Science and the Humanities: The Case of Turner

An Anachronism

Exploding with hot colors, the canvases of Turner seem to reproduce sensory impressions. For this reason, even though almost all of them date from the first half of the nineteenth century, they were for a long time taken to have been painted in a “pre-Impressionist” style. They seemed, in effect, to announce the canvases of Monet.

What are we to make of such a judgment? Starting from the future to turn back into the past, it commits an anachronism: the reference to future artists retrospectively eclipses the originality of the unfortunate painter’s works. What would happen if we applied this same reasoning to ourselves since we too are ignorant of what will happen to us? What will the next century say that we “announced” today?