Der Schiffbruch eines Transportschiffs

Turner painted this storm-wrecked ship around 1810, when Britain was deep in the wars with Napoleon and the sea meant troop transports, blockades and constant loss. He had long been drawn to shipwrecks, and was sketching one before news arrived that a real warship, the Minotaur, had gone down off the Dutch coast that November with hundreds aboard. The disaster made a picture like this feel immediate to anyone who saw it. He gives you almost no solid ground, just the tilting hull, small boats straining to reach survivors, and water and sky churned into the same grey violence. The vessel is already past saving.