Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on!

J.M.W. Turner, The Slave Ship (1840). Oil on canvas. 90.8 × 122.6 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on” or simply “The slave ship”, for me is one of the greatest masterpieces of the all time. Made by British painter Joshep Mallord William Turner, was exhibited the first time on 1840.

This is a Romanticism picture, made in the last years of this style. In these times, the first appearances of the Impressionism begin to see in the new painters and something about that style we can see in this picture. The colors and the oils were applied in another way compared with others Romanticism painters like Eugène Delacroix or Théodore Géricault. The colors are more mixed, the forms don’t have definition and the composition is very weird to these years. Then ¿Why this picture was considerate a Romanticism paint and don’t like an Impressionism paint?

The topic of this picture makes this picture very romanticism. One of the recurrent topics of this style was show the force of the nature against the human, that’s called by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant like the Sublime. In the picture we can see the shipwreck of a slavery ship, destroyed by the force of the sea. In the sea, the bodies floating around the fragments of the ship and was eating by the fishes of the sea. The fishes have a monster aspect, this like metaphor of the massacre happened. That’s all product of the imagination of William Turner, caused he never watch this event. The main reference about this event was a lines of the poet James Thompson in his poem The Seasons. Is very political and personal picture of Turner, a speech against the slavery, one of the first demonstrations of political art.

Alan Moore

One of my favorites artist is Alan Moore. Alan Moore is a comic writer born November 1953 in Northampton, England. Is one of the most important comic writers of the history, producing famous novels like V for Vendetta, Fron Hell, Watchmen and participating on famous titles like Green Lantern, Superman and Batman.

Alan Moore in the childhood was a prodigious reader, since the five years is started to read novel and comic books, make of this an advance child on his class. Then, Moore was transferred to the Northampton  Grammar School. That’s was his first contact with the high class people. This caused in Moore a shock to see the difference in the education of this Childs. After that, Moore lost interest in the academic education and a formal training. He says: “covert curriculum" being taught that was designed to indoctrinate children with "punctuality, obedience and the acceptance of monotony"

In the 60, Moore star to publishing own poetry and fanzines, added to a arts lab and his first experiences with the LSD.  Moore describes his self like the "one of the world's most inept LSD dealers". For this, Moore was expelled of this school in the 70’.

The most famous period of the work of Alan Moore is in the 80’. In this, he published the most important works of his carrer like a comic writer, overall in the middle of the 80’ whe hi stard to work on DC Comics. Here Moore worked in titles like V for Vendetta (1982), Superman:  Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (1986) , Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), Wachtmen (1986), Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual 2, etc…

The most important feature of his work is the “pitch dark” of his stories and the re-configuration of the Superheroes perspective, giving that more profundity to the personality of the characters and to the scripts, this really like cause marks the beginning of a new era of the comic books, with another writers like Frank Miller and give a important legacy to he new generation of comic writers and reader.