Systems insights in art and politics - yum - this should be compulsory viewing for everyone seeking elected office. As a long standing addict of Turners handling of energy and light, this counter perspective was a direct challenge to put aside the easy rewards of awe and instead to work harder to reach deeper meaning. Awesome video. Thankyou so much 🌼
Great video, expertly done, thanks! Here in the UK, Turnips are still a staple part of our diet (and are delicious btw!). Turnip greens are one of my favourite foods but hard to find, except in Italy, where they are hugely popular (in season) and known as Cime di rape.
Oh that's true. Come di Rape is associated with cuisine in Puglia. Forgot about that one. I guess I let that early 18th century literature influence my opinion of the veg. They really seemed to hate it. Lots of stories of people even saying it made the cows milk taste bad.
Thank you for introducing me to Turner's painting. The history of the turnip is much more interesting and nuanced than presented here. The turnip (along with carrots) originated in northern India or what is now Pakistan or Iran. It came into Europe with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who migrated from the Black Sea region up the Danube into what is now Germany and later into France and the low countries. The turnip was/is a hardy vegetable that could be grown, as you said, during the winter and could be stored all through the winter. This was its main claim to usefulness in Europe because it was the only vegetable that could be fed to the animals all winter. The turnip was introduced to England (Kent) by Reformationists who brought it in to save starving livestock and people in the 1590s. It quickly spread across England. Before the turnip, livestock had to be culled every fall, i.e., butchered and eaten, leaving just enough alive to replace the herds in the spring. After the introduction of the turnip, the livestock could and was left alive through the winter greatly increasing the quantities of animals and leading to a large increase in the human population in the coming centuries, as milk and meat was available year round instead of seasonally. In continental Europe, the commons began to be enclosed in the 11th century and was mostly completed by the 18th century, but it did not create as great hardship as in England because continental Europe had many different kinds of land ownership so only a fraction of the rural population was affected. In England, most peasants were on holdings that included the right to use common land. The turnip, along with the potato, actually had very little to do with the enclosure movement, but it definitely played a role in feeding the ever-increasing number of poor driven off the land. What made the enclosure movement so persistent was the invention of weaving machines. This meant the landowners could make much more money employing any land they had control over by shifting it to raising sheep, which they did over the 16th century to 18th century, taking the rights of the peasants and repurposing the lands to their own benefit, while dispossessing the now unneeded (for the landowners) people. Many of the people migrated to the towns and cities and ended up in urban poverty doing the roughest and deadliest labor jobs such as digging coal and dying cloth.
Thank you for choosing to make a video about this lesser known Turner Painting . In Britain we sometimes have turn ups on our trousers [ by rolling up the leg of the garment ] and pronounce the vegetable as it is spelt but putting that to one side I learned from your talk on the subject and look forward to more .
Once again, art reflects human and societal issues of its time. Thanks for this fascinating and highly informative video! One gripe: don't be hatin'! Turnips are my FAV roasted root veggie. Cut 'em into wedges, lightly EVOO, salt, pepper then roast in oven for 30 mins. Delish AND healthful.
Bravo, excellent analysis of this painting. May I also point out the horseman in the center of the work dressed in his silver spurs and light colored riding jacket….even his horse is a flashy white. Light colours seem to imply his daily tasks don’t involve any physical dirty labour. He also has thrown his left shoulder forward, perhaps by gesturing strongly toward something or someone. Maybe he is giving orders or an opinion ? There is certainly an air of tension in this painting despite its pastoral theme.
I think the "unequal social relationships and labor practices" were present prior to the introduction of the "advanced farming techniques". The enclosure trend can occur without the crop rotation and the crop rotation was probably adopted on all land, not just the enclosed one. I think it's an important distinction that advances in tech and reasoning are magnifying the preexisting inequality, rather than creating it.
