David Roberts (1841). Gateway to the Great Temple at Baalbek [oil on canvas]. Royal Academy of the Arts, London.

This work shares a great deal in common with Turner’s Snowstorm in that it is a strictly static and realistic masterpiece with a single source of tension that is intense enough to threaten destabilizing it. Formally, Roberts had made quite an original choice in surrounding negative space by solid forms. This orchestration greatly enhances the tension in this masterpiece because the massive fragment poised to fall penetrates the portal. 

I believe the application of color represents robust unification. Generous, muddied golds set in opposition to splashes of red and blue complete the subtractive primaries which all color is based on. Roberts’ use of value is quite open in the far-background but restricted in the foreground; value contrast reverses this strategy: A wider range is used in the foreground, more restricted in the background, centered on midtones. The calibration of subject and textural detail is fully unified with this manipulation of value, which explains the masterful illusion of depth.

Dramatic shifts in scale generate interest in this piece. The eye shifts back and forth between the dislodged architectural element and the crowd below. This organization of eye pathways is underscored by the vagueness of the surroundings and the far-background. This tension is emphasized by the perpendicular grid-like arrangement of shapes, edges, directional lines of force and the orientation of the canvas. The off-axis orientation and ground placement of the observer, and the resulting distortion of the horizontal axis lines, enhance this piece’s sense of drama.

The slightness of the human subjects, combined with the erosion of the man-made structures that once dominated nature, illustrates the conflict between natural forces against human intelligence and self-destructiveness. Both have the potential to assert themselves over the other to the near-destruction of the subordinated with the impossibility of either being completely wiped out. Roberts has masterfully manipulated eye movement and pictorial interest through color purity, a shape-defining value pattern than employs the full range, amazing pictorial depth and a very subtle application of formal design.