NATIONAL GALLERY, Keelmen By Turner
- Audio File length: 2.28
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Language: English / USA
Considered to be a master of light and color, not to mention one of the greatest exponents of Romanticism in painting, Joseph Mallord William Turner is featured in the National Gallery with six of his pieces.
“Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight” is one of the most important works from the artist who was born in London in 1775.
It depicts the port of the River Tyne in Shields, a town close to Newcastle in the north of England, and dock workers–keelmen–loading coal onto barges–keels–to transport it from one side of the river to the other under the moonlight.
The England of the Industrial Revolution, the new working classes and social changes were some of the painter’s favorite themes, however they were always set amidst landscapes and combined with nature and weather phenomena, as Turner felt these controlled the world....