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Creator:
Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775–1851
Title:
Stormy Sea Breaking on a Shore
Former Title(s):
Waves breaking on the Shore
Date:
between 1840 and 1845
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
17 1/2 x 25 inches (44.5 x 63.5 cm), Frame: 22 1/4 × 30 1/2 × 2 1/2 inches (56.5 × 77.5 × 6.4 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.632
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1981.25.632FR
Subject Terms:
abstract art | landscape | light | meteorology | movement | science | sea | seascape | shore (landform) | sky | storms | sun | texture | waves (natural events)
Access:
Not on view
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:1095
Export:
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This small but powerful late sketch exemplifies the painterly approach that one critic, writing of a contemporary exhibition work, derided as “soap suds and whitewash.” Turner furiously responded that his intention was not “to paint to be understood but to show what [it] was like.” Using rapid, gestural brushstrokes and a limited color palette, Turner conveys the dizzying intensity of the sea and wind. Crashing waves scatter spray across the middle ground of the image, while light breaks through in a way that hints at the sharp breeze driving the clouds apart. It was this pursuit of sheer physical intensity, in both subject and style, that defied the proprieties of conventional landscape painting and bemused so many of Turner’s contemporaries, critics and public alike.

Gallery label for J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality (Yale Center for British Art, March - 29, 2025 - July 27, 2025)


In later life, J. M. W. Turner spent much of the year living incognito in Chelsea, London, with Sophia Booth, his mistress and housekeeper. Turner had met the widowed Mrs. Booth in Margate and adopted the pseudonym of Captain Booth to preserve his anonymity, passing himself off as a retired seaman. Though ailing physically, he traveled to Switzerland most summers until 1845 and spent a great deal of time in Margate studying the sea. After Turner’s death, a cache of studies of the sea like this one were found in his Chelsea studio. The exact status of these small oil studies is contested, but most of them are uncharacteristically devoid of human presence and are instead pure studies of the power of nature achieved with an almost monochrome palette.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016

J.M.W. Turner: Romance & Reality (Yale Center for British Art, 2025-03-29 - 2025-07-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art (Yale University Art Gallery, 2023-03-24 - 2023-12-03) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Coming Away : Winslow Homer in England (Milwaukee Art Museum, 2018-03-02 - 2018-05-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Coming Away : Winslow Homer in England (Worcester Art Museum, 2017-11-11 - 2018-02-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Touchstone Turner (Turner Contemporary, 2014-01-25 - 2014-05-11) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Turner : The Late Seascapes (Burrell Collection, 2004-02-15 - 2004-05-14) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Turner : The Late Seascapes (Manchester City Galleries, 2003-11-01 - 2004-01-25) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Turner : The Late Seascapes (Clark Art Institute, 2003-06-14 - 2003-09-08) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Late Turner (Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, LLC, 1999-04-01 - 1999-06-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism (Chicago Historical Society, 1988-04-06 - 1988-06-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism (Indiana University Art Museum, 1988-01-27 - 1988-03-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism (New York Public Library, 1987-10-31 - 1988-01-02) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

J. M. W. Turner - A Selection of Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (National Gallery of Art, 1968-10-31 - 1969-04-21) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Painting in England 1700-1850 - From The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (Yale University Art Gallery, 1965-04-15 - 1965-06-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Martin Butlin, The paintings of J.M.W. Turner, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, New Haven, 1984, p. 284, 291, 293, no. 482, pl. 483, NJ18 T85 B885 1984 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 228-229, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Genius Defined, Time, vol. 82, no.. 1, July 5, 1963, p.62, V 2333 (YCBA) Hard Copy also available at SML - AP2 T55 + [YCBA]

Luke Herrmann, The Paul Mellon Collection at Burlington House, Connoisseur, vol. 157, December 1964, p. 218, N1 C75 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

J.M.W. Turner : a selection of paintings from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, , National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1968, pp. 14, 30, no. 15, fig. 15, NJ18 T85 U5 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Painting in England 1700-1850 : collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon : Exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, , , Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1963, p. 92, no. 136, pl. 192, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Painting in England 1700-1850 from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, The Royal Academy of Arts Winter Exhibition 1964-65., , Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, 1964, p. 44 (v.1), no. 163, pl. 63, N5220.M45 R69 1964 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Tony Smibert, Turner's Apprentice : a watercolour class, Thames and Hudson, 2020, p. 117, NJ18.T85 S65 2020 Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

Denys Sutton, Some English Landscapes in Mr. Mellon's Collection, Apollo, vol. 77, April 1963, p. 281-282, Pl. VI, N1 A54 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Andrew Wilton, The life and work of J.M.W. Turner, Academy Editions, London, 1979, p. 293, no. P482, NJ18 T85 +W577 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Yale University Art Gallery, Painting in England, 1700-1850, from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon : [exhibition at] Yale University Art Gallery, April 15-June 20, 1965, , vol. 1, W. Clowes and sons, New Haven, 1965, p. 51 (v.1), no. 192, pl. 63, ND466 Y35 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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