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1:
Turner's Legacy
2: From Realism to the 'Impression'
3: Whistler's 'Nocturnes'
4: Painting in Series
5: Turner and the Thames
6: Return to the Thames
7: Venice
Room 5: Turner and the Thames
Room 5: Turner and the Thames
Tate Photography
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Early in the nineteenth century, Turner's willingness to include the
smoke and fog of London in his paintings was unusual. Alongside his
concern with history, he remained fascinated by modern developments,
including the industrialisation that others deplored. His view of
The Thames above Waterloo Bridge shows the city's factories
and river traffic producing fumes which all but obscure the bridge.
The city of London, and the river at its heart, underwent
enormous changes during the nineteenth century. One of the most
dramatic was a spectacular fire which consumed the Houses of Parliament
one evening in October 1834. Turner was among the crowds watching
from the river banks; he filled a sketchbook with studies which
provided the basis for the painting in this room.
The new Houses of Parliament, completed in the 1850s,
were part of a continuing process of modernisation. New bridges
were built at Waterloo, Westminster and Charing Cross, and the river's
mud-banks replaced by embankments. At the end of the century, Whistler
and Monet viewed this changing landscape from the Savoy Hotel, itself
newly built, while every day the visibility index, showing the degree
of smog in the atmosphere, was measured from the top of St Paul's.
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View
in Tate Collection