"Unfortunately Turner's dead and he didn't make any records"

As for dabbling, why not? I can't say I've seen any painting by a musician that struck me as any good - but Captain Beefheart's work is regarded highly, I believe. I've not seen any of it. There seems to me little in the way of transferrable skills (unlike writing or acting, say), but there equally seems to me nothing in being a musician, however famous, that makes them less than averagely likely to produce good visual art.

Just went to the late Turner exhibition at the Tate, which was exhaustingly remarkable - watercolours were actually what did it for me as much as any of the larger oils. Will need to go back I think.

One aspect of what was interesting me was how his paintings conveyed that great philosophical problem of how we make sense of the this constant cataract of sensory information bombarding us - the great buzzing confusion to use Beckett's phrase. His paintings seem able to both show the sensory plenitude of the universe and how their are perceived through the medium of watercolours/oils etc, but also what is like to spend a lifetime understanding light and darkness, and how it becomes filled with a stupendous and immanent engery.

There were moments where I felt on the borders of revelation, of a small sort, a moment where it felt like his technique was unlocking a secret that could be articulated, but ultimately which remained bound up in the paint and his genius.

It was amazing, please go if you get the chance.

'engery' a collusion of 'energy' and 'angry'? works for me

would like to go to this now. of course this thread will soon be hijacked by people wanting to talk about the new biopic, and good luck to them

How odd! I was just talking about Turner today (with a friend who is a comic book artist and animator) not in relation to knowing about this exhibit or anything, just because we walked past his studio in Chelsea.

I have had a lifelong distaste for Turner (to the point where I've always had a game of "try to run though certain rooms quickly and not see any Turners at all!" at the Tate) but in the Tate Modern recently they had hung one of his "Venice in Fog" paintings in a room with a bunch of abstract expressionists and colour field painters. And I have no idea why that suddenly clicked, but I did just go "oh. I see."

(Probably because most of the Turners I've had to suffer through before have been tedious watercolours of Italian landscapes with languid nymphs dancing round them.)

Not sure I could take a whole exhibit of them; that might be a bit much.

yeah, I have limited desire for nymphs and Italianate landscapes too, but I think the watercolours, alpine lakes, german riverine scenes and his seascapes are fantastic.

and some of his Venetian stuff - the boats going to and from the ball seem almost mystical.

The seascapes I think are where he really comes alive, that kind of translucent quality of the light where you're not sure where mist ends and clouds begin but everything is hazy and blue-grey-green, he really nails that quality quite beautifully.

he really does. I wish i knew more about the technical composition of art, because I cannot even begin to see how you perceive the atmospherics the way he does - the way he seems to reveal in paint. the flow as of light, as conveyed by his brushstrokes, is not constrained by any line.

In fact when quite close up to a number of the watercolours, it was impossible to tell what he was conveying, but when I stood across the other side of the room, looking across at this small picture, it was like I was perceiving a landscape image quite clearly, with a dream-like vividness.

The skies do seem to be incredibly soft at the moment (I remember thinking that when I came back from a short New York trip last year) - it's that hazy blue-green that you mentioned. i went outside the exhibition afterwards and looked at the impressively storm-tattered skies over the Thames, and thought 'how does he *see* what I *feel* but cannot myself see, and then add revelation within that?' Art innit.

Interesting, on his technique in sea painting:

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-seascape-n05515/text-technique-and-condition

Because I was under the impression that he mostly used washes of paint - watercolour style technique, even when painting in oils. But applying paint and then scraping it off would also give the stained quality that lets the light in. This one is particularly impressive:

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-waves-breaking-against-the-wind-n02881

To get to that ^^^ from essentially this:

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-fishermen-upon-a-lee-shore-in-squally-weather-tw0850

I'm a bit cynical, and I always start to wonder if an artist's sight is going, if they're suffering from cataracts or something that are making everything so gauzy and luminescent. Or does he stop at the underpainting stage because that's a more honest impression of the scene. Or the difference between a sketch executed on site, versus a finished painting - and realising that the quick sketches are more interesting and evocative than the laboured end result. I have been uncharitable, previously, with not wanting to give JMW any credit, but perhaps I should rethink that.

Not really much credence for my cattiness, when it's like...

Study:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-waves-breaking-on-a-lee-shore-at-margate-study-for-rockets-and-blue-lights-n02882

Finished painting:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-rockets-and-blue-lights-close-at-hand-to-warn-steam-boats-of-shoal-water-tw1328

(Though I do prefer the study TBH)

great post - thanks. I don't think I'm cynical. in fact I'm not sure it matters (genuinely not sure rather than "it doesn't matter").

I think he may have been blind in another way: there were so many bits that indicated a painterly consciousness going down its own paths without understanding why others couldn't understand it - like he would become *enraged* by lack of comprehension (like the Germans who saw his painting of the opening of the Walhalla as an insult because it was "too misty".)

whether his story about getting sailors to lash him to the mast during a storm is true or not, it conveys a clear intent to get *inside* the turmoil of the storm.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-snow-storm-steam-boat-off-a-harbours-mouth-n00530/text-catalogue-entry

a friend of mine, who's an artist and has been to the exhibition, was tremendously struck how he'd use the odd single stroke of dry paint against the general flow in his watercolours, and there are a couple of paintings where he uses gouache, oil and watercolours for different sections, the depiction strongly affected by the medium.

there is an effortless ability to take you from foreground to distance (most effective in a picture of lauserne with a steamship coming across the lake).

it feels like the central bits of his technique and perception are becoming more and more refined or extreme rather than a loss of perceptual or technical ability.

xpost but includes that one. "refined" is the wrong word. it's like he was more wildly faithful to his own vision.

Victorian painters describing one another's work are so wonderfully catty!

But yes, I understand what you mean by refining - like, becoming more and more Turner-like.

they certainly are. it's quite entertaining.

yes, that's exactly it. I don't know, I'm feeling quite evangelical right now!