The Fighting Temeraire, Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up
7:00 AM |
| William Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up, 1838 |
The 98-gun ship Temeraire played a consequential role in British naval victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, after which it was named The Fighting Temeraire."However, thirty years later, its service came to an end. In 1838, it was decommissioned and towed to Rotherhithe to be broken.
A ghostlike warship against a sunset, a final goodbye to a former hero. The painting is thought to represent the decline of British naval power, or perhaps, to symbolize the passing away of the age of sail in competition of steamboats and iron vessels in general. In both cases, there is a nostalgia, a sense of lost, idyllic era. Temeraire travels east, against the sunset, and seems nobler and much more magnificent comparing to the black steamboat on the side. However, Temeraire's nobleness only adds more to the power of industrial technologies, for its grandness and delicateness cannot put off the inevitable - the coming era of Industrial Revolution.
For me, coming to America has meant the past has been put aside. Triumph or failure that belongs to the past, like Temeraire, is going to be towed to disposal. New ideas and experience, like this steamboat, are leading the way to some unknown destination, while exposing and changing the shades and degrees of my personality. I cherish the decision I made and understand that every step is irrevocable. There is nothing I can ask but the hope that years later, when I encounter this painting again in some surprising moment, there will be gratitude and thankfulness for the path I took and opportunities I was given, instead of solely nostalgia and reminiscence.
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