Weeks after the opening of the Turner et ses peintres exhibition at the Grand Palais, and weeks after pondering whether I should wait in the queue or wait till no one would queue for it, I decided to do the first. The exhibition aims to explain by whom Turner was inspired and how he tried to create his own style.
Whether the exhibition was good or not, i just considered that waiting for about an hour in the shadow was a tad overextended. Even the people who booked their tickets had to wait for a certain amount of time. In addition, there were plenty of people in the museum, a good reason to make us wait outside I guess. If it means that the exhibition was successful on a frequentation aspect, it still did not improve my visit. Indeed, I felt that the room were packed and obliged to skip the first rooms so I could enjoy the next ones with less people in.
Besides, I felt that the explanations concerning the comparisons made between the paintings of Turner and the ones he was inspired from were underdeveloped and that the paintings were not always easy to compare. They were sometimes hung on the opposite wall due to their size and thus it was like playing “Where is Wally?” in order to spot the differences. A simple explanation would be given telling us that there, Turner used the techniques of this artist and here Turner was inspired by so-and-so.
On the other hand, the concept of the exhibition is interesting. The possibility to compare his masterpieces to other’s like Claude Lorrain (vaporous light effect and trees framing antique sceneries), Canaletto (painting Venice and improving his skills), and Rembrandt (painting light contrasting strongly with the darkness and pastoral sceneries) is an excellent way to explain Turner’s art and how he chose his path. Indeed, Turner chose for himself a pantheon of his favourite masters and from there inspired himself from their techniques and subjects and developed them to suit his own style: a landscape painter influenced by a mix of Flemish, French and Italian schools with a strong focus on painting light in a transcendent way.His rivals in England, such as Constable or Bonington , were also his associates and also provided him with a lot of ideas as we can see all along the exhibition.The Grand Palais website offers a virtual tour of the exhibition in French and other media materials to complete it. The Tate gallery has an excellent website with numerous sections dedicated to Turner and where it is possible to virtually visit the gallery established by Turner close to his home in London.
Being enthusiastic about both the representation of landscape and light, Turner hold a special place for me, on the other hand I found some of his paintings paradoxically too bright nor did I appreciate the subjects. If the museum was more spacious, I think that this exhibition would be much more enjoyable but it is hardly easy to regulate a successful exhibition besides having bigger rooms to hold more people. Nonetheless, it remains a comprehensive display of Turner's art and answer its problematic in a clear manner.
-C
One, I believe I have been to this museum and agree that it is much too small to host Turner. You must have had to wait outside because of restrictions on the number of people inside. I like the video of the paintings that was a nice touch and added to the article. Thanks.
ReplyDelete