Joseph Mallord William Turner

Background:

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.

Techniques included:

Sponging, scraping or blotting out colours or highlights (he especially liked the absorbency of dried breadcrumbs for blotting washes); using papers heavily sized with gelatine to assist in blotting or lifting colours and to increase colour brilliancy; and mixing transparent watercolours with a small amount of white gouache to enhance the paint handling and intensity of colour.

This range of techniques gave him an unparalleled ability to describe the effects of atmosphere and light, which he made more dramatic by increasing the size of his paintings to three feet or more.

Styles:

His mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint.

He produced series of small-scale topographical watercolours in which he evoked forms by layering blocks of colour according to a classification system of "light" and "dark" colours that challenged many assumptions of contemporary colour theory.

Turner believed that landscapes could convey a full range of artistic, historical, and emotional meanings, and presented himself as an heir to the great history painters of the past. As a young man, he learned to imbue his paintings with powerful expression by studying Piranesi's imposing architectural fantasies.

Turner aimed to make watercolours the equal of oil painting in visual drama and impact, which he achieved through many technical and design innovations

This Lake District scene was shown at the Royal Academy in 1798 along with several other North of England subjects, following Turner’s first tour of the region the previous year. It is based on a sketchbook study (Tate) worked up in watercolour to show the stormy conditions he presumably witnessed, writing ‘Black’ on the surface of the lake. This was his cue for the mood of this dramatic painting, enlivened by the rainbow which would become a frequent motif. Turner is making a consciously ‘Sublime’ statement, intended to evoke the viewer’s awe at the grandeur of Nature.

My First Impressions:

My first impression of his Buttermere Lake is that his use of watercolour creates a dark ambience of the lake. The use of the dark shades of blue and black creates a bleak atmosphere; against the bright rainbow that breaks through the clouds that slowly fades connoting hope. The juxtaposition between the storm and the rainbow demonstrate how he is challenging preconceptions of art. The force of wind and water was conveyed both by his open, vigorous brushwork, against the delicately painted rainbow. It shows both the harsh reality of the destructiveness of nature as well as the beauty. This contrast shows how he is painting both what is real and what he imagines to create a sense of drama.

Looking at his painting Gisors from inside the chateau, with the church of St Gervis and St protais in the distance, his use of colour creates subtle tones blocking out large areas, showing his main focus is to use colour to create an impression of that place. In this particular piece it looks as though he has simplified the churches down to basic shapes abstracting what could be considered the main attraction forcing us to focus on his blend of colours that slowly draw us in.

Context:

Romanticism is sometimes viewed as a reaction to its more serious predecessor, the Neoclassical movement. As Neoclassical artists focused on properly accounting history through close attention to detail, Romantic artists flirted with themes of man's self glorification, man's part in nature, divinity found in nature, and emotion.

Though Neoclassicism is generally associated with the history genre, Turner is credited with having embarked on a subject matter so great that it actually rivaled the history genre. His subject matter accounts for recording history, but in a different style than ever seen before. He used color to intensify emotion in portraying the passing of events.

Quotes:

suggesting that if he could create anything darker and more dramatic he would, therefore his artwork is the darkest it could possibly be.

He used deep colours as he became more fascinated with the effects of light (rather than light and dark), his palette changed to embrace a more prismatic range of hues  saturated violets, reds, oranges and pinks over a basic tonal structure painted in Turner's favourite yellows contrasted to complementary blues and green greys.

Many of the early sketches by Turner were studies of Architecture and exercises in perspective and it is known that the young Turner worked for several architects including Thomas Hardwick (junior), James Wyatt and Bonomi the Elder.

In turner’s early works he used a range of colour washes to form underlining tones of the structures he was painting, he the outlined the shapes with a pen to hint at the detail. By adding layers he gave his work more dimensions and through his use of light washes he was able to create a bright impression of that place. In addition within this collection he also produced various sketchbooks containing line and tone. Even through his line drawings he still captures the essence of the landscapes he draws.

 The Grand Canal by the Salute,Venice (1840),Echoes of Turner's interest in architectural drawing as a young artist are found in this late work, which celebrates the unique atmospheric qualities of Venice. Details in pen and ink define the seventeenth-century church of Santa Maria della Salute which appears through a fine haze, evocative of bright sunlight reflecting off the white marble walls and the water of the Grand Canal. This drawing is characteristic of the work Turner produced during his third and final visit to Venice in 1840.

My reflection:

In response to Joseph Mallord William Turner, I focused on line tone and colour from a selection of my primary sources. I experimented using a combination of recording techniques to create different textures mixing line with tone, and colour seeing the range of effects it generated. I found the use of soft tones and lines were most effective. When painting I looked at using colour to block out the basic forms within my photographs simplifying the architecture down to its fundamental structures. I then pushed myself further and used colour to give an impression of the landscapes of Lanzarote, like turner my use of colour was to exaggerate the atmosphere. I then looked at colour which I imagined to be there making it seem surreal depicting both the reality and imaginary side of my holiday.

When constructing my window installation I will implement his idea of using colour to create a specific atmosphere, each colour will represent a certain mood I was in during my summer.