Joseph Mallord
William Turner - 'Rain Steam Speed' (1844) Oil on canvas
I have chosen this
painting Rain Steam Speed painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner.
As Turner’s said "The
sun is God" just before he passed away, I can see that he has used mostly
the sun colour in this piece of work. This illustrates that Turner had traces
and visions of sun god in his mind before he passed away. A steam train is
coming towards the viewer at a speed while the rain is hitting the train.
The scene is fairly
identifiable as Maidenhead Railway Bridge across the Thames between Taplow and
Maidenhead near the area where Turner lived in his childhood with his maternal uncle.
Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Life and Career
Joseph Mallord William Turner’s date of birth is
unknown but he claimed that he was born on April 23, 1775 in Covent Garden,
London and died on December 19, 1851 in Cheyne Walk. He was a British Romantic
landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker. Turner was considered a
controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated
landscape painting to an eminence rivaling history painting. Turner
is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting.
He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is
regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism. Some of his works also are
cited as examples of Abstract Art.
Turner’s father, William Turner was a barber and
wig maker and Turner’s mother; Mary Marshall came from a family of butchers.
His younger sister, Mary Ann, was born in September 1778 but died aged four in
August 1783.
Turner traveled widely in Europe,
starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in
Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice. On a visit to Lyme Regis
in Dorset he painted a stormy scene now it is in the Cincinnati Art Museum.
As Turner grew older, he became more eccentric. He
had few close friends except for his father, who lived with him for 30 years
and worked as his studio assistant. His father's death in 1829 had a profound
effect, and thereafter he was subject to bouts of depression. He never married
but had a relationship with an older widow, Sarah Danby.
Artist: Antoni Tapies
Title: Journal (Galfetti 166)' (1968)
This piece looks quite negative especially with the big cross in the
middle and the colours used black and red. The red paint splattered looks like
blood and the black cross next to it emphases death or kill.
The paper looks quite old and has a lot of texts which links with the
title of the piece journal.
Antoni Tapies’s Life and
Career
Antoni Tapies was born on 13 December 1923 in Barcelona and died on 6
February 2012. Tapies was a Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist, who
became one of the most famous European artists of his generation. Tapies’s
father was a lawyer and Catalan nationalist who served briefly with the
Republican government.
At the age of 17, Tapies suffered a near-fatal heart attack caused by
tuberculosis. He spent two years as a convalescent in the mountains, reading
widely and pursuing an interest in art that had already expressed itself when
he was in his early teens.
Tapies had
painted portraits in the style of van Gogh and Picasso. But then he turned to
the abstract painting and developed his own style. He wore paint and other
materials thick and partially scratched off. By alternating application of
paint and scraping out the surfaces gives a look like old walls. All this may
relate strongly to the character of the Spanish countryside.
Tapies is
widely considered to be the most important post-war Spanish artist and his work
has achieved international praise. Later he produced heavy clay sculptures of
everyday objects such as baths and chairs.
