Dawn After the Wreck, by J M W Turner

“Dawn After the Wreck”, which is also known as “The Baying Hound” is a watercolour incorporating red chalk over a pencil base, and it measures 25.1 x 36.8 centimetres. It was painted in about 1841 by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) and is therefore a work of his maturity. It is a scene of a beach, sea and sky with only one object being visible, namely the “baying hound” of the alternative title.

Given the date of the painting, the beach in question is almost certainly at Margate, Kent, where Turner spent much of his time in the 1840s.

The mention of a wreck in the title clearly implies that this painting has some sort of story to tell. There is no sign of a wrecked ship to be seen, only the three elements of land, sea and sky, plus the lone dog. The story is there for the viewer to deduce for themselves, or they can accept the version advanced by John Ruskin (1819-1900), who was Turner’s greatest near-contemporary champion:

“Some little vessel – a collier probably – has gone down in the night, all hands lost; a single dog has come ashore. Utterly exhausted it stands howling and shivering. The dawn clouds have the first scarlet upon them, a feeble tinge only, reflected with the same feeble bloodstain on the sand”. (in “Modern Painters”, vol 5, 1860)

Maybe Ruskin read more into the painting than the artist intended, but that really does not matter because Ruskin’s story is as valid as any other, including Turner’s. It was Turner’s genius to paint only what he saw, and if he saw a suggestion of colour on a wet beach, and the imperceptible melding of the colours of sea and sky, then it was that suggestion that he transferred to the canvas (or, as in this case, paper) and it is the viewer’s task to take from that vision what he or she will. It has sometimes been said that Turner was the first impressionist, but that is not really true, because Turner did not offer an impression as much as the truth of a scene, and it was up to the viewer to make his or her own impression based on what they saw. That is why an infinite number of stories can be told by the painting, each one being personal to the individual viewer, and it can change between viewings, just as the scene itself would change every time one looked at it.

The sort of scene offered here, if one omits the dog, would be one that an amateur photographer would consider too boring to waste an exposure on. The sea is doing nothing exceptional, with just an average breaker coming ashore. The sky is mostly a bland yellow with lowish cloud and a hint of red as noted by Ruskin. Only a corner of the sun can be seen as it breaks through the cloud, but it is enough to send a weak beam that reflects on the wet sand. The colours of the sky are also reflected on the sand, such that there is a patch of red there as well. Ruskin’s mention of this as “a feeble bloodstain” is significant, because he understood Turner to believe that scarlet red symbolised destruction and death. This patch, at the top and bottom of the picture, therefore forms a framework with the sea in between. The sea now looks innocent enough but it harbours a deadly secret. Only the dog remains, its body and head pointing (and indeed barking) at the red in the sky as if to tell the viewer his story of the tragedy out at sea.

There is therefore much more going on here than might appear at first sight. Although Turner always created his paintings from perception rather than emotion, the viewer can respond to the atmosphere created by Turner’s masterly orchestration of light, colour and composition to add whatever emotion they choose, based on the story they want to assume.

“Dawn After the Wreck” is held by London’s Courtauld Gallery, having been bequeathed, along with some other Turner watercolours, by Sir Stephen Courtauld in 1974.

© John Welford