Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
War Exile and Rock Limpet
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
animals: fish and aquatic life
architecture
birth to death
coast
contemplation
crime and punishment
death - sunset
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
history
limpet
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
man
military
military
named individuals
Napoleon
Napoleonic Wars, 1796-1815
natural phenomena
people
politics and society
politics: Napoleon, exile, 1815
prisoner
reflection
seascapes and coasts
social comment
society
soldier
sunset
symbols and personifications
times of the day
townscape, distant
townscapes / man-made features
Turner, J.M.W., ‘The Fallacies of Hope’
war
work and occupations
<p>This painting reflects Turner’s lifelong engagement with topical subjects and his use of different shaped canvases. In December 1840 a grand state funeral was held for French military commander and political leader Napoleon I. Turner, however, imagines him alone and powerless in exile on the island of St. Helena. He is guarded by a British soldier. Despite its patriotic theme, the critics attacked this painting. ‘Truly ludicrous’, wrote one, complaining that the reflection of Napoleon’s boots in the water suggested he was standing on ‘two long black stilts’. Turner paired this work with <span>Peace</span>.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
15 May 2004 – 16 May 2005
2005-05-16
15 May 2004 – 5 September 2004
2004-09-05
2004-05-15
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
16 October 2004 – 16 January 2005
2005-01-16
2004-10-16
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
10 February 2005 – 16 May 2005
2005-05-16
2005-02-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-05-15
Turner Whistler Monet
Exhibition
20 March 2009 – 10 August 2009
2009-08-10
20 March 2009
2009-03-20
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-03-20
Turner and Rothko Introduction
Collection based display
19 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
19 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
2009-08-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-19
War and Peace
Collection based display
8 October 2011 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
8 October 2011 – 15 January 2012
2012-01-15
2011-10-08
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
11 February 2012 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
2012-02-11
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
2011-10-08
On the Other Side of Air:Later paintings by Turner, Monet, Twombly
Loan-out
8 October 2011 – 28 October 2012
2012-10-28
8 October 2011 – 8 January 2012
2012-01-08
2011-10-08
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
11 February 2012 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
2012-02-11
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
29 June 2012 – 28 October 2012
2012-10-28
2012-06-29
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2011-10-08
Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings
Exhibition
8 February 2013 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
8 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-08
Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
4 June 2013 – 8 September 2013
2013-09-08
2013-06-04
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
8 October 2013 – 18 December 2013
2013-12-18
2013-10-08
Toyko Metropolitan Art Museum (Toyko, Japan)
1 January 2014 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
2014-01-01
Kobe City Museum (Kobe, Japan)
2013-02-08
J.M.W. Turner: Makings of a Master
Loan-out
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-09-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
24 February 2015 – 24 May 2015
2015-05-24
2015-02-24
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
20 June 2015 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2015-06-20
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (San Francisco, USA)
http://www.famsf.org
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
24 February 2015 – 31 January 2016
2016-01-31
24 February 2015 – 24 May 2015
2015-05-24
2015-02-24
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
20 June 2015 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2015-06-20
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum
31 October 2015 – 31 January 2016
2016-01-31
2015-10-31
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
2015-02-24
Late Turner
Loan-out
1 August 2016 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
1 August 2016 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
2016-08-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2016-08-01
Clore 104 Turner exhibited
Collection based display
28 October 2020 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
28 October 2020 – 12 September 2021
2021-09-12
2020-10-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2020-10-28
Turner's Modern World
Exhibition
17 October 2021 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2021-10-17
Turner's Modern World
Loan-out
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 104
Collection based display
War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet
support: 794 × 794 × 25 mm
frame: 1030 × 1025 × 112 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="text">
<p>This painting reflects Turner’s lifelong engagement with topical subjects and his use of different shaped canvases. In December 1840 a grand state funeral was held for French military commander and political leader Napoleon I. Turner, however, imagines him alone and powerless in exile on the island of St. Helena. He is guarded by a British soldier. Despite its patriotic theme, the critics attacked this painting. ‘Truly ludicrous’, wrote one, complaining that the reflection of Napoleon’s boots in the water suggested he was standing on ‘two long black stilts’. Turner paired this work with <i>Peace</i>.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2023-10-25T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>400. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-war-the-exile-and-the-rock-limpet-n00529" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00529</span></a>]<b> War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet</b> Exh. 1842</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (529)</p>
<p>Canvas, 31 1/4 × 31 1/4 (79·5 × 79·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (43, ‘The Sea Lympit’ 2'7" × 2'7"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1905.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1842 (353); Paris 1983–4 (71, repr. in colour).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1843, 1860 and 1857 (1903–12, iii, pp. 273, 286, 297, 364, 474; vii, pp. 157–8, 435 n., 438 n.; xiii, pp. 160–61); Thornbury 1862, i, pp. 346–7; ii, p. 196; 1877, pp. 127, 171, 399, 465–6; Hamerton 1879, pp. 292–3; Bell 1901, p. 145 no. 235; Armstrong 1902, pp. 153–4, 225; Davies 1946, p. 186; Clark 1949, p. 106; Finberg 1961, pp. 390, 507 no. 549; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 68–70; Lindsay 1966, pp. 190, 202–3; 1966<sup>2</sup>, p. 52; Brill 1969, pp. 24–30, repr. p. 24; Gage 1969, pp. 194, 260 n. 83; Reynolds 1969, p. 187, pl. 164; Stuckey 1976, p. 175; Topliss 1978, pp. 90–1, pl. 5; Wallace 1979, pp. 112–13, pl. 11; Wilton 1979, pp. 200–4, 210–12, 216, pl. 229; Wilton 1980, pp. 76–7, 143, pl. xv; Paulson 1982, pp. 65–6.</p>
<p>Exhibited in 1842 with the lines:</p>
<p>‘Ah! thy tent-formed shell is like
<br/>A soldier's nightly bivouac, alone
<br/>Amidst a sea of blood <u>               </u>
<br/><u>                   </u> but you can join your comrades.’</p>
<p align="right">—<i>Fallacies of Hope</i>.</p>
<p>Ruskin, who seems to have valued this picture more highly than its companion <i>Peace—Burial at Sea</i> (No. 399), commented ‘The lines which Turner gave with this picture are very important, being the only verbal expression of that association in his mind of sunset colour with blood...the conceit of Napoleon's seeing a resemblance in the limpet's shell to a tent was thought trivial by most people at the time; it may be so (though not to my mind); the second thought, that even this poor wave-washed disk had power and liberty, denied to <i>him</i>, will hardly, I think, be mocked at.’ In <i>Modern Painters</i> Ruskin had expressed his particular liking for ‘the glowing scarlet and gold of Napoleon and Slave Ship [No. 385]’.</p>
<p>The press was universal in its condemnation of this picture, even <i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i> for July 1842, which found a general improvement in Turner's exhibits as compared with previous years, dismissing <i>War</i> as ‘a greater absurdity than ever’. The figure of Napoleon was particularly criticised. ‘He is in black military boots’, wrote the critic in the <i>Literary Gazette,</i> 14 May, ‘the continuous reflection of which from his toes in the water give him the appearance of being erected upon two long black stilts, and the whole thing is ... truly ludicrous.’ In a ‘Supplement’ to <i>The Times</i>
for 6 May the picture was dismissed as ‘an elongated Napoleon ... running to seed in a redhot atmosphere of brimstone and brickdust.’ The <i>Athenaeum</i>, 14 May, described Turner's <i>War</i> as ‘yet odder than his “Peace” In the midst of a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> smeared with every shade of rose colour, crimson, vermillion, and orange, is set up a <i>thing</i>—man it assuredly is not—’, an ‘effigy of Napoleon rolled out to a colossal height ... Below the feet of the modern Prometheus lies something about the size of his cocked-hat, called in the Catalogue “a rock limpet”.’ For further criticism see under No. 399 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-peace-burial-at-sea-n00528" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00528</span></a>].</p>
<p>Gage (exh. cat., Paris 1983–4) sees this picture as in part a commentary on B.R. Haydon's <i>Napoleon Meditating at St. Helena</i>, 1829, one of the many versions of which belonged to Samuel Rogers.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults animals: fish and aquatic life architecture birth to death coast contemplation crime and punishment death - sunset emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas history limpet literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) man military military named individuals Napoleon Napoleonic Wars, 1796-1815 natural phenomena people politics and society politics: Napoleon, exile, 1815 prisoner reflection seascapes and coasts social comment society soldier sunset symbols and personifications times of the day townscape, distant townscapes / man-made features Turner, J.M.W., ‘The Fallacies of Hope’ war work and occupations