The Temeraire, a 98-gun ship of the line, had fought gallantly beside Nelson's Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. After Trafalgar there were no more major naval battles - the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815 - and like many other warships, the Temeraire was relegated to harbour duties. By 1838, 40 years old, she was decaying; she was stripped of reusable materials and sold for the value of her timbers to a Rotherhithe ship-breaker. J. M. W. Turner's 'The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838', one of the best-loved pictures in the National Gallery, depicts the passing of the Temeraire to her doom. From her inglorious final journey - a huge but powerless vessel without masts, rigging, sails or flags, towed by two steam tugs - Turner made a magnificent and deeply symbolic painting.

William Turner (1775-1851) was simultaneously a romantic and a realist--and yet he transcended both styles. This book opens up Turner's paintings, demonstrating that he was not simply illustrating nature, but that his pictures speak directly to the eye as nature does itself.

JMW Turner is one of the greatest artists Britain has ever produced. His watercolours, with their extraordinary effects of shifting light and dramatic skyscapes, are especially highly regarded. For the first time, the secrets of Turner's technique are revealed, allowing present-day watercolourists to learn from his achievements.This book combines unrivalled knowledge of Turner's working methods from Tate curators and conservators with practical advice from some of the world's most respected watercolour experts. Twenty-two thematic exercises are illustrated with Turner's works. Expert contemporary watercolourists explain, step-by-step, how to paint a similar composition, learning from Turner's techniques. Packed with invaluable information, from the materials Turner used to achieve the masterpieces we know and love today, to the modern materials the twenty-first-century watercolour artist will need.Backed by the authority of Tate, the world centre for Turner scholarship, with a glossary of technical terms, this is an invaluable resource both for lovers of Turner's art and of watercolour painting.

A beautifully produced book showcasing Turner’s depictions of the sea, published to coincide with a major exhibition This is the first publication to focus on J. M. W. Turner’s lifelong fascination with the sea, from his Royal Academy debut in 1796, Fishermen at Sea, to his iconic maritime subjects of the 1830s and 1840s such as Staffa, Fingal’s Cave. It places Turner and his work firmly in the broader field of maritime painting that flourished in nineteenth-century Britain, France, Germany, Holland, and America. The majority of the works illustrated here—paintings, watercolors, sketches, sketchbooks, and engravings—are by Turner, but there are also comparative works by some forty other artists including Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, John Constable, Benjamin West, and Gustave Courbet. The book is organized thematically and chronologically, and the subjects range from “Contested Waters,” which examines what was at stake for marine painting during the Napoleonic Wars, to “New Wave,” an exploration of Turner’s international and often surprising legacy for the art of the sea.

The life of one of Western art's most admired and misunderstood painters J.M.W. Turner is one of the most important figures in Western art, and his visionary work paved the way for a revolution in landscape painting. Over the course of his lifetime, Turner strove to liberate painting from an antiquated system of patronage. Bringing a new level of expression and color to his canvases, he paved the way for the modern artist. Turner was very much a man of his changing era. In his lifetime, he saw Britain ravaged by Napoleonic wars, revived by the Industrial Revolution, and embarked upon a new moment of Imperial glory with the ascendancy of Queen Victoria. His own life embodied astonishing transformation. Born the son of a barber in Covent Garden, he was buried amid pomp and ceremony in St. Paul's Cathedral. Turner was accepted into the prestigious Royal Academy at the height of the French Revolution when a climate of fear dominated Britain. Unable to travel abroad he explored at home, reimagining the landscape to create some of the most iconic scenes of his country. But his work always had a profound human element. When a moment of peace allowed travel into Europe, Turner was one of the first artists to capture the beauty of the Alps, to revive Venice as a subject, and to follow in Byron’s footsteps through the Rhine country. While he was commercially successful for most of his career, Turner's personal life remained fraught. His mother suffered from mental illness and was committed to Bedlam. Turner never married but had several long-term mistresses and illegitimate daughters. His erotic drawings were numerous but were covered up by prurient Victorians after his death. Turner's late, impressionistic work was held up by his Victorian detractors as example of a creeping madness. Affection for the artist’s work soured. John Ruskin, the greatest of all 19th century art critics, did what he could to rescue Turner’s reputation, but Turner’s very last works confounded even his greatest defender. TURNER humanizes this surprising genius while placing him in his fascinating historical context. Franny Moyle brilliantly tells the story of the man to give us an astonishing portrait of the artist and a vivid evocation of Britain and Europe in flux.

The English Romantic painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775–19 December 1851) was a brilliant landscape artist, a watercolourist and printmaker. His style, powerful and fierce, melding the elements with humankind are thought by many to have prepared the way for Impressionism. In his time he was controversial, but his focus on land and seascapes widened the palette of artists and their audience, and his impressionistic brushwork prepared the way for the fragmentation of the modern era. This wonderful new book brings to life his greatest achievements, with such paintings as The Fighting 'Temeraire’, Inside Tintern Abbey and Rain, Steam and Speed (The Great Western Railway).

In Art & Energy, Barry Lord argues that human creativity is deeply linked to the resources available on Earth for our survival. From our ancient mastery of fire through our exploitation of coal, oil, and gas, to the development of today's renewable energy sources, each new source of energy fundamentally transforms our art and culture—how we interact with the world, organize our communities, communicate and conceive of and assign value to art. By analyzing art, artists, and museums across eras and continents, Lord demonstrates how our cultural values and artistic expression are formed by our efforts to access and control the energy sources that make these cultures possible.

The fashionables, they tell me their artistic opinion. They just want to know if a painting is hot. Whether it will gain. And then they criticise anyone who is different, anyone who's not on the 'direct route' to taste. Fuck 'em.Turner, the English romantic landscape artist and 'painter of light', was a man obsessed. Intensely prolific he was heavily reliant on his father, deeply affected by his mother's rejections and isolated from the usual breed of artists.English painting is dead. It's dealers making fortunes out of sentimental dross. Dogs. Cherubs.The Painter by Rebecca Lenkiewicz premiered at the Arcola Theatre, London, in January 2011 in the production which marked the opening of its new premises on Ashton Street.

The extraordinary story of the mighty Temeraire, the ship behind J. M. W. Turner's iconic painting. The H.M.S. Temeraire, one of Britain’s most illustrious fighting ships, is known to millions through J. M. W. Turner’s masterpiece, The Fighting Temeraire (1839), which portrays the battle-scarred veteran of Britain’s wars with Napoleonic France. In this evocative new volume, Sam Willis tells the extraordinary story of the vessel behind the painting. This tale of two ships spans the heyday of the age of sail: the climaxes of both the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) and the Napoleonic Wars (1798–1815). Filled with richly evocative detail, and narrated with the pace and gusto of a master storyteller, The Fighting Temeraire is an enthralling and deeply satisfying work of narrative history.

The National Gallery's collection of British paintings is small, but contains some of the most famous and best-loved paintings in the country. This readable catalogue includes the results of fresh examination of each work by the Gallery's Conservation and Scientific Departments.