The Fifth Plague of Egypt | JMW Turner | 1800 17th Century and the unknown

and the unknown

A tribute to the tragedy of grief

and fleeing figures add to the apocalyptic atmosphere

Magritte’s careful precision transforms an ordinary landscape into something uncanny

The Fifth Plague of Egypt | JMW Turner | 1800 17th Century and the unknownThe Fifth Plague of Egypt is an oil painting by Romantic English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner currently in the permanent collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Despite its title, it depicts Moses cursing the Egyptians with a plague of hail and fire, known as the seventh plague. In the foreground, two dead horses and a dead man are piled together, casualties of the earlier plague of pestilence in livestock. To the right, Moses stands