JMW Turner's Shipwreck and Ancient Rome at Tate Britain

Philosopher Edmund Burke defined the sublime as a blend of terror and admiration, distinguishing it from beauty which consists of well-formed, aesthetically pleasing objects. According to Burke, the sublime has the power to compel and destroy us, while beauty merely pleases. This philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful was published in 1757 and marked the transition from neoclassical to romantic art styles. The sublime celebrates the vastness and unimaginable largeness of nature and how humans are not in control of it.

The sublime was more than just beauty of a sunset—it was about awe and terror. The natural world was dangerous without convention, society, or God. The sublime is man lost in the immensity of nature. The key to the sublime was the ability to lose yourself, experiencing no horizons and no sense of confinement. It represented longing to be free.

Edmund Burke's 1757 philosophical treatise defined the sublime as an artistic effect producing the strongest emotion the mind can feel. Whatever is terrible or operates analogously to terror is a source of the sublime. In landscape painting, this manifests through sea storms and mountain scenes that evoke human insignificance before nature's vast power. Burke argued that experiencing the sublime makes us feel small, helping put daily irritants into perspective. This psychological corrective reduces egoism and pride, potentially increasing tolerance and reducing fixation on immediate concerns.

Shipwrecks have profoundly shaped Britain's history, destiny, and national character. While Britain conquered the sea through glorious naval victories that built a huge empire, shipwrecks represent a less well-known maritime phenomenon that has been lodged deep in the nation's psychological makeup. Britain's island geography and global maritime ambitions made the country more prone to shipwrecks than practically anywhere else. The Goodwin Sands off the coast of Kent represent the largest concentration of shipwrecks anywhere in the world, having terrified sailors since the 16th century. The Great Storm of 1703, the only bona fide hurricane to ever hit Britain's shores, sank 13 warships and 40 merchantmen on the Goodwin Sands, killing 2,000 men. The Mary Rose, Henry VIII's flagship, sank on July 19, 1545, during a battle with the French Fleet, taking almost 400 men to their deaths. This sinking revealed that Britain was not yet ready to sail the seven seas and conquer the world, as Henry VIII's Navy was built for flag waving and prestige more than for fighting.

The English are the Maritime Empire, constant and shipwreck. They have safety or hope only with the Lady of the Ship. Without her, they have nothing. The ships and the sea represent the English identity as a maritime power. The language is used to communicate with Mars, converse with spirits, report the behavior of sea monsters, describe horoscopes, observe disease and signatures, evoke biography from the wrinkles of the poem, and release tragedy from fingers. The usual pastimes and drugs and features of the press include scrying, observing disease and signatures, evoking biography from the wrinkles of the poem, and tragedy from fingers.

England's relationship with the sea had by the late 16th and 17th centuries developed into something that might fairly be described as a vocation. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, part luck, part weather, part the genuine skill of English sailors and the quality of English ship design, had established England as a naval power of the first rank. Over the following century, the English Navy fought the Dutch three times over control of maritime trade routes, and one each time, or at least one enough, to establish the principle that English ships would not be pushed around on the world's oceans. The Navigation Acts of the 17th century mandated that goods imported into England and its colonies had to be carried on English ships. This was in effect a massive government subsidy for the English shipping industry. By the early 18th century, England, Great Britain after the 1707 Act of Union, had the largest and most capable navy in the world. The Royal Navy was the single most important institution in the history of the British Empire. Without it, nothing else was possible. The colonies could not have been established. The trade routes could not have been protected. The empire could not have been defended. The Navy of the 17th and 18th centuries was in many ways a deeply unpleasant institution. Its sailors were often pressed into service—literally kidnapped from ports and coastal villages by press gangs empowered by law to take any man they found and make him a sailor whether he liked it or not. The conditions aboard ship were cramped and dark and smelled of bilge water and tar and unwashed bodies. The food was terrible—hardtack biscuit full of weevils, salt pork that had been in the barrel for months, beer that was marginally safer than the water it replaced. The discipline was brutal—flogging with a cat-o'-nine-tails was a routine punishment. Death by disease was far more common than death by enemy action. Yet men served because the pay was regular, which in an economy where many people worked seasonally or uncertainly, was genuinely valuable. They served because the Navy offered a kind of adventure and a kind of belonging that was hard to find elsewhere. They served because they had been pressed and had no choice. Over time, as the Navy became more established, because the traditions and the culture of the sea had become a real thing, a genuine identity, a way of being in the world that many men were proud of.

No was this blind worship of Nelson more apparent than at a new barracks built in Portsmouth in 1903. The officer mess was designed like a religious space—a shrine to Britain's naval greatness. The ceiling featured massive oak beams shaped like HMS Victory's hull, and the walls depicted epic murals of all the greatest moments in British maritime history, with Nelson prominently displayed. This room told you so much about the Royal Navy at the start of the 20th century—the way its officers were surrounded by images of a glorious past. The problem was these victories were 100 years old and the world had moved on. Britain was no longer the only modern industrial power. The technological lead that the country had enjoyed for so much of the 19th century had been lost as the Industrial Revolution spread, ushering in a new era of aggressive national rivalry.

The foundation of the British Empire was deep-water navigation and naval power. In the late 1800s, England had an especially potent Navy that enabled it to project military force globally at chosen times and locations, keeping its military ahead of competitors. Economically, this naval dominance allowed Britain to switch trade partners at will, enriching the British population. As technology advanced, the skilled English Navy expanded globally, seizing control of global trade networks. Between 1600 and 1800, the Portuguese lost control of South Asia and the Far East to the Brits, while English colonies supplanted competitors in Africa, India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. This maritime-oriented culture proved ideal for empire-building, crafting the greatest empire ever seen before.

The Grand Tour was a traditional trip undertaken by wealthy young Englishmen (and occasionally women) in the 17th and 18th centuries, lasting several years, designed as the final step in their classical education to prepare them for participation in government and civic life; the journey typically began in England, crossed the English Channel to France, then proceeded through Italy—the birthplace of Western Civilization—where travelers explored Rome's ancient ruins, the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, and later Pompeii and Herculaneum after 1730, before visiting Florence and Venice; this exposure to classical antiquity, art, and culture broadened their horizons and ultimately influenced the development of neoclassicism in England and Northern Europe, with the practice later adopted by Germans and Americans.

The Grand Tour, practiced from the 16th century onwards, was an initiatory journey undertaken by young aristocrats through European empires (Holy Roman Empire, British, Russian, American, French). These travels to discover countries like Italy and Greece inspired artists, painters, writers, and scientists such as Velázquez, Hubert Robert, Chateaubriand, and Lamartine. This travel phenomenon served to study ancient Greeks and Romans, and was amplified after the identification of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 1733, which moved the nascent Romantic movement to venerate ruins as vestiges of the past.

The Grand Tour was a centuries-old tradition where European aristocrats traveled to Italy to receive classical education. Before traveling, they studied ancient Greek and Roman foundations and French language. The journey typically lasted two years, following routes from London through Paris to Rome. This tradition served as a crucial pathway for intellectual development, with figures like Adam Smith (who served as a tour guide) using these experiences to produce major works like 'The Wealth of Nations.' The Grand Tour established Italy as the center of European artistic learning, with most artists and architects traveling there to study before returning home. This pattern of study abroad created a network of cultural exchange that spread Italian artistic innovations across Europe.

The Grand Tour was considered essential for becoming a cultured man, particularly for learning Renaissance Greco-Roman art. The German hellenist Winckelmann was the major promoter of Italian travel, inspiring Goethe. The discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the famous archaeologist (Kubier) added to the tour's appeal. Travelers visited Venice, Florence (including the Uffizi Gallery), and Rome, which offered a world in itself with its treasures and the intoxicating mixture that filled young artists' hearts.

The Grand Tour spread beyond aristocracy to wealthy bourgeoisie and many artists and writers, who found it useful for encountering famous works and antiquities, as well as finding new employment opportunities at European courts. In Rome, increased commissions from the Pope allowed many foreign artists to find work during their travels. Among aristocrats, it became fashionable to be painted as souvenirs of their journeys, with landscapes of visited locations. With the rise of realistic landscape painting, many artists traveled to find exotic inspiration. From the 1700s, Rome became the main destination of the Grand Tour due to its natural, artistic, and cultural beauties. Goethe's publication of his travel diary 'Journey to Italy' (1813-1817) further popularized Italy, which was declared 'the beautiful country' and became the ideal model of beauty.