The Fade: Turner’s Fadded Strokes and Life’s End

J.W.A. Turner Firsherman at Sea - This piece was Turner's first piece entered into the Royal Academy Salon. 

I was watching the movie Mr. Turner recently, a movie that I’ve been looking forward to seeing ever since it came out last December. Mainly because the lead actor Timothy Spall has been one of my favorite character actors for almost 20 years and I have always appreciated J.M.W. Turner’s marine masterpieces and his capture of the industrial age dawning. The most powerful part of the movie was the loving relationship between Turner and his ailing father. The devotion of father and son is silent but clearly present even till the fathers end. It’s hard to watch as Turner Sr. works so hard for his son till the very end. 

That image of a father squeezing life for every inch is certainly what we all witness with most of our own loved ones in the end. My father was certainly one of those great beings who fought till the very end. I sadly was away when my father passed and had only seen him the weekend before at a family gathering in San Francisco. He pushed and pushed till the end, to live life. 

Another great moment in the movie was the scene where Turner was tied to the high point of the main mast of a ship to take in the scenery during a storm on the ocean. Only to be followed by a scene of Turner getting sick from adventurous need for . Living life one could say does have it’s price. But we can’t just sit around let life saunter by. Either way you see death unfold, quick or long, they both have their own separate pains. In the end the comparison of death in the film and in life is pretty powerful.