Artist Turner Outline Essay, Research Paper

Outline: Chose an artist such as Turner, David or Hunt and explain how that artists work fulfilled that eras definition of the moral purpose of art.

Trent Trombley

The purpose of Turners work was to establish a link between sublimity and understanding. Art reflects on the expanding nature of our society and world in general, it was with his paintings that he evoked such change. Even the very style in which he painted differed throughout his career. It is very apparent that he was a man not set by limits but by the limitless reaches of his mind and the changing world around him.

1. Understand the era that Turner lived.

a) Turners life span was a period of tremendous change and development.

b) He is the only British painter of the time whose work truly reflected the spirit of progress of these years.

c) In art the normal tendency was to look back to the past rather than to create a style in keeping with the advances of other fields.

2. Events that took place throughout Turners life.

a) Turner supported abolition and painted The Slave Ship between 1833 and 1840 the emancipation of the slaves in the British colonies began.

b) Turner wanted to have a marriage between art and industry and painted Rain, Steam and Speed, The Great Western Railway, yet artists disliked the industrial revolution saying it was repulsive.

3. The changing style of Turner.

a) Turners works have changed greatly throughout his career and now his late works have been regarded as highly as his earlier works.

b) Many of his later exhibition canvases eluded interpretation in anything other than abstract visual terms.

4. Understanding Turner.

a) In the painting The Sun of Venice Going Out to Sea Venice had come to hold an emotional significance for Turner comparable to that of Carthage in earlier years.

b) Turner believed in the sublimity of his paintings.

Turners paintings instill emotion and thought, and remind us that we are constantly evolving and learning. His romantic views leant great inspiration to the emotional aspects of his paintings. The end result are paintings that teach you to see with your heart and view with your mind the changing world that we inhabit.