"Painting is a Strange Business": A Discussion of Turner's Technique
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- čas přidán 20. 01. 2022
- Mark Aronson, deputy director and chief conservator, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut
Turner was famously secretive about his painting techniques, and some of his radical technical experiments challenge conservators charged to care for them, but close examination and scientific study reveal an artist who could be both traditional and mysterious.
So glad I found this wonderful informative talk. Thank you so much
E-mailing Guy Fawkes about a Turner painting, that's a sentence I wouldn't think of hearing...
One thing you might like to explore is this. As you know, Turner in later life appeared to begin his watercolour sketches by wetting the paper and then applying a series of thin washes; blue, red and especially yellow, joining the sky and the ground. But what you may not have thought significant is that in many of his finished watercolours he appears to have worked up this pale ground and sky background to a good finish, without first indicating the horizon, shoreline or the main objects at all. Then, the central horizon or shore is either omitted completely or added as a light hue on the still wet paper. When the darker hues are later added to the horizon edges; the central misty nothingness, or the first pale, blurred central horizon or shore is left untouched. This, in contrast with the less blurred middle ground creates the stunning effects of distance. It was those techniques he tried to carry on in into oil. Perspective, after all, was Turner's interest from the beginning - his first lectures were on it. So although he is generally thought to have an especial interest in light effects and the sun, it seems pretty clear that these were mere tools for achieving the main object of his study and research which was to stun the public with his amazing effects of distance to rival Claude. So his "colour beginnings" watercolour sketches get worked up to the mid-1830s oils like Keelmen heaving in coals by night, 1835 or The Golden Bough, 1834, culminating in his masterpiece, The Fighting Temperature, 1838, which have nothingness in place of the central ground or horizon. And to give concrete substance to the clouds and sun in such a world of pale subtlety, he transferred another watercolour medium to canvas, and that is white tempera, which he could lay on thick and scumble the surface of to make clouds. He could then glaze over it before he uses more translucent oil washes over the top - another perspective trick borrowed from watercolour painting.
Thanks.
Thank you for all that wonderful info. Very kind of you!
Thank you for subtitles!!!!!
Valley of Chamonix, France !!! (not valley of Chamouni Switzeland) 24:00
Can't believe I sat thru this whole thing only to see this "expert" do what he did after cleaning the painting - I'm going to have to see that painting in person, 'cause it looks real sad!
Oh my goodness just get to the point