My daughter and I went to see the exhibit “Turner and the masters” in Grand Palais, Paris, this morning. When I first saw his fiery sky paintings at The Tate, more than twenty years ago, I thought that no other painter had produced such a strong impression of skies and light (although the final Monets come close in terms of rendering of sheer light). It was thus a pleasant prospect to see more Turners in Paris. The exhibit’s theme was to contrast Turner’s paintings with the masters’ he took his inspiration from (Lorrain, Titien, Rembrandt, Watteau, Constable, Veronese) by putting the paintings next to one another. This does not always turn to the advantage of Turner, but the stronger emphasis on light and aerial colours is a constant. Some of his most academic paintings like the one commemorating Trafalgar are seriously missing, especially in the rendering of characters, but there are a few of Turners’ masterpieces in the exhibit, like the one above and Snow Storm and Moonlight, a study at Millbank, below.
Those paintings are clearly prefiguring impressionism, more than thirty years before, but the exhibit does not go into this direction. Besides the paintings, the exhibit also shows one notebook Turner used when visiting Le Louvre with a superb reproduction of Titien… The exhibit runs till May 24 and tickets must be purchased in advance.
