The Slave Ship is an 1840 oil painting by Turner in the Romantic Maritime style.

《奴隶船》是透纳创作于1840年的一幅浪漫主义海景油画。

On the surface, it looks like an innocent painting of a stormy sea with a ship middle left struggling to find its passage through. Look closer. You will see bodies. You will see body parts. You will see shackles. You will see swarming fish and birds and other sea creatures.What is happening?

表面上，这看似一幅纯粹描绘风暴中大海的画作，画面中间偏左的部分有一艘船在奋力前行。仔细看，就会看到尸体，会看到尸块，会看到镣铐，会看到成群的鱼、鸟和其他海洋生物。出了什么事？

During the Atlantic slave trade,slave ship owners would take out insurance policies on theit human cargo.Turner's The Slave Ship depicts the practice of throwing cargo (again-Humans) overboard in stormy seas in order to collect the money from the insurance they have taken out, often when the men and women have become too sick from the appalling conditions to be of value in the slave markets.

在跨大西洋奴隶贸易中，奴隶船的船主会为他们贩运的人货（奴隶）投保。透纳的《奴隶船》所描绘的就是船主为获取保险金而在风暴来临的大海上把货物（即人）扔到海里，通常扔掉的是那些因环境恶劣而变得体衰病弱、在奴隶市场上卖不出去的男男女女。

The Slave Ship shows the inclemency of nature and the horror of human nature: black slaves have been thrown overboard for reasons of profit.

《奴隶船》展示了大自然的残酷和人性的恐怖：为了牟利将黑人奴隶丢弃海中。

A spectacular orange horizon appears to break, as if at dawn, over a scene of horror and alarm. Yet it might take us a few moments to realize what exactly is happening, so assertive is the gleam of the sun at the center: It is the strong darkening of the sky on the left that testifies to the incoming typhoon.Similarly the fact that the slave ship has raised its sails to gain speed and,hopefully, move out of its way. Finally,the tumult of the sea all over leaves us in doubt that a storm is about to invest anyone and anything left in this space.

似乎已是拂晓，地平线一片壮观的橙色，像要打破海上那恐怖和惊悚的一幕。然而，由于画面中央的阳光非常耀眼，我们可能还要过一会儿才能看明白到底是怎么回事。画面左边的天空黑压压的，预示台风即将来临。同样预示这一点的是，奴隶船已经扬帆加速，希望避开台风。最终，遍布大海的骚动令人不禁怀疑，风暴即将席卷这片海上的所有人、所有东西。

What makes us realise that human beings have been jettisoned into the water just as the storm has begun to break are the many indistinct figures marking the entire lower register, which is to say the foreground, of this painting. We norice shapes and blood. Beasts, from the air and from under the surface, have begun attacking the people that have been thrown overboard. One black leg with a chain at the ankle can be seen in the lower-right corner.

风暴刚刚降临奴隶便已被扔进海里——让我们意识到这一点的是画面整个下方（即前景）散布的许多模糊的人影。可以看到轮廓和血。空中的猛禽、水里的大鱼已开始攻击被扔到海里的人。右下角能看到一条黑色的腿，脚踝上还系着链子。

The real-life event which seems to have inspired The Slave Ship is a story from 1781 which had gained great publicity in Britain at the time. The captain of a slave-trading ship headed for Jamaica ordered the throwing overboard and therefore the murder of over 130 African slaves because drinking water on the ship had become insufficient.

《奴隶船》一画的创作灵感似乎来自1781年的一个真实事件，该事件当时在英国引起了极大关注。由于船上的饮用水短缺，驶往牙买加的一艘奴隶贸易船的船长下令将一些奴隶扔下船，130多名非洲奴隶因此丧命。

The captain expected his insurance to cover the cost, as per the agreement, of all slaves "lost" during shipping. When the insurance company refused, on the grounds that the "cargo' had not been lost through accident, the slave-trading syndicate brought a lawsuit against the insurance company. The court eventually decided in favor of the insurance company and, despite many attempts by the abolitionist Granville Sharp, no charges were ever brought against the crewmen who had done the killing.

船长指望保险公司按协议为运输过程中“损失”的所有奴隶做出赔偿。保险公司以“货物”并非意外损失为由拒绝后，奴隶交易集团针对保险公司提起了诉讼。法院最终裁定保险公司胜诉，但是，尽管废奴主义者格兰维尔·夏普多番努力，动手扔掉奴隶的船员还是没有受到任何指控.

The story gave an additional impulse to British abolitionist activism when it was originally publicized during the trial of 1783. It did so again in 1840 when Tumer gave his Slave Ship to the public at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

这件事最初在1783年审判期间被公开，进一步推动了英国废奴运动的发展。1840年，透纳在伦敦的英国皇家美术学院公开展出此画时，英国的废奴运动再掀高潮。

Turner's aim was doubtless aboli.tionist. He had been engaged artistically with the theme of the cross-oceanic slave trade for years. The Slave Ship had an unfinished poem of his appended which pointed to the inhumanity of commercial profit done through slavery. Turner's general suspicion of industrial modernity and commercialization in played a significant role in his revulsion to slavery.

透纳无疑是在为废奴主义摇旗呐喊。创作《奴隶船》之前，他已就以艺术方式表现跨洋奴隶贸易这一主题探索了多年。此画还附有他写的一首未完成的诗，诗中指出，通过奴役获得商业利润是不人道的。透纳对工业现代化和商业化抱持普遍质疑的态度，他对奴隶制的反感受到这种质疑的深刻影响。

The success of The Slave Ship in facing the world with the crime of slavery and the human evil is testified by the notice with which the London public took it in. Then, it is confirmed beyond argument by the enduring interest of art critics, philosophers, educators, activists,and, perhaps most importantly, ordinary art-loving people the world over.

《奴隶船》成功地向世人揭露了奴隶制的罪行和人性的邪恶，伦敦公众对此画的关注就证明了这一点。另外，人们持久的兴趣也是此画成功无可辩驳的确证，这其中不仅有艺术评论家、哲学家、教育家、活动家，或许最重要的，还有世界各地普通的艺术爱好者。

The Slave Ship is in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Massachusetts in the United States.

《奴隶船》一画现藏于美国马萨诸塞州的波士顿美术博物馆。