J.M.W. Turner and Slavery: An Exhibition That Changed the Way I Look at His Art

This watercolour sketch from 1799 depicts a bucolic scene in the English countryside. It’s typical of the Romantic era of painting in its rugged depiction of an idealised landscape.

But this painting isn’t just a pretty little picture. Even though there are no people in it, it’s layered with human lives and politics. It’s an example of how the legacy of slavery reaches into many different aspects of our contemporary life and culture.

J.M.W. Turner, Fonthill: View across a Valley towards the Unfinished Tower of the Abbey, from the North-East (1799). Photo © Tate. CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported).

A few weeks ago I went to the Turner Contemporary Art Gallery in Margate, which is a little seaside town on the south coast of England. At the time I visited there was an exhibition of work by an emerging British Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong, whose art explores ideas about journeying and migration.

Larry Achiampong, Wayfinder (2022). Image courtesy of The Artist & Copperfield London.