J.M.W. Turner — The Fighting Temeraire

Turner exhibited The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken up at the Royal Academy in 1839. The ghost-pale warship — a veteran of Trafalgar — is hauled to the breaker's yard by a squat, black steam tug belching smoke. It is an elegy for the age of sail giving way to the age of steam, and Turner reportedly refused ever to sell it, calling it his 'darling.' It hangs in the National Gallery, London.

The palette is Turner's genius in miniature: a cool, spectral blue-white for the doomed ship on the left, set against a molten sunset of scarlet, ochre and gold on the right, with the tug's fire the one hot point of the present. The sky is glazed thinly so light seems to radiate from within the canvas.

Where to look: notice how the sun sets on the right, over the tug and the future, not behind the old ship. To shoot in this spirit, chase a low, hazy sun over water — silhouette a dark vessel or structure against a burning sky and let the reflection smear across the surface.