A ghostly warship, pale as bone, glides up the river behind a squat black tug belching smoke and fire. Beyond them the sun goes down in a blaze of orange and red. J.M.W. Turner's The Fighting Temeraire (1839) shows a veteran of Trafalgar on its way to the breaker's yard, and it turns a routine piece of salvage into one of the great elegies in British painting. Quick facts Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) Date: 1839 Medium: Oil on canvas Collection: The National Gallery, London (Turner Bequest, 1856) Notable fact: Voted the greatest painting in a British collection in a 2005 BBC Radio 4 poll, and chosen for the back of the Bank of England £20 note in 2020 J.M.W. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, 1839. Oil on canvas. The National Gallery, London. Image via the Sapiens Verbum print shop. A Ship That Fought at Trafalgar HMS Temeraire was a 98-gun ship of the line. At Trafalgar in 1805 she sailed into action directly behind Nelson's flagship, Victory...

Look once for the black dog on the wall. Look again for the sun that is trying to erase the river. If you only know J.M.W. Turner from storms and wrecks, Mortlake Terrace (1827) is where you meet the other Turner: the one who treats light as the main character and everything else as its supporting cast. Quick facts Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) Date: 1827 Medium: Oil on canvas (92.1 × 122.2 cm) Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Andrew W. Mellon Collection) Notable fact: Painted for William Moffatt at The Limes, Mortlake; evening companion to the Frick Collection’s Mortlake Terrace: Early Summer Morning (1826) Joseph Mallord William Turner, Mortlake Terrace, 1827. Oil on canvas. Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Accession 1937.1.109. Open Access / Public Domain. Print available from the Sapiens Verbum shop. What Is at Stake Most people scroll past a “pretty Thames sunset” in three second...