This is not a typical exhibition. Rather than a self-justifying glorification of Turner’s mastery, it concerns itself more with narrative. Anybody who has seen Turner’s work, knows that he was a virtuoso of the Romantic school; his skilful paintings are frequently populated by the rolling hillsides and ethereal seascapes he is best known for, all portrayed with a beguiling mix of explosive power and tender delicacy. However, Turner and the Masters, doesn’t rest on its laurels, but rather challenges Turner and holds to account his attempts to expand his repertoire by juxtaposing his wider works with the originals of other greats that inspired him.
The exhibition spans across six rooms, the first of which is entitled ‘Education and Emulation’. In these early works, already emerging is Turner’s penchant for the epic and ephemeral. Even at this stage we can see Turner’s typically brilliant use of light and the seascape emerge in Moonlight, a Study at Millbank and even more so in Harlech Castle; the meandering estuary is treated with a soft beauty, Turner embalming the scene in golden evening light. This first room is a good encapsulation of the exhibition as a whole, as here Turner challenges a multitude of the Old Masters and, whether he succeeds or fails, is always daring and tenacious. A prime example of his bravery is situated on the final wall of Room One. Turner was asked to paint a piece to be hung with Willem Van de Velde’s Ships in a Stormy Sea, and so he produced Dutch Boats in a Gale, an almost mirror image. Turner, in creating an exact counterpoint to a revered master of seascapes, makes a metaphorical statement of intent, the audacity of which is heightened when Turner then goes on to make the picture his own. He challenges Van de Velde’s precision and adds a far more textural style to the waves, replacing the black, glassy expanse of sea in the Dutchman’s work, with an energetic application of whites, browns and intense greys, imbuing the piece with a genuine sense of threat.
However in the next rooms, the assurance Turner shows early on seems to evaporate. Room Two focuses on Turner’s experiments with the Grand Style. When Turner’s Crossing the Brook and Lorrain’s Moses Saved from the Waters are compared, the two classical scenes look very similar, but Turner’s effort looks grandiose and pale compared to the characteristic richness in the other piece. Comparisons between Turner and Salvator Rosa, Lorrain and Titian see him repeatedly left wanting as he tries to impress his dreamlike style on pieces that are simply unsuitable.
It was in Room Three – when Turner challenges the Dutch school – that I began to think that the curators didn’t actually much like Turner. Two walls are dedicated to Rembrandt, and Turner’s attempts to emulate him; the most piquant contrast is between Jessica and Rembrandt’s Girl at a Window. Turner’s imitation feels like just that, an imitation. There are many direct parallels but the most striking are the faces; Rembrandt depicts a sweet and charming girl with a healthy flush in her cheeks, spot lit in perfect white light; and Jessica, cast in shadow, looks goggled eyed, her cheeks over-rouged – she feels like a fake in comparison. Again, when Rembrandt’s Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery is compared with Pilate Washing his Hands, the contrast is clear. The spiel on the wall claims “all who approached [Rembrandt’s piece] pulled off their hats” in reverence.’ It is hard to imagine anybody removing their hat for Pilate, screwing up their face into a mildly confused squint is more likely.
One of the true gems of the exhibition, Aelbert Cuyp’s Herdsman with Five Cows, lies in the back right corner of this room. Turner himself poetically praised Cuyp for his ability “to blend minutiae in all the golden colour of vapour.” His response, Abingdon, loses the crispness and perfect wisps of gold that Cuyp exhibits and ends up feeling washed out.
It was to my great relief then, when the tide began to turn, coincidentally – or not – when Turner returns to painting waterscapes. As we see him lusciously depict a vibrant and energetic Venice in some of his most beautiful paintings in the exhibition (Bridge of Sighs, Ducal Palace…), and his dramatic portrayal of naval warfare Battle of Trafalgar, he begins to find his feet in a style that was truly becoming his own.
In the final room, we find a comparison that Turner wins hands down, when Lorrain’s Seaport at Sunset and Turner’s Regulus are hung together. Here finally the styles of the Old Masters yield to Turner’s greatness. Both paintings feature a low sun however the orange light of Sunset is made to look pedestrian next to the breathtaking, powder-white burst of almost celestial light in Regulus. Epic buildings and dramatic seas are all but overwhelmed by the powerful burst of light that Turner portrays.
Turner and the Masters reaches its crescendo halfway along the left wall of Room Six with the breathlessly panicked and powerful Snow Storm. Now, rather than imitation, Turner had mastered his own style, which he defined as ‘atmosphere.’ Where Ruisdale’s Rough Sea, hung nearby, looks static, a moment captured in a storm, Snow Storm catches the whole thing in all its terrible power and awful majesty. It is a painting which endows motion, sound and fear to the canvas. The colours and vivid movements of the brush reveal genuine vigour. It achieves everything that Turner had spent his life striving for and is a fitting end to a bold exhibition.
The final room is filled with other masterpieces that safely reassert our admiration for Turner, which is questioned throughout. Yet now it is all the stronger. And that is the brilliance of what the curators have achieved here. Turner and the Masters reveals the struggles and stages that Turner went through on his journey to becoming the historical figure he is today, and Turner aside, the wealth of other fantastic works on display, by a multitude of history’s greatest painters, are worth the visit alone. This is a genuinely courageous exhibition that is not to be missed.
TURNER AND THE MASTERS IS AT THE TATE BRITAIN UNTIL
JANUARY 31ST 2010
I wish my students at A level could write an account of an exhibition as you have hear Duncan, Nice one. You have come a long way since Wade Deacon!!. Happy Xmas.