A Painting and A Slave Ship: Ruskin’s Visual Narrative On Turner

Year 2021, Volume: 6 Issue: 3, 609 - 618, 31.12.2021

Asya Sakine Uçar

https://doi.org/10.29110/soylemdergi.995920

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Thanks to his technique of ‘word painting’ and employing words to replicate what viewing a painting feels like, John Ruskin is actively engaged in associations between word and image. Ruskin admired Joseph Mallord Turner’s works as the painter also used his own poetry as subsidiary to his paintings. The fact that both artists are inspired by sister arts, poetry and painting has been long debated. Yet as Turner tried to syncretize his painting with poetry and Ruskin tried to render visual proses, they still remained aware of both the union and the gap between words and images. What Turner did with his visual narratives is communicating on a level that required spectators’ commitment and engagement. For that reason, Ruskin’s defense and advocacy of William Turner in Modern Painters through Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon Coming On (1840), or The Slave Ship, suggests a special example in relating both artists to each other as much visually as poetically and verbally. Further to that how Turner’s highly abstract composition that initially met with a great deal of negative reaction, came to function as a medium for reflection of greater depth on the horrors of slavery with a historical particularity could be discovered through revisiting Ruskin’s sublime, ekphrastic elaborations.

Keywords

Ruskin, Turner, word, image, visual, The Slave Ship

Bir Resim Ve Bir Köle Gemisi: Ruskin’in Turner Üzerine Görsel Anlatısı

Abstract

Ruskin’in adeta bir tabloya bakmanın bıraktığı izlenimleri anımsatan sözlü görselleri, onu sözcük ve imge temalı tartışmalarda öne plana çıkarmıştır. Ruskin, Joseph Mallord Turner’ın resimlerine eşlik etmesi için şiir kullanmasını takdir etmiştir. Her iki sanatçının da kardeş sanatlar olan resim ve şiirden etkilenmiş olmaları hep tartışılan bir konu olmuştur. Turner resimlerine şiiri entegre etmeye çalışırken, Ruskin görsel yazına yönelmiş ancak her ikisi de söz ve imge arasındaki birliğin ve farkın bilincinde kalmıştır. Turner görsel anlatılarında izleyicilerin de iştirakını ve sadakatini gerektiren bir iletişim yolunu seçmiştir. Bu nedenle Ruskin’in Modern Ressamlar’da özellikle Köle Gemisi olarak da bilinen Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon Coming On (1840) eseri üzerinden Turner’ı yüceltmesi ve savunması her iki sanatçıyı görsel olduğu kadar şiirsel ve sözel olarak da birbiriyle ilişkilendiren bir örnek sunar. Daha da önemlisi, Turner’ın olumsuz tepkilere neden olan fazlasıyla soyut kompozisyonunun zamanla tarihsel bir gerçeklikle köleliğin korkunçluğu üzerine daha derin bir yansıma işlevi gören bir temsile dönüşmesi Ruskin’in ekfrastik, sublime betimlemeleri sayesinde keşfedilebilir.

Keywords

Ruskin, Turner, söz, imge, görsel, Köle Gemisi, ekfrasis

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