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 :. | Flammulated sky | Number nine | Study of Church | Fifth tragedy of Egypt | War, the Exile and the Rock Limpet |
Related Artists:
Laurits Tuxen
Danish Painter, 1853-1927 was a Danish painter specialising in figure painting. He was also associated with the Skagen group of painters. Tuxen grew up in Copenhagen and studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Art where together with P.S. Krøyer he was considered to be one of the best painters. He first visited Skagen in 1870 and he returned on several occasions. In the 1880s and 1890s, he travelled widely painting portraits for Europe's royal families including Christian IX of Denmark, Queen Victoria and the Russian royalty. In 1901, after the death of his first wife Ursule, he married the Norwegian Frederikke Treschow and shortly aferwards purchased Madam Bendsen's house at the artists' colony in Skagen in the north of Jutland, converting it into a stately summer residence.
Hedouin Pierre
A fine French painter, etcher and lithographic artist , Boulogne 1820-Paris 1889
carl locher
(1851-1915) was a Danish realist painter who from an early age became a member of the Skagen group of painters. Even before he began his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in 1872, he was encouraged by Holger Drachmann to spend a couple of months in Skagen, the artists colony in the far north of Jutland. He quickly completed paintings of the beach, some with fishing boats or wrecks. He also became interested in the horse-drawn carriage which travelled along the beach on its journey from Frederikshavn. In the 1870s, Locher continued his studies in Paris but he visited Skagen whenever he was back in Denmark. Ultimately he had a house built there where he lived until his death.