J.m.w. turner biography

Painting by J. M. W. Turner

Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway is an oil painting by the 19th-century British painter J.

M. W. Turner.^[1]

The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844, though it may have been painted earlier.^[i] It is now in the collection of the National Gallery, London.

The painting gives an impression of great speed in a static painting, an attribute that distinguished Turner from other artists.^[2] The work combines the power of nature and technology to create an emotional tension associated with the concept of the sublime.

Background

The painting was painted close to the end of the Industrial Revolution, which brought a massive shift from an agrarian economy to one dominated by machine manufacturing in the Victorian era.^[3] The railway was among the most potent symbols of industrialisation, since this new way of transportation h