[IMAGE: Rain, Steam and Speed — The Great Western Railway, by J. M. W. Turner]
![[IMAGE: Rain, Steam and Speed — The Great Western Railway, by J. M. W. Turner]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/J._M._W._Turner_-_Rain%2C_Steam_and_Speed_%E2%80%93_The_Great_Western_Railway.jpg/1280px-J._M._W._Turner_-_Rain%2C_Steam_and_Speed_%E2%80%93_The_Great_Western_Railway.jpg){kind=link}
Rain, Steam and Speed — The Great Western Railway
J. M. W. Turner, 1844
A steam train charges straight at us across a bridge over the Thames, through rain and mist so thick that the world dissolves into gold and grey.
J. M. W. Turner was nearly seventy when he painted it. Railways were still new and thrilling, and slightly frightening. Turner shows the machine as a force of nature, as wild as the weather around it.
Look closely ahead of the train, on the tracks: there's a small hare running for its life. Some see it as speed in nature racing against speed in machines — a race the hare will lose. Down by the river, someone rows a little boat, a reminder of how people travelled before.
Critics of the day weren't sure what to make of it. Today it's seen as one of the first great paintings of the modern world.
Look for
- The black chimney of the locomotive bursting out of the haze
- A tiny hare running ahead of the train
- A boat on the river below, from a slower age