Synopses & Reviews
J.M.W. Turner is probably the greatest painter Britain has ever produced. Disturbingly original and astonishingly prolific, he rose from the obscurity of a barber's son to bequeath a rich and complex legacy. Paintings such as Rain, Steam and Speed have become British icons, and the phrase Turner sky is known to students of art around the world.
Despite this fame, or perhaps because of it, Turner's work has often been misunderstood, his intentions simplified. Here, Sam Smiles investigates Turner's artistic and literary influences, his political views, and the extraordinary evolution of his approach and techniques. Examining how Turner produced effects that lay beyond the competence of other artists--dissolving form, rendering diaphanous expanses of light, and using color with the utmost subtlety and control--the author contradicts Turner's own claim that his only secret was damned hard work.
In the process, Smiles retrieves the meaning of Turner's art from critical misconstruings. He finds in Turner not a recorder of light and landscape but a fascinating artist who foreshadowed modernism and used landscape to deliver profound ruminations on society, politics, technology, and the human condition. Turner's sophisticated artistic personality emerges, rendering his art more compelling than ever.
Synopsis
The paintings of J.M.W. Turner (1775and#8211;1851) are admired by art lovers everywhere. This book reveals a new side of Turner: his erotic drawings. Until a few years ago, biographies of both Turner and critic John Ruskin claimed that in 1858 Ruskin burned bundles of erotic paintings and drawings in a fit of embarrassed Victorian censorship, to protect the artistand#8217;s reputation. However, in 2005 Turner scholar Ian Warrell suggested that the alleged burning never took place, and that almost all of the allegedly destroyed drawings are actually in the Tate collection, part of the Turner Bequest. Here Warrell explores this little-known aspect of the artistand#8217;s work in detail, placing the work in the context of Turnerand#8217;s social and artistic milieu, contemporary preoccupations with art for public and and#8220;privateand#8221; consumption, and the intricacies of the artistand#8217;s personal life and canonical works.
About the Author
Ian Warrell is curator of 18th- and 19th-century British art at Tate. He is also the author of J.M.W. Turner, Turner and Venice, and most recently Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude.