An engineer's take on Turner's 'Rain, Steam and Speed' & 'Dutch Boats in a Gale' | National Gallery

Published 2024-03-01
Is there engineering in art, as well as art in engineering? We look at Turner's famous depiction of a steam train in 'Rain, Steam and Speed' and stormy seas in 'Dutch Boats in a Gale' (1801). Rob Bell from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers gives us an engineer's take on these two paintings at the National Gallery.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was founded in 1847 and has over 100,000 members around the world.

#ArtHistory #Turner #NationalGallery

🖌️ Find out more about the artist Joseph Mallord William Turner
www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/joseph-mallord-…

🎨 Painting: 'Dutch Boats in a Gale ('The Bridgewater Sea Piece')'
www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallor…

🎨 Painting: 'Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway'
www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallor…

🎨 Painting: 'Dido building Carthage, or The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire'
www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallor…

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All Comments (21)
  • What an excellent interdisciplinary presentation! With such presentation and artistic skills, as well as engineering, Rob must be a right brain/left brain person. He finds commonality, science, and emotion in the grand breadth of Turner's oeuvre. I too am one of those, seemingly few, with a graduate science degree who appreciates art. To others who like science and art, in literature, I recommend Jules Verne's classic "The Mysterious Island," which I recently read. Although a novel, it is full of the detailed science of everything, literally everything, needed for castaways to create an advanced civilization. It is intellectually stimulating yet humbling at the same time, because it makes you wonder if you really understood what you thought you had learned. The book's style and content are so different from "Around the World in 80 Days" that it feels like a different author.
  • @andrewwebb4635
    Rain, Steam and Speed is such a wonderful, gloriously inspiring picture even now, 200 years later. I can’t imagine what impact it must have had at that time. I think of Turner as the first abstract painter, decades ahead of the European abstracts. Of course his work was denigrated by many and he was not really a ‘Salon’ artist despite being a full member of the British Academy. He liked to shock with his layer works. We have John Ruskin to thank for publicly supporting his later more controversial artwork.
  • @purkaitsurajit53
    Thanks for this marvelous new insight into the works of one of the greatest British landscape artists of all time!!👍👍😍😍❤️❤️
  • Wonderful presentation! Erudite, informed, knowledgeable, and articulate! Masterful!
  • @splodge5714
    I love looking at Turners paintings in the National Gallery and Tate Britain. Such variation but all with passion and energy.
  • @Rubens-jc3sp
    art a drama of light and shadow now explained with a eye of an engineer ….. very astonising❤
  • @galimmmm
    Brings me back to the gallery. Love it!