Turner`s Modern and Ancient Ports

Widely considered Britain's greatest painter, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) ist best known for his light-filled landscapes and seascapes. A relentless traveler, Tuner often turned hist artistic attention to the theme of modern and ancient ports. In the mid 1820s, Turner exhibited two monumental, and controversial, paintings of ports: Cologne and Dieppe. Shocking for their intense luinosity and yellow tonality, as well as for Turner's unorthodox handling of paint, these works marked a transition in the artist's career as he moved away from naturalism and toward a new, poetic topography.

This in-depth study of these two seminal paintings also adresses a wide selection of Turner's works in both oil and watercolor from the 1820s, placing them in the context of radical changes in British social and economic structures taking place at the time. Drawing from period travel accounts, contemporary critical commentary, and new technical analyses of Turner's work, this magnificiently illustrated book presents new scholarship and offers fresh perspectives of the pivotal middle years of Turner's career.