The Harbor of Dieppe

To love a work of art, you must also love the place where you first experienced the work. The Frick Collection, a private art gallery inside a sumptuous mansion, is a place that encourages you to fall in love with everything you see in its rooms.Gilt clocks and porcelains, marble fixtures and velvet-cushioned armchairs, and paintings from wall to wall are interrupted only by a grand staircase that houses a grand organ fit for Westminster Cathedral. Enter the west gallery, by far the largest room in the mansion, and your eyes are drawn to the left wall, where, sandwiched between two portraits of bygone dignitaries, sits a majestic, brightly-colored oil painting, “The Harbor of Dieppe”, created in 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, clothed by a massive frame gilt with gold leaf.

The scene that unfolds is of a bustling port town at midday, where you, the viewer, are on a ship entering the harbor, surrounded by dozens of ships, some carrying passengers, most of them carrying cargo from faraway lands. In the background, the bell tower of a cathedral looms over the city, challenged only by the dome that crowns city hall. Surrounding these structures are banks, warehouses, stock exchanges and mansions with balconies and silk drapes covering the windows. Everywhere there are people moving to and fro - some unloading the ships, some embarking or disembarking from vessels, some driving down the streets in carriages - and on the right side of the painting, two men and two women watch the activity from their ship, as if they are fellow spectators.

Although Turner’s palette is bright, it is also so bold as to make every other painting in the room appear drab. It is the universally bright colors of the Harbor, the bronze of the wooden trading ships and their weightless, golden sails, the shining white paint on the impressive banks, the packed stock exchanges and the bustling warehouses, and the copper-red roofs that make the painting so happy and full of life, such that it almost appears to laugh with joy and declare “Here am I, the handiwork of man.” Whether or not one is a purveyor of history, one appreciates the sheer business of the scene, with the only sections of canvas not occupied by humans are the blue-and-white sky and the channel of water that leads in and out of the harbor.

Why does it look so happy?

If you look closer at the painting; leaning in as far as you can without upsetting the guards, you will notice that almost none of the characters in this painting are smiling. Not the workers, not the traders nor the travellers coming and going from the harbor; most of them don’t have faces, and those that do bear either a frown, or a grimace, or a look of surprise. The ‘happiest’ faces are the spectators on the boat to your right, who appear alternately serene and pensive. Beyond their boat lies a number of docks in severe disrepair, and the land adjoining them is dotted with shacks and grimy-looking apartment buildings - all of which is easy to miss, because the sun’s light is cast entirely on the left side of the canvas. The right side of the canvas is opaque, obscured by a thick mist that also casts itself over the background, including the cathedral and city hall.

What, or who, is the focus of the scene? Is it the spectators to your right, or is it the women unloading a boat laden with baskets of food, bottles of wine, paintings, velvet-covered armchairs and stools - a rich man’s household furnishings?  Is it the woman sitting by herself on a rowboat, with her legs in the water, watching a group of ducks swim past with a forlorn expression on her face? You, the viewer, can’t be sure with one look; you must either examine the painting with a Gestalt sensibility, or examine each sub-scene to find the subject.

More importantly, what is Turner trying to tell his viewers?