Shade and Darkness - the Evening of the Deluge
- Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date: exhibited 1843
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 787 x 781 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Shade and Darkness — the evening of the Deluge” by Joseph Mallord William Turner. Painted in 1843 as an oil on canvas, it was later acquired as part of the Turner Bequest in 1856. Turner pairs this work with a companion piece, “Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory), The Morning after the Deluge – Moses writing the Book of Genesis.” The pair is a visual dialogue on cool versus warm colours, drawing on Goethe’s *Farbenlehre* to explore how colour can stir emotion.
In the evening piece, Turner turns the biblical flood into a dramatic study of elemental forces. A tempestuous sea roils in deep blues and greys, the darkness of the storm’s eye looming over the trembling shoreline. The painting’s original octagonal frame gives it a sense of contained chaos, a shape that mirrors the circular vortex of water.
Turner’s late style is all about the sublime – the awe‑struck terror that comes when nature’s power is made visible. Here, the deluge becomes a moment of awe, the sky a swirling canvas of dark, almost black clouds, the sea a dark blue that swallows light. It’s a powerful reminder of how color, form, and myth can merge into one striking image.
See it in person
Shade and Darkness - the Evening of the Deluge is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
