The great Summer Art Exhibition has just started. And this year it is dedicated to one of the most evocative artists of English Romanticism: Joseph Mallord William Turner. "Turner, The Sublime Legacy" was unveiled on the 4th July 2024 by H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco in view of the opening to the public from the 6th July to the 1st September 2024 at the Grimaldi Forum. The showroom, sponsored by CMB Monaco, Sotheby's and Marzocco Group, offers a set of inspiring works of art plunged in a unique scenery covering a showroom of 2,000 m2.
By the will of Tate Gallery's curator, Elizabeth Brooke, the art itinerary seeks to give the audience a comprehensive vision of Turner's production, from his most popular landscapes to the elementary explorations of the light and the atmosphere, resulting from the effects of the first Industrial Revolution.
The British Artist enhances the grandeur of natural elements and weather conditions, like mountains, sky and storms, through a spectacular painting technique able to reinvent the combination of natural forces and man-made landscape. His art production becomes the metaphor of the Sublime referring to the greatness in the aesthetic representation of British landscape in the nineteenth century. It combines Beauty and Fear, arousing two opposite feelings throughout the contemplation of Nature.
An exclusive selection of eighty paintings and works on paper from the iconic Tate's collection, the largest loan of oils on canvas ever made, leads visitors to discover or rediscover Turner's revolutionary style, between romanticism and abstraction.
Turner's exhibition at the Grimaldi Forum offers an additional added value comparing the British paramount artist with relevant modern and contemporary colleagues influenced by his unmistakable style: John Akomfrah, Edward Burtinsky, Peter Doig, Olafur Eliasson, Howard Hodgkin, Roni Horn, Richard Long, Lisa Milroy, Cornelia Parker, Katie Paterson, Laure Prouvost, Mark Rothko, Wolfgang Tillmans, James Turrell and Jessica Warboys.
Thus, the technique of the landscape revives over the centuries to depict the economic, social and environmental expression, hand in hand with human being's impacts on the surroundings.
Turner and the Impressionists, the pioneers of climate action. Legend or reality?
For some years, scientific studies applied to art have been examining how the evocative force of Impressionists' style was strongly influenced by the impact of air pollutant massively introduced into the atmosphere during the first Industrial Revolution.
An exhibition currently in progress (from the 6th July to the 27th October 2024) at the Turner's House, the painter's former retreat in Twickenham (South-West London), named "World of Care" brings up the topic. As explained by the art curator Dr Thomas Ardill, Joseph Mallord William Turner was one of the first witnesses of the early stages of climate and ecological breakdown both in Great Britain and in Europe. Some of his most vivid works of art are examined from the point of view of modern environmental issues related to anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems with irreversible consequences.
The "Painter of Light" often highlights with its romantic features the impacts of human communities on the territories. Turner's masterpieces like Rain, Steam and Speed, Sunset, London from Greenwich and Shields, on the River Tyne. Shady landscapes in a smoky atmosphere and vivid sunsets, pillars of the English Romanticism and then the French Impressionism, show obvious signs of uncontrolled atmospheric pollution in the name of technological progress alone. ven the descriptive storytelling of some mountain landscapes depictd by Turner provide valuable data on the melting state of glaciers in alpine area, since 1800.
Turner and Monet concept of light and optical view has definitely been shaped by high concentrations of atmospheric aerosol concentrations in Western European cities throughout the 19th century as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution. This is the result of a recent American research study by Anna Lea Albright and Peter Huybers* focused on the influence of environmental changes on stylistic trends.
Higher concentrations of pollutants suspended in the air decrease the perception of the contours of objects and living beings in a panoramic view but they also create unexpected colour perspectives at sunset when the sun’s rays take longer to reach us, crossing atmospheric particles, including human and natural pollutants. The emerging age of coal and steam strongly modified Turner's environment as well as an unexpected volcanic eruption (Tambora, Indonesian Archipelago). And the British painter sought to represent technological and resulting environmental change (J. Hamilton, Turner and the Scientists - 1998). Monet, for his part, made direct reference to air pollutants as 'art drivers' to his painting representations, being used to paint live in high pressure season with absence of wind and rain, thus 'benefiting' from a more polluted atmosphere to better adapt to his creative technique.
However, neither Turner nor Monet can be properly defined as precursors of modern ecology, since they both put the landscape at the service of their artistic visions without tackling environmental issues (notably, air pollution).
Their ability to describe in detail the atmospheric phenomena of the era in which they lived is today an important snapshot of the severe effects on climate, starting from the first Industrial Revolution, deriving from a historical connection between aerosols and painting styles. ***
*"Paintings by Turner and Monet depict trends in 19th century air pollution", Edited by William Clark, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; received November 8, 2022; accepted December 20, 2022.
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By Maurice Abbati
Journalist; Editor; Communication, Media and Public Relations Specialist
Lecturer and Author in English language of Technical Articles and the Manual: "Communicating the Environment to Save the Planet, a Journey into Eco-Communication" by Springer International Publishing.
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