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Joseph Mallord William Turner (English, 1775–1851)
Peace—Burial at Sea, exhibited 1842
Oil on canvas; 34 1/4 x 34 1/8 in. (87 x 86.7 cm)
Tate, London, Turner Bequest, 1856
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In 1842 Turner exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy as a pendant to War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet (Tate, London), which shows Napoleon in captivity. Critics scorned the pair as "two round blotches of rouge et noire"—the latter referring to this canvas, which commemorates the burial off Gibraltar of Turner's friend and occasional rival the Scottish painter Sir David Wilkie (1785–1841). Although the critic John Ruskin would regret the "funereal and unnatural blackness" of the ship's sails, Turner reportedly expressed his desire "to make them blacker," attesting to the expressive role of color.
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