Whalers, c1845 - a photo on Flickriver

Whalers, c1845

            J. M. W. Turner
Oil on canvas

This tumultuous painting of a whale hunt was premiered at the RA in 1845 as one of a pair. Turner began his formal training at the RA Schools aged 14 and was elected a full Academician in 1802.This painting, part of a series of four whaling scenes, was among the last seascapes Turner exhibited. An earlier version was painted for the whaling entrepreneur Elhanan Bicknell, who disliked its finish and returned it to the artist.*


Crossing Waters
The Aquatic Sublime
“The Aquatic Sublime” quotes an intertitle in John Akomfrah’s three-channel film ‘Vertigo Sea’ (2015). Shot on the Isle of Skye, the Faroe Islands and north Norway, the work draws upon Herman Melville’s novel ‘Moby-Dick’ (1851) and Heathcote Williams’ epic poem ‘Whale Nation’ (1988). The work combines existing footage from various sources such as the BBC’s Natural History Unit with new footage centred on Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved African abolitionist, who explored the Arctic and lived in England intermittently from 1750. The filmic montage weaves together histories of migration, enslavement and colonisation with war, conflict and ecological concerns. It reflects on the relationships between humans and nature, beauty, violence and the precariousness of life.
‘Vertigo Sea’ resonates in many contexts, including the long tradition of the sublime in art. Across eighteenth- and nineteenth century romantic landscapes, twentieth century modernism and contemporary art, the sublime encompasses extreme emotions of awe and terror. J.M.W. Turner’s 1840s maritime pictures are painterly tours de force. Their experimental, layered technique has been a point of reference for Frank Bowling and Ellen Gallagher whose works, in different ways, engage the power of abstraction and materiality to evoke trauma and loss. El Anatsui’s sculpture ‘Akua’s Surviving Children’ (1996) mobilises the tactile qualities of driftwood in a call to mourning the drowned of the Middle Passage.
In the hands of artists, the ocean becomes a metaphorical expanse of collective memory. It remains a central motif for critical discourse around migration and the far-reaching ecological consequences of extraction economies.*


From the exhibition


Entangled Pasts, 1768–now: Art, Colonialism and Change
(February - April 2024)

‘Entangled Pasts’ explores connections between art associated with the Royal Academy of Arts and Britain’s colonial histories. At its founding by artists in 1768, under King George III, the institution’s first President, Joshua Reynolds, called the RA an ‘ornament’ to Britain’s empire. For over 250 years, artists and architects active in Britain have experienced and expressed divergent relationships to imperial histories. Individually, through families and via patrons, the links are innumerable and entwined. Today, the legacies of colonial histories continue to form part of the fabric of everyday life, physically and emotionally, across social, economic, cultural and political fields both national and global.
Works of art have always been agents of change, flashpoints of debate and producers of fluctuating meanings. A painting, sculpture, drawing, print, film or poem can act as a powerful lens through which complex situations can be viewed and nuanced understandings of them can emerge. ‘Entangled Pasts’ brings together 100 artworks to explore the role of art in shaping narratives of empire, colonialism, enslavement, resistance, abolition and indenture. An exhibition on this vast and complex subject is necessarily a partial, fragmentary view. Moments of history are refracted through the eyes of artists, especially contemporary British artists of the African, Caribbean and South Asian diasporas.
These artworks can represent only a fraction of the institution’s colonial links and the unfolding legacies of British colonialism around the world. Yet, in the visual and conceptual resonances between them, there exists a space for contemplation, inquiry, acknowledgement, reflection, imagination and ongoing conversations..
[*Royal Academy]

Taken at the Royal Academy
   

Taken on: April 14, 2024

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14.04.24

London

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#EntangledPasts

Entangled Pasts, 1768–now: Art, Colonialism and Change

Art, Colonialism and Change

Art

Colonialism

Change

Royal Academy of Arts

colonial histories

King George III

Joshua Reynolds

Britain’s empire

imperial histories

empire

enslavement

resistance

abolition

indenture

African

Caribbean

South Asian

diasporas

Crossing Waters

The Aquatic Sublime

John Akomfrah

Vertigo Sea

Isle of Skye

Faroe Islands

Norway

Herman Melville

Moby-Dick

Heathcote Williams

epic poem

Whale Nation

Olaudah Equiano

African abolitionist

JMW Turner

Frank Bowling

Ellen Gallagher

El Anatsui

Akua

Surviving Children

Middle Passage

metaphorical expanse

collective memory

central motif

migration

extraction economies

Design for Jaipur Column, New Delhi, India: Perspective

Design

Jaipur Column

New Delhi

India

Perspective

Edwin Landseer Lutyens

William Walcot

Pencil

coloured washes

gouache

laid paper

Rashtrapati Bhavan

presidential residence

Delhi Durbar

British Raj

Lutyens’s Delhi « less

Sets appears in: • City of Westminster • Royal Academy more » • Artworks • Galleries & Museums « less

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