English Romantic Painter, 1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 ?C 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterised by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." However, Turner was still recognised as an artistic genius: the influential English art critic John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature." (Piper 321) Suitable vehicles for Turner's imagination were to be found in the subjects of shipwrecks, fires (such as the burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand, and which he transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), natural catastrophes, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and The Slave Ship (1840). Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking and merry-making or working in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other hand. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God - a theme that artists and poets were exploring in this period. The significance of light was to Turner the emanation of God's spirit and this was why he refined the subject matter of his later paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, concentrating on the play of light on water, the radiance of skies and fires. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena. Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painted (1844).His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. (Piper 321) One popular story about Turner, though it likely has little basis in reality, states that he even had himself "tied to the mast of a ship in order to experience the drama" of the elements during a storm at sea. In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.  Related Paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner :. | Factory | Two part | Turn of the left | Castle | Rain, |
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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
was a French landscape painter and printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism.
Giulio Carpioni
(1613 - 29 January 1678) was an Italian painter and etcher of the early Baroque era. Born probably in Venice, Carpioni studied under Alessandro Varotari (il Padovanino) and was also influenced by the work of Simone Cantarini, Carlo Saraceni and Jean Leclerc. He came into contact with Lombard art after a brief visit to Bergamo in 1631. In 1638 he settled in Vicenza and executed most of his work there. He painted history and bacchanals, and also sacred subjects of a small size, many of which are to be seen in the churches in the Venetian states. Paintings by him may be seen in the Galleries of Augsburg, Dresden, Vienna, Modena, and Florence. He was also an etcher; his best plates being St. Anthony of Padua, Christ on the Mount of Olives, The Virgin reading, and The Virgin with Rosary. He died at Verona. Carlo Carpioni, his son, was also a painter. Among his important works are the Apotheosis of the Dolfin family (1647) and the Allegory of the Grimani Family (1651), and altarpiece of Sant'Antonio da Padova, a Virgin and two saints, and a Triumph of Silenus in the Gallerie dell Accademia of Venice. He painted a series of canvases for the Oratory of San Nicola da Tolentino in Vicenza.
PARENZANO, Bernardino
Italian painter, Paduan school (b. ca. 1450, Parenzo, d. ca. 1500, Vicenza).