10 Watercolor artist | FEBRUARY 2019
Anatomy of a Painting
Glorious Passages
of Mingled Earth
and Heaven
j
oseph Mallord William Turner
(British, 1775-1851) was too
restless a painter to work solely
within the coni nes of his native
England. Nor was his visual curiosity
satisi ed by a particular type of scen-
ery. Turner was geographically
omnivorous; he scoured the water-
ways, countryside, cities and
mountains of Europe for material,
and he found it seemingly every-
where. h e location names on his
watercolor sketches read like an
ambitious continental itinerary:
Naples, Venice, Heidelberg, Zurich,
Lucerne, Geneva, Luxembourg,
Paris, Harl eur.
If his travels had a recreational
purpose, you wouldn’t know it.
Turner cranked out watercolors
obsessively and passionately, often
carrying softbound sketchbooks
that could be rolled up and stowed
in his pocket.
One of the many themes that
fascinated Turner was alpine terrain
and the architecture that sprang up
on those mountainsides. Something
about the placement of stone turrets
and spires amid the diagonal crags
or surmounting great vertical drops
deeply resonated with the artist’s
romantic nature.In 1836, Turner journeyed through
the Aosta Valley, a mountainous
region in northern Italy—and one of
his favorite places. h ere he painted
Chatel Argent and the Val d’Aosta From
Above Villeneuve. Chatel Argent was a
ruined castle that had been built in
the 12th century.
h e artist’s response to the terrain
engendered atmospheric studies more
moving than the tourist snapshots
and videos that have made the faraway
familiar. A later generation of artists—
Monet and Sargent notable among
them—trod similar ground, but no
one either before or since Turner
has transmitted such an enchanting
view of the European continent,
always founded on observation
and swift draftsmanship. WAJerry N. Weiss is a contributing writer
to i ne art magazines. He teaches at the
Art Students League of New York.Though the contention
that Turner didn’t paint
on site is hardly credible,
his friend and advocate,
the art critic John Ruskin,
rightly admired the
artist’s ability to suggest
misty atmosphere: “... and
if you yet have no feeling
for the glorious passages
of mingled earth and
heaven which Turner calls
up before you into
breathing tangible being,
there is indeed no hope
for your apathy. Art will
never touch you, nor
nature inform.”J.M.W. Turner painted the atmospheric
Chatel Argent and the Val d’Aosta From
Above Villenueve while on a trip
through the Italian Alps.By Jerry N. Weiss
Chatel Argent and the Val
d’Aosta From Above Villeneuve
(1836; watercolor and gouache
over graphite, 10⅛ x12)
by J.M.W. Turner