Turner as Draughtsman looks at the artist's practice of drawing in various media (pen, pencil and chalk as well as watercolour and oil paint), an aspect of Turner's work which has hitherto received very little attention. Andrew Wilton shows that, while Turner's art has always been celebrated for its atmospheric breadth and freedom of handling, he based his working procedures throughout his career on the discipline of drawing in outline, which was an essential element in the grand strategy by which he achieved his formidable results. An important section of the book is devoted to the vexed question of Turner's drawing of the human figure, and the crucial role played by the figure both in his conception of landscape and in his ambitious attempts to master all the genres of fashionable contemporary art.

Spectacular reproductions of Turner's works, set in the context of the artist's themes, ventures, and journeys in England and Europe.
J. M. W. Turner is one of the most famous--and most mysterious--of artists. His paintings are among the masterpieces of Western art, and the range of his work and the originality of his technique make him a giant. He kept his private life a secret, and his contradictory personality, his love of mystification, and his revolutionary manner of painting all fascinated his contemporaries and still arouse our curiosity today.
Andrew Wilton's knowledge and enthusiasm uniquely qualify him to introduce us to the artist's life, and he concentrates here on original sources: Turner's writings, in the form of letters, notes, and verse; impressions recorded by his contemporaries; and reviews of his exhibited works. A comprehensive illustrated chronology covers Turner's travels, exhibitions, and projects, and includes portraits of his friends and patrons, views of places with which he was associated, and works by other artists who played a crucial role in forming his style and thought.
- Revised and updated edition
- Now with color illustrations throughout (200 illustrations total, 150 in color)
- Forty-four works are new to the book
- Includes a recently discovered watercolor
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Turner as Draughtsman looks at the artist's practice of drawing in various media (pen, pencil and chalk as well as watercolour and oil paint), an aspect of Turner's work which has hitherto received very little attention. Andrew Wilton shows that, while Turner's art has always been celebrated for its atmospheric breadth and freedom of handling, he based his working procedures throughout his career on the discipline of drawing in outline, which was an essential element in the grand strategy by which he achieved his formidable results. An important section of the book is devoted to the vexed question of Turner's drawing of the human figure, and the crucial role played by the figure both in his conception of landscape and in his ambitious attempts to master all the genres of fashionable contemporary art.

A beautifully produced, pocket-sized near-facsimile edition of J.M.W. Turner's illuminating 'Wilson' sketchbook.  Turner's sketchbooks were private things which he kept to himself. They might live for some time in his coat pockets or travel bags, to be pulled out as need arose. In the studio, they served as memory banks for future work. Of the nearly three hundred sketchbooks in Turner's house at the time of his death and now in the care of the Clore Gallery, the little book here reproduced is one of the most delightful and fascinating. It marks an important stage in the development of Turner's practice as a draughtsman and was in use when he was only twenty-one years old. It is a working notebook in which the pressing demands of an increasingly fertile imagination are given expression as it forges a new language for itself: a language that was radically to affect the history of both water-colour and oil painting in the romantic period and long afterwards.  Originally marked with 'Copies of Wilson' on the cover, this charming little book is a testimony to the phase of student hood in Turner's development, Richard Wilson being the supreme exponent of landscape painting in the eighteenth-century in Britain. For Turner, whose lifelong ambition was to show the world that landscape paintings could be a vehicle for the noblest and most ideas, Wilson was, as this book shows, his hero and chief model. This edition of the sketchbook reproduces all these beautiful drawings and watercolours in facsimile, with an illustrated introduction by Turner expert Andrew Wilton discussing their background and impact.

Although Britain has played a dominant role in European history, its schools of painting have not always been seen as contributing significantly to the great Continental tradition. In this new book, the eminent art historian Andrew Wilton provides an enlightening look at the glories and achievements of British art over the past five centuries.

He traces the story of British painting from its hesitant beginnings under the influence of Holbein through its maturity in the time of Hogarth and Reynolds, when it reflected a prosperous society with growing Imperial influence. He then explores the pioneering role of Constable and Turner in the revolutions of the Romantic period, and the enigmatic position of artists in Victorian England, when a stiff moral code came into conflict with the uncertainties of the age of Darwin. In the twentieth century, Wilton shows how the new ideas of Modernism were explored by distinctive personalities from the Bloomsbury Group to Francis Bacon and the School of London.