{"id":2498,"date":"2014-01-22T22:00:03","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T21:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/?p=2498"},"modified":"2014-07-06T16:06:35","modified_gmt":"2014-07-06T15:06:35","slug":"impressions-of-turner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2014\/01\/22\/impressions-of-turner\/","title":{"rendered":"Impressions of Turner"},"content":{"rendered":"

I may not know much about art but I know what I like and I like the work of\u00a0Joseph Mallord William Turner<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0all the more so now that I have seen the Turner and the Sea exhibition<\/a> at the National Maritime Museum. The artist painted a variety of landscapes over the course of a long life but is probably best known for his seascapes (though I can\u2019t be entirely sure since I don\u2019t know much about art). In any case those are the works that most appeal to me, an aficionado of Patrick O\u2019Brian\u2019s Aubrey-Maturin novels<\/a>. O\u2019Brian\u2019s writing brings the sea vividly to life in the imagination but the Turner exhibition is a chance to revel in it splashed over canvas.<\/p>\n

\u2018Splashed’ is the wrong word. Turner\u2019s application of paint was of course supremely artful and the real delight of the works on show in Greenwich is to be able to see how his artistic vision developed.<\/p>\n

Born in 1775, Turner\u2019s talent became evident in his teenage years; he exhibited his first oil painting at the Royal Academy in London in 1796. Fishermen at Sea<\/em><\/a>\u00a0displays considerable skill at rendering the play of light on water though I didn\u2019t care for this early picture so very much \u2014 the colour and composition seemed too forced.<\/p>\n

I preferred the darker mood of\u00a0The Shipwreck <\/em>painted nearly 10 years later. Strangely, however, if you look closely<\/a>, the evident drama of the scene is somewhat undermined by the way the people holding on for dear life depicted \u2014 the figures have\u00a0the simplicity of a child\u2019s story book. Perhaps it\u2019s unfair to look too<\/em> closely but in some ways the engravings from his\u00a0Liber Studorium<\/a><\/em> seem to\u00a0use\u00a0his skill to better effect \u2014 they have an almost photographic immediacy.<\/p>\n

\"01-the-shipwreck-1805\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Shipwreck<\/a> (1805) \u2014 from\u00a0the Tate Collection (click link for a larger view)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

That said, the exhibition is dominated by the paintings \u2014 and rightly so. Turner\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805<\/em>\u00a0is particularly dominant; at 3.6 m x 2.6 m it is by far the largest painting in the show. Nelson\u2019s flagship, HMS Victory, commands the scene but is surrounded by and succumbing to the bloody and smoky chaos of battle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"02b-battle-of-trafalgar-1824\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(painted 1824) \u2014 National Maritime Museum<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a complex composition; there is action in every corner and the painting repays prolonged viewing though, truth be told, I found Stanfield\u2019s\u00a0HMS \u2018Victory\u2019\u00a0Towed into Gibraltar<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>more moving and\u00a0Pocock\u2019s earlier and simpler painting,\u00a0Battle of the First of June<\/em>\u00a0more dramatic and arresting.<\/p>\n

\"02c-Pocock-Brunswick\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Battle of the First of June<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(1794<\/em>) \u2014 National Maritime Museum<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Ultimately it was Turner\u2019s later works that impressed the most, as he strived less to render the precise form of the sea and more to capture the sense or feeling of it. One of my favourite paintings in the exhibition is Fishing Boats Bringing a Disabled Ship into Port Ruysdael<\/em>, which was first shown in 1844. There is a melding of\u00a0land, sea, sky and boats that is a bold attempt to convey the whole experience of being at sea.<\/p>\n

\"03-fishing-boats-bringing-a-disabled-ship-1844\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fishing Boats Bringing a Disabled Ship into Port Ruysdael<\/a> (1844) \u2014 Tate Collection<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The blurring of boundaries foreshadows the emergence of impressionism and is seen also in a work from the same period,\u00a0Waves breaking against the wind.<\/em>\u00a0As the caption put it, the picture was an attempt to portray the endless repletion but infinite forms of the waves beating against the shore. It is a painting of mesmerising, almost puzzling beauty. It baffles me that the image breaks down completely as you move in to examine the application of paint. And what is it about that wash of yellow at the upper right that is so appealing? I\u2019ve never seen a sky that colour and yet it still has me convinced.<\/p>\n

\"04-waves-breaking-against-wind-1840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Waves breaking against the wind<\/a>\u00a0(1840) \u2014 Tate Collection<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And finally (in this mini-tour), there is Snow Storm Steam Boat off a Harbour<\/em>, which is even more impressionistic. There is a clear artifice in the way that Turner\u2019s bolder strokes bind the sea and sky together as the elements swirl around the struggling steamboat; and yet, again, it works.<\/p>\n

\"05-Snow-Storm-Steam-Boat-off-a-Harbours-Mouth-1842\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Snow storm steam boat off a harbour<\/a>\u00a0(1842) \u2014 Tate Collection<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

But please don\u2019t take my word for it, or rely too heavily on the miniature renditions included in this post for an impression of Turner’s art. Go and see the exhibition<\/a> for yourself. You have until April 21st.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I may not know much about art but I know what I like and I like the work of\u00a0Joseph Mallord William Turner\u00a0\u2014\u00a0all the more so now that I have seen the Turner and the Sea exhibition at the National Maritime … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271],"tags":[288,289,290],"class_list":["post-2498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-art","tag-art","tag-the-sea","tag-turner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}