to had its origins in 1974 but again, more of that later. After that celebration, we moved hotel to on in Westminster to be within walking/ staggering distance of the aforesaid drunken merriment.

 

Having a free afternoon in the West End, I decided to pop in to the National Gallery and see one of my favourite paintings; the Fighting Temeraire, painted by J.M.W. Turner in 1839.

It is one of the most celebrated paintings in British art and in British history. It was voted the UK’s most popular painting in a poll in 2005.

 

The boat in the picture, the HMS Temeraire is shown on her final journey, she’s being towed up the Thames by a tugboat on her way to be dismantled.   A sad end for an old lady who had played a crucial role in the Battle of Trafalgar (1805).

 

It’s all very symbolic- the age of sail moving to the age of steam, the passage of time, getting old, retiring from work, being flung on the scrapheap… need I go on….

 

Turner was famous for boats and skylines, water and waves. He was also very patriotic, and had a great interest in technology, and the advancement of the ‘machine.

 

So here is the once proud Temeraire, such an important boat in the history of maritime warfare, now dependant on a tug boat. She’s flying a white flag. Not the Union Jack. She’s painted in fading colours with a rather indistinct outline- you would be forgiven for thinking that she’s already a ghost ship. The tug on the other hand, is precisely depicted, clear and very much at the forefront of things.

 

 It's all  against a setting sun, all rather other worldly.

 

The Fighting Temeraire appears on the back of a £20 note with Turner in the foreground, and one of these photographs is me photographing a Japanese tourist holding the note up against the painting.

 

Is Turner’s work is a symbol of the relentless march of progress, or is it a lament for the days gone by.

 

Makes you think. I have a collection of fountain pens and inks, I have 200 notebooks that I think are too good to write in,  I have old typewriter, and a rather nice laptop.

 

Then there’s AI knocking on the door.