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| Peace – Burial at Sea |
Poet
Kenneth Roxworth once described the English painter, JMW Turner, as a “romantic
abstract expressionist”, and more than one commentator has sought to link him
directly to the Impressionists and, more recently still, to modern, abstract
art.
But,
rather akin to people describing some upcoming film star as the ‘new Gable’ or
the ‘new Bogart’ etc, that merely illustrates an apparent human obsession with
taxonification, pigeon-holing and tribalism, at the same time as revealing
limits on our willingness to accept the new.
Turner
is Turner is Turner.
He
was influenced by and subsequently influenced many others: it’s incredibly easy
to see his influence on Monet, for instance, but one wouldn't call the latter a
‘Turnerite’ or any such conceit.
His
oeuvre, right up to the final works, reflected the issues and culture of his
times. He never ceased painting traditional artistic subjects: scenes from
history, from the Bible, mythology, the Classical world and the contemporary world
– with political comment sometimes included.
He
traveled widely and frequently and, when doing so, worked furiously in his
sketchbooks.
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| Rain, Steam and Speed |
So
just what was so special about Turner that he is widely regarded as the
greatest English painter ever?
Late
Turner: Setting Painting Free is the autumn/winter blockbuster at the Tate Britain – and
a blockbuster it most certainly is.
Hot
on the heels of the Tate Modern’s look at late works by Matisse – and opening
just a few weeks before the National Gallery's exhibition of late Rembrandt –
this is the first major show to bring together works exclusively from the last
16 years of Turner’s life.
While
it’s a shame that it doesn’t include the iconic and deeply political The
Fighting Temeraire (1838), which hangs in the National Gallery (is there a link between its absence here and the privatisation plans at that gallery?),
there is more than enough to satisfy and to convey a rounded sense of this
period of the artist’s career.
Besides,
we do have Rain, Steam and Speed (1844), which os a wonderful piece of active composition, but which has also triggered a great
deal of analysis about what sort of a statement it was and, most particularly,
whether it was a comment on the negative nature of industrialisation.
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| The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons |
There
has been some carping that much of what is on display is already in the Tate’s
own collection, so should see the exhibition price reduced, but there are also
treats that are not seen often in this country – such as The Burning of the
Houses of Lords and Commons (1834-35), which is owned by the Philadelphia Museum of
Art.
That
includes many figures in the foreground, one of whom, apparently in clerical
garb, is speculated to be William Tyndale, the Protestant reformer and Bible translator, who was
burned at the stake for heresy in 1536.
To
have him witnessing the fire could well be one of Turner’s political
statements.
But
wherever the works are usually housed, this exhibition presents a wonderful
opportunity to get a real sense of Turner's work if you haven’t done so before.
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| Mont Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons |
Reading
an interview in the Tate magazine with Mike Leigh, whose new, Cannes-lauded
film, Mr Turner, is now on general release, it was fascinating to discover
that he had initially viewed the artist, together with Constable, as a “chocolate
box” painter.
I
spent years thinking the same, and this exhibition offered me a first chance to
really get a big dose of the works.
One
of the particular joys here – and it’s a revelation too, if you’re not familiar
with them – is the watercolours, which have a vibrancy of colour that is
astonishing.
Mont
Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons from above Chamonix; Evening 1836, for instance, is
beautiful.
Indeed,
colour is what dominates: colour and light and movement.
I
had, prior to going into the exhibition itself, had a bit of a trot around the
gallery’s core collection of British art – particularly that from Turner’s own
period – in order to remind myself of the context.
One
thing that struck me forcefully later, was that I could not recall seeing
anything like the palette that Turner himself used – particularly the blues and
golds.
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| Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) |
There
is a radiance to his work that lights a room. Figure painting was not his
forte, as the enigmatically-titled War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet (1842) illustrates
perfectly, with it’s oddly tall and thin rendering of Napoleon.
Fortunately,
in most cases he didn’t bother to do much more than suggest figures.
The
companion piece to the Napoleon one, Peace - Burial at Sea (1842), depicts the
burial of sea of painter Sir David Wilkie, who had died of typhoid while on
board. A tribute to a colleague, it is one of the most powerful images on
display.
The
same series of experimental square canvases that includes Boney also features Light
and Colour (Goethe's Theory) – The Morning After the Deluge – Moses Writing the
Book of Genesis (1843), in which the figure is so lost in the swirl of light as to be
almost indiscernible, so as with other canvases, what the viewer is mainly
looking at is incandescent light.
But
then, as the catalogue posits, this might not have been intended as the Moses
of the Old Testament, but a reference to entomologist Moses Harris, who had
penned the standard 18th-century chromatic theory, The Natural History of
Colours.
These
canvases are displayed in a single room with the walls painted a deep blue – a
wonderful move that really accentuates the light that radiates from them.
The
difficulty in dealing with Turner is illustrated clearly by some of the final
canvases, which were almost certainly unfinished – he often only finished a
work when it was just supposed to be being prepared for exhibition.
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| Norham Castle, Sunrise |
Norham
Castle, Sunrise (1845) is a perfect example of one of these (probably) unfinished
works that, to our eyes – accustomed to Monet and to Abstract Expressionism –
seems complete.
It’s
easy to imagine that the man now revered around the world was always highly
thought of, but that’s not quite the case.
In
his later years, even his supporter, John Ruskin, thought he’d lost his marbles
and, with them, the artistic plot.
And
while Turner left vast amounts of his work to the nation, the nation didn’t
seem entirely sure what to do about such a bequest.
The
20th century was well into its stride when the then director of the National
Gallery, Kenneth Clarke, found 20 unrolled canvases, thick with grime, in a “small
and remote vault,” which he thankfully decided to check before ordering someone
to throw them away.
This
exhibition is a glorious valediction, and one that, instead of looking to the
past, looks – to our eyes – very much to what was then still some way in the
future.
The
Tate has also done a great job with the catalogue too but, as with the pictures
shown here, no reproduction can do justice to these pictures; to the light, the
colour and the movement.
You
really do need to seem them in the ‘flesh’ to fully appreciate the magnificence
– and revolutionary nature – of Turner’s late work.
It’s
well worth the effort to visit.
• Turner:
The late years, is at the Tate Britain until 25 January.
