Turner's Dutch Boats need not stay anchored in Britain to wield their power

It is absurd to make a patriotic fuss about this painting staying in Britain – Turner is a great artist because he has something to say to the entire world

Selfishly, I am delighted that JMW Turner’s The Bridgewater Sea Piece – also known, drably, as Dutch Boats in a Gale is to stay at the National Gallery, in London. I was looking at it there just the other day: the roaring sea seems to lash against the very surface of this astonishingly mobile painting and seep out into the gallery itself. You should wear a lifejacket to look at it.

When Turner was an up-and-coming artist, collectors loved the “sea pieces” of 17th-century Dutch marine painters such as Willem van de Velde. Turner painted this ambitious reinvention of a “Dutch” style sea painting in 1801 to prove that he was a more powerful artist than the old masters beloved by collectors. Mission accomplished. Dutch Boats in a Gale shakes and shudders with the forces of nature in a way that makes Dutch marine paintings look like corks bobbing on a millpond.

Our artistic heritage needs to be shared, not hoarded

Related: Punk with a paintbrush: how Turner sunk the Empire

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