English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | Angel-s judge | Fire at Sea | Sunset | Dreaw with white line | Boat in the breezee |
Related Artists:
William Bradford
American Painter, 1823-1892
Peter Nicolai Arbo
(June 18, 1831 - October 14, 1892) was a Norwegian painter, who specialized in painting motifs from Norwegian history and images from Norse mythology. He is above all noted for Åsgardsreien, a dramatic motif based on a Norwegian folk legend and Valkyrie, which depicts a female figure from Norse mythology. Peter Nicolai Arbo grew up at Gulskogen Manor in Gulskogen, a borough in Drammen, Norway. He was the son of headmaster Christian Fredrik Arbo (1791-1868) and his wife Marie Christiane von Rosen. His brother Carl Oscar Eugen Arbo was a military medical doctor and a pioneer in Norwegian anthropologic studies. Arbo's childhood home, Gulskogen, was built in 1804 as a summer residence for his older cousin, lumber dealer and industrialist Peter Nicolai Arbo.Arbo started his art education with a year at the Art School operated by Frederick Ferdinand Helsted (1809-1875) in Copenhagen 1851-1852. After this, he studied at the art academy in Dusseldorf. From 1853 to 1855 he studied under of Karl Ferdinand Sohn, professor of The Dusseldorf School of Art, and from 1857-1858 under J. E. Henthen who was a battle and animal painter. At Dusseldorf he was for some time a private student of the history painter C. Mengelberg. He had contact with Adolph Tidemand and became a good friend of Hans Gude both of whom were professors at the art academy in Dusseldorf.
carl gustav pilo
Carl Gustaf Pilo, konstnär, målare, född 1711 i Nyköping, död 2 mars 1793 i Stockholm Han studerade vid Konstakademien och för Arenius samt vidare i Tyskland. År 1740 till 1772 bosatt i Danmark, där han utnämndes till hovmålare, professor och direktör för akademien. I Danmark utförde han ett antal porträtt bl.a. av Fredrik V och Juliana Maria samt de kungliga barnen. Efter Gustav III:s statskupp år 1772 blev man i Danmark avogt inställd mot svenskar och Pilo blev helt enkelt tvungen att fly till Sverige. Han bosatte sig i sin barndomsstad Nyköping. Gustav III sökte upp honom med uppdraget, att måla kungens kröning. Pilo försökte avsäga sig det, för han hade ju faktiskt inte varit med vid kröningen och han hade aldrig tidigare målat en gruppbild. Men kungen var envis och han ville ha en motsvarande målning till Ehrenstrahls på Drottningholm av Karl XI:s kröning och Gustav III ville att Pilo skulle måla den. Pilo antog till slut uppdraget och 1782 till 1793 arbetade han med tavlan , utan att bli helt färdig, vilket man ser om man studerar den noga där man på flera ställen på målningen upptäcker flera dubbla ansikten. Dessutom experimenterade Pilo med asfaltsfärg, vilket gör att tavlan uppvisar många större sprickbildningar. Tavlan Gustav III:s kröning hänger på Nationalmuseum och är Pilos kanske yppersta arbete och en pärla i svensk konst. Kompositionen är väl avvägd, koloriten glänsande harmonisk samt de individuella porträtten är briljant utförda. Pilo bör räknas till våra främsta målare och var särskilt skicklig som kolorist, där man ser spår och inflytande från den venetianska skolan och från Rembrandt. Många av hans tavlor utstrålar festivitas detta gäller framförallt den stora kröningstavlan. Pilos betydelse i svensk konsthistoria kan också utläsas i att Postverket vid tre tillfällen använt målningar av P. som motiv vid frimärksutgivning. Bl a utgavs till Pilos 250-årsdag en detalj ur kröningstavlan. Även två av Pilos bröder var också konstnärer, dock med mindre framgång, Jöns Pilo (1707-?) och Olof Pilo (1718-1795).