I requested Voyage of the Slave Ship because of my interest in Turner's art and art in general from that period. I'm also interested in the history of the slave trade, but it's not a subject I generally seek out when looking for reading matter. So I can't really say I enjoyed this book, but I did feel I was learning a lot as I read it. It's very well written in an entertaining style, and tells a fascinating (though disturbing) tale. I'm a little confused about its audience, so I'm not sure who I'd recommend it to. Still, I'm thankful the publisher provided me the opportunity to read it. ( )

What do you know about ‘Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on (The Slave Ship)’ by J.M.W. Turner? Are you familiar with the Zong incident? No—well you should be.

The book encompasses more than just Turner’s Slave Ship, in fact the title is very limiting to the overall scope of the work. It is broken into nine chapters: Turner’s life, The Middle Passage, Thomas Clarkson (and Wilberforce, Sharp, etc), the politics, Turner’s works involving water, written words that inspired him, Ruskin’s support, where the painting ended up, and an epilogue dedicated to Ruskin. It includes some black and white sketches of important individuals that played a role in British Abolition as well as a few color plates of several of Turner’s works. Turner himself did not play a role in the abolition movement other than the one painting and the short verse he included with the 1840 exhibition:

Aloft all hands, strike the top-mast and belay:
Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
Declare the Typhon’s coming
Before it sweep your deck, throw overboard
The dead and dying—ne’er heed their chains.
Hope! Hope! Fallacious hope!
Where is the market now?

My Master’s thesis was inspired by this painting (and Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park), ‘British Abolition and Art’, I am very familiar with this particular work and the artist so I was excited to receive a copy of the book. The book jumped around a bit to me and repeated ideas/information from previous chapters. The outline of the book looks great in theory but about half way through it was hard to keep focused. Much of the information presented is significant but some irrelevant tid-bits draw attention away from what is important in my eyes. Overall, I am still glad I read it. ( )

It's not often I give up on a book midway through, but Stephen J. May's "Voyage of the Slave Ship: J.M.W. Turner's Masterpiece in Historical Context" has gotten the best of me. The account of the Zong's voyage was the most engaging section of the book. Unfortunately, it served only as context. Turner's life as an artist and the fate of his painting, in contrast, seemed less interesting and a less important topic. ( )

The Slave Ship seascape, painted and first exhibited in London by British artist J. M. W. Turner in 1840, has hung in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston since 1899. Formally titled by Turner as Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on, the painting combines the dominant power of nature with a grotesque depiction of human suffering. In the background, a ship with sails unfurled founders in tempestuous waters under a massive threatening sky, while dismembered and manacled body parts float chaotically before it in a sea of ravenous fish.

In Voyage of the Slave Ship, art historian Stephen J. May traces the transfers in ownership of the painting from Turner’s studio in London to its eventual home in Boston. He also examines the two major factors that most likely influenced Turner’s work: (1) the British abolitionist movement and its major historical figures, and (2) Turner’s obsessive desire to reflect the sublime in his paintings. May believes the painting to be modeled after the actual voyage of the ill-fated slave ship Zong in 1781.

May relates the major aspects of Turner’s life through his death and interment with his brothers in art in St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1851 at the age of 76. He also skillfully interweaves the life histories of Turner’s most ardent early admirers: British art critic John Ruskin, Harvard art history professor Charles Eliot Norton, and American railroad tycoon and Metropolitan Museum of Art president John Taylor Johnston.

The book is slightly flawed by a few scattered typographical errors and word miscues. But these are only minor irritants to an otherwise fascinating account of a great seascape artist, one of his masterworks, and the British Victorian period in which he toiled. Although the book is well researched, its lively presentation will make it a pleasure to read by professionals and laypersons alike. ( )

One of the best quiet pleasures (if not the best) of an LTER membership is the opportunity to learn something new. Prior to reading Stephen May's "Voyage of 'The Slave Ship,'" I would have been one of those who would say to you, "Well, I don't know a thing about art, but I know what I like." Now, while that is still more true than not, this book has given me some knowledge that I didn't have before. For example, I had never even heard of J.M.W. Turner, and now I know that he was one of the most renowned of 19th-c. English painters. And I had certainly never heard of what is arguably his most famous work, "The Voyage of the Slave Ship," much less all that is contained in it. Not just as a palette of colors upon a canvas (although Mr. May does explore this aspect thoroughly), but the history of the British Empire's slave trade, how the nation dealt with this part of its history through its politics and economics, and yes, even its art. Mr. May explores this, and the lives of the individuals involved -- artist , agitators, critics, scholars, and philanthropists. They're all here, warts and all, certainly not a perfect "painting" by any means. But definitely a fascinating one! While Mr. May makes the occasional contradiction in his text, such are more of an appetizer to learn more than a criticism to deny his work as a whole. Meanwhile, I still don't know a whole lot about art. But I know more about the subject now than I did 3 weeks ago. And who knows?, maybe, just maybe, I'll know even more about the art that I do like -- and will savor other arts and artists that I may not have appreciated as much previously. ( )