Turner and the Masters is now on view at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Its aim is to reveal to visitors the extent of Turner’s links with other historically important artists and the profoundly original way in which he assimilated their influence. This comparison will assist in an understanding of how Turner’s approach to and assimilation of other artists was intended not just as an homage to them but also involved a subtle and highly original type of transformation of their teachings.
Among the differences between this version of the exhibition and those already seen are the presence of a number of paintings not shown in London or Paris, including Shipwreck of a Cargo Boat, Snowstorm: Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps, Peace. Burial at Sea, Shade and Darkness: evening of the Deluge, and Light and Colour (Goethe’s Theory): the morning after the Deluge, all absolute masterpieces by Turner.
The works by other painters to be seen in the exhibition include some particularly outstanding masterpieces that have never previously been exhibited in Spain, such as Girl at the Window by Rembrandt, Les Plaisirs du Bal by Watteau, both loaned from Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, and the latter only shown at the Prado, as are the major canvases by Claude Lorraine and Rubens, Port Scene with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula (London, National Gallery), and Landscape with a Cart at Dusk (Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen). Also on display solely in the version of the exhibition at the Prado is An English Ship in a north-west Gale trying to beat windward (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London) by the 17th-century, English-based Dutch painter Willem van de Velde the Younger.
Image: Snow Storm-Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth. JMW Turner. 1842. Oil on canvas
www.museodelprado.es
