J.M.W. Turner @ The National Gallery of Art
Last week, the National Gallery of Art opened a career retrospective of British landscape artist Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) -- the largest ever assembled in the United States. The curators of the show have assembled a collection that demonstrates Turner's development as an artist, as well as his commitment to raising the status of landscape art in a time when the classical themes pervaded Europe's artistic community. A must see for anyone with even a passing interest in the visual arts, the exhibition, entitled simply, J.M.W. Turner, features over 140 pieces and effectively communicates this seminal artist's mastery of technique, color, depth, layering, and light.
Lord Alfred Tennyson once called Turner "the Shakespeare of landscape." One of relatively few painters who enjoyed great success and notoriety during his lifetime, at 26 he was the youngest person ever elected to England's prestigious Royal Academy of Arts. Turner's greatest influence was the Sublime, an aesthetic movement that celebrated the vast and infinite, particularly in a natural context. This influence is reflected in such early works as Fishermen at Sea (1796, pictured above right), which depicts human insignificance in comparison to the open sea. Despite his obvious talents, Turner found himself occasionally having to compromise some of his vision because landscape was not given respect, and so he incorporated classical elements in order to gain acceptance. An example of this is his The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius (1816), where the classical subject seems just an excuse for painting the landscape in which it is set.
Images courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.
Turner's work is not only characterized by its subject matter and technique, but also his skillful use of contrast. His paintings juxtapose light and shadow, the ancient and modern, as well as the serene and violent. The latter is exemplified in the immense The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805 (1823-1824, pictured left), which embraces the British patriotism of the Napoleonic Wars while highlighting the human suffering of war. A similar outlook is present in a series of watercolor paintings depicting the burning of the Houses of Parliament in 1834. Abstract in nature, these pieces suggest rather than tell, but still convey the chaos that must have been present at the historic event.
Though the subject matter of his work is quite varied, Turner's sea and harborscapes are the stars of the exhibition: paintings such as Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, (1835) and Venice: The Dogana (Customs Office) and San Giorgio Maggiore (1834). Whether set in London or Venice, these paintings are still quintessentially English because they show the vital role ships played in England's rise to global dominance. At the same time, they draw together all of Turner's technical abilities and display his sheer talent as a painter.
The final gallery of the exhibition shows Turner's work from his later years and we discover that he was an artist who was continuously searching and growing until the end. These latter works still contain the themes and ideas that were present throughout Turner's career, but these paintings are more atmospheric and harder to decipher. A painting such as Norham Castle, Sunrise (c. 1845, pictured above) might be less aesthetically pleasing than some of his earlier work, but it invites more participation from the viewer because of its obscurity. Though these pieces might have been the subject of ridicule during his lifetime, they stand among the many highlights of this well-mounted retrospective.
J.M.W. Turner runs at the National Gallery of Art through January 6, 2008. The Gallery and its Sculpture Garden, located on the National Mall along Constitution Ave. between 3rd and 9th Streets, NW, is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.