“Yes, Atmosphere was my style”

While in London, the class took a trip to the Tate British Museum to compare the sublime works of Turner to the story of Dracula. The art of the sublime can be described as awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God. Turner’s works have been described as fantastic puzzles that stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of nature. Turner also does a great job at portraying the vulnerability of humans amongst the sublime nature of the natural world. The humans in his pictures are often very small with little detail and are an insignificant part of the painting compared to the vast landscapes and their intricate details. Turner plays with the effects of light in his paintings creating a feeling of spirituality rather than recreating precise details of the landscapes as they are seen by the naked eye.

In the last room of the exhibit there was a direct quote from Turner on the wall, “yes, atmosphere is my style”. A key component to the book Dracula is the way Stoker sets the mood by describing the eerie scenery, setting one up for the story to come. In a way Stoker also masters the sublime in his writing. While Harker is on his way to Dracula’s castle writing in his journal he describes the landscapes around him. Harker has a feeling of being very small and not in control of anything around him. When the storm is rolling in and Dracula’s boat is coming into harbor, Stoker describes the scene in great detail creating fear by merely describing the natural events of nature. Turners painting, Snowstorm, was in my mind the perfect visual of the storm. There is uncertainty as to what is happening in the painting, it looks like nature is taking over control of the boat. Stoker also created uncertainty in the docking of the boat, leaving what was happening on board a mystery until the following chapter.

I feel Turner’s quote could be applied to both himself and the writings of Stoker. They both use the uncertainty of nature to control the feelings of the viewer or reader. Stoker’s descriptions of the landscapes seem to very similar to the visual representations of Turner’s. Both create a feeling of smallness and lack clarity in a way that it leaves you to fill in what is unknown. I feel that Turner could have been Stoker’s muse in the descriptions of nature in Dracula.