Correcting the NGA’s Correction of J.M.W. Turner
November 14th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
(Image) Joseph Mallord William Turner. “The Fifth Plague of Egypt,” (1800). Oil on canvas. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Gift in memory of Evan F. Lilly
On exhibit in the National Gallery of Art’s Turner show is Turner’s “Fifth Plague.” The NGA wall text claims that Turner made a mistake in the title and meant instead the seventh plague: hail, not pestilence. The NGA argument presumably arises from the dramatic sky, which seems to indicate a coming hailstorm. This argument also surfaces in “Self-Representation in Byron and Turner” by James A. W. Heffernan and an article on ArtProfessor.com. (Vivien Raynor’s NY Times column “A Bounty of Egyptian Imagery” doesn’t discuss any error.)
But I think Turner was correct. Firstly, Turner would often include a dramatic sky even where it did not exist (much like the Hudson River School painters).
Further, the horses on the ground are already dead, which seems to refute a hailstorm, as Moses is still outside summoning the storm (which hasn’t arrived, as there is no hail). This suggests that Turner was likely referring to pestilence, and the stormy sky is simply a red herring. Finally, one look at Turner’s sketch in the Tate Modern collection reveals that the sky was more of an afterthought to the larger picture.
UPDATE: Some commentators on the Bible address the question how animals could have died in the seventh plague if they were all killed in the fifth plague. They respond that some Egyptians evidently feared for their flocks and kept their cattle inside for pestilence (which only struck animals outdoors), but mysteriously stopped believing in God’s might for the seventh plague and moved their animals outdoors. Perhaps Turner was painting already dead animals in his depiction of the seventh plague, but I still think my explanation above is more plausible…