William Turner

william turner

Alice Pisan Samantha paltrinieri 5^a

life

The Englishman Joseph Mallord William Turner is a painter of the sublime but, unlike Friedrich, he is not so much interested in the vastness of landscapes as in atmospheric phenomena, from the most delicate to the most violent. At just fifteen years old, he was admitted to the prestigious Royal Academy and four years later he was already an illustrator for some magazines. To carry out his assignment he travels throughout Europe making drawings of abbeys, city views and bridges and coloring them with watercolour. He thus acquired the ability to quickly outline the atmosphere of a place which would remain the most characteristic element of his painting.

The sublime

The sublime is awe-inspiring and beautiful, but also terrifying in its power or potential darkness. Romantic artists explored the sublime through paintings of the imagination, which could often turn into nightmares, and natural landscapes, which were mighty and beautiful but always dangerous.

The landscape painting

In the 18th century, with the focus on the relationship between people and nature in poetry, even the landscapes were changed.Wealthy landowner started to crate picturesque parks to mimic nature. This helped with the retrtreats from industrialization, associating countryside with national identity.

The shipwreck

During the long and fertile season of European Romanticism, in England, two currents stood out, one called the sublime landscape and the other the picturesque landscape. A leading exponent of the former was William Turner, who in his subjects identified the sublime with the spectacular effects of nature, very powerful and aggressive, capable of causing catastrophes and sowing death and destruction through storms, blizzards, avalanches and fires. Constable, on the other hand, was a picturesque landscape painter, who loved to represent the English countryside, evoking feelings of tender melancholy.

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Origin and effects

The sublime embodies intense emotions evoked by powerful natural phenomena, fostering both fear and attraction. Its roots in Latin denote any form of artistic expression reflecting elevated feelings. The beautiful, associated with harmony and perfection in art, contrasts with the sublime, which pertains to the perceiver's overwhelming sensations, as outlined by Addison and later expounded by Burke. Effects of the sublime range from admiration to profound fear, often triggered by the vastness of the ocean, obscurity, the infinite, or elements emphasizing human frailty. In late 18th-century literature, the sublime held sway in the works of Romantic poets and Gothic novelists, entwined with their pursuit of extreme sensations. In painting, artists like Turner and Constable sought to convey the sublime in landscapes, emphasizing natural elements' power and weather's effects. Their influence, albeit varied, extended to the French impressionists.

The paintings

At first the artist sketched what they saw but with modification. At the beginning of the 19th century became popular the concept of painting diectly from nature without alteration.Nature, so the external world, was the true aim of artist. They started to idealize landscape with simbolic meaning. Another change came after the french revolution were english art celebrated British natural life and freedom; and were also against continental society.

Analysis

Shipwreck of 1805 represents, for example, vessels at the mercy of the stormy sea and about to sink, with some sailors trying to snatch their comrades from the waves. The traditional seascape subject is here shattered into frightening chaos; the waves, violent, heavy, compact, seem to be the effect of the convulsions, tremors and tremors of a monstrous creature. It is, undoubtedly, a work full of anguish. The romantic conception of nature is captured in one of its essential aspects. The unleashed elements tend to overwhelm the weak efforts of man who, however, does not lose his confidence and hope of surviving. In short, like other romantic painters of his contemporaries, including Friedrich, Turner pursued transcendent reality through his landscapes.