- He liberated color from line.

You don't need form to express - The power of nature.

You don't need line or contour to communicate.

Revulsion - Fine arts illuminate our present and explicate our past SCAD professors teach brilliant young creators every day.

And in this series we reveal the works that most inspire our experts.

This is Scad class.

Today we'll study the stirring masterpiece slave ship by Great Britain's most admired artist, JMW Turner.

Joining me for today's conversation is scad professor of art History.

Lindsey Alberts, - When you first look at it, you're not quite sure what you're looking at, but you know it's beautiful.

You see this incredible red sunset, this almost peel of white paint.

You see all this color and as you look at it longer, you start to realize that you're actually looking at something horrible.

We see the ship, we see the typhoon.

You can see the sort of white sea foam and sea spray indicating the ship is struggling.

It - Looks like the whole - Ship is gonna be lost anyway.

Exactly.

And I think Turner maybe is saying, you know, the wages of sin.

Precisely, precisely.

We might be sort of caught by the beauty of nature, the power of nature.

And then we start to realize that, oh, something really awful is happening here.

It's not about the ship, it's not about the storm.

If we look, especially in the bottom right hand corner, and you can see there are people in the water, there are manacled people in the water, even worse.

And in the bottom right corner, there's this incredibly elegant, almost horrifically elegant leg poking out of the water as sort of sea monsters and fish are descending upon it.

And the title tells us everything we need to know.

It's called the slave ship.

Slaves Throwing Overboard, the Dead and Dying Typhoon coming on.

We realized then that we're actually seeing, as the title says, slavers throwing people overboard.

Turner was partially inspired by an actual event.

Unfortunately that took place in 1781.

A slave ship called the Zong was traveling from Africa to Jamaica.

A lot of things went wrong, shall we say.

And the captain of the ship chose to murder many of the enslaved who were unfortunately considered cargo by throwing them overboard board.

He knew that the insurance policy would only reimburse him if the enslaved were lost at sea, not if they died.

So unfortunately, he made the horrific choice to, to throw them overboard.

Turner's a passionate abolitionist.

One of the things that I love about Turner, and I think this is true when you study almost any great artist, is that they were humans.

Yeah.

And Turner did not begin as an abolitionist.

He actually invested in 1805 in a ranch in Jamaica that used forced labor.

Really, we know by the early thirties he was supporting political candidates who were very strong abolitionists.

So he does seem to have had a change of heart.

Once he became an abolitionist, he was very, very ardent in his support of the movement.

And actually the 1840s, the year that this work was made in 1840, not coincidentally, was also the year that the world anti-slavery convention was held in London.

In Britain at the time the slave trade had been abolished, but unfortunately slavery itself was still legal.

So he was pushing for the abolition of, of slavery as a complete institution.

This painting was his contribution to the anti-slavery movement.

- Let's think about him as a person and a little bit about his life.

He was born in Covet Garden.

He was, and his father was a - Barber.

His roots, as you mentioned, were very working class.

His father supported Turner from a very early age as an artist.

Yes.

He would sort of post his early sketches in his shop.

And Turner sold his first work at the age of - 11.

He started out studying with architects and learned the technical aspects of drawing and painting.

Had his first - Work accepted at the Royal Academy at 15.

His first painting that was exhibited at the Royal Academy.

It was a watercolor.

And you're absolutely right, it's very structured.

It's all about perspective.

It's very precise.

Precise is a great word.

And when you look at it, oh, that's not what I expected of Turner.

Where's the atmosphere at the Royal Academy?

He was actually professor of perspective.

And when, whenever I think about that, I think about how perspective and linear perspective, it's such a structured approach to the world.

Yes.

And I think as you mentioned, that came from his training early on as an architectural draftsman.

But then he seems to have evolved into almost a mistiness.

That's a wonderful word for it, because he was known, especially by the time this painting was made, he was really famous for painting light on water.

Light and water mist is such a part of that.

But I think your point is a great one, that the reason Turner could make these very innovative departures from even something as important as line or - Yes.

- Wedding color to line.

The reason he was able to do that is because he had that grounding in the mechanics and the foundations.

I think Turner truly is the first modern painter because he's the first to liberate color from wine.

And you can see that here.

I see that, you know, you don't need form to express the power of nature.

You don't need line or contour to communicate.

Revulsion color itself can do - That.

His use of color is so commanding.

I heard it said sometimes that he painted with mustard.

- Absolutely.

And and I love that you said that in this painting, because whenever I hear that, I think of this particular work, another work that has that sort of mustard quality is The Fighting Temeraire another magnificent sunset.

And you're absolutely right.

He, Turner was really, he was kind of rough, wasn't he?

Oh, he got in there.

I love that phrase he got in there.

The thing that you first noticed is the damage to the painting.

And I don't mean damage as in damage over time, but Turner's damage to it.

He's scratching, he's jabbing, he's using the paint knife, he's spitting on the canvas in some cases - And used just fingernails and Oh - Yeah, absolutely.

And this painting is a great example just near the mass of the ship.

Yes.

Sort of to the back.

There's some scratches.

- Yes.

- And in the actual canvas, you can see they're scored into the thick paint.

And you can really get a sense of the, the energy, the almost the frenzy that he painted in and sort of the lack of regard for tradition.

You know, he's not lightly dabbing - Painting.

No, no.

He literally attacked a subject.

- He absolutely Turner painted this painting very much as a anti-slavery call to arms.

And what I love about this painting in particular is it's a rough painting of a rough subject.

You know, the, the medium is the message, as we say in our history.

Sometimes.

That's so true here.

Turner's a beloved painter today.

But what about when this was first exhibited?

You know, there's a great trope of the misunderstood artist in their own time.

And Turner was not that, but he was very divisive.

So he had champions who adored his work.

People like John Ruskin, for example, who at the, the age of, well, that's - Not a bad one.

- Yeah.

At the age of 16 was writing defenses of, of Turner.

And then he also had, as you mentioned, critics who attacked his work.

The more profound his works were in terms of their topics, the more they were attacked.

And I think to some extent, critics were uncomfortable.

You know, this is, this is a brutal painting.

It's awful to think about the event that precipitated it.

It was, was and is hard to look at this painting, hard to really contemplate the experience depicted.

The reviews of this painting were mixed when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy, as most of his works were.

- Yeah.

Well he had a champion in John Ruskin.

And you know, one of Ruskin's quotes is kind of one of our unofficial mottos at scad Fine Art is that, and wish the head hand and heart of Man go together.

Of course, I think that's what we teach and what we do at scad.

And so he must have been a powerful - Advocate.

And I think this painting covers all of those.

It does head hand to heart.

I mean, we talked about the heart.

Certainly it's, it's a difficult work to look at.

Yes, your heart, you would have to be made of stone Yes to, to not be moved.

The hand is visible everywhere.

Turner's hand, you know, scratching and jabbing at the painting.

He was exceptionally intellectual.

He was incredibly well-versed in ancient philosophy and classical antiquity.

He traveled in circles that included the most important natural philosophers of his time, including women.

So that intellect is always a part of his works.

For sure.

When you look at this painting, you don't immediately think of classical illusion, but his interest in weather in optical phenomena, you know, what does the, eye see when the sun sets on the water, you know, how does the water take on the colors of the sun?

Those are all ideas that were very much at the forefront of scientific innovation at the time.

So this painting is the perfect combination of the head, the hand, and the heart.

It's got all of those pieces there.

And I think maybe that's why it's a masterwork in some ways, is that it engages us intellectually.

It engages us emotionally.

And it engages us in a sort of social quality, a social justice quality.

Yes.

Which is a very modern term I realize, you know, very contemporary.

But that concept was certainly present in the 19th century.

Ruskin himself, he used the power that he had.

Absolutely.

And the abolitionist movement was part of social justice.

Ruskin later in his life, really advocated for bringing design to as many people as possible.

Yes.

We will call that social justice today.

So I think those connections are, are really powerful there.

Very much.

For Turner As a Brit, you mentioned what a beloved British artist he is.

Fortunately, he lived to see slavery abolished in his home country.

And then from there on out, the focus really was on the US.

Turner is an artist who I think we sometimes overlook.

He is not necessarily the most, well-known name of the 19th century.

People like Manet and Monet and the Impressionists often get, you know, a little bit more flash than he does.

But there would've been no Manet without Turner.

Absolutely.

And there would've been no impressionism without Manet.

When we think about Turner as one of the early drivers of modernity that goes directly into Impressionism and post-impressionism and shapes our world, even today, you know, SCAD students are creating works informed by that century, his legacy and his influence and the unfortunate history that he's recounting here.

It continues to affect everyone, especially here at scad.

So yes, it's been lovely to talk to you about it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

- The connoisseurs believed that art was just for them for the upper class, but he's like, no, this is for everyone.

This is Hogarth that is best - Today.

We delve into one of art history's most unique self portraits, the painter and his pug, a master work from the iconic British artist, and the father of sequential art himself.

William Hogarth, examining this curious portrait with me is scad, professor of art history, Rebecca Tridel.

- It's interesting, isn't it?

When you look at it, you think it's a portrait, but look closer and you'll see that it is a painting of a portrait, painting of a portrait.

It's basically still life if you think about it, because you've got a painting in there, you've got a palette, you've got books.

They've done X-rays of the image.

And originally he was shown with a wig on, with a fancy coat with gold buttons.

But he's like, you know what, I've done that before.

This image is much more about who I am as not just an artist, but as a person.

And you know, an intellectual.

And so the painting is stacked on top of books.

And we might think, oh, well that's Aristotle or the classics.

Oh, no, no, no, this is British.

We've got Shakespeare, we've got Milton, we've got Swift.

And so all these writers who he has illustrated, and here he's saying, these are English authors.

This is what I'm basing my understanding of the world on, is other English intellectuals.

And so this is not a painting of a, of an artist as a painting of an intellectual.

And so that's the idea that he wants to promote.

And then of course, you've got the little dog.

This is his pet pug whose name - Is Trump.

And he puts the dog in the foreground and the painting of himself in the background.

He's included him - There for many reasons.

We all know that dogs symbolize loyalty and fidelity, but also it talks to us about how he is doggedly British, you know?

And so he's constantly promoting British views, British values against what he thinks of as the French ideas, which he, he sees as, as rather negative.

He thinks that it's, it's taking England away from their own English virtues and and aspects.

And so his little dog, Trump represents that doggedness.

And it's also a pug dog.

And as you can see, Hogarth has a little pug nose.

So he's the first one to make fun of himself before anybody else does.

And that's what we have with this image.

You know, he's making fun of himself with his little pug face and his pug dog.

But he's also being quite serious in, in trying to represent the goals that he wants to establish.

He wants England to, to have its freedom from European ideas.

And so he's definitely stating that with this still life of a painting, if you will.

So with the, the idea of the artist in his casual dress, you notice he's, he's dressed casually.

He's taken off his wig, he's got on his cap and, but he's not shown painting.

He's shown, you know, as an intellectual.

Yeah.

So, so many things that he's trying to say to, to communicate to us in this, this little painting man of ideas.

Exactly.

And a little bit pugnatious.

Very, very pugnatious.

I don't know about a little bit.

Definitely pugnatious.

- He has an interesting, a little line on his palette that kind of speaks to his philosophy.

- Yeah.

That's the line of beauty.

So it's kind of hard to see, isn't it?

He used a little bit too much turpentine.

So sometimes it comes and goes, if you know what I mean.

But the line of beauty is a serpentine line, as you'll notice.

It doesn't just curve.

It also curves up and down as well as left to right.

And this is promoting his thesis that he's going to promote about the analysis of beauty.

And our focus should be on variety and movement as opposed to stillness and rigidity.

He will promote this, as I said, in his analysis of beauty.

And so on the cover you'll see the serpentine line and it's on top of variety.

And the illustrations that he includes are meant for, as he writes, it's meant for everybody.

Art at this time period, the connoisseurs believed that art was just for them for the upper class, but he's like, no, this is for everyone, for, for men and women and children.

And so he wrote it with illustrations like chair legs, you look at very straight chair legs and very curdy legs.

And no, it's the one in the middle, you know, it's the Goldilocks thing.

And so there's like corsets and, and candlesticks.

And so it, he writes it so that the common person can understand 'cause they see beauty all around me.

Exactly.

And so that's an idea that he promotes quite regularly in his - Analysis.

Rebecca, I'm fascinated to know a little bit about William Hogarth's childhood.

- Right.

Well, he had a rough childhood.

His father will unfortunately go bankrupt.

He also have several businesses that just don't work out.

For example, he had a, a coffee house where everyone had to speak Latin.

You wonder why it didn't work.

Right.

Anyhow, so his father will partially go bankrupt.

And in England and during the late 17th, early 18th century, if you were in debt, you went to debtor's prison, which makes no sense.

'cause how could you get out of it?

Right.

But the whole family would live with you.

And so he actually grew up in debtor's prison, but eventually the family inherited some money and so they were able to leave.

And Hogarth will start his artistic training as a silver engraver.

And we're not talking beautiful, you know, big things.

We're talking, you know, engraving spoons, which for a, a clever guy like William Hogarth must have just been like as dull as as can be.

And so he would go off on his days off and he would walk through London and he would sketch everyone and everything he saw at one point he didn't have any paper, so he literally sketched images on his thumbnail, literally on his thumbnail.

So that tells you the kind of detail that he was people doing.

Well, practice makes perfect, obviously looking at his work.

Yes, indeed.

He will eventually start his own engraving business.

And so he'll do engravings of literary stories and what have you.

And so he works in engraving, which is a printmaking process.

So you have a, a metal plate into which you carve lines and if you want to carve curves, you have to turn the plate itself to curve them.

And so it takes a lot of skill to create the amount of detail that you can see going on with, with Hogarth's plates and just the think in that positive and negative space way.

Yes.

'cause you always have to think backwards as you're creating the images, which is very impressive if you think about how beautifully detailed his images actually are.

- Yes.

- And he tells a story with each and every one, the English, call him the father of sequential art, ah.

And say agree, great storytelling.

The English, compare him to Dickens, you know, and so I'm comparing along with Shakespeare because he's such a great storyteller.

And so he did series after series, you know, harlot's Progress, a Reichs Progress, the Marriage All Mode is probably his most famous.

And so you can see the story in developing and it's always a bad decision.

No, but it's what I call anti-hero stories, because these people make bad decisions and it just goes from bad to worse.

But it's humorous.

But his humor is satire and satire, as you know, is, is has a little bit of anger in it and edge.

Yeah.

So he's a little unhappy with, especially as he see the British kind of copying the way the French live and things like that.

He's like, no, no, no, we're English.

We just stick with our English goals and that we'll see us through.

It's, it's following these European trends that are leading us astray.

And so his stories tell that very clearly.

Very clearly.

Yes.

Yeah.

It was basically the people die at the very end.

So - Yeah, - Sorry, but, but I giveaway there.

Here is the marriage a LA mode.

And so this is the first scene.

And so we, we kind of set the stage, the marriage of marriage ala mode.

Notice the French title, the Alamo Alamo.

This of course is the fashions of the day.

And so the fathers are actually enacting the contracts.

The couple are over on the side not really paying much attention enough to each other.

They have their back, each other back to each other, literally have their back to each other.

- The fathers are striking the - Deal.

Yes.

And so the wealthy father, the Earl of Squander Field is his name.

Hogarth and his names Hes very wealthy.

And you notice he's pointing to his family tree.

Oh yes.

Which brings from William the Conqueror.

And so his, his family is long lived here in England, but they're out of funds.

So they've got the title, but they don't have the money.

The middle class man in the middle is the money bags.

He's got the money, but no title.

And so you can see that they both have something the other wants.

And so what better way than to join their families by marrying their son and daughter.

And this is just the first plate.

There are five others that go into ridiculous detail to tell the story.

And they're great fun, but in the end, they're about morals.

Yes.

Hogarth is saying, these arranged marriages are not a good idea.

You know, you should marry for love for companionship, you should marry for, you know, financial benefit or you know, titles and elevation in society.

And so it goes through this amazing story to, to tell us that well, all - About consequences, really.

Oh yeah.

Cause of decisions, consequences of behavior.

And these when be released, like how - Frequently you would have what's called subscriptions.

So if you were interested, he would maybe have an example of this is what the series is going to be like, and you could pay in advance half of it.

And so you would get the whole series before everyone else did.

And the pricing was, was high, but not too high.

And so, you know, your middle class people could purchase these and either frame them.

For example, we have what's called the Hogarth frame that was created specifically for his images.

And so you could frame them and hang them in your home, or you could bind them in what's called a folio so that you could sit and look at the story, like reading a book.

And so as we look at sequential art, we can see the depth of detail that he - Represents.

I love the idea of him being the forefather of sequential art, which of course we teach at scad.

And we own 76 objects related to Hogarth in our scad Museum of Art.

The Newton - Collection is a fascinating teaching tool, and I often take my classes to look at the paintings as well as the prints that we have from Hogarth that not many places have outside of England.

So it's really a wonderful opportunity.

- How would you say this particular painting is a synthesis of Hogarth as the man, the artist, this is his - Thesis statement.

Now, a thesis statement is, is a point that you need to prove.

And he's proving here, yes, I'm an artist, I am an Englishman and I am an intellectual.

And so all of that is being encapsulated here.

We see the man himself, we see his portrait, we see his doggedness, his fidelity, his loyalty.

We see his love of England with the illustrations and the concepts of Shakespeare and Milton and Swift.

And we see that line of beauty, that beautiful palette.

While we don't have brushes and paint, we do have the reminder of the artist, but the intellectual behind the artist, so many connoisseurs at this time period were saying, well, artists are just tools.

They, they don't know enough to, to create great art.

And Hogarth is like, oh, that is so untrue.

Artists are the basis for intellectualism.

They're the basis for creativity and inspiration.

And so the, the line of beauty and his ideas that he promotes are definitely an important aspect of this image.

And so all put together, as you can see with this lovely swirling green fabric behind it, just tying the image in together.

And that wonderful pug face, his little pug nose.

He wants to show that he has risen from low all the way up to where he is.

And it's not through anyone else's impact.

It's through his own intellectualism, his own wherewithal and his own dedication through dent of his - Own work and effort.

Yes.

- Dogedness and do and pursuit, right?

- Yes.

Yes.

It says definitely art is not from the wrist down.

It's very much of the brain and the head and the intellect, the head, the hand and the heart.

Right.

Exactly.

- We love that.

And he definitely had all of those.

Yes, he did.