I was looking for a small painting I had done a number of years ago to illustrate this post but came up empty in my search. It was an image of a barn on fire in one of my landscapes. A bit of an oddity for me but a striking image. So, I decided to change my subject and in its place I chose this masterwork, The Burning of the House of Lord and Commons, from the great 19th century British painter JMW Turner. To me, his work is so unlike anything of its time. It is at its best when it is fluid and wild and free.
I looked at a lot of Turner when I was first starting to paint. He single-handedly transfromed watercolor into an accepted artform and the tales of the extremes he went to with his media and paper to achieve the incredible effects in his watercolors inspired me. His oil paintings were often done in washes of color that was absent in the more restrained and formal paintings of the era and seemed so forward thinking to me. He was a leading edge of modern painting.
I don’t have a lot to say except that Turner remains a favorite. I am humbled and inspired to want to be better whenever I see his work.
Redtree Times 