Joseph Mallord William Turner, 'Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey', 1829

Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Room 40

About the work

Overview

The subject of this painting is taken from Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey. It shows Ulysses sailing from the island where Polyphemus, a one-eyed giant, had held him and his men captive. Wearing a helmet and a scarlet cloak, Ulysses raises his arms in victory as he stands on the deck of his ship, below a red banner, looking back at the island. He lifts the flaming torch with which he blinded Polyphemus, whose huge shadowy body lies sprawled across the clifftop that towers above. Luminous sea nymphs and flying fish gather at the ship’s prow as a blazing sun rises through the morning mists.

The painting signals the increasing role of colour and light in Turner’s historical landscapes. It also marks the increasingly expressive direction his painting was to follow and anticipates the visionary qualities of his late work. Writing in 1856, the English art critic John Ruskin declared it to be ‘the central picture of Turner’s career'.

In-depth

The subject of this painting is taken from Book IX of Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey. Turner shows Ulysses sailing away from the island where Polyphemus – a man-eating cyclops (one-eyed giant) – had held him and his men captive.

Ulysses escaped by blinding Polyphemus as he slept. Wearing a helmet and a scarlet cloak, Ulysses stands beneath a red banner on his ship the morning after his escape, shouting his name to taunt the giant. As he looks back at the island, he raises his arms in victory and lifts the flaming torch with which he blinded the giant, whose enormous shadowy form lies sprawled across the clifftop that towers above. His left knee raised above the skyline, Polyphemus supports his head with a hand outlined in dark red as he prepares to hurl a boulder down upon the ship.

As Ulysses and his men make their escape, dawn arrives, represented by the brilliant disk of the sun pulled upwards by the horses of the sun god Apollo. Hard to see today, these horses were modelled in part upon those on the Parthenon frieze, which were on display at the British Museum from 1817. Although not mentioned in the poem, Turner includes a group of nereids – sea nymphs with stars on their foreheads – who, accompanied by flying fish, gather before the ship’s prow.

Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer’s Odyssey was based on oil sketches Turner had made in Italy between August 1828 and February 1829. In Rome – where he may have seen Annibale Carraci’s Polyphemus frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese – he had exhibited several bold works, including Regulus (Tate, London) which included a dazzling yellow sun. The delay in shipping these canvases back to London from Rome forced Turner to produce new paintings, including this one, for the Royal Academy exhibition of 1829. The painting was a response to the sunrises of Claude, such as Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula, which Turner greatly admired.

The rich variety of colours – which range from deep cobalt blues and fiery reds to delicate pinks, greens and yellows – signals the increasing role of colour and light over what Turner described as ‘historic tone’ in his historical landscapes. This shift of emphasis was encouraged by his awareness of recent investigations into optics, including Goethe’s Theory of Colours (1810), which he probably discussed with his friend and fellow artist Charles Eastlake, who later translated Goethe’s book.

The painting had a mixed reception, with one hostile review referring to its ‘colouring gone mad … with all the vehement contrasts of a kaleidoscope or Persian carpet‘. However, writing soon after Turner’s death, the English art critic John Ruskin declared it to be ‘the central picture of Turner’s career’. This work marks the increasingly expressive direction Turner’s painting was to follow and anticipates the visionary qualities of his late work.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey
Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
Artist dates: 1775 - 1851
Date made: 1829
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 132.5 × 203 cm
Acquisition credit: Turner Bequest, 1856
Inventory number: NG508
Location: Room 40
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Joseph Mallord William Turner
Frame: 19th-century English Frame (original frame)

Provenance

Turner Bequest 1856.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Judy Egerton, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings’, London 2000; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2015

Danger and Beauty. William Turner and the Tradition of the Sublime

Rijksmuseum Twenthe

5 September 2015 - 3 January 2016
2016

JMW Turner: Adventures in Colour

Turner Contemporary

8 October 2016 - 8 January 2017
2018

Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

30 January 2018 - 13 May 2018

The National Gallery (London)

11 June 2018 - 7 October 2018
2020

Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London

The National Museum of Western Art

18 June 2020 - 18 October 2020

The National Museum of Art

3 November 2020 - 31 January 2021
2021

Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London

National Gallery of Australia

5 March 2021 - 14 June 2021

Bibliography

1857

J. Ruskin, Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House, 1856, London 1857
1857

R.N. Wornum, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, with Biographical Notices of the Painters: British School, London 1857
1870

E. Eastlake, Contributions to the Literature of the Fine Arts, 2nd edn, London 1870
1903

J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, eds E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, The Works of John Ruskin, 39 vols, London 1903
1908

W.G. Rawlinson, The Engraved Works of J.M.W. Turner, 2 vols, London 1908
1910

A.J. Finberg, Turner's Sketches and Drawings, London 1910
1930

W.T. Whitley, Art in England 1821-1837, Cambridge 1930
1946

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, London 1946
1946

M. Davies, Paintings and Drawings on the Backs of National Gallery Pictures, London 1946
1956

A. Pigler, Barockthemen: Eine auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikongraphie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Budapest 1956
1958

D. Farr, William Etty, London 1958
1959

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1959
1968

J. Gage, 'Turner's Academic Friendships: C.L. Eastlake', The Burlington Magazine, CX/789, 1968, pp. 676-85
1969

J. Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth, London 1969
1969

D. Hirsch, The World of Turner, New York 1969
1977

K.D. Nicholson, J.M.W. Turner's Images of Antiquity, Phd Thesis, University of Pennslyvania 1977
1981

W. Gaunt, Turner, Oxford 1981
1981

W. Chubb, 'Minerva Medica and the Tall Trees', Turner Studies, I/2, 1981, pp. 26-35
1981

J. Gage, 'Turner and the Greek Spirit', Turner Studies, I/2, 1981, pp. 14-23
1982

M. Butlin and E. Joll, L'opera completa di Turner 1793-1829, Milan 1982
1984

M. Butlin and E. Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., New Haven 1984
1990

D. Birch, Ruskin on Turner, London 1990
1990

S. Ginzburg, Turner, New York 1990
1990

E. Shanes, Turner's Human Landscape, London 1990
1990

E. Shanes, Turner: The Masterworks, London 1990
1994

A. Thomas, An Illustrated Dictionary of Narrative Painting, London 1994
1995

G. Finley, 'J.M.W. Turner and the Legacy of Greece', Gazette des beaux-arts, CXXVI/1522, 1995, pp. 187-94
1995

R. White and J. Pilc, 'Analyses of Paint Media', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XVI, 1995, pp. 85-95
1997

A. Bailey, Standing in the Sun: A Life of J.M.W. Turner, London 1997
1997

J. Hamilton, Turner: A Life, London 1997
1997

M.D. Rincón de Arellano, 'Turner visto por sus contemporáneos', Goya, 256, 1997, pp. 235-40
1997

D.B. Brown et al., Joseph Mallord William Turner (exh. cat. Bank Austria Kunstforum, 5 March - 1 June 1997), Vienna 1997
1998

J. Egerton, The British School, London 1998
2000

Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings, revised edn, London 2000
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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