Ahead of his Time?

"The Scarlet Sunset"
Watercolor and Gouache on Paper
JMW Turner, circa 1835-40

While in Aix-en-Provence this summer, I visited a special exhibition featuring the works of the great British artist JMW Turner.  True confessions: there was so much to see and learn from the exhibit that I went twice! The exhibit was titled "Turner and Color", and boy was that an apt title.

"Impression, Sunrise"
Oil on Canvas
Claude Monet, 1872 

Much has been written about Turner being a precursor of the Impressionists. Turner died just eleven years after Monet was born, so most of Turner's career transpired before the great Impressionist "revolution" got underway. Yet for Turner, as for the Impressionists, the effects of color and light were far more important than the illustrative aspects of a painting. He invented a way of painting that got his point across without showing pictorial details. In-

stead, he told the story by rendering atmosphere through color.

"Sunset Over a Ruined Castle on a Cliff"
Watercolor and Guache on Paper
JMW Turner, circa 1835-1840

Monet first encountered Turner's work in about 1870, on a trip to London. They say that  from that point forward, Turner was a reference point for Monet. Indeed, who can look at Monet's famous "Impression, Sunrise" (second above), and not see a tie to Turner's painting (top above)?

"Vermillion Towers"
Watercolor and Gouache on Paper
JMW Turner, 1838

The exhibit in Aix is focused on Turner's experiments with color. Scientists in his day were discovering much about the nature of color. Turner was fascinated with these new scientific theories, and studied them carefully. He was especially interested in Goethe's Color Theories, published in 1810, about the mechanics of human color perception. Turner was also an early adapter, eagerly taking up newly developed pigments that were not even fully tested. It's no wonder that Turner's body of work breaks such new ground in depicting the effects of light and color!

If you will be near Aix-en-Provence, the exhibit runs through September 18, 2016, at the Hotel de Caumont Centre d'Art. Well worth a visit.