Snowstorm

• Artist?

  JMW Turner
• Form?

  Oil on canvas
• Date?

  1842
• Critical text

  "Inchoate experience" (Sarah Monks)
• Turner's intension within the piece?

  Deliberately decreases the amount of detail, creating an almost blurred effect onto the artwork to express a realistic scene of a 200 ton steamboat (positioned cutting across the central axis) releasing a distress flair after being caught in a snowstorm in Harwich.
• What did Turner intend to reveal about nature?

  The violence of nature through materials and techniques, highlighting his readiness to become a prominent avaunt – garde artist, by rebelling against academic conventions.
• Give a composition point about lack of horizon line.

  Point: Exclusion of a horizon line/land

  Effect: Captures a sense of helplessness and isolation for the passengers and crew members on the steamboat
• Give a composition point about the circular composition

  Point: Includes circular composition

  Evidence: Quick, gestural brushstrokes that create a swirling vortex around the steamboat

  Effect (1): Highlights focal point

  Effect (2): Highlights the power nature holds over man

  
• Give a materials and technique point regarding the vortex

  Point: To effectively create the dark area of the steamboat’s shadow, he mixed oils with turpentine.

  Effect: Accomplishes a glazed watercolour effect.
• Give x2 technique points

  Point (1): Includes the technique of scumbling with a hog- hair brush in the lighter parts of the snowstorm.

  Effect (1): To produce a rougher effect

  
  

  Point (2): Uses the technique of impasto with a palette knife.

  Effect (2): To depict the thin and narrow shape of the white flare
• Give a colour point about the cool palette

  Point: Uses a selective cool and earthy palette

  Reasoning: Includes the colours of grey, black, brown, white, and light blue within the sky and the steamboat.
• Give a colour point about warm hues

  Point: Also uses hints of warm colours

  Reasoning: Such as red in the sky

  Effect (1): To represent the fire created by burning coal on the steamboat as well.

  Effect (2): intensify the battle between man and nature as the snowstorm seems to generate a sense of impending doom for the steamboat’s inevitable fate.

  
• Give x2 technique points 


  Point (1): Includes the technique of scumbling with a hog- hair brush in the lighter parts of the snowstorm.

  Effect (1): To produce a rougher effect

  Point (2): Uses the technique of impasto with a palette knife.

  Effect (2): To depict the thin and narrow shape of the white flare

  
• Give the conclusion point

  • Turner conforms to the style of romanticism by emphasising human perseverance in the revengeful fate of nature (evoking the theory of the sublime by Edmund Burke).
  • Since the steamboat represents the onset of the industrial revolution, in which its consequences, (pollution), pose a deep threat onto nature as humanity transverses towards the Anthropocene era.
  • Turner’s success in conveying the disharmony between man and nature is revealed through the establishment of the Turner Prize.