J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free

All artworks by Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775-1851). Venice at Sunrise from the Hotel Europa, with Campanile of San Marco, about 1840, watercolor. Copyright Tate, London 2014.

J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free at the J. Paul Getty Museum exhibits the late works of Turner through May 24: over 60 watercolors and oil paintings produced between 1835 and 1851. On view are landscapes, seascapes, historical and architectural subjects, sketches, and palettes. During his career, primarily as a landscape painter, Turner went on many sketching tours to gather material for new works, filling a number of sketchbooks with pencil studies on each tour. Occasional watercolors captured weather effects, changing sunlight, and water reflections. He traveled throughout England, Scotland, Wales, Italy, France, Switzerland, and elsewhere. On returning back to London, he would work up watercolor and oil paintings from his on-site sketches.

Venice: Santa Maria della Salute, Night Scene with Rockets, about 1840, watercolor and bodycolor. Copyright Tate, London 2014.

He revisited Venice several times, fascinated by its combination of light and color. Many of the late works are images of Venice, created from sketches done there in 1840. They're more atmospheric, capturing the essence of a place--imaginative and painterly. Contemporary landscape painters of his time produced topographical works that were acknowledged and recognized for their verisimilitude. Turner had a personal response to a landscape, in terms of both vision and technique. He was controversial, forward-leaning, anticipating the Impressionists, and among the earliest British painters to depict nature through a poetic lens. The Victorians deplored his "indistinctness" and high-keyed color ranges.

Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London, 1841, watercolor. Copyright Tate, London 2014.

The Blue Rigi, Sunrise, 1842, watercolor. Copyright Tate, London 2014.

"J.M.W. Turner is the towering figure of British 19th century art, a ground-breaking innovator in his own day whose relevance and status as a seeming harbinger of 20th century modernism has made him an inspiration to generations of later artists up to the present day. A successful and well-known public figure in his own day, Turner produced some of his most innovative and challenging work during the last 16 years of his life," explains Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. "He was frequently mocked and misunderstood for his choice of unusual subject matters, his experimentation with different canvas formats, and his pioneering free and spontaneous techniques in both oil and watercolor. While Turner could not knowingly have anticipated future artistic trends, he is seen today by many as a prophet of modernism because of his rough, gestural brushwork and quasi-abstract subject matter. This exhibition celebrates Turner as the most innovative and experimental artist of his time, and I have no doubt that it will be inspiring to a new generation of artists working today."

Peace--Burial at Sea, exhibited 1842, oil on canvas. Copyright Tate, London 2014.

Approach to Venice, exhibited 1844, oil on canvas. Image courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Norham Castle, Sunrise, about 1845, oil on canvas. Copyright Tate, London 2014.

Turner produced an immense body of work, left in his Queen Anne Street and Chelsea studios: nearly 19,000 drawings and sketches in watercolor, pencil, and other media, tens of thousands of prints, and 282 unfinished and finished oil paintings.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles.