Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

Abstract

Turner's use of sketches on paper, his
development of successful oil sketch­
es into finished paintings, his prefer­
ence for absorbent primings, and his
modified oil media are described.
His oil painting techniques circa
1800-1850 are illustrated by studies
of several works. His use of megilps
(varnish-modified oil media) is out­
lined, along with his use of newly
available manufactured pigments, and
is compared with analyses from oth­
er works painted by British artists
1775-1 875, ranging from Reynolds
to Whistler.

176

Painting Te chniques and Materials of Turner and Other

British Artists 1775-1 875

Joyce H. Townsend

Senior Conservation Scientist

Tate Gallery, Millbank

London SW1P 4RG

United Kingdom

Introduction

This paper presents important aspects of J. M. W Turner's technique, discussed

before by the author in greater detail, by examining several paintings not

previously described in this context (1, 2). Turner painted in oil fo r over fifty

years (ca. 1798-1850), and it is interesting to compare his materials to those

used in British paintings of the preceding and fo llowing twenty-five years (in

the Tate Gallery collection, unless otherwise stated). Thus, this paper presents

a comparison of the use of modified paint media and the adoption by various

artists of new pigments produced between 1775 and 1875.

Turner's oil painting techniques, compared to others' techniques

Turner spent at least ten years as a watercolorist before he used oil as a paint

medium, developing a range of techniques that he would utilize ever after in

oil. In the earlier watercolors, transparent washes overlie the white paper

except where Turner reserved highlights. The greens were made by mixing,

overlaying, or physically mixing with his fingers, washes of brown and blue.

There is very little underdrawing, and generally it is fr ee rather than detailed.

The lTlental image was transferred directly to the support. As Farington wrote,

"Turner has no settled process but drives the colour about till he has expressed

the ideas in his mind" (3). Tu rner produced over 20,000 pencil sketches and

watercolors, now at the Tate Gallery, but few have a direct counterpart in oil.

He hardly ever produced a detailed oil sketch, even fo r a commission, and

when he sketched in oil he developed the best sketches into completed and

exhibited works, rather than repainting them on a new canvas.

Tu rner seems to have tried nearly all materials and methods once. The fo l­

lowing descriptions apply to many of his paintings, if not all. Once he began

to work in both media (always independently), he utilized new application

techniques and pigment in both media at about the same time. His early

work in watercolor gave him an understanding of and liking fo r light-toned,

absorbent surfaces, and honed his skills in the application of optical greens

and blacks. Some eighteenth-century artists such as Wright of Derby (4) used

white grounds to lend luminosity to their oil paintings, but many of Turner's

immediate contemporaries were using thicker paint and warm-toned grounds

up to 1820. Constable produced oil sketches upon mid-toned buff, red, or

blue grounds, though his exhibited works do not show quite such a variety

of grounds (5). After 1820, more British artists tended to use white grounds.

Many commercially primed canvases are white during this time and up to

the 1890s, when Sargent and Whistler used gray ones of varying tones in

England (6). Turner used white primings fo r a fair proportion of his oils, both

exhibited and unfinished, in the first decade of the nineteenth century; in

later decades most of his supports had white grounds. In a fa ir num.ber of the

paintings examined, the primings consist of lead white in whole egg medium

(7), most of the others being lead white in oil, not sized on the surface or

between applications of priming, as had previously been usual. Absorbent

surfaces gave the impetuous Tu rner a very rapid indication of the final color

of the paint, and allowed him to develop the composition rapidly over fast­

drying paint if it looked promising.

Historical Painting Tech niques, Materials, and Studio Practice