J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner was an English landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. He was deeply involved in the Romaticism, the movement that spread across Europe near the end of the 18^th century. He is mostly known for his oil paintings, yet is still regarded as one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape paint. I see his work as both an art of nature and abstract, as the movement and use of colour between the both cannot be told apart.

This piece is very colourful and is something that would attract your eye instantly on a page. The reason behind this is because it is full of amazing shades of orange and yellow, and these are usually associated with a gleaming sunset or some sort of explosion. The sky is more orange than blue and most of the water is quite light. A little off centred to the left of the painting is a ship, and looks a lot like it has oars coming out of the side. If you zoom in on the image you can make out people on the ship, which explains that it is not a navy ship and is a people-carrier. If you look even closer you can begin to see a stream of people all over the ship, as there are people covering most parts of the ship. The main sail at the front of the ship has people climbing over it, and is holding onto it. I do not know the significance of this and it may be in reference to a particular battle or event in history. There is an immense amount of detail put into this painting, which definitely does not look as detailed if zoomed all the way out. I think there is some smoke around the ship, which is the reason why I think this painting was in reference to a certain battle, which can explain the people holding onto the ship. For me, the best thing about the image is the sunset, or sunrise. The sheer brightness and the vivid orange pouring through the image is a wonderful sight and catches your eye instantly.

This is a very quiet painting compared to the last painting, and is much more relaxed. When I say quiet I mean very calm and has no bright vivid colours, leaving your eyes to look around without sticking to one thing. This is a painting of a great sight; a lake just before a huge mountain, with a fair amount of fog in the air. It also looks like sunrise, which may be the reason why Turner did not saturate this painting with colours and kept it simple. I find it extraordinary how I am able to see it is a foggy day and that it is sunrise simply by looking at a painting that was painted decades ago. As the colours are much more desaturated, it leaves your field of sight to look at the entire painting rather than one spot, which is what I like about very light, desaturated paintings. You can just about make out the blues of the mountain or the sky, and can definitely see it in the lake. You can also make out a lot of green in the grass, which is one of the examples of Turner’s attention to detail. I think he chose not to put extremely bright colours in this painting purely because he is showing the early morning, when the day is not in its prime and the colour still yet to shine. Nevertheless, I still like everything about this painting, from the ripples in the water to the edgy brush strokes of the fog.