ART SERVICES WRITING
Written for Thea Westreich Art Advisory Services for Private Collection 23 October 1998.
Joseph M.W. Turner (1775 -1851)
The Tower of London, 1825
Pencil and watercolor
11 5/5 x 17 1/4 inches
Joseph M.W. Turner is the most original English genius of landscape painting in the 19th century. His prodigious talent and rapid ascension to the apex of the British art world through his long relationship with the Royal Academy were remarkable. His courageous, unfaltering vision to capture light and atmospherics in a revolutionary, Romantic fashion tested the boundaries of painting as much as it tested the loyalty of the scholars and British public who awarded him the reputation as the most prominent landscape artist of his time.
Turner was born in London in 1775. His artistic nature was recognized immediately, as he was sent to live with his maternal aunt and uncle in Middlesex to attend John White’s school of coloring engravings at nine years of age. At thirteen he apprenticed with an architect and draftsman, and the next year was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. By the ripe age of fifteen, young Turner’s first watercolor was shown at the Royal Academy and warmly received by the public. Early showings of his work at the Royal Academy became a long-standing Turner tradition that quickly led to a growing interest in the artist’s keen hand.
By the end of his adolescence Turner had digested and mastered all forms and practical applications of his already fluent draftsmanship; architectural drawing, topographical drawing, engraving and engraving coloring, watercolors and oil painting. Turner’s youth and overflowing talents gained him instant acceptance in the eyes and hearts of the Royal Academy, the national seal of approval for all British artists at the time. By the age of nineteen the young master was teaching painting and had compiled a growing list of commissions. As Turner began to tour his country in the 1790’s, sketching the landscape for future engravings that would always be a good source of income for the artist, his unique style of painting began to take shape. By the early 1800’s, Turner had become one of the crown jewels of the Royal Academy.
Turner’s indefatigable vision required the master to break with traditional landscape painting in order to evolve his Romantic style. The precocious Turner harbored the facility and courage to test the boundaries of light and color in capturing the effects of the atmosphere and elements in his work, which resulted in a more personal, interpretive and Romantic depiction of landscape painting that was revolutionary in its nature. Part of Turner’s genius lay in guiding some of the greatest art thinkers and patrons of England down a road that had never been traveled, and his continued success as a painter and public figure could not be denied with pieces of brilliance like The Tower of London, a landmark of fierce national pride that is a gorgeous example of Turner in mid-career at his very best.
The Tower of London offers us both the master’s flawless technical capacity and the magic brand of atmosphere that is only Turner’s, highlighted not only by his typically bright palette but by the sweeping, rich brushstrokes which define bulbous clouds in a breathing sky. Turner’s water here is so light and impressionable to the touch it often resembles air, as the viewer can see boats floating weightless, anchored only slightly by the gentle yet palpable strokes of slender oars that slice delicately through the foreground. The sheer electricity of Turner’s luminosity is a testament to his mastery of contrasting color and chiaroscuro, as seen in this beautiful watercolor. The artist’s ability to make the hot and cold colors dance in a delicious compositional swirl brings most of his works to full life and builds a tremendous sense of movement and space that critics like the young Ruskin championed vehemently. His only other arguable peer, John Constable, declared enthusiastically, “Turner seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy.”
The most distinguishing feature in Turner’s paintings is his inexhaustible exploration of light, which by the 1840’s had dissolved form into sweeping compositions of space and color. Turner stoically withstood the often heavy criticism that fell upon him in his later years as the representational elements in his paintings made way for a more abstracted style of landscape that anticipated Impressionism and Abstract painting. His creative evolution never lapsed, as Turner maintained a healthy stable of collectors that kept finances from encroaching on his work and livelihood. His greatest patron, the third Earl of Egremont, was so loyal a friend and supporter he gave the artist a permanent studio at Petworth, the Earl’s country house at Sussex.
Turner became more reclusive in his later years, to such an extent that at times he would use the surname of his mistress and call himself Mr. Booth, but his style of painting continued to evolve into the twilight of his life. His heroic and unyielding quest for personal truth and expression has made an indelible impression on the art world. Turner remains one of England’s most cherished artists, and is recognized internationally as one of the world’s greatest landscape painters.