Editor’s Note: Captain H. A. Baldridge, U. S. Navy, who carried on the correspondence which led to the reproduction of this month’s colored frontispiece, has prepared the following notes at the request of the editor.
WHY should the Proceedings publish a reproduction of “Mount Vesuvius in Eruption in 1818," by the great Turner? What interest can the Navy and its friends have in this painting? What connection is there between art and the naval profession?
The answer can be given best, perhaps, in the words of the present owner of the original painting, Sir Robert A. Hadfield, of London, who in a letter to the writer regarding it said, “I like it because to me it is a metallurgical picture!”
Sir Robert has been a foreign associate member of the Institute for a good many years and when this picture was mentioned some eighteen months ago in the words quoted above, the Institute determined to publish it if permission could be obtained from the owner, provided of course, justice could be done in the reproduction, both to the painting and to the artist.
Permission has been graciously given and the owner went to the trouble and expense of having an autochrome made which is “a faithful copy of the original,” and upon its receipt the Institute spared no expense for the engravings and printing.
The United States Navy has long been interested in metallurgy and, by its insistence years ago that the ships of the “New Navy” be built of steel manufactured in the United States, was largely responsible for the first steel produced in this country. The Navy’s specifications for armor gave a great impetus to the scientific handling of ores and to the heat treatments so necessary to produce the finished product.
Every Navy Is Interested in Metallurgy
In an address before the “Empire Mining and Metallurgical Congress,” 1924, Sir Robert A. Hadfield said in connection with a colored heat chart then under consideration:
Whilst, therefore, the use of such a chart is not advocated except in the total absence through impracticability of other means of determining temperature, even that of the eye of an experienced workman, it is believed that, since such charts find a use, the present one will be found a better guide than some which have hitherto been published, which, indeed, if put to the test as this one has been, would have hopelessly failed.
With these reservations as regards its use, no doubt metallurgists, engineers, and others concerned with the working of high-temperature plant, may find it useful to have such a chart; hence the author’s mention and description of it here.
The chart has been limited at the upper end to a temperature of 1600? C., mainly for the reason stated—that discrimination of temperature by color at this high temperature becomes very insensitive, the effects of brilliancy predominating. This temperature will be found high enough for most practical purposes.
The judgment of temperature in these higher regions must be based on some other physical property of the material heated than the light emitted. We have already alluded to this question in discussing melting-furnaces.
The actual color at this high temperature is a matter of interest. Quite commonly, but probably without sufficient care, temperatures even below 1600? C. are often referred to as a white heat, which, of course, does not really exist. No doubt the fact that brilliancy and glare on the eye is allowed to affect its true judgment is the cause of this. The reproduction by artificial means even of daylight, which is generally regarded as white (as will be seen from the lamps used in illuminating the chart), involves the use of a particular shade of blue. The actual description of the true color is a matter of some difficulty, and the author would be glad to have suggestions. The nearest descriptions in terms of the color of familiar objects that it has been possible so far to find are shown, although obviously they admit of some improvement. It is important to add that the chart should not be used to estimate the temperature of flames nor of heated objects illuminated in any way by flames. The color of flames is a matter quite distinct from that of solid bodies, and in fact flames, even those of approximately the same temperature, may differ widely in color, depending on the materials under combustion.
Even in the case of solid bodies, especially in the open, the colors are not quite identical. Under enclosed conditions as in a furnace, however, the differences are negligible, or at any rate within the limits of accuracy of a color chart. When confined to iron and steel the chart may be used indiscriminately on material in the furnace, or in the open as in the case of a rolling-mill. For use with some other metals in the open, however, it would require modification.
Finally, in this connection the author may perhaps be allowed to digress for a moment from the scientific to the artistic aspect of temperature colors. It is hardly possible to conceive a more beautiful attempt to depict the different colors and the shades of high temperatures than that shown in the wonderful picture “Mount Vesuvius in Eruption in 1818,” painted by that renowned British artist, J. M. W. Turner, R.A. As this water-color happens to belong to the author, he hopes to have the pleasure of exhibiting the picture itself at the Congress, or, failing this being possible, then as a lantern slide, should the one now being prepared prove satisfactory. No mere copy, however carefully prepared, can at all equal the beautiful tones of the colors in the picture itself, which vary from dull red to the most delicate tints, indicating temperatures from about 600? C. to 1400? C., these being depicted by Turner in a marvellously artistic manner.
It may be of interest to mention that it was largely owing to this picture that the preparation of the colored diagram now exhibited was undertaken. If this great artist was able to depict temperature colors so correctly, it was thought that surely it should be possible to follow his example.
The following description of the painting is from the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, July 18, 1927.
The picture, which is entitled “Mount Vesuvius in Eruption in 1818,’’ was painted about the time of Turner’s first visit to Italy in 1819, when he made his excursions into the realm of color with a masterly power in brushwork that was the keynote of his refined truthfulness. It is a remarkable coincidence that this picture should have come into the possession of a great master of science like Sir Robert Hadfield, to whom no secrets of metals in their composition, affinities, or adaptabilities are hidden, and who by means of analysis —chemical, physical, and spectroscopic—with the aid of heat almost beyond measurement, can even compare by the color of varying flames and vapors in a picture the actual nature of the material depicted. Though Turner was not troubled by any thought of scientific accuracy, he distinctly realized it by his penetrating power of observation, his keen perception of color, his skill in brushwork, which enabled him to mingle tones, whether delicate or glaring, with a degree of correct harmony that few artists could equal.
The painting reveals Vesuvius in the middle distance in violent activity, flames and burning lava being thrown through the valleys beyond, while to left and right dark fire-fringed smoke hurries away; buildings of Naples on the bay, which placidly reflect a line of white fire; the red glow smoothed out, while darker shadows spread to right and left, and on the extreme left above the center is the crescent moon, its silvery brightness modified by the battle of colors from the disturbed crater.
The picture has been painted with skillful vividness in rather fine brushwork that gives great strength to the color schemes, both in their refined and glaring accents, making a composition of tones through a fiery scale to the finest reflection; the outlines of the landscape retaining their full grandeur, lake and buildings being topographically expressed without any aggression that would lower the magnitude and dignity of the theme.
And within all this scenic beauty so finely expressed was the basic fact of matter in many combinations burning with terrific heat that practically reduced them to their primary elements that could be scientifically examined and classified.
In a letter received from Sir Robert Hadfield, after the present writer first inspected the picture in the exhibition at Burlington Arts Club, by the owner’s invitation, he remarked: “As probably you can imagine, this picture specially appealed to me as a metallurgist, because it dealt with high and low temperature colors, depicted by Turner in such a marvellously clear manner. Not long ago, with the assistance of our research laboratory, I was getting out a scale of temperatures based upon suitable color effects, and we compared our results with those of Turner; in a joking way, I would say that he was easily first in his accuracy!”
He further says: “When buying the picture it was its metallurgical aspect and bearing which induced me to obtain it. The picture might be termed—and as an expression of my admiration for this great British artist—a pearl of great price.”
Probably no picture has ever before been subjected to such a test of merit, and none could ever have stood it with more complete art purity. —E.H.
The following is from the Sheffield Independent, February 26, 1927.
Turner painted three studies of Vesuvius, and this picture . . . . possesses a double interest. It represents Turner’s work at its highest, and is one of the best of his Italian studies.
With masterly skill he shows the brilliant colors representative of molten lava at the mouth of the crater, in a circle of deep gloom representing the effect of the mass of smoke at night. In spite of this, however, the buildings of Naples and the forms of terrified inhabitants are indicated in the foreground.—London Correspondent.