The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up (1838)
Because humankind has a consciousness, and has recorded its passage through history, we can "remember" time... by reading a book or watching a movie. However a painting must stand by itself (if you don't read its caption).
Imagine you are standing on a bluff, overlooking the river. It rained earlier, but the sun now sets as you watch one of those new steam contraption ships lead an obsolete, wood and sail man of war to her demise. Shortly, the wooden steam tug will be replaced by iron, then comes steel. History repeats. A "modern" man of war, the U.S.S. Missouri (BB 63) is towed across the Pacific Ocean to be permanently moored in Pearl Harbor as a museum. Tugs in space. Lunar salvage yards. - Just looking at a picture, painted some 170 years ago - remembering history - projecting a future. Pretty neat to be human?
A few years later, Turner painted rain so heavy that it obscured our vision - of a steam train crossing a bridge- into the beginning of abstract expressionism.These pictures can not recreate the magic of a great painting. Photographs can show our living world, but a "live" Van Gogh is magic. I think Turner is the same.
Art entertains by distracting you - from the realities outside - to let you use your imagination. Turner painting from his memory, his sketches or another artist's depiction, gave us a different way to remember.
And he had four names.
