Turner's painting "Snow Storm" depicts a storm at sea in winter. Unlike traditional seascapes of the time which used diagonals to show movement, Turner used swirling curved lines to immerse viewers in the chaos of the storm. By lashing himself to a mast during an actual storm, Turner aimed to convey the sublime terror inspired by nature's immense power over mankind. Through thick application of color, particularly white paint layered over dark tones, Turner captured the experience and material qualities of a snow storm at sea in a way that broke conventions of watercolor works.

1. Gallery Talk: Snow-Storm (1842)
Museum Ambassador Program - Painting Set Free: J.M.W. Turner
Summer 2015
Intern: Doris Lin
Introduction
- Theme: Seascapes
 Definition: Paintings that have to do with views of the sea or a big body of water
 Why was Turner interested in the sea?
- Mercurial properties, (it can be sublime, beautiful, and picturesque [?])
- He was very interested in the effects of light, which had different properties in the different
conditions of the sea
- Different properties of the sea can be depicted using different mediums (oil vs watercolor)
- Concepts that will be touched on by examining Turner’s seascapes:
 Experience, the sublime, movement, materiality
Hook
- [Lead them into the gallery from the back, and have them face the other end of the room, so they
don’t see Snow Storm]
- Turner often displayed his art with poetry, because he felt that they complemented and enhanced the
narratives of his paintings.
- [Ask them to close their eyes, and listen to a poem that I read aloud]
 The Sea – James Reeves
The sea is a hungry dog,
Giant and grey.
He rolls on the beach all day.
With his clashing teeth and shaggy jaws
Hour upon hour he gnaws

2. The rumbling, tumbling stones,
And 'Bones, bones, bones, bones! '
The giant sea-dog moans,
Licking his greasy paws.
And when the night wind roars
And the moon rocks in the stormy cloud,
He bounds to his feet and snuffs and sniffs,
Shaking his wet sides over the cliffs,
And howls and hollos long and loud.
But on quiet days in May or June,
When even the grasses on the dune
Play no more their reedy tune,
With his head between his paws
He lies on the sandy shores,
So quiet, so quiet, he scarcely snores.
- [Turn around, open eyes, 30 seconds of looking]
- Keeping the poem in mind, what season do you think this painting is set in?
 Winter
 Right, the title of this painting is Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth making
signals in Shallow Water, and going off the Lead, but let’s call it Snow Storm for short
Information
- Movement:
 Where is your eye first drawn to? Where does it go to next?
- The bright portion? The center of the painting?
 What path does your eye follow?
- It’s a vortex, swirling, frenzied
▪ There’s not a clear distinction between the sea and the sky
- This painting is very unlike other contemporary paintings in its formal elements
▪ Most artists in Turner’s time used diagonal lines to indicate movement
▪ But (as we mentioned) this painting is cull of curved lines, which conveys energy and
instability.
- Experience:
 Turner claimed to have lashed himself onto the mast in order to experience the storm for himself,
because he “wished to show what such a scene was like”

3. - Compare to a painting he did in earlier in his career, in 1810, The Wreck of a Transport Ship
- What differences do you see between the two depictions of storms at sea?
▪ (1810: more narrative, you can see people, details are more clear)
▪ (Sea Storm: expressive, you can’t really tell what you’re looking at, it’s like you’re in the
storm, not just being told that there is a storm)
▪ Remember formal elements (diagonals vs curved lines)
 How would you feel, if you were on the steamboat, in the middle of this storm?
- (Terrified, exhilarated, cold, etc.)
- Right, the feelings you guys mentioned are part of experiencing the sublime
- Sublime:
 Anything that inspires a feeling of terror, awe, and exhilaration. It is often a depiction of nature,
usually very grand in size, emphasizing the diminutive smallness and powerlessness of man, and
reminding viewers of the power of nature.
- A very Romantic theme; Romanticists were obsessed with emotions, intuition, and a
subjective yet universal experience.
- Edmund Burke (philosopher who wrote a treatise on aesthetics in 1756, which explored the
concepts of the beautiful and the sublime that was influential in Romantic art): "terror is in
all cases whatsoever . . . the ruling principle of the sublime"
 What other portions of the painting do you think represent the sublime?
- The steamboat capsizing: showing that man-made technology is no match for the power of
nature
- Materiality:
 What colors can we see?
- White: specks – this is made possible because of the medium: with oil paint, you can layer
light colors on top of dark colors, which is not necessarily possible with watercolors (as we
know from our art experiments, the only way to get a white spot after painting over with dark
paint is to scratch the surface of the paper)

4. - Dark brown: notice the saturation of the color: you can’t get that kind of sheen or thickness
with watercolors.
 Think of all the watercolor paintings that we have looked at in other gallery tours, and note the
different effects of paint versus watercolor
Closure
- Thank you for your time and contributions to this discussion!
- Any questions?
Facts
- Who: JMW Turner
- What: steamboat, which Turner called the Ariel, but might have misremembered and been referring
to the Fairy, which fits the timeline and sank in a storm at sea in the winter.
- When: exhibited 1842, although the date of the supposedly factual happenings is unclear and not
mentioned.
- Where: in England, perhaps Turner witnessed the storm while at Margate, in the south of England,
facing the English channel
- “[Snow Storm] shattered the boundaries of that tradition [Dutch, cool palette, crisp detail]. Boldly
conceived, vigorously painted and not a little mysterious, this work brings us closer to the responses
to the sea that abounded in the very private world of Turner’s studio. Immediate, raw and
impassioned, these drawings, sketches, unfinished and unexhibited works divulge the intensity of his
preoccupation with the sea in these late years.” (p. 192)
- Many of Turner’s later works of art were spurned by his contemporaries as unfinished, too vague.
Snow Storm had been criticized as “Soapsuds and whitewash,” to which Turner replied “I wonder
what they think the sea is like? I wish they’d been in it.”
- He’s explored blurring the boundary between sea and sky, horizon line, but with this painting, he
takes it to a whole new level
- A woman who saw the painting when it was first shown back in 1842 was so captivated by Turner’s
depiction, that she couldn’t look at other paintings, because she was amazed by how accurately it
captured her experience with a snow storm at sea
- “Turner’s ability to generate ‘real sea feeling’ was therefore attributable, at least in part, to the
knowledge and anecdotes he gleaned from these men whose experience of the sea stretched far
beyond the bounds of his own” (193)
- Historical context
 Romanticism
 Obsession with technology; societal advancements with technology