Turner

Edinburgh might not be London or Paris (in terms of fashion and grandeur of art exhibitions) but it also has its moments. One of them is definitely a new exhibition in the Scottish National Gallery of Turner's works inspired by Italy.









































Of course we went to have a look this afternoon.

It is one of the best prepared expositions I have seen recently - containing all the right doses of paintings, watercolour sketches (my favourite part of Turner's work), insights into privacy of sketchbooks and works of other artists who inspired the artist (etchings by Piranesi and paintings of Lorraine).













The main thing that strucked us was how many effects Turner used in his paintings were in fact still relevant in modern photography! And how mastermindedly he planned his career!

I am not a big fan of his early oils (especially with figures whose faces he annoyingly limits to two black dots for eyes and red bulging cheeks) where I just would love to crop the most interesting part (like a procession entering the Vatican with a spectacular view of Rome behind it from Turner's 1820 painting Raffaelle, acoompanied by La Fornarina, preparing his Pictures for the Decoration of the Loggia) but his late works form 1840s are simply breathtaking. We were analysing them jokingly "oh! here we have some polarizer and a warm filter" but his minimalistic views of Venice, consisting only of lashings of paint where a silhouette of a familiar building emerges.