Oil paint on mahogany
Tate Britain
Germany
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>
Opening Wallhalla 1842
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
animals: mammals
architecture
baby
boat - non-specific
bridge
bridges and viaducts
children
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
classical
countries and continents
crowd
figure
fine arts and music
Germany
groups
gun, rifle
hill
history
horse
instrument, pipe
instrument, tambourine
landscape
leisure and pastimes
monument
monuments
music
music and entertainment
natural features (non-UK)
objects
palette
people
periods and styles
places
politics and society
Regensburg, Walhalla
river
River Danube
society
society: Walhalla temple, opening, 1842
transport: water
water: inland
weapons
wooded
<p>Returning from Venice in 1840, Turner saw the nearly completed Walhalla by the River Danube. Set into the hillside, this gigantic monument was built to celebrate German history and culture after the defeat of Napoleon and removal of French rule. Turner imagines its opening, painting in a feast and a procession on horseback in the right-hand foreground. It was shown in London in 1843 and Munich in 1845. Despite Turner’s intent for it to be a tribute, it was taken as an insult because of its hazy atmosphere and lack of precision. When it was returned damaged, Turner reacted like a ‘hen in a fury’.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint mahogany
13 August 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
13 August 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
2001-08-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-13
Painting Landscape and History
Collection based display
15 July 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-15
Exhibiting Turner
Collection based display
5 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
5 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
2009-08-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-05
Turner Abroad
Collection based display
6 August 2010 – 9 April 2012
2012-04-09
6 August 2010 – 9 April 2012
2012-04-09
2010-08-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-08-06
Romanticism Introduction
Collection based display
21 April 2012 – 8 March 2020
2020-03-08
21 April 2012 – 8 March 2020
2020-03-08
2012-04-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-21
Travelling Light: European Travels
Collection based display
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/
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
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 107
Collection based display
The Opening of the Wallhalla, 1842
support: 1127 × 2007 mm
frame: 1505 × 2362 × 110 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>Returning from Venice in 1840, Turner saw the nearly completed Walhalla by the River Danube. Set into the hillside, this gigantic monument was built to celebrate German history and culture after the defeat of Napoleon and removal of French rule. Turner imagines its opening, painting in a feast and a procession on horseback in the right-hand foreground. It was shown in London in 1843 and Munich in 1845. Despite Turner’s intent for it to be a tribute, it was taken as an insult because of its hazy atmosphere and lack of precision. When it was returned damaged, Turner reacted like a ‘hen in a fury’.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2023-10-25T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>401. </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-the-opening-of-the-wallhalla-1842-n00533" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00533</span></a>]<b> The Opening of the Wallhalla, 1842</b> Exh. 1843</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (533)</p>
<p>Mahogany, 44 5/16 × 79 (112·5 × 200·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (26, ‘The Wallhalla’ 6'5 1/2" × 3'7 1/2"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1929.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1843 (14); Congress of European Art, Munich 1845; Whitechapel 1953 (96, repr.); <i>Age of Neo-Classicism</i>R.A., September–November 1972 (1186).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1843, and letter to Mrs John Simon, 28 November 1857 (1903–12, iii, p. 249 n.; xxxvi, p. 270); G.K. Nägler, <i>Neues Allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon</i> xix 1849, p. 163; Thornbury 1862, i, pp. 347–8; 1877, p. 466; Hamerton 1879, p. 294; Richard Owen, <i>The Life of Richard Owen</i> 1894, i, p. 263; Eastlake 1895, i, p. 189; Bell 1901, p. 146 no. 236; Armstrong 1902, pp. 157, 205, 236; MacColl 1920, p. 22; Falk 1938, p. 181; Davies 1946, p. 186; Finberg 1961, pp. 395–6, 404, 414–15, 507 no. 550; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 56; Lindsay 1966, p. 250 n. 11; 1966<sup>2</sup>, p. 52; Robert Rosenblum, <i>Transformations in late Eighteenth Century Art</i> 1967, p. 139, pl. 161; Reynolds 1969, pp. 185–6, pl. 157; Vaughan 1979, p. 472; Wilton 1982, pp. 26–8, repr.</p>
<p>Exhibited in 1843 with the following caption referring to Napoleon:</p>
<p>‘<i>L'honneur au Roi de Baviere</i>’:
<br/>‘Who rode on thy relentless car, fallacious Hope?
<br/>He, though scathed at Ratisbon, poured on
<br/>The tide of war o'er all thy plain, Bavare,
<br/>Like the swollen Danube at the gates of Wien.
<br/> 	But peace returns—the morning ray
<br/>Beams on the Wallhalla, reared to science, and the arts,
<br/>For men renowned, of German fatherland’.</p>
<p align="right">—<i>Fallacies of Hope</i>, M.S.</p>
<p>The Walhalla is a temple in the Doric style on the Danube about five miles from Regensburg, designed by Leo von Klenze. The foundation stone was laid by Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1830 and it was finally opened in 1842. Turner had seen it on his return from Venice in 1840 and there is 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/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> in the ‘Venice, Bamburg and Coburg’ sketchbook (CCCX-70). The picture was, as Turner's caption indicates, a tribute to the King of Bavaria and in 1845 he sent it to the ‘Congress of European Art’, the opening exhibition at the new ‘Temple of Art and Industry’ in Munich; the wife of Turner's friend, the anatomist and naturalist Sir Richard Owen, had translated part of the programme for the exhibition, as she recorded in her diary on 8 August 1845.</p>
<p>The article on Turner in Nägler's <i>Künstler-Lexicon</i> gives a near-contemporary account of the German reaction to the picture. ‘The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> caused a sensation because it was seen as a pure satire on this kind of celebration. One knew Turner from the lovely steel <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engravings</span></a> after his drawings and imagined, therefore, that one had been honoured with a lampoon by him. If the later works of this master show the same kind of treatment, they could be taken as proof of the worst and most ludicrous kind of confusion into which art can get. When looking at this picture, it was impossible to comprehend that the artist had once painted good pictures and knew how to produce beautiful effects of light and colour. Pictures of the above-mentioned kind show neither sense nor understanding. One would like to see these productions as a cheerful satire if only they were not, unfortunately, so patently meant to be taken seriously. For his contribution to the Munich art exhibition he goes down in history on page 198 of the Kunstblatt 1846, as a dauber. At the same time we note that in England too, the degeneration of such an outstanding talent is regretted. Some of his works are seen only as curiosities of the art of painting.’</p>
<p>The picture returned from Munich damaged and was seen by Elizabeth Rigby, later Lady Eastlake, when she visited Turner's studio on 20 May 1846. ‘The old gentleman was great fun: his splendid picture of “Walhalla” had been sent to Munich, there ridiculed as might be expected, and returned to him with 71[£] to pay, and sundry spots upon it: on this Turner laid his odd misshapen thumb in a pathetic way. Mr. Munro suggested they would rub out, and I offered my cambric handkerchief; but the old man edged us away, and stood before his picture like a hen in a fury.’</p>
<p>But Ruskin, discussing the poor technique of some of Turner's oil paintings, says that ‘No <i>picture</i> of Turner's is seen in perfection a month after it is painted. The Walhalla cracked before it had been eight days in the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a> rooms ...’ However, apart from two cracks running into the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panel</span></a> from the left and right-hand edges, the picture is in relatively good condition for a work of this size, support and period.</p>
<p>In England the <i>Walhalla</i> was generally well received by the press, if only in comparison with Turner's other works of recent years. For the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> of 9 May 1843, it was ‘one of the most intelligible pictures he has exhibited for many years’, a view echoed by the <i>Athenaeum</i>
for 17 June and the <i>Spectator</i> for 13 May, which also described it as ‘a superb <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></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/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>’, though ‘the group of figures and emblems ... is one of those licences of art which Turner exercises to give effect to his pictures.’ Even <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i>, August 1843, found the picture ‘far the best’ of Turner's exhibits; ‘indeed it has its beauties; distances are happily given: most absurd are the figures, and the inconceivable foreground.’ <i>The Times</i> for 9 May, however, dismissed the picture as ‘One of Mr. Turner's clever perpetrations.’</p>
<p>The <i>Illustrated London News</i> for 20 May gave the picture a long eulogy, beginning ‘This is a noble picture, full of the poetry of the art ... Mr. Turner, in dealing with this great subject, appears to have soared beyond his besetting sins, and for once to have leapt within the limits of propriety.’ 	The review continued by recommending ‘to the notice of artists—and especially young ones-the quality of Mr. Turner's colours, and his peculiar mode of applying them to the <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>canvass</span></a>. His pigments are generally very much diluted, and seem to be laid on the canvass, not in broad heavy flats of colour, but by a successive elaboration of touches, each one more delicate and slightly differing in tint from its predecessor. It is in this way, we believe, he has succeeded, beyond all other artists, in getting the atmosphere—the colour—the depth of nature itself into his pictures.’</p>
<p>More critical was the <i>Art Union</i> for June 1843. ‘The landscape is by no means generally eligible, but this is of no moment, the object of the artist being to paint light and atmosphere; and how far he may be successful, will be better shown half a century hence than now. The admirers of Mr. Turner say, indeed, that Time will restore him to the high fame of which Time has deprived him. Yet those who see this picture, and here make a first acquaintance with the artist, will find it difficult to believe that he once painted pictures of chaste, delicate, and surpassing beauty—as true to nature as Nature is to herself ... The picture is a whirlpool, or a whirlpool of colours; neither referring to fact, nor appealing to the imagination.’</p>
<p>In a letter to Mrs John Simon of 28 November 1857 Ruskin quotes the <i>Walhalla</i>, among other works, as an example of Turner's failure with human figures.</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
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults animals: mammals architecture baby boat - non-specific bridge bridges and viaducts children cities, towns, villages (non-UK) classical countries and continents crowd figure fine arts and music Germany groups gun, rifle hill history horse instrument, pipe instrument, tambourine landscape leisure and pastimes monument monuments music music and entertainment natural features (non-UK) objects palette people periods and styles places politics and society Regensburg, Walhalla river River Danube society society: Walhalla temple, opening, 1842 transport: water water: inland weapons wooded