October 21 is the anniversary of one of the most decisive naval battles in history. On that day in 1805, the English fleet under famed Admiral Horatio Nelson met a combined French and Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar on the southwest coast of Spain. It turned out to be a sweeping English victory, ending Napoleon’s threat to invade England once and for all. Nelson himself was killed in the battle, gaining immortality as a national hero.
A few years later, on the recommendation of the President of the Royal Academy of the Arts, King George IV commissioned an English painter named J.M.W. Turner to render the dramatic scene on canvas to decorate the diplomatic reception room at St. James Palace.
Turner was born in 1775 and was a gifted painter from a very early age, entering the Academy when he was only 14. He became something of a whiz kid there, getting a spot in the Academy’s summer exhibit the next year. From 1796 he became known for his striking maritime scenes. As early as 1805, Turner was making sketches and taking notes about the Battle of Trafalgar, clearly indicating that he thought it was fertile ground for a painting.
The King wanted a painting to underscore Britain’s identity as a sea power and Turner’s work was just what he wanted. The painting is quite large, particularly for its day, at 12 feet wide by 8 and a half feet tall. Dominating the work is Nelson’s flagship the HMS Victory. Her sails, ripped by cannonballs, billow like the storm clouds in the sky.
Turner was so attentive to detail in the painting that he took care to portray the exact signaling flags that Nelson had sent up to the tops before the battle began. In other places though he’s not as interested in keeping everything strictly factual. He combines several different components of the lengthy battle into one scene. On the right of the canvas, for instance, is the French ship from which a sharpshooter killed Nelson during the battle. Here Turner has it sinking when in reality it actually sank in a storm later
When Turner delivered the painting there was a lot of criticism, which basically fell into two camps. 1) his painting wasn’t accurate enough; and 2) in highlighting the death and destruction in a naval battle he undercut the patriotic possibilities inherent in a work whose purpose was to commemorate the greatest victory at sea since the Armada.
Turner would have no rebuttal to either because both are irrefutably true. But also, from his perspective, pointless. Let’s talk more about whether art needs to be factual next time.
