Turner and Venice

JMW Turner goes in and out of phase as far as appreciation for his gifts as a painter. There have been periods in history where his works were dismissed as irrelevant and of poor technical quality. But despite the varying critical evaluations, Turner´s inimitable style of finding the transparency of that plane where water and air admix has always been viewed by those who are fortunate enough to approach his great works as that of an idiosyncratic romantic poet. Tate 2003 No subject better provided a venue for his vision than the mysterious and magnificent ´La Serenissima´ - Venice, Italy. It is in this city that floats like a transient tenant on the sea, laced with canals, bathed in fog and rain and mist that Turner found the essence of the spirit of Venice. This lavishly designed and illustrated volume originally served as a catalogue for the exhibition by the same title that was staged at the Tate Museum in London and traveled thereafter. Curator Ian Warrell is to be commended for this largest collection of Turner´s paintings and drawings ever to be assembled, and to top his achievement he produced this monograph which not only illustrates in rich color separations the glories of the paintings and the detail of the sketches, it also is graced by excellent essays by travel writer Jan Morris, historian David Laven and Venice specialist Cecelia Powell. While there have been several fine books on Turner, this is the finest assemblage of works that inherently relate, a fact which induces a deeper appreciation for Turner´s talent. Setting his paintings in context with the works of other painters, both his contemporaries and others, shows not only the ´how´ of Turner´s techniques, it informs us of the context of the views both historically and artistically.