Dutch Boats in a Gale

Dutch Boats in a Gale is an 1801 oil on canvas seascape painting by the English artist J. M. W. Turner. It depicts two boats with Dutch fishermen struggling to avoid a collision. The sea is agitated by a gale and dark clouds above increase the sense of danger.

Turner called it Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put Their Fish on Board, but it later became known as The Bridgewater Seapiece, as it was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. The Duke wanted a companion for Ships on a Stormy Sea (c. 1672), a painting by the 17th-century Dutch marine artist Willem van de Velde the Younger. Turner's painting has a very similar composition to van de Velde's original to complement the dutch master's work.

Dutch Boats was presented by Turner at the Royal Academy's 1801 Annual Exhibition and was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. It received praise from academics and art critics, with the Academy's president comparing it to a Rembrandt. It was also the most popular piece in the show.

A year after its exhibition, and influenced by the painting's accolades, the Academy accepted Turner as a full Royal Academician. At the age of 26, Turner became the youngest artist to reach this status in the history of the Academy.

Background

Dutch Boats was presented by Turner at the Royal Academy's 1801 Annual Exhibition. In 1796, Turner had exhibited his first oil painting, Fishermen at Sea; a seascape with a moonlit, dramatic sky.

Following the teachings of Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Academy, Turner made many paintings in the style of old masters. But Turner was also very commercially-oriented and keenly attuned to what the art collectors craved for. At the time, marine paintings in the dutch style were very popular, so along with Dutch Boats, he also presented two other such paintings: Fishermen Upon a Lee-Shore in Squally Weather and Ships Bearing Up for Anchorage; the latter bought by George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont. However, Turner's natural talent allowed him to go beyond pastiches and show he could make their style his own; a sort of homage, and in some cases, an indirect critique, of the old masterpieces.

Commission

The coal and canal-building magnate Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater wanted a companion pendant for Ships on a Stormy Sea (Dutch: Schepen op een stormachtige zee), a painting by the 17th-century Dutch marine artist Willem van de Velde the Younger. Due to this commission, Turner's painting became known as The Bridgewater Seapiece.

The Duke of Bridgewater's payment for the five-by-seven-foot (1.6 × 2.2 m) Dutch Boats was 250 guineas (equivalent to over £20,000 today). This was the highest amount Turner had received for a painting at the time.

To the surprise of his elders, while still in his early twenties Turner was able to sell his large paintings at top markets prices, even though the war between England and France had considerably reduced their demand. In 1799 Turner had received 150 guineas for The Fifth Plague of Egypt from the extremely rich owner of sugar plantations in Jamaica, William Beckford. He also sold smaller pieces, which generated a steady income. His friend and diarist Joseph Farington records that Turner boasted to him that he had orders from different customers for 60 watercolours.

Description

Dutch Boats portrays two spritsail boats in a rough sea, with Dutch fishermen struggling to avoid a collision.Turner emulated van de Velde's technical precision in depicting ships in his rendering of the two kaags, as these small sailboats were called in the Netherlands.

The sea is being whipped up by a gale that is violently crashing into the boats, leaving white foam on the ocean surface. Above, menacing black clouds increase the sense of danger. In the distance, the silhouette of a man-of-war, described by Butlin as an element that provides "a vast sense of maritime scale."

Style and composition

Dutch Boats' composition was very similar to Van de Velde's original painting, as it was commissioned to be hung next to it. Turner mirrored the strong diagonal that is formed by the spritsail in the latter, but he did it in reverse, so that it creates a compositional complement to the original. The yellow sails illuminated by a strong light – making them stand out against the background of dark clouds – are also a pictorial element in Van de Velde's work.

Kitson notes that a preparatory sketch for the painting, suggests that Turner's main objective was to transmit the peril that the fishermen were facing. He observes that "the bold chiaroscuro and expressive use of pen and brown ink are both characteristics that seem to reflect the influence of pen drawings by Rembrandt."

Critical reception

When it was exhibited at the Royal Academy's Annual Exhibition of 1801, it "took the Academy by storm". Critics thought very favorably of it, with one noting it was "a peculiar favourite of the spectators" at the exhibition", which that year attracted close to fifty thousand visitors.

The painting was hung in the best location in Great Room, where the best paintings were exhibited: in the center of the wall opposite the entrance. Benjamin West, the president of the Royal Academy, remarked that it was "what Rembrandt thought of but could not do"; a strong compliment for such a young painter. Henry Fuseli, Professor of Painting at the Academy, referred to it as "the best work in the entire exhibition," which at the time, included over 1,000 paintings.

The wide acclaim received by the painting led to Turner being elected to full Royal Academician status a year later. At the early age of 26, he became the youngest Academician in the history of the institution. A close friend of Turner recalled that years later, Turner had picked up a mezzotint after Van de Velde, and emotionally exclaimed that the Dutch artists "had made me a painter."

Provenance

After Francis Egerton's death, only a couple of years after he commissioned Dutch Boats, the work passed to his nephew, George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford (later 1st Duke of Sutherland), and subsequently to the latter's second son, Lord Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere.

原文较长，这里只摘了前面一部分，摘自英文维基百科「Dutch Boats in a Gale」（暂时没有中文条目，下面是英文原文），按 CC BY-SA 4.0 使用，去掉了参考文献、外部链接等尾部小节和表格，其余文字未作改动。