London
By Christopher Baker

Having the ability to soar to new heights of creativity in old age is perhaps a key qualification for greatness as an artist. J.M.W. Turner finds a strong place in any list of painters that could be drawn up to whom this applies, as his work became more personal, expressive and experimental late in his career. As such, it was a cause of incomprehension to contemporaries such as Ruskin, although later it became justly celebrated. The reasons for its mature evolution are complex to tease out and include an intensification of earlier pre-occupations and perhaps the sense that as the time left to paint shrank, the desire to achieve more quickened; this was especially acute for Turner as he had an incredibly powerful work ethic. A new sense of liberation also emerged which meant that he was increasingly able to paint for himself rather than the market, as his career had proved so lucrative. Nonetheless, the artist continued to employ strategies that had served him well, travelling across the Continent and gathering material in his sketchbooks until 1845, while also exhibiting at the Royal Academy until 1850.

Late Turner: Painting Set Free, seen by this reviewer at Tate Britain, London (to 25th January; then at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, from 24th February to 24th May 2015, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, from 20th June to 20th ­September 2015) explores these themes among others and, perhaps most importantly, sets out to measure Turner’s achievement on its own terms, rather than viewing it as prophetic of later developments in abstraction or modernism – which has been one of the recurring and distracting motifs in Turner studies since the 1960s.1 This is by no means the first time that Turner’s late work has been explored in an exhibition,2 but it is certainly the most ambitious analysis of the latter stages in his career. The scope is broad: 173 works are included, inevitably chiefly drawn from the Turner Bequest but supplemented with key loans, and covering sixteen years, running from 1835, when the artist turned sixty, to his death in 1851. This means that it encompasses, on the one hand, extremely fine but conventional ‘middle period’ topographical works, such as the splendid and recently rediscovered Bamburgh Castle watercolour of c.1837 (cat. no.123), while on the other, the final oils he exhibited at the ­Academy in 1850, including his smouldering The Departure of the Fleet (no.173). The arrangement is not, however, one of straight chronology; sensibly, key themes are drawn together, such as ‘Travel and Tours 1835–45’, which especially highlights Turner’s love affair with Venice and includes a terrific group of nocturnes, and ‘Past and Present’, which features seminal responses to ancient subjects and contemporary events, such as the burning of the Houses of Parliament; his spectacular oil study of the conflagration from Philadelphia (Fig.33), shows it as the perfect Turnerian theme – a man-made sunrise in which golden, molten ashes arc over the city. This is followed by ‘That Real Sea Feeling’ formed from a grand cavalcade of marine studies. Amid all the thematic sections are numerous outstanding works, some of which are not often seen, such as the sensationally coloured yellow and purple watercolour of The lake of Zug (no.160; Fig.34).

The intelligence of the selection is matched by fascinating catalogue contributions. These follow an introduction by Sam Smiles which explores overlapping topics such as the changing base of patronage Turner enjoyed and the compelling idea that he was reflecting on his own earlier achievement and distilling its core themes. On a more physical level Brian Livesley provides a balanced and illuminating account of what is known of Turner’s health in his later years, finding no justification for the suggestion that he ­suffered from ­mental illness, which was the recourse of those who could not explain his mature work. This is followed by David Blaney Brown’s exploration of the breadth of themes Turner explored, ranging from antiquity to contemporary technology and seen as part of a vast, shifting continuum of history. Amy ­Concannon’s exemplary consideration of the watercolours examines the transformation of simple, raw materials into brilliant illusions, and the final introductory essay by Rebecca Helen and Joyce Townsend also considers technique, assessing the late works in oil and highlighting their increased complexity. The labour-intensive nature of Turner’s late technique was harnessed to achieve ever-greater allusive and ethereal effects, almost as though it was undertaken as a conscious counterpoint to the precise illusionism that was being valued in the world around him with the rise of Pre-Raphaelitism. No longer having to create works with the engraver’s burin in mind was also presumably liberating.

The thoughtfulness of all this analysis is unfortunately undermined in part by insensitive aspects of the presentation in the exhibition itself. This is because many of the works are submitted to a modern aesthetic, with walls painted the colour of old smoked salmon, powder blue, light purple and, most troubling of all, pale yellow. The lighter of these hues diminish the resonance of the watercolours and oils and the visual excitement they are capable of conveying is bled away. The notable and triumphant exception to this is the gallery called ‘Squaring the Circle’ where all nine finished paintings of the 1840s in which Turner explored a square format are dramatically shown spotlit against a dark backdrop as great symphonic bursts of colour and richly textured paint. They received the most vituperative reviews when first shown, but collectively act almost as a fresh manifesto for what the artist could achieve, as they embrace mythic, religious, historic and contemporary themes, all explored through light and vapour. The closest to Turner in terms of emotional impact was his elegy for Sir David Wilkie of 1842, Peace – Burial at Sea (no.115; Fig.35), which remains perhaps the most ­successful in the series. Mourning also emerges at other points in the display, for example, in a brilliantly restrained watercolour of 1841 depicting a funeral at Lausanne (no.40), where a shadowy cortège passes in the foreground and the far mountains are tinged by a crimson sunset. This exemplifies Turner’s unerring ability to embrace a startling emotional range within a small space and bring a euphoric quality to bear on the most sombre moments.

The circumstances of Turner’s own death are dealt with in the exhibition and catalogue through an appropriate combination of mythologising and stark fact. So we learn that on 19th December 1851 Turner’s doctor recorded ‘just before 9 a.m. the sun burst forth and shone on him with that brilliancy which he lived to gaze on [and . . .] He died without a groan’. The artist’s death mask (no.16) is included as a riveting relic – toothless and with the head thrown back and the remains of a scraggy beard. Turner’s coffin then appears in George Jones’s oil-sketch (no.15) which shows it in the centre of his gallery in his house in Queen Anne Street; the candle held over it gives the illusion that light emanates from within and illuminates the circle of mourners and densely hung, flickering paintings on the dark surrounding walls.

1     Catalogue: Late Turner: Painting Set Free. Edited by David Blaney Brown, Amy Concannon and Sam Smiles. 256 pp. incl. 130 col. ills. (Tate Publishing, London, 2014), £35. ISBN 978–1–84976–145–1 (HB); £24.99. ISBN 978–1–84976–250–1 (PB).
2     See, for example, R. Upstone: exh. cat. Turner: The Final Years, Watercolours 1840–1851, London (Tate Gallery) 1993, and J. Hamilton: exh. cat. Turner, The Late Seascapes, Williamstown (Clark Art Institute), Manchester (Art Gallery) and Glasgow (Burrell Collection) 2003–04.