商品簡介
The life of one of Western art's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated painters
J.M.W. Turner is one of the most important figures in Western art. His visionary work paved the way for a revolution in painting. When Turner entered the Royal Academy in the late eighteenth century, painting was almost solely focused on the exterior world. Over the course of his brilliant career, Turner made both landscape painting and the life of the interior much more prominent in art.
Turner was very much a man of his changing era. In his lifetime, he saw Britain move from the height of Empire, through the Napoleonic wars, to the Industrial Revolution, and the Victorian era. He saw astounding changes in his own life. From a lowly birth in Covent Garden to national esteem and finally a funeral in St. Paul's, Turner's life was a constant negotiation between ambition and background.
Turner was accepted into the prestigious Royal Academy at the height of the French Revolution. A climate of fear dominated Britain, and the nation turned inward. This was an opportunity for Turner, who was an intrepid explorer who travelled all around Britain and later Europe. In his early decades as a painter, he captured some of the most iconic scenes of Britain. But his work always had a profound human element.
While he was commercially successful by the end of the eighteenth century, Turner's personal life was always in flux. His mother suffered from mental illness and was committed to Bedlam. Although he is associated with the Victorian era, Turner himself was a product of louche Covent Garden in the liberal Georgian period. Turner never married but had several long term mistresses. His erotic drawings were numerous--and covered up by the Victorians.
In his later years, Turner's work became more impressionistic, and the public's great affection for him soured. John Ruskin, the greatest of all 19th century art critics, rescued his reputation and claimed Turner as a painter for the ages.
作者簡介
Franny Moyle studied Art History at St John's College, Cambridge. She enjoyed a career in arts programming at the BBC that culminated in her becoming the corporation's first Commissioner for Arts and Culture. She is now a freelance executive producer and writer and lives in east London. She is the author of Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde and Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites.
