Monday, June 11, 2018

Oils, Gouaches, Watercolors by J.M.W. Turner (Ruins)

Joseph Mallord William Turner
 Interior of the Ruined Oxford Street Pantheon (after fire)
1792
watercolor
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Moonlight with Ruin and Trees
 ca. 1795-97
chalk. gouache, watercolor
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Copy of Richard Wilson's Landscape with Bathers, Cattle and Ruin
1796-97
watercolor
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Capriccio with Dome of St Peter's, Rome seen through Ruined Triumphal Arch 
ca. 1797
gouache, watercolor
Tate Gallery

"The ideas ruins evoke in me are grand.  Everything comes to nothing, everything perishes, everything passes, only the world remains, only time endures.  How old is this world!  I walk between two eternities.  Wherever I cast my glance, the objects surrounding me announce death and compel my resignation to what awaits me.  What is my ephemeral existence in comparison with that of a rock being worn down, of a valley being formed, of a forest that's dying, of those deteriorating masses suspended above my head?  I see the marble of tombs crumble into powder, and I don't want to die!  And I begrudge the effect on weak tissue of fibers and flesh of a general law that even bronze can't contravene!  A torrent drags each and every nation into the depths of a common abyss: myself, I resolve to make a solitary stand at the edge and resist the currents flowing past me."   

– from the Salon of 1767 by Denis Diderot, translated by John Goodman (Yale University Press, 1995)

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Cattle in a Stream with Ruins on the Bank
ca. 1800
gouache, watercolor
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Moonlight among Ruins
ca. 1820
watercolor
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ruined Castle
ca. 1825-38
gouache, watercolor
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Town with Ruined Castle on the Moselle
ca. 1826
gouache
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
 Ruins of the Old Pont Eudes, Tours
ca. 1826-28
gouache, watercolor (on blue paper)
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ruined Péage near Champtoceaux, Loire Valley
ca. 1826-28

gouache, watercolor (on blue paper)
Tate Gallery

"If the site of a ruin seems perilous, I shudder.  If I feel safe and secure there, I'm freer, more alone, more myself, closer to myself.  It's there that I call out to my friend, it's there that I miss my friend; it's there that we'd enjoy ourselves without anxiety, without witnesses, without intruders, without those jealous of us.  It's there that I probe my own heart; it's there that I interrogate his, that I take alarm and reassure myself.  Between this place and the abodes of the city, the native ground of tumult, the seat of interest, passion, vice, crime, prejudice, and error, the distance is great. If my soul were predisposed to tender feelings, I'd surrender to them without restraint; if my heart were calm, I'd savor the full sweetness of its quietude.  In this vast, solitary, deserted sanctuary, I hear nothing.  I'm isolated from life's difficulties; no one hurries me along and no one is within earshot; I can speak to myself out loud, give voice to my afflictions, and shed tears without restraint." 

– from the Salon of 1767 by Denis Diderot, translated by John Goodman (Yale University Press, 1995)

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Caligula's Palace and Bridge
1831
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ruined Castle on a Rock
ca. 1834
gouache, watercolor
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ruined Monastery at Wolf
ca. 1839
gouache, watercolor
Tate Gallery

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Bacchus and Ariadne
1840
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery