The painting combines melancholy symbolism, patriotic references (the Temeraire's wartime honours included the famous and crucial Battle of Trafalgar), and a dazzling, almost abstract sunset. Hence, it's not surprising that its popularity has endured to the modern day; it was voted Britain's favourite by the listeners of a radio program in 2005, and in 2020, it was reproduced on a banknote honouring Turner. It also shows up in the James Bond movie Skyfall.
Only indirectly related to the historical fantasy novel Temeraire; the dragon in that book is named after the same ship.
This painting contains examples of:
- Artistic License – Ships: The painting does not realistically represent the real event (which Turner may or may not have witnessed — he did spend a lot of time on and around the Thames). Records show that the Temeraire had its masts removed before it went to the scrapyard, it was towed by two tugs rather than one, and it would have travelled westwards, into the sunset rather than out of it. The Rule of Symbolism applies.
- Empathic Environment: The calm, misty, beautiful weather creates a melancholic mood for the painting, of things coming to an end and people (the sailors) having to part ways.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The full title is entirely unambiguous.
- Old Soldier: Symbolically; the Temeraire is a military veteran at the end of her career.
- Riding into the Sunset: Inverted, in that the vessels are coming out of the sunset, but the significance — the sunset is beautiful and represents finality — stands.
- Rule of Symbolism: All of the painting's elements evoke an end-of-an-era feeling.
- The sunset is a symbol of finality about a journey full of hardships and even harder work but with its fair share of victories.
- A wooden warship being towed to a scrapyard, its parts to be cannibalized, represents how technology advances. Even if the Temeraire is glorious, she's no match for steamships.
- The water is remarkably calm. That, combined with the gentle, yellow lighting creates a tranquil atmosphere, of melancholy and resignation.
- Vehicle Title: Named after a Napoleonic warship.
- Verbing Nouny: Temeraire, the noun, is the name of a warship. The "fighting" part suggests that she was very active in wartimenote .
- Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The painting marks the very end of that era, with the replacement of sail by steam.
