Turner's Modern World is a ferocious, fantastical vortex of an exhibition. Turner's heart-stopping maelstroms of water, steam, and smoke established him as a true visionary of his generation, from the most heinous depiction of the slave trade ever created to an erotically charged shipwreck.

Turner is depicted as a passionate and active modernist painter. It demonstrates how conscious he was of the liberations and oppressions associated with his revolutionary era. Turner was born in London in 1775 into a world ruled by nobles and kings and dominated by the horse. However, he lived to witness the development of railways, steamships, political reform, photography, and the abolition of slavery.

The Artist's Brutality

When Turner was six years old, the captain of the Zong, a Liverpool slaving ship, ordered that 133 of the commodified humans he was transporting from Africa to Jamaica be thrown overboard because "the dead and dying slaves would have been a dead loss to the owners," according to a contemporary account echoed in Turner's title.

Over 60 years later, Turner resurrected this crime against humanity in a painting that harrows the soul with its gory sky and flesh-filled sea. Britain's slave trade had faded into obscurity by that time – but not in Turner's mind. John Ruskin, a well-known critic who owned this painting, became so outraged by what he dubbed "the guilty ship" that he sold it abroad. It reflects that the British have a difficult time accepting certain things. So why was Turner able to conjure up images of this atrocity in his mind's eye? Since he was a Modern Painter. He adores the modern world in a way that no one else can.

The Story of "The Shipwreck" (1805)

A Long-Live Impression

"The Shipwreck" is said to be based on a true story resembling Zong's criminal activities.

In 1833, the Amphitrite, a ship carrying 108 female prisoners and 12 children to Australia's penal colony, was wrecked off the coast of Boulogne. Turner creates this nightmare scenario in response to Géricault's "The Raft Of Medusa." A gaudy steamboat tows a dingy ghost ship. This image will stay with you for an extended period. Turner's astonishing, almost abstract paintings of whaling in the Arctic are scarred and slashed as if he were carving them with a knife.

The Painting's Reflexion

"The Shipwreck" (1805) is one of the most bizarre paintings ever created. Turner enjoys steam and smoke because they allow him to create unexpected swirls of wet colours. In his canvas, smoke rises in dark grey majesty from river steamers. The Thames over Waterloo Bridge is an invitation to a carbon disaster. On the other hand, Turner views the smoke as a magnificent blue-tinged shadow cast against a background of white mists.

Although scholars have been unable to locate the boat on which Turner claimed it occurred, Turner portrays a larger truth. If you stand in front of this corkscrewing spume tornado, you can feel yourself spinning. Turner transports you aboard a sinking ship to a world without solid foundations. One of the strangest drawings, dominated by the Slave Ship's absence.