Der Hafen von Dieppe

Dieppe sits on the cold Channel coast of Normandy, but you'd never guess it from the light. When Turner showed this at London's Royal Academy in 1825, viewers saw a northern French fishing port drenched in a golden haze that looked borrowed from Venice or Naples. One reviewer admired the brilliance while grumbling it had all the magic of skill at the expense of all the magic of nature. Turner had visited Dieppe and sketched it, then built the picture back in his studio from memory and imagination, leaving out any sign of the steamboats already changing such harbours. Down in the crowd, look for the little scene that gave the work its subtitle, Changement de Domicile, a family moving house, their belongings loaded up among the hundreds of figures on the quay.