The Fifth Plague of Egypt
J. M. W. Turner·1800
Historical Context
J. M. W. Turner painted The Fifth Plague of Egypt in 1800, an ambitious early work depicting the biblical plague of pestilence from the Book of Exodus. The painting established the 25-year-old Turner as a painter of sublime historical landscapes, building on the tradition of Poussin and Salvator Rosa while pushing toward the atmospheric intensity that would define his later career. Turner exhibited the work at the Royal Academy, where it demonstrated his ambition to elevate landscape painting to the status of history painting — the highest category in academic art theory.
Technical Analysis
Turner orchestrates a dramatic interplay of light and darkness across the vast Egyptian landscape, with a storm-blackened sky broken by shafts of divine light. The composition demonstrates his early mastery of the Burkean sublime, using scale, atmospheric turbulence, and the contrast between human vulnerability and natural forces to create an overwhelming visual experience.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the divine light breaking through storm clouds: Turner creates the dramatic contrast between Egyptian landscape darkness and the supernatural illumination of divine wrath that was the Fifth Plague.
- ◆Look at how the plague's atmospheric effects organize the composition: the darkness, wind, and rain that constitute this biblical catastrophe are simultaneously the painting's primary atmospheric effects.
- ◆Observe the architectural ruins in the landscape: Egyptian monuments appear within the plague's devastation, giving the atmospheric drama specific historical and geographic grounding.
- ◆Find the human figures overwhelmed by the natural and divine forces: tiny against the vast storm, they embody humanity's helplessness before forces beyond human control.
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