The Slave Ship (1840) by J. M. W. Turner

What is the context?

Joseph Mallord William Turner painted and first exhibited The Slave Ship at the Royal Academy in London in 1840. The painting is oil on canvas and measures 35 x 48 inches. Turner was a British artist, he and was first inspired to paint this subject after reading Thomas Clarkson's book The History and Abolition of the Slave Trade in which there are numerous accounts of slavers throwing slaves into the sea while crossing the Atlantic. This, according to Clarkson, appears to have not been an uncommon affair during this period. In the account that most likely inspired Turner, the captain of the slave ship Zong ordered that 133 slaves be thrown overboard so insurance could be collected on their loss. An impassioned champion for the abolitionist cause and moved by such accounts, Turner timed the exhibition of The Slave Ship with the visit of Prince Albert at the Royal Academy summer exhibit in the hopes that the prince would be inspired to increase greater anti-slavery efforts.

Turner was notable at the time for his many landscape paintings in both oil and watercolor. His works are said to belong to the Romantic tradition but also helped to set the stage for the Impressionist movement of the late 19^th Century. The Romantic style of painting became an artistic response to themes and ideas that were brought by the industrialization of Europe and the Age of Enlightenment. Much of the aesthetic during the European Enlightenment, characterized especially by the Scientific Revolution, attempted to rationalize the forces of nature through order and symmetry. There is no greater example of this pre-Romantic style than the Gardens at the Palace of Versailles. In the picture below, we see the landscapers' subduing of nature into grids and symmetrical patterns. Romantics, instead, depicted nature in its untamed, wild state. To a Romantic painter, such as Turner, nature was best represented by the wilderness, not a topiary.

Gardens of Versailles

Map of Versailles by the abbot Delagrive, 1746

What is the artist communicating?

Upon first glance, the color palette is the first to please the eyes. The colors span the spectrum and occupy their own regions of the canvas while also crashing into and blending with one another. There are no clear lines other than that of the mast and furled sails of the ship to the left of center. The interplay of colors creates a sense of motion as our eyes are drawn first to the blinding white and red sunset in the center and then are quickly taken to all corners of the canvas. We dart from the rust-colored ship to the yellows and blues of the sky, through the pale greens of the stormy sea, teeming with human limbs, chains, and sea creatures. After careful examination, the narrative of the painting becomes clear—the ship has thrown its slave cargo overboard amidst a storm at sea.

There are two themes Turner is communicating here—the ugliness of slavery and the smallness of humanity in the face of nature. The first is an extension of Turner’s abolitionist beliefs. He confronts the viewer with the grisly reality of the proprietary exchange of human beings. And while the humanity of this scene is impossible to ignore, it is not central to the painting. The composition and dynamic use of color nearly overshadow the narrative. One might contend the drowning of bound slaves argues its own importance in the history of human suffering, yet it is nearly lost in Turner’s depiction of it—obscured by the natural forces which remain ignorant and apathetic to the human horror unfolding.

Why is it beautiful?

The Slave Ship reveals itself slowly. Unless the viewer takes time to carefully examine the blending of colors and wild brush strokes, she will find herself overwhelmed and unable to glimpse the human drama unfolding. The storm as well as the slaughter are depicted in equally dramatic ways. Although it seems reasonable to say the storm was most likely the catalyst for the unloading of the ship’s human cargo, Turner does not emphasize one over the other or intend one to be the subject and not the other. The greatness and beauty of this work comes from the relationship between the storm and the slaughter. The storm is both terrifying and awe-inspiring, yet merciless in its swallowing of the slaves—the murder of whom, in the grander scheme of the natural world, goes nearly unseen. Perhaps there are political implications Turner is making in the obscurity of the event—that the evils of slavery are right before the viewer’s eyes, but she must take care to look.

I find myself most affected by works of art that ride on the tension between two seeming opposites. I wrote in a previous post on Close Encounters of the Third Kind that the scene, in which alien lights descend on the house, becomes even scarier when the lighthearted song “Chances Are” is played amidst the chaos. The tension created by the two is so unsettling and makes the scene more than just frightening—it’s unnerving. Similarly, here, the horror of the slaves’ drowning is made more shocking when discovered unexpectedly within such a visually appealing landscape. If the human drama were subtracted, the painting would remain an enrapturing depiction of the natural world, yet the narrative gives the painting much greater depth and meaning.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

What is the context?

Written and directed by Stephen Spielberg, Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in American theaters on November 16, 1977. Spielberg had already become a household name following the hugely successful release of Jaws only two years earlier, giving him the money and autonomy to make this film with significant creative control and few constraints from producers at 20^th Century Fox. With the release of this film only 6 months after George Lucas’ first Star Wars film, 1977 became a pivotal year in convincing audiences and critics alike that science fiction is more than just a playground for low-budget monster movies but rather a serious genre suited for artistic movie making. 

Close Encounters follows on the heels of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s which saw dramatic shifts in American attitudes toward two major themes in this film: outer space and imperialism.  Following the U.S.-Soviet space race and the Apollo 11 moon landing, space travel had suddenly shifted from fantasy to reality in the minds of Americans. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, imperialist attitudes and the colonization of the third world inspired protest and deep criticism.

Spielberg’s filmmaking borrows many techniques and stylistic elements from Classic Hollywood cinema, also called the golden age of cinema from the 1920s through the 1950s. Distinctive to this style is the human person as the thematic focal point. Comparable to the humanism of an Italian Renaissance painting, classic Hollywood films are about the characters and the choices they make as the story unfolds. There is also little attention that is drawn to the fact that what you are watching on screen is a film—there are no shaky camera shots or reminders that we are looking at scenes shot by a cameraman.

What is the artist communicating and how?

In the scene above, we see many of the themes and ideas Spielberg is attempting to communicate to his audience. In this scene, unexplainable lights from UFO's descend on the home of a mother and her young child. While the mother frantically shuts the doors, boards up the windows, and attempts to keep the visitors from entering, the child-Barry-attempts to let them in. Eventually, he is abducted. First off, this scene is terrifying! There are a few moments which Spielberg perfectly executes in order to fill this scene with suspense. The first is the overlay of a slow and sweet song as the terror unfolds. The mother, bumps into the record player and accidentally turns on “Chances Are” by Johnny Mathis. The song, pleasant and relaxing in sound, provides an unsettling feeling in the audience when juxtaposed with frightening, chaotic images. It is difficult to experience the sights and the sounds together and makes the audience even further uncomfortable.

The most successful tactic Spielberg uses to terrify the audience is to obscure the aliens from view. We, the audience, are never allowed to glimpse what these visitors look like, thereby holding us in suspense even further. We see blinding lights, we see from their perspective as they zoom down the chimney, but their appearance is left to our frightened imagination. The significance of their absence from view is the first theme Spielberg is communicating. Notice the difference in reactions demonstrated by the boy—Barry—and his mother. Barry wants to invite the visitors into the house while the mother shuts them out. The alien visitors can be seen as representative of the unknown. As adults, we identify with the mother’s dread in the presence of that which we know nothing about. However, the boy, innocent to cynicism and prejudices, welcomes the unknown with a sense of wonder. This is the second theme Spielberg communicated to the audience. Following the McCarthyism of the 1950’s and imperialism in Vietnam, the fear of the unknown is a familiar feeling to many Americans of the time. But Spielberg cautions against it by revealing the goodness of the visitors at the end of the film as well as the safe return of Barry.

Why is it beautiful?

Science fiction is my favorite film genre, because it allows unlimited opportunities for creativity and the tangling and untangling of philosophical ideas. This film is one of the grandfathers of serious, artistic science fiction in film, and thereby deserves high praise as a seminal work in its genre.

The images and visual effects in this film are masterfully made. The shots of the alien ships throughout the film are composed beautifully with a fancy toward luminescence. Whereas the super structures in Star Wars are mostly grey, metallic mammoths, the crafts in Close Encounters are brightly illuminated. And as we saw in the ending scene, they even play beautiful music!

The score, composed by John Williams, is also a masterpiece. Famously, Williams and Spielberg reversed the traditional order by which directors will film and edit each scene and then hand the film to the composer to create set music to it. Instead, Williams composed the score first and then Spielberg edited scenes according to the rises and falls of Williams' score.

The themes of wonder and fear, juxtaposed together in the scene referenced above, are basic and fundamental to any human experience. All people have a general fear of the unknown. It is the root of our common fears--death, the dark, and the future. The image of Barry swinging open the door and gold lights washing over him shows-this is one of my favorite shots of all time. The imagery of that scene as well as the mother ship pouring light and music over the mountain at the end of the film. These are more than the typical images from your average alien flick. These scenes are biblical in power and ancient in their scope. Spielberg helps us understand that the question--Are we alone?--is a deeply human question. It's both spiritual and sociological. And if we consider his classic Hollywood influence, we can gather that Spielberg, by obscuring the unknown and perhaps unknowable visitors of the film, intends to place the thematic focus not on the aliens but the humans who encounter them.