Ah Turner...his name has been mentioned a fair few times in these posts already but go with me.
At the weekend I had what felt like a rare experience. Driving over the Yorkshire moors towards a vast sunset it struck me that I hadn't seen one for ages and September sunsets are something else.
It had been a warm clear day with plenty of blue in the sky, which was now so many golds and yellows and rich red - not scarlet but crimson. It was like looking into a furnace, the light of which made the moor a hot pink colour.
Sunsets can and do invoke all manner of flowery language and purple prose yet I wasn't thinking poetry but painting. The whole 'The Sun is God' thing, Turner's last words, as I watched the sun sink and the colours deepen then change.
The sky became even more unreal as the palest yellow was tinged with the faintest green. All this taking place above the dark recognisable shape of Pendle Hill in the distance and all you can do is look, with a strange feeling that the heat in the sky is also inside you. An affirmation that old JMW knew what he was talking about - and he was probably right.
So, dear readers, I am compelled to tell you that your last chance to see Turner's paintings for real in all their oil and linseed scented glory is imminent.
Go see them if you can. I for one can look into his skies for a good long while in the same way I can be still and look at a plant and as I am doing this, everything stops. In a world where everything constantly moves this is like a state of grace.
You will see so many skies and seas and sunsets. Light and weather, smoke and storms, mood and melancholy.
As the sun was setting, one man kept raging against the dying of the light.
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| JMW Turner |
'Turner Monet Twombly later paintings' is at Tate Liverpool at the Albert Dock until 28th October
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