While the subject matter if not the meaning of the earlier work was fairly straightforward, this became less so as the years went by and the canvases became more abstract or obtuse. John Constable, an English master of similar stature, described Turner’s works as having been “painted with tinted steam.” That’s a good summation because many of Turner’s late works almost seem to have been painted on vapor, and then there are those swirling pinwheels of color and color diffused, especially in the late watercolors. This could leave us thinking that Turner’s true subject is atmosphere. He writes: “The world Turner shows is above all dynamic… in the sense of presenting the world as mutable, ever-changing, when solid forms become tremulous in light, water turns into vapor, diurnal and seasonal rhythms of light transmogrify the landscape they illuminate.” Turner, however, turned a corner and didn’t look back.Īnd so, how Smiles describes the later pictures would most likely not be the way he’d describe the earlier. I’m sure the reader-viewer can call up his or her own examples. ![]() His work lost its edge and he went from being an artistic firebrand to an artistic flameout. In the visual arts, James Ensor was a bit like this, I contend. Some artists – and we see this especially in pop music – find a groove, which delights us, but soon enough the groove becomes a rut, and by then we want out. Tate: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856 ![]() “”Peace – Burial at Sea” (exhibited 1842), by Joseph William Mallord Turner. As Sam Smiles writes in the catalogue that accompanies the show, “Turner’s earlier work was not for him a rebuke, nor a closed book, but instead functioned as a spur to further effort it was another resource for imaginative transformation.” If we compare the later with the earlier work, we see quite a visual evolution. But Martin doesn’t venture much beyond realistic depictions, however fantastic, whereas in Turner’s tempestuous pictures (seascapes in particular) all the elements seem to be whipped up into a froth and yet conspire with one another to yield something totally new, something operatic and lyrically explosive. Both painted tumultuous vistas and in this sense both were grandly Romantic. Many artists were drawn to similar subject matter. Turner: Painting Set Free.” He is being set free from the distortion of a 20th or 21st century interpretation, just as in his own time he freed himself from the artificial limitations of what art was expected to do or be. Partly that accounts for the title of the exhibition – “J.M.W. Turner was Turner, and those “schools of the future” simply did not exist and should not figure into the conversation. And second, by aiming to situate Turner in his own time, to try and see him from the perspective of his contemporaries and not to burden him with labels like proto-modernist or pre-Impressionist. First, by focusing exclusively on the painter’s late work, from 1835 when he was 60-years-old, to the time of his death 16 years later in 1851, when he was 76, to prove that he’d lost little of his energy and talent. The thoughtful Turner show at the Getty mainly sets out to do two things. Joseph Mallord William Turner at the Getty Philadelphia Museum of Art: The John Howard McFadden Collection, 1928 I bet you came up with other ideas as you were reading!įor more writing lists, check out my book Master Lists for Writers, if you don’t have it yet! A lot of writers use it to make writing go faster, especially when it comes to descriptions.Īnd if you’re not following the blog already, sign up below-I share lots of writing resources.“The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834” (1834-35), by Joseph Mallord William Turner. ![]() He arranged and re-arranged the items on his desk The hairs on the back of her neck stood up She was frightened down to the soles of her shoes You can alter them to fit your sentence or your story, and they’ll likely inspire you to come up with your own descriptions.īookmark or pin this page for your reference-it might save you a lot of time in the future. I’ve included some that can work for uneasiness or anxiety, but most of these are for real terror. It’s a lot of phrases describing fear, including physical reactions, physical sensations, facial expressions, and other words you can use in your novel or in other creative writing. ![]() People have been asking me for this list for such a long time! If you write horror, suspense, mystery, or any kind of fiction with a scary scenes, you need to know how to describe fear.
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