Analyzed Fishermen at Sea, Turner(1796)

http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/j_m_w_turner_08/jmwt_mma_01.htm

Fishermen at Sea, by  Joseph Mallord William Turner (1796)

After analyzing this painting i noticed that half of the things i wrote down were false, or so they appear that way now after staring at it for an hour. There are three main things i looked at when trying to look at this painting, Background, Foreground, and Middle Ground. Theses three extremes are often used to analyze a picture.

Foreground

(Barrel)

The first thing i noticed and it might be surprising is the birds, i believe these to be seagulls. At first i thought all three were flying, then i noticed the last one on the right. I thought it had hit water and was trying to fly up again, then i zoomed in and saw that it was sitting on a barrel. How did that barrel get there? This leading into my next point, the waves. The waves are rocking back and forth, not small movements but not that extreme either, which leads me to believe that a storm is approaching or is calming down. This would explain why a barrel is doing out in the water. Now we take a look at the two fishing boats. I call then fishing boats because the one on the left has a fishing line coming out the side of the boat. Each boat contains at least four people. Who all look either hard at work or trying to hold on tightly. The last thing that really grabbed my eye was the sails. The sails are down and given the condition of the water, they did this to prevent forcing the boat to travel in those conditions. For example, take a closer look at this wave:

(Wave)

The wave is higher than the boat, and from the looks of it, its rocking if not already trying to capsize the boat. Any sailor could tell you when heavy winds and waves come, you put your sails away and ride the waves out  of the storm.

Background
The first thing i noticed was the moon, this meant that they were fishing at night. The moon looks about full, which if you know your oceanography, this means high tide and lower tide are a lot greater than usual, this could confirm my storm ideas. Surrounding the moon is heavy clouds, the colors he used are incredible. If you really look at them you can see more than 15 different shades of various colors. But its these colors that made me think about the waves. They kind of compliment each other, its almost like the colors in the water are reflecting back onto the clouds. On the ocean line, there  is a fog, thick enough so we cant make out any details as to what is in the background but we know something is there. when you take a closer look you see

(Land Form)

the following consistent line going across the background with a darker ( a more closer ) line form going across the horizon. I believe these to be land forms, possibly the land that these fishermen call home.

Middle Ground
This term in new to me, I've never really looked at the middle of a picture just the entire and the focus. I would say that the middle ground would be this part of the painting:

(Middle Ground)

this was the hardest part for me to see, i believe at this point it is a rock formation, that has been battered by waves and etc. to create what we see in the painting. This land mass is probably connected to the land mass in the distant. I said that this was the hardest for me to clearly see and that's because originally i saw this to be bigger boats that the two fishing boats were lowered out of.

(Sail Boats in Rocks)

Bad sketch yes i know but if you think about it you can see how someone who never looked at paintings this in depth could be confused. So now that we ruled out boats i believe that Turner painted these rocks as such to show how fierce these waters are.

Colors
the colors are centralized around the moon to the two fishing boats. the light shines heavy around the water under and around the boats as well. the shading of the boats seem to match the shading of the clouds. the biggest color scheme he seems to be using is the relation between the moonlight and the wave that's crashing against the boat. you can clearly see this there.

Lines
the following is my attempt on finding lines hidden within the painting. these lines that i found are mostly triangles with the exception of a scaled line i found hidden in the background, and what i think the main focus is, the perpendicular bisector.

(triangle between boats)

(perpendicular bisectors between moon, rocks and boats)

(scaled lines)

(triangle between seagulls)

Conclusion
Overall this paint is about fishermen and the struggle at sea. I can conclude this from my detailed analytical pieces of the painting i depicted. Turner is known for Romantic painting and i can see why, the colors he uses are brilliant and because of that, it clearly makes the colors pop and much more vivid then without the color blending he did.