'Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway' by J. M. W. Turner
This audio clip describes the painting Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851).
It has been created for use as part of our primary school resource, The Superpower of Looking, in order to support pupils with blindness or visual impairment to take part in the lessons.
Explore the painting further in our resource, J. M. W. Turner's steam train.
Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway
1844
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)
Full audio description text
Called Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844), this painting is wider than it is tall, measuring just under a metre tall and 122 centimetres wide. It's by J. M. W. Turner. From a blur of white mist, streaking blue rain and showers of gold, a steam train thunders towards us along a bridge projecting from the centre of the painting towards the lower right corner. The bridge is supported on a brick arch high over a river. There are low walls either side of the tracks. The tracks themselves are only hinted at by some finely sketched parallel lines. It's hard to make out exactly where the train is coming from but a second, more ghostly looking bridge of pale stone spans the same stretch of river. This stone bridge is further round the headland and angled to the left.
The outline of a tiny boat can just be made out between the two bridges, floating on the calm, grey-blue surface that reflects the yellowish light of the storm. Across from the boat, a faint group of figures stands on the far riverbank, some of them pointing up towards the mighty, metal monster on the railway bridge, their heads turned in its direction. The figures are little more than pinkish flecks of paint.
The blue, grey, white and yellow colours of the water appear in the clouds above – the thickly applied oil paint crusting the surface of the canvas – making it hard to tell water from land and sky. Against this smeared landscape, blurred as if you were rushing past it, the tall, black funnel of the steam train stands out clearly. It belches out a curl of grey smoke that clouds the engine behind it. The front hints at metal with a blotch of colours – grey, red and blue. Little flecks of pure white rising above the funnel could be smoke but similar white flecks dot the land at the far end of the bridge which is lost in a swirl of mist. The train's open carriages are picked out with dabs of pinkish yellow suggesting the faces of the passengers.
The many small wheels of the train are ringed with white as it rushes headlong towards a terrified creature – a brown hare – running flat out. This can just be spotted between the tracks towards the end of the bridge closest to us. Over to the right, about halfway up the painting, is the tiny figure of a farmer and thin black lines hint at the shape of two black horses working the land. The farmer's white smock is another fleck of white, like the many in the stormy sky.