Turner's Modern World: A Conversation with George Shackelford

Athenaeum Review

Turner’s Modern World at the Kimbell Art Museum: https://kimbellart.org/exhibition/turners-modern-world

Turner’s Modern World catalog: https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847869343/

What made Turner modern? (1:00) — Stylistic transition in the 1830s; “painting with tinted steam”; The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (4:30) — The sublime and the incomprehensibly powerful; painting a steamship in a snowstorm (8:00) — Contrast with Ruskin on medievalism and industrialization; The Thames Above Waterloo Bridge; canals and steam engines (12:30) — Mark Twain trashes The Slave Ship; evolving reception and public appreciation of Turner’s style (17:15) — A British painter; traveling in Europe; Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen; seeing Venice, Venetian painting and Vesuvius; seeing European painting at the National Gallery in London and the Dulwich Picture Gallery (24:00) — Political and social conflicts in 19th-century England; the class system and political reform; women’s suffrage; the wreck of the Amphitrite (A Disaster at Sea) (31:30) — The wide range of Turner’s patrons; painting a scene in Venice and a nocturne of coal barges being loaded (Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight) (38:00) — Viewing Turner: in person vs. online (43:15)

Paintings by J.M.W. Turner:

The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (c. 1834-35) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-burning-of-the-houses-of-parliament-d36235

Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth (exh. 1842) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-snow-storm-steam-boat-off-a-harbours-mouth-n00530

The Thames above Waterloo Bridge (c. 1830-35) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-thames-above-waterloo-bridge-n01992

Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen (c. 1805-06) https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31489/fall-of-the-rhine-at-schaffhausen

A Disaster at Sea (c. 1835) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-a-disaster-at-sea-n00558

Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight (1835) https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1225.html