English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | Cover | Nubmer | Landscape | Shape | No title |
Related Artists:
Wilhelm Busch
1832 Wiedensahl/Hannover-1908,was a German caricaturist, painter and poet who is known for his satirical picture stories. After studying first mechanical engineering and then art in Dusseldorf, Antwerpen and Munich, he turned to drawing caricatures. One of his first picture stories, Max and Moritz (published in 1865), was a huge success. Max and Moritz as well as many of his other picture stories are regarded as one of the main precursors of the modern comic strip. Max and Moritz, for instance, has been an inspiration for the Katzenjammer Kids. Wilhelm Busch also wrote a number of poems in a similar style to his picture stories. Besides that he produced more than 1,000 oil paintings that weren't sold before his death in 1908. He was also active as a sculptor.
Simon Vouet
French Simon Vouet Gallery 1590-1649 French painter and draughtsman. Although at the time regarded as one of the leading French painters of the first half of the 17th century, he is now known more for his influence on French painting than for his actual oeuvre. He made his reputation in Italy, where he executed numerous portraits for aristocratic patrons and was commissioned for religious subjects. Although the early Italian works show the influence of Caravaggio, his work was subsequently modified by the Baroque style of such painters as Lanfranco and the influence of the Venetian use of light and colour. When he was summoned back to France by Louis XIII in 1627 he thus brought with him an Italian idiom hitherto unknown in France that revitalized French painting.
Giuseppe Simonelli
(Naples, c.1650 - 1710) was an Italian painter. Born in Naples around 1650, Simonelli was one of the most important painters of the school of Luca Giordano. His early works were often retouched by Giordano to such a degree that some of them were confused with those of the master. He learned Giordanoes art so well that when the master left Naples for the Spanish court in 1692, he was assigned the task of completing the unfinished Neapolitan works for delivery to clients. Reliable details of his own production are available as from 1686, when he received the final payment for a painting of Holy Martyrs for the Jesuit college in Trapani. His most celebrated works are the series of 28 paintings for the Church of the Annunziata in Aversa, produced between 1702 and 1703 together with his brother Gennaro. He worked continuously right up to his death in 1710.