Brush with Peril

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (English, 1775-1851) painted romantically expressive, imaginatively and incandescently colored, often turbulent or violent landscapes, marine scenes, shipwrecks, storms, rain, sunsets, fog, and fires, including the burning of Parliament in 1834, which he witnessed first-hand. In an era when transportation was difficult, he was truly an adventurer and “man’s man,” exploring farther than most dared out into the perilous wild, or the perilous sea, with his sketchbook and art materials in hand, taking copious notes of whatever sublime imagery he encountered, then returning to his studio to create finished works from them. This gave him an edge over other painters of the era who rarely left their studios or hometowns, and whose landscapes were from imagination.  In a time when portraiture of the noble classes, or romanticized or mythologized history were regarded as the highest art, Turner elevated the subject of landscape painting to the eminence that these other subjects had then been regarded. His intensity and luminous power of subject matter paved the way for abstract art and expressionism in particular, which didn’t arrive until a hundred years later.  He was recognized as an artistic genius. He was private, reclusive, and as he grew older and more morose and eccentric, his art intensified. In 1841 he rowed a boat into the Thames so he couldn’t be counted in that year’s census. Turner died of cholera, and apparently his last words were, “The Sun is God.”

Read the comic book, “Brush with Peril”:


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