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A Painting and A Slave Ship: Ruskin’s Visual Narrative On Turner

Year 2021, Volume: 6 Issue: 3, 609 - 618, 31.12.2021
https://doi.org/10.29110/soylemdergi.995920

Abstract

Thanks to his technique of ‘word painting’ and employing words to replicate what viewing a painting feels like, John Ruskin is actively engaged in associations between word and image. Ruskin admired Joseph Mallord Turner’s works as the painter also used his own poetry as subsidiary to his paintings. The fact that both artists are inspired by sister arts, poetry and painting has been long debated. Yet as Turner tried to syncretize his painting with poetry and Ruskin tried to render visual proses, they still remained aware of both the union and the gap between words and images. What Turner did with his visual narratives is communicating on a level that required spectators’ commitment and engagement. For that reason, Ruskin’s defense and advocacy of William Turner in Modern Painters through Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon Coming On (1840), or The Slave Ship, suggests a special example in relating both artists to each other as much visually as poetically and verbally. Further to that how Turner’s highly abstract composition that initially met with a great deal of negative reaction, came to function as a medium for reflection of greater depth on the horrors of slavery with a historical particularity could be discovered through revisiting Ruskin’s sublime, ekphrastic elaborations.

References

  • Barkan, Leonard (1995). “Making Pictures Speak: Renaissance Art, Elizabethan Literature, Modern Scholarship.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 326–351.
  • Bradley, J.L. (2002). The Critical Heritage: John Ruskin. Ed. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Costello, Leo (2012). J. M. W. Turner and the Subject of History. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing,
  • Döring, Tobias (1997). “Turning the colonial gaze”, Third Text, vol. 11, n. 38, pp. 3-14, DOI: 10.1080/09528829708576654
  • Finley, Gerard (1999). Angel in the Sun: Turner’s Vision of History. McGill Queen’s University Press.
  • Fisher, Judith L. (1996). “Magnificent or Mad? Nineteenth-Century Periodicals and the Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner.” Victorian Periodicals Review, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 242–260.
  • Garratt, Peter (2010).Victorian Empiricism: Self, Knowledge, and Reality in Ruskin, Bain, Lewes, Spencer and George Elliot. Rosemnont Publishing & Printing Corp.
  • Hunt, John Dixon (1978). “Ut Pictura Poesis, the Picturesque, and John Ruskin.” MLN, vol. 93, no. 5, pp. 794–818.
  • Kaye, Mike (2005). 1807-2007: Over 200 years of campaigning against slavery, Anti-Slavery International.
  • Landow, George P. (2015). Aesthetic and Critical Theory of John Ruskin. Princeton University Press,
  • May, Stephen J. (2014). Voyage of The Slave Ship: J.M.W. Turner's Masterpiece in Historical Context. North Carolina: McFarland&Company, Inc., Publishers.
  • McCoubrey, John (1998). “Turner’s Slave Ship: Abolition, Ruskin, and reception”, Word & Image, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 319-353, DOI: 10.1080/02666286.1998.10443961
  • Moretti, Giampiero (2016). “Romanticism and Impressionism. A path between Turner and Monet”. Lebenswelt: Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience, 10.13130/2240-9599/7306.
  • Munsterberg, Marjorie (2009). “Ruskin's Turner: The Making of a Romantic Hero.” The British Art Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 61–71.
  • Piasecka, Aleksandra (2020). “John Ruskin’s word paintings in the context of his principle of clear vision as well as the biblical and rhetorical tradition”. Journal of Education Culture and Society, vol. 2, no.1, pp. 31-49. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs20111.31.49
  • Ruskin, John (1858). Modern Painters: pt. 1. Of general principles. Pt. 2. Of Truth of Water. New York: Wiley&Halsted,
  • Ruskin, John, Edward T. Cook, and Alexander D. O. Wedderburn (1903). The Works of John Ruskin. Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
  • Shanes, Eric (2008). The Life and Masterworks of J. M. W. Turner. New York: Park Stone Press International.
  • Teukolsky, Rachel (2009). The Literate Eye: Victorian Art Writing and Modernist Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
  • Turner, William. Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, United States. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31102
  • Walvin, James (2011). The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery. Yale University Press,
  • Wettlaufer, Alexandra K. (2000). “The Sublime Rivalry of Word and Image: Turner and Ruskin Revisited.” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 149–169.
  • Wettlaufer, Alexandra K. (2003). In the Mind’s Eye: The Visual Impulse in Diderot, Baudelaire and Ruskin. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  • Whelchel, Harriet (1993). Ed. John Ruskin and the Victorian Eye. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
  • Wilton, Andrew (1980). Turner and the Sublime. London: British Museum Publications.
  • Ziff, Jerrold (1964). “J. M. W. Turner on Poetry and Painting.” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 193–215.

Bir Resim Ve Bir Köle Gemisi: Ruskin’in Turner Üzerine Görsel Anlatısı

Year 2021, Volume: 6 Issue: 3, 609 - 618, 31.12.2021
https://doi.org/10.29110/soylemdergi.995920

Abstract

Ruskin’in adeta bir tabloya bakmanın bıraktığı izlenimleri anımsatan sözlü görselleri, onu sözcük ve imge temalı tartışmalarda öne plana çıkarmıştır. Ruskin, Joseph Mallord Turner’ın resimlerine eşlik etmesi için şiir kullanmasını takdir etmiştir. Her iki sanatçının da kardeş sanatlar olan resim ve şiirden etkilenmiş olmaları hep tartışılan bir konu olmuştur. Turner resimlerine şiiri entegre etmeye çalışırken, Ruskin görsel yazına yönelmiş ancak her ikisi de söz ve imge arasındaki birliğin ve farkın bilincinde kalmıştır. Turner görsel anlatılarında izleyicilerin de iştirakını ve sadakatini gerektiren bir iletişim yolunu seçmiştir. Bu nedenle Ruskin’in Modern Ressamlar’da özellikle Köle Gemisi olarak da bilinen Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon Coming On (1840) eseri üzerinden Turner’ı yüceltmesi ve savunması her iki sanatçıyı görsel olduğu kadar şiirsel ve sözel olarak da birbiriyle ilişkilendiren bir örnek sunar. Daha da önemlisi, Turner’ın olumsuz tepkilere neden olan fazlasıyla soyut kompozisyonunun zamanla tarihsel bir gerçeklikle köleliğin korkunçluğu üzerine daha derin bir yansıma işlevi gören bir temsile dönüşmesi Ruskin’in ekfrastik, sublime betimlemeleri sayesinde keşfedilebilir.

References

  • Barkan, Leonard (1995). “Making Pictures Speak: Renaissance Art, Elizabethan Literature, Modern Scholarship.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 326–351.
  • Bradley, J.L. (2002). The Critical Heritage: John Ruskin. Ed. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Costello, Leo (2012). J. M. W. Turner and the Subject of History. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing,
  • Döring, Tobias (1997). “Turning the colonial gaze”, Third Text, vol. 11, n. 38, pp. 3-14, DOI: 10.1080/09528829708576654
  • Finley, Gerard (1999). Angel in the Sun: Turner’s Vision of History. McGill Queen’s University Press.
  • Fisher, Judith L. (1996). “Magnificent or Mad? Nineteenth-Century Periodicals and the Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner.” Victorian Periodicals Review, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 242–260.
  • Garratt, Peter (2010).Victorian Empiricism: Self, Knowledge, and Reality in Ruskin, Bain, Lewes, Spencer and George Elliot. Rosemnont Publishing & Printing Corp.
  • Hunt, John Dixon (1978). “Ut Pictura Poesis, the Picturesque, and John Ruskin.” MLN, vol. 93, no. 5, pp. 794–818.
  • Kaye, Mike (2005). 1807-2007: Over 200 years of campaigning against slavery, Anti-Slavery International.
  • Landow, George P. (2015). Aesthetic and Critical Theory of John Ruskin. Princeton University Press,
  • May, Stephen J. (2014). Voyage of The Slave Ship: J.M.W. Turner's Masterpiece in Historical Context. North Carolina: McFarland&Company, Inc., Publishers.
  • McCoubrey, John (1998). “Turner’s Slave Ship: Abolition, Ruskin, and reception”, Word & Image, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 319-353, DOI: 10.1080/02666286.1998.10443961
  • Moretti, Giampiero (2016). “Romanticism and Impressionism. A path between Turner and Monet”. Lebenswelt: Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience, 10.13130/2240-9599/7306.
  • Munsterberg, Marjorie (2009). “Ruskin's Turner: The Making of a Romantic Hero.” The British Art Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 61–71.
  • Piasecka, Aleksandra (2020). “John Ruskin’s word paintings in the context of his principle of clear vision as well as the biblical and rhetorical tradition”. Journal of Education Culture and Society, vol. 2, no.1, pp. 31-49. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs20111.31.49
  • Ruskin, John (1858). Modern Painters: pt. 1. Of general principles. Pt. 2. Of Truth of Water. New York: Wiley&Halsted,
  • Ruskin, John, Edward T. Cook, and Alexander D. O. Wedderburn (1903). The Works of John Ruskin. Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
  • Shanes, Eric (2008). The Life and Masterworks of J. M. W. Turner. New York: Park Stone Press International.
  • Teukolsky, Rachel (2009). The Literate Eye: Victorian Art Writing and Modernist Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
  • Turner, William. Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, United States. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31102
  • Walvin, James (2011). The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery. Yale University Press,
  • Wettlaufer, Alexandra K. (2000). “The Sublime Rivalry of Word and Image: Turner and Ruskin Revisited.” Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 149–169.
  • Wettlaufer, Alexandra K. (2003). In the Mind’s Eye: The Visual Impulse in Diderot, Baudelaire and Ruskin. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  • Whelchel, Harriet (1993). Ed. John Ruskin and the Victorian Eye. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
  • Wilton, Andrew (1980). Turner and the Sublime. London: British Museum Publications.
  • Ziff, Jerrold (1964). “J. M. W. Turner on Poetry and Painting.” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 193–215.
There are 26 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Literary Studies, Creative Arts and Writing
Journal Section EDEBİYAT / ARAŞTIRMA MAKALELERİ
Authors

Asya Sakine Uçar 0000-0002-9653-2911

Publication Date December 31, 2021
Submission Date September 21, 2021
Acceptance Date November 15, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2021 Volume: 6 Issue: 3

Cite

APA Uçar, A. S. (2021). A Painting and A Slave Ship: Ruskin’s Visual Narrative On Turner. Söylem Filoloji Dergisi, 6(3), 609-618. https://doi.org/10.29110/soylemdergi.995920