Fishermen on the lagoon by Moonlight
We have been to some wonderful art exhibitions in London
this year. Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden on 23rd
April 1775, St George’s Day. The small picture of’ fishermen on the lagoon,
moonlight’ was painted when Turner was 65, and he still had a further ten painting
years. He died in London in December 1851. Turner was a year or so older than
John Constable, and their works complemented each other. Their engagement with
the new – both in artistic development and in technical skill – was remarkable
and powerful. In Turner’s case, far from being the edge of terminal decline (as
some of his peers often stated), 60 years old was a step to further work of
great originality. Turner would reveal
himself as a supremely inventive and continuously original painter, engaged in
the culture and society of his time. He both recovered the link between the classical
age and the present, but he also made it possible for the modern age to
illuminate and show continuity with what had gone before. Being radical has nothing
at all to do with revolutionary, but everything to do with returning to ones roots.
Turner was supremely inventive and as committed as ever to
communicating his ideas, particularly with work in oils. He understood light and colour. He continued
to travel extensively abroad, which even though travel had become easier, still
demanded that an artist work on his own. He worked into the dark – and what
amazing work he produced! He experimented with new technology. He made use of
new pigments and studied the natural phenomena outdoors - though the story that
he asked to be tied to the mast so that he would not be blown away in a storm
while painting, was, perhaps, just that. He painted the (hazardous) waggons that passed
as passenger carriages on God’s Wonderful Railway as engineered by Isambard
Kingdom Brunel, (complete with a Hare running ahead between the tracks).
Our visit to the Turner being over; in our imagination and his
company; with rain, and speed… ( but no steam because we were electrified) he
bears us home.
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