The Slave Ship by J. M. W. Turner was part of his effort in the campaign against slavery, painted in 1840, 33 year after the abolition of slavery. It shows a slave ship where the slave owners would throw the dead and dying human 'cargo' overboard during the in the Atlantic Ocean in order that they might claim the insurance for 'drowning'. Turner was a romantic, Romanticism is a movement that rejects the traditional, formal religious answers to questions about life and instead says that it all lies in highest ideals such as nature and romantic love. They say that the highest human form is spirit and the closest man can come to God is in nature and in beauty. In almost all of Turner’s paintings you see a sun representing God this is very central in the Slave Ship. In the bottom right hand side of the paintings arms are reaching up to the sky and sun as if asking for redemption and salvation.
To compare both paintings we first have to look at the context in which they where painted and there backgrounds. Firstly The Supper at Emmaus, it was commissioned by a Roman nobleman and later purchased by a Cardinal. Turner was painting to portray a particular message, a painting for himself and the world. He was much more concerned about aesthetics than Caravaggio and showing the beauty in nature, Gods gift to man. Here he contrasts natures beauty and power, it wrath, possibly showing Gods intervention into mans deeds.
Caravaggio’s was a church painting one that was seen through conventional ideas of religion though he was challenging the accepted boundaries of religious icons at the same time as many in the Church where involved in the Counter Reformation. But he was still portraying Jesus and religion in the flesh where as Turner shows the spiritual side God’s messages through beauty in nature rather than scriptures. Caravaggio’s in many ways was still restricted by the conventions of the church; Turner had to answer to no one.
It is paradoxical that Caravaggio was painting in the Renaissance at one of the most spiritual ages in history, when life was dominated by spirituality and the Pope still had a significant influence over all aspects of Christian life. And yet He concerned with showing Jesus in a temporal world he emphasises the secular and human aspect of Christ and redemption rather than the ethereal. Where Turner shows the spiritual side of God his beauty through creation, he shows the sun as god and sprit being mans highest form though he was in a time where the church was much more questioned and papal control had considerably slackened it was a much more secular society.
One thing both paintings agree on is the reflection of a higher being and a higher force, though Caravaggio is much more obvious in his statement. And through this being is the offer of salvation though through very different paths. Caravaggio’s offer is through man and the common religion where turner’s is through spirit and nature, striped to a bare they offer Jesus against nature.
From just looking at these painting you can see how very much art does indeed contribute to religious questions. The most obvious of with are:
How is man saved? What is the ultimate being and how can it be viewed? How does this power access and communicate with man kind? Turner and Caravaggio, I think, address all these questions turner’s art makes a bold statement on religion he was a great pioneer of romanticism and answers all these questions with one answer, nature. He says we see and communicate with the highest being through nature. He says nature is our salvation. And when looking at the true beauty in nature you see his point how can that stupendous beauty be an accident or random it must be in some way sculpted mustn’t it. And I think his art shows this more than any other iv seen. Caravaggio’s art answers these questions very differently he shows us that man is saved by Jesus and by conventional religion. He says the Christian god is the ultimate being and the closest he can be viewed is Jesus as a man and not as a spiritual being and his communication is through the bible. These are much more conservative answers but Caravaggio’s puts them forward to be reachable by the every day man, and in that I think he succeeds.
