Painting techniques of the masters
J.M.W Turner (1775 - 1851)
Born and bred in London, Turner joined the Royal Academy Schools at the age of fifteen and entered the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1790. In 1799, at the youngest permissible age (24), he was elected as an Associate of the Academy. The RA was to support him through all the criticism and misinterpretation which plagued his career. Turner worked with architectural water colourists as a boy and was greatly influenced by them, his mature style combined a respect for the Old Masters, the ideals of the eighteenth century artists, and the originality born of the individualism of the Romantic movement. He was also fascinated with the scientific ideas of his age and studied light and colour theory and, in particular, yellow which was considered the closest colour to the production of white light.
Turners atmospheric light effects have been described as being 'invented', despite his commitment to nature. On the whole he tended to prefer using pencils outdoors, as he found even water colour time consuming and inhibiting. His early work used the dark warm grounds typical of the eighteenth century landscape painters, later his grounds would become lighter with his mature works generally being painted on white which enhanced the colours of Turners' palette. Turner adopted broad underpainting, using a variety of colour washes rather than the usual monochrome. Pinks, blues and yellows tended to dominate his underpainting which would establish the composition and give an emotional atmosphere to the colouring which would be subsequently added. Turner would overlay colours on the canvas rather than mix them on the palette, a method that was described by a friend as approximating to 'the excellencies of Venetian colouring'. Turner would depend on the use of scumbling as much as glazing, but the effects of these techniques was always counteracted by the tough and abrupt application of thick paint. This process of superimposing thick layers, toning them down and then returning to them was a source of fascination in Turners' technique, leading to a comment in one of his contemporaries: 'solid and crisp lights surrounded with ethereal nothingness'.