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.

This survey and scientific analysis of J.M.W. Turner's oils and watercolours, combined with documentary research, shows that the artist experimented with new pigments and paint formulations throughout his life, as well as taking an interest in scientific t

A detailed examination of the painting techniques J. M. W. Turner used to create his masterpieces. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) was a prolific master of landscape and marine painting in nineteenth-century Britain. His attention to color and atmosphere produced breathtaking images of nature, now immortalized in oil paintings, exquisite watercolors, and works on paper. How Turner Painted guides readers through the artist’s groundbreaking techniques, including experiments with modified paint media, innovative uses of watercolor, and painstaking processes for creating a composition. Author of the acclaimed Turner’s Painting Techniques, Turner expert Dr. Joyce Townsend returns to the subject with two hundred high-quality color reproductions and cutting-edge X-ray photography. Tasmania-based artist, writer, and teacher Tony Smibert also contributes a chapter about Turner from a contemporary painter’s perspective. Gallerygoers, artists, museum educators, curators, art historians, and conservation professionals are sure to treasure this authoritative guide to one of Britain’s most important painters.

Extraordinarily inventive and enduringly influential, J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) produced his most important and famous pictures after the age of sixty, in the last fifteen years of his life. Demonstrating ongoing radicalism of technique and ever-original subject matter, these works show Turner constantly challenging his contemporaries while remaining keenly aware of the market for his art. Bringing together over sixty key oil paintings and watercolors, this major international loan exhibition is the first to focus on the unfettered creativity of Turner's final years.

When Turner died in 1851, the general view of an artist's late work was one of decline. Indeed, Turner's own painting from 1845 onwards was described as indulgent, eccentric and 'repulsive', and even his devoted champion John Ruskin commented on its 'wholly inferior value'. However, from the early 1900s there was a major reassessment of Turner's later paintings and sketches. Commentators hailed his study of light as a visionary precursor to the ideas of the Impression­ists. This continued into the twentieth century, with curato­rial choices in some museums presenting Turner's late and unfinished work as distinctly modern. Through a number of key themes and studies into his subject matter, technique and personal activities, this new analysis challenges the historical conceptions of Turner's late style. The idea that as an elderly artist Turner was seen as intro­verted and detached by the Victorian art world is set against the fact that his paintings from 1835 were some of the most popular, accessible and intellectual that he created. Mean­while, questioning the notion that Turner's late work articu­lated a conclusive, radical vision that was heedless of public reaction, the texts explore how Turner had a very firm idea of the workings of the art market at that time. Fully illustrated in colour, and with contributions by some of the foremost Turner scholars, this book breaks new ground in the continuing study of the life and legacy of one of art's greatest masters.

A practical guide to watercolor painting and an informative history, covering technique, equipment, general theory, painting plein air, and conservation.

Turner's daringly loose brushwork and dazzling colors shine in his watercolors J.M.W. Turner, one of Britain's greatest painters, is perhaps known best for his oil paintings. But he was a lifelong watercolorist, and he fundamentally reshaped what would be understood as possible within the medium, both during his lifetime and after. Edited in partnership with Tate Britain, where the majority of the artist's works are conserved, Conversations with Turner: The Watercolorsis published on the occasion of a major exhibition spanning the entirety of Turner's career. Divided into six thematic sections, it focuses on the critical role played by watercolors in defining Turner's personal style. The book brings together texts by prominent scholars of Turner's art, including the art historians and curators Tim Barringer, Alexander Nemerov, Oliver Meslay and Susan Grace Galassi. Comprised of 100 works (all of which are reproduced in this volume), the exhibition was selected from upward of 30,000 works on paper, 300 oil paintings, and 280 sketchbooks donated after the artist's death in 1851, as part of the collection known as the "Turner Bequest." Turner's innovations in watercolor are illustrated in this book through an emphasis on landscapes and seascapes, many of which were painted during Turner's long stays abroad in continental Europe and beyond. The works showcase the development of Turner's stylistic language, focused on experimentation with the expressive potential of light and color, which anticipated trends in late-19th-century painting. J.M.W. Turner(1775-1851) was a controversial figure throughout his career, despite being championed by Ruskin and having played a key role in the elevation of pure landscape painting as a genre, which he took to unprecedented levels of abstraction. He traveled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year, and later making many visits to Venice.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition held at the Tate Gallery, June 22-Oct. 10, 1993.

Bridging the fields of conservation, art history, and museum curating, this volume contains the principal papers from an international symposium titled "Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice" at the University of Leiden in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from June 26 to 29, 1995. The symposium—designed for art historians, conservators, conservation scientists, and museum curators worldwide—was organized by the Department of Art History at the University of Leiden and the Art History Department of the Central Research Laboratory for Objects of Art and Science in Amsterdam. Twenty-five contributors representing museums and conservation institutions throughout the world provide recent research on historical painting techniques, including wall painting and polychrome sculpture. Topics cover the latest art historical research and scientific analyses of original techniques and materials, as well as historical sources, such as medieval treatises and descriptions of painting techniques in historical literature. Chapters include the painting methods of Rembrandt and Vermeer, Dutch 17th-century landscape painting, wall paintings in English churches, Chinese paintings on paper and canvas, and Tibetan thangkas. Color plates and black-and-white photographs illustrate works from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.

This book assesses Ruskin’s and Turner’s mutual interest in the theme of water, with particular reference to The Harbours of England (1856), Ruskin’s book on ships and marine art to which are appended Turner’s 12 illustrations of the English ports. By considering existing scholarly works on Ruskin and Turner, the book begins by demonstrating that the two, despite their widely acknowledged relations, have rarely been examined in conjunction. It raises the question as to how the subject of water inspired the intellectual, aesthetic, philosophical, and scientific climate of the nineteenth century, both in Britain and abroad, and acknowledges the significance of the relationship between Ruskin and Turner in the context of aquatic studies. Ruskin’s childhood fascination with water is examined in detail, while the scientific and spiritual importance of the subject in Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice is also emphasised and read in parallel with The Harbours of England, a detailed account of which is given, referring to both text and illustrations. Turner’s role in Ruskin’s understanding of specific water-pictures is also reconstructed. The book demonstrates that water is important as a multifaceted compendium of contemporary themes, for tradition, progress, nationalism, and patriotism find their iconography in its depiction. Considering the literary and painterly implications of wateriness, the text concludes with a reflection upon the significance of the study of water for Ruskin and Turner, and for their age.