Turner’s ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’ (1844)

It’s only the title that fools us into thinking this painting has anything at all to do with velocity. Look at it again; those expert musses and swirls, the umbers and browns, the yellows and reds, that perfectly poised composition: it rises above and bears down upon the al-Hajar-ul-Aswad solidity of a black train engine that is very obviously motionless, stalled by the storm upon the bridge. Not even the hare is running.