The Field of Waterloo (painting)

The Field of Waterloo

Artist	J. M. W. Turner
Year	1818
Type	Oil on canvas, History painting
Location	Tate Britain, London

The Field of Waterloo is an 1818 history painting by the English artist J. M. W. Turner. It portrays the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo which took place on 18 June 1815. Rather than the triumphal depictions commonplace in portrayals of the battle, it functions more as an elegy to Waterloo's unknown victims. In 1817 Turner visited the site of the battlefield and drew a number of sketches.^[1] In the background is the ruined remains of the farmhouse at Hougoumont which had played a pivotal role in the fighting. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition at Somerset House that year along with some lines from Lord Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage "friend, foe, in one red burial blent". Part of the 1856 Turner Bequest it is now in the Tate Britain in London.^[2]

References

^ Finley (1999), p. 104.
^ "'The Field of Waterloo', Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibited 1818". Tate.

Bibliography

Finley, Gerald (1999). Angel in the Sun: Turner's Vision of History. McGill-Queen's Press.
Hamilton, James (1998). Turner - A Life. Sceptre.

v t e J. M. W. Turner
Paintings	Interior of a Romanesque Church (c. 1795–1800) Landscape with Windmill and Rainbow (c. 1795–1800) Diana and Callisto (c. 1796) Fishermen at Sea (1796) Interior of a Gothic Church (c. 1797) Limekiln at Coalbrookdale (c. 1797) Moonlight, a Study at Millbank (1797) Aeneas and the Sibyl, Lake Avernus (c. 1798) Buttermere Lake, with Part of Cromackwater, Cumberland, a Shower (1798) Caernarvon Castle (c. 1798) Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland (1798) Shipping by a Breakwater (1798) Tivoli and the Roman Campagna (c. 1798) View of a Town (c. 1798) Dolbadarn Castle (1798–1799) Self-Portrait (c. 1799) View in Wales: Mountain Scene with Village and Castle – Evening (c. 1799–1800) Welsh Mountain Landscape (c. 1799–1800) A Beech Wood with Gypsies round a Campfire (c. 1800) A Beech Wood with Gypsies Seated in the Distance (c. 1800) Landscape with Lake and Fallen Tree (c. 1800) Calais Pier (1803) View on Clapham Common (c. 1800–1805) The Shipwreck (1805) London from Greenwich Park (1809) The Fifth Plague of Egypt (1810) High Street, Oxford (1810) Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812) Dido building Carthage, or, The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire (1815) Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort packet-boat from Rotterdam becalmed (1818) The Field of Waterloo (1818) England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent's Birthday (1819) Rome, from the Vatican (1820) The Battle of Trafalgar (1822) Port Ruysdael (1826) Chichester Canal (1828) Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829) Funeral of Sir Thomas Lawrence (1830) Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - Italy (1832) The Fountain of Indolence (1834) The Golden Bough (1834) Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore (1834) The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 (1835) Rome, From Mount Aventine (1835) Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute (c. 1835) The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken up (1838) Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino (1839) Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On) (1840) Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842) The Blue Rigi (1842) The Red Rigi (1842) Peace – Burial at Sea (1842) War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet (1842) Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) – The Morning after the Deluge – Moses Writing the Book of Genesis (1843) Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844) Sunrise with Sea Monsters (1845) Norham Castle, Sunrise (c. 1845) Whalers (c. 1845) The Beacon Light (unknown)
Prints	Liber Studiorum (1807–1819)
Museums	Sandycombe Lodge
Related	The Painter (2011 play) Mr. Turner (2014 film) Thomas Price Turner Turner Prize Turner Contemporary
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