The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835) J. W. M. Turner (1775 - 1851) The most famous and influential Romantic painter, Turner took painting where it had never gone before. Moving dramatically away from the realism that dominated Augustan art, Turner increasingly relied on abstract shapes and what are essentially "impressionistic" techniques. (Turner was in fact a significant influence on Impressionist painting.) < back       next >

This picture, one of three Turner made based on this real-life event, shows the burning of the House of Parliament; the fire is rendered not so much as a series of flames as it is a force of nature, vast and overwhelming in its scope, reaching beyond the edge of the picture; Westminster Bridge is a shape as much as it is a structure, and serves primarily to direct our eye to the flames by means of the strong diagonal element it introduces. This is a scene in which the human world is overwhelmed and subject to forces it cannot control — a very "Romantic" idea.