Joseph Turner was a mysterious painter at the time of his life. Most of his work was rejected because of the abstraction that it showed, as opposed to the more realism of other art at the time. Turner’s “Whalers” was painted in 1845, when he was seventy years old, and received mixed reviews. It was painted using oil, and was one of the rejected works of its time because it wasn’t realistic like the other artists of his time. The subject of this painting is the sperm whale splashing through the water. It shows the most contrast to the background, making it the obvious subject of the artwork. Behind the whale, you can see a large whaling ship with pieces of other whales on it. There are three other ships to the right looking as if they are tipping over, with men spilling overboard. These events move your eye from left to right at a diagonal. Most of these things are hard to observe without seeing the painting in person, since Turner’s style is dreamy and faded with color. The sky is covered in a grayish-white, with…show more content… There are strong lines that sharpen the objects, such as the whale, the ship, and some of the crashing boats beside it. The boats are outlined with a brown color. The contrast between the purple-black of the sperm whale and the grey-blue background creates the effect of the whale being outlined as well. Since most of the lines are blurred together and very little shading, with exception of the outlines, it creates flatness within the painting: there is no sense of depth. The sky and water are similar colors, with little texture. There are visible strokes across this work. There is very little in the sky besides some in the sails of the ship, but most of the texture is found in the water. So the sinking ships get lost in the movement and action of the piece. The movement is created with the short brushstrokes that are only visible when viewing it at the
