Turner's Modern World

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain looking at how Turner painted contemporary life.

We often look at Turner as an Old Master, which of course he is, and forget than he was painting the contemporary life of his times, commenting on wars and recording new inventions and ideas. Although these works are history to us, they weren’t to him.

The show was nicely arranged in chronological themes with the dates of the main events painted around the top of the room. I loved the works which acted as reporting such as a painting of a theatre the morning after a fire. I was scathing at first of his Battle of Trafalgar picture but then read about the research he did to paint it and it was moving to see his sketch books of his visit to the ship and to read about him interviewing veterans of the battle.

It is easy to forget that Britain was at war with France for much of Turner’s career and it was interesting to see his works which reflected the effect of this on home front both in terms of the industries which grew up to support the army and the effect on agriculture. It was also interesting to see his works to support causes and campaigns such as the abolition of slavery and electoral reform. It was super to see “Rain, Steam and Speed” shown with a model of the train in the picture.

The final room looked at how Turner experimented with different techniques in his own work from oddly shaped pictures to experimenting with painting the effects of light and atmosphere. You really get a sense of being in a different world by the end of the show than you were in at the start. 

Closes 12 September 2021

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