Turner

New edition

Turner (1775-1851) is, with Constable, his contemporary, the greatest English painter of the 19th century. The son of a London barber and wigmaker, he first became famous for his watercolour landscapes. At 26, he was the youngest artist ever elected to the Royal Academy. A long and prolific career then began.

With his sketchbook in hand, he never stopped travelling around Great Britain and Europe, from the Alps to the banks of the Rhine, from Calais to Rome, from Nantes to Venice, in search of the visual emotions that would feed his pictorial research. He gradually escaped academic traditions, his reflections on composition and colour leading him to the invention of radically new forms. His gradual enthusiasm gave his subjects a dreamlike and fantastic dimension, the visionary scope of which his contemporaries failed to grasp, with the notable exception of John Ruskin, who, from 1840 onwards, elevated him to the pantheon of English artists. Moreau, Monet, Pisarro, Renoir and Ensor followed in his footsteps and took the measure of the painter's modernity.

This highly illustrated monograph traces the intellectual path and interests that nourished Turner's work. Through a thematic approach, it explores his genius for sublimating the legacy of the masters of the past to open up singular horizons for painting.