Newspaper Article

Turner in his element

Philipp, Michael, Westheider, Ortrud

2011

Overview

In an extraordinary way, it appears that [Turner] (and presumably other artists) were eavesdropping on the [William Herschel] lectures. The impact on Turner was quite extraordinary, since, within two years of hearing of the sun's ridged surfaces, Turner was creating the same effect in paintings. He called his sketches \"colour beginnings\" and the constant preoccupation with fire, earth, air and water, the four elements if you like, led in time to some of the world's most glorious masterpieces, including Turner's atmospheric The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons, which was painted in 1834 and where a roaring inferno - terrifying in its intensity - surges up into the night sky - a devastation of orange and red burning horribly and, once again, rather like Herschel's view of the sun. Sections of this sumptuous book demand that you return to them again and again. The watercolour, Storm on Margate Sands, is extraordinary. For this reviewer, it twins with Turner's watercolour sketch (made 40 years after the Herschel lectures), which shows the sun, not as a tight ball in the sky, but as a disintegrated force. These two images are a high point in the book - at least for me. But there is much here to stimulate and excite those who love glorious colour and find stimulation in the achievements of a recognised genius.

• Publisher: Mirror Regional Newspapers
• Subject: Herschel, William