In honour of David Hockney who recently passed away.
I really love the feeling of:
1. nostalgia and ephemerality of good-times (captured in the fleeting nature of a splash)
2. that warm sun-baked Californian palette of turquoise & flesh-toned pinks. They’re so relaxing and inviting. Hockney perfectly captured his own joy of Southern California.
Note: This blog is a continuation of my visit to the Turner gallery on the 26th of July.
This room in the gallery is about Europe as Turner saw and imagined it. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) prevented Turner from travelling freely. From 1817, Turner travelled to France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and especially Italy.
It has only 5 paintings which I hadn’t covered before: Turner’s Europe.
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Spectacular. A billet-doux to Venice.
When Turner paints such an adorned vista, life itself becomes buoyed and suspended.
The tranquillity and serenity lent by the ever-so light fretting of the surface of the water. The imposing architecture (esp. San Giorgio Maggiore) and the gondolas allows for an ephemeral reflection which adds to the painting’s beguiling surface shape and geometry. As ever, the interaction between the skyline and the sea allows for them to interact & meld in Turner’s paintings.
Some details:
I really love this little sketch of someone oaring the gondola. A charming embellishment. And, even more sweetness: two little pups at the lower right-hand.
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One of Venice’s famous architectures, the Bridge of Sighs. It connects the Doge’s Palace and city’s prison.
As above, Turner gives such lovely architecture, dissolves them in a translucent reflection that life becomes a bit inverted.
It’s really just beautiful.
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This is supposed to be an homage to Walhalla by the River Danube.
Turner wanted to celebrate German history and culture after the defeat of Napoleon.
Once again, a very beautiful moving landscape. I really love classic bronzed rusty brownish-red colour and its interfusion with the atmosphere to conjur a paradise cloudland.
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This is from Turner’s sketchbook. There were a lot in the Tate, but I’ve picked two I think are interesting.
As usual, we get the hazy conditions, the beautiful reflections attesting to the city’s serenity, and the lovely radiance of yellow-orange behind the basilica.
Lovely.
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Again, what I find v. striking is just how modern Turner is; and yet there’s enough to make this quite beautiful.
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I have covered this painting before.
But I think it is so supreme. An exquisite and elegant rendering of decay, crumbling and deterioration. The beaming flood of light on the canvass is magical. It’s in my top 10 Turner paintings.
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Note: This blog is a continuation of my visit to the Turner gallery on the 26th of July.
This room in the gallery is devoted to the sea (and Britain’s identity as an island, and its quondam unrivalled maritime power, especially around the Napoleonic era).
It has only 2 paintings which I hadn’t covered before: Turner’s Seascapes.
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This was painted by Turner - following Napoleon’s blockade - when he witnessed Danish ships arrive off the English coast.
I love the way Turner can paint a ship (the majesty of his ship’s mast and rudder etc.); and I also like the way he can capture the power of the choppy sea with its billowing, surging, and undulating mass of water and its interaction with the violent wind. Then, he manages to paint vulnerability and human fragility of the victims of the sea’s power.
I do love examining some of the details:
The facial anxiety, people gripping the boats, someone navigating the rudder, the wave’s crescendo towering just over the uppermost edge etc.
The force of the wind against the sail driving it forward crashing through the waves and the sea’s merciless severity.
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This epic captures the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805).
The eye doesn’t know where to settle here. If you click the above painting, blogger expands the view. A panorama of widespread destruction and catastrophe. Billowing gunpowder charcoal smoke obnubilating our perception of the true reality. The warfare seems to have ended. Soldiers on the deck.
The majesty of the ship is centre-most. The mast upright, powerful, and steely. Rising supremely from the keel to seize and control the awesome power of the wind. The mainmast’s flickering sail seems to dance in the wind. Although the French flag is dragged down and lowered (lower left); true victory pertains to the ocean and our maritime mastery.
As the Tate said, “celebration of victory over the French and Spanish navies mixed with grief over the death of naval hero Nelson.”
Pretty amazing painting.
Note: This is a continuation of an earlier journal entry on The Turner gallery revisited. This part focuses - as per the Tate - on the reaction to Turners’ paintings when first exhibited. His works always drew a crowd; and over time his work divided opinion. I have focused on works that I haven’t already reviewed.
Apologies for the desultory nature of my posting. I plan to get back on track at some point. I’m usually juggling books, travelling, and also trying to have fun. Despite the ostensible Turner obsession on this blog; I will be branching out soon. These posts focus on works not covered when I visited in 2022.
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Beautiful.
Turner didn’t want to sell this painting. The Spectator said it captured the “true tone of nature, imitated to perfection”. Claude Monet described it as being painted with “wide-open eyes”.
I do love the crepuscular chill of this painting. The early rays of sunshine, the sweet little girl (Turner’s daughter) turning up her fur coat (as she turns to face the viewer), and one horse gently caressing the other which catches some patch of grass. It looks work is being done by a couple of lads on the pathway (and overseen by her father).
The net effect is an immersive and alluring vista of bucolic charm, the matutinal chill and stillness, an adorable girl and her townsfolk.
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As per Tate, Painting “much admired by JS Cotman and David Cox”.
Lovely warm summers evening. A woman cradling a baby in her arms (recurring motif), and lots of people chatting, standing or sitting around with a basket of food. Interesting Turner shows us a man stooping to splashing his face, indicative of the heavy warm atmosphere. It’s a nice painting.
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This was exhibited next to newcomer David Wilkie. Turner wanted to prove that he could paint everyday life. This painting is supposed to relate the economic consequences of the Napoleonic wars. The government introduced the pig iron tax to pay for the war. Today, the price of fuel triggered by the Ukraine-Russia conflict propelled the cost of living crisis.
Although this is an everyday transaction, Turner gives us a lot of drama and charm. The two central figures discussing the price, with one holding a coin. Everyone else seems to be moving. Another blacksmith cleaning the horse’s hooves, and another blacksmith holding a hammer as he forges metal into a shape. Chickens eating seeds. It’s got a lot of wholesome arcadian charm despite the darker economic overtones.
I quite like this painting.
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The painting is based on “Palestrina” which is a city of ancient Rome and whose charm was noted by Virgil and Horace.
This painting is supposed to depict Italy in its decline. Its castle (dominating the environs), thick walls, bridge and fortifications are melding into the general verdant mountain. It’s rare to see such a blue skyline. The place is deserted, abandoned, something long-forgotten? There are a few people conversing behind containers and wrapped parcels of food in the centre. Otherwise, the landscape is overrun by ruminants: either cows on the bridge, or sheep sauntering under the trees.
As usual, lots of romantic charm with intimations of wistfulness.
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This is intense and beautiful.
Turner painted this in this honour of his friend - painter David Wilkie - who died of typhoid and was buried at sea.
This is a beautiful lament. Turner paints two ships as being near-disembodied and scorched by fire. Black and powdery sails, wraith-like. Burning brightly with a blazing flame at its heart. Behind them, there’s a hazy shinning, the glimmering rays of a lambent glame. Perhaps a spiritual beacon-fire to his lost friend.
According to the Tate, Turner “wished he could make them blacker still” and tied Wilkie’s death to the Napoleonic War itself.
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Wow!
What is so striking about this art is how modern it feels. I love how Turner focuses on something; and then orbits the world around it in a misty amorphousness, a beautiful evanescence.
This is Napoleon, in exile on St. Helena, with British sentry standing watch.
A burning, fire-red, sanguinary sunset. The incarnadine atmosphere is counter-posed by a contemplative Napoleon; arms-crossed looking into his reflection in the unruffled lake (reflective being transitive). The background is one of the solitude, quietness and serenity ... surrounded by broken bridges and damaged buildings.
It’s a sobering painting.
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This painting was originally ridiculed.
Medea is an epic character from Greek mythology. Having been rejected by the miscreant Jason, leader of the Argonauts; she decides to murder her own prepubescent children to spite her cheating husband. This has to be one of the most cruel and wicked action in a mythological tale. The enchantress sets free a snake (behind the tree in the darkness) on the children.
The painting was criticized as being too difficult to make out; and I have to agree.
I don’t think this captures the evil of Medea.
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This is quite pleasing, but not as captivating as the others. I feel like there’s something missing here. Perhaps too much enveloping darkness. It gives the painting a shade of gloom and obscurity which has the effect of concealing. The two women are bathed in radiant sunlight, perhaps from the opening in the trees. Washing clothes.
Painted in Rome 1828. Turner passed through Orvieto on his way to Rome.
