William Turner who is often also called JMW Turner was a crucial artist with in the rise of British art from a situation where it was entirely following what was going on in the rest of Europe towards contributing it's own ideas and movements which would gain academic approval and help to influence others in the future. Turner paintings are part of the British Romanticist movement which encouraged artists to look at ways to express themselves more freely with in their work and not to be too constrained by capturing objects with such realism as had been seen before. Turner paintings also cover landscapes when previously most popular artists had covered allegorical topics or portraits and this was a rising type of art which Turner helped to make it into the mainstream.
This blogspot brings you some of the finest Turner paintings available and details much of his career, explaining why his legacy was so strong. There is now a huge following within Europe and America for his work which remains just as relevant today as it ever was. The use of romantic swathes of colour is a style which has been continually developed from the days of Romanticist artists like Turner to form new art movements which came in the 19th and 20th centuries, the most notable of which being impressionism.
Claude Monet is the most important artist to have come from the 19th century, or at least in the opinions of many, and he admitted to have been influenced by Turner paintings early on in his career which helped to give him the idea for what was to become Monet's Impression Sunrise painting, and from that the impressionists were given their collective name. For this reason as much as any other, the importance of Turner's career cannot be underplayed and his legacy went far beyond the boundaries of the UK.
There has been a growing interest in recent years for Turner prints which are high quality reproductions of original Turner paintings and serve as an excellent way for his fans to appreciate his original works in their own homes. With handmade reproductions being potentially very expensive because of the amount of time required to match the artist's brushwork, these prints offer a cost effective alternative. Framed Turner paintings would add a beautiful finish to most rooms and an advantage of the Romanticist style of this artist is that his paintings can be considered both traditional and modern at the same time, making them very flexible. Added to this, landscape paintings in general have become highly popular in recent years and it then becomes clear as to why Turner is so popular.
William Turner spent much of his life travelling around Europe in the search of suitable locations for his paintings and two locations where he produced a large amount of work were Venice in Italy and also London. These two places offered different advantages and Turner specifcally found Venice to be an excellent place to experiment with his watercolours, as we wasn't only an oil painter. The Italian architecture combined with the canals offered a great opportunity for the artist to experiment with light and colour together. Turner found London to be familiar and easily accessible, with the city also hosting some impressive history and architecture of it's own which also made suitable subjects for his work. Several of the paintings which he created in London and Venice are amongst his most famous of all.
John Constable and JMW Turner are often mentioned in the same breath, and not just because of their British connections. They were both passionate about landscape painting and also felt that the British countryside has great attributes which would perfectly suit their own artistic style. These two artists were a great advert not only for British art, but also for the British countryside as a whole, and for this they are particularly appreciated with in the UK even today, several centuries after their careers had finished.
The strength of William Turner's name continues to remain strong thanks to the Turner Prize which was named after him and attracts considerable media interest every year as it aims to reward modern British artists. There has also been a whole section of a major London gallery which has been handed over exclusively to the work of Turner and that ensures a permanent reminder of his career to all those who visit this popular venue.
