A Storm at Sea

J. M. W. Turner’s ecstatic relationship to sublime nature comes alive as the deft strokes of his brush capture the changes of mood in the varying light of the turbulent scene. This personal notation, which Turner called a “colour beginning, ” was not meant for public dissemination and borders on pure abstraction. Its open center evokes Turner’s spiritual interpretation of light. Far removed from the tightly executed, picturesque works that typified British watercolors of the early 1800s, Storm at Sea, presages the freedom, immediacy, abstraction, and mysticism that became central to art produced by later generations. We do not know precisely when Turner executed Storm at Sea, but in all likelihood he used it to give structure to his oil painting, Staffa, Fingal’s Cave, 1831-32. Turner may have painted Storm at Sea years earlier than the oil.