In Wreckers, Coast of Northumberland, we see J.M.W. Turner’s 1836 fascination with the sublime turmoil of the sky and the sea. This, and the artist’s style of loose and fast brushstrokes conspire to make a picture that is both true to the perception and romanticized with an impulse to near abstraction.
The boatmen of the shore are distinguishable as figures but not detailed and the drama consists in the violent convergence of mist, storm clouds, and the roaring North Sea on the land.
J.M.W. Turner’s Wreckers, Coast of Northumberland (often referred to as Coast of Northumberland, with a Steam-Boat Assisting a Ship off Shore) is at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, United States