_J. M. W. Turner, R.A._ (British: 1775-1851).
For the circumstances under which this picture by Turner and the "Dido
Building Carthage" (498) hang not in the Turner Gallery but beside the
Claudes, see under 12.
This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807, and belongs
therefore to Turner's first period, which was distinguished by
"subdued colour and perpetual reference to precedent in composition."
This effect of sunrise in a mist was a favourite one with Dutch
painters, and Turner, when he went to the sea-shore, painted it in
the Dutch manner. A time was to come when he would paint the sun
rising no longer in a mist. Yet from the first, the bent of his own
mind was visible in his work. He paints no such ideal futilities as
are pointed out above in Claude's picture, but fishermen engaged in
their daily toil. One of his father's best friends was a fishmonger,
whom he often visited: "which gives us a friendly turn of mind towards
herring-fishing, whaling, Calais poissardes, and many other of our
choicest subjects in afterlife." He was the painter not of "pastoral
indolence or classic pride, but of the labour of men, by sea and land"
(_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix.).