Roamings of a Leo: "Mr. Turner" the movie

I went to see the new movie "Mr. Turner" last night and was fascinated by the interpretation of the life of J.M.W. Turner, the landscape British painter who lived from 1775 to 1851. The movie covers the last 25 years of his life and shows him interacting with his colleagues who are artists, some of his patrons, his former mistress and mother of his two daughters, his father, his maid, and a woman who was his partner for his last 18 years.

Many of the scenes take place in his private gallery that he built on the back of his London house on. Queen Anne Street West that was opened in 1822. In one scene he is offered 100,000 British Pounds for all his remaining collection. He turned down this offer as he said he was bequeathing all his paintings and sketches to the British people so they could see them for free. Most of the paintings were accepted by the nation as a part of the Turner bequest in 1856 and they can be seen at the Tate Britain Museum in London. Some are in other collections include many in the United States. I have enjoyed two at the Getty Center and two at the Huntington Museum in San Marino.

Turner has been called the painter of light. His impressionistic sky and ocean scenes perhaps influenced the French Impressionist in the 1870's.

I viewed the Tate Britain museum web site and enjoyed the paintings I saw represented in the movie. Below is a painting by George Jones from 1852 of the Turner Gallery just as he left it when he died a year earlier. The web site also shows a re-creation of the gallery with photos of all the paintings and describes each one. Most can be seen in the Tate Britain Museum in London.

Here are some of my favorites:

"Interior of Turner's Gallery," 1852 by George Jones

Photo recreation of the Turner Gallery

"Second Sketch for 'The Battle of Trafalgar'" 1823
The painting was commissioned by King George IV to commemorate the 1805 battle in which Lord Nelson led the British Navy in the defeat of the French Napoleon navy to insure the British control of the English Channel. Lord Nelson was killed during this battle and his statue sets a top of a high column in Trafalgar Square in central London. The king rejected the final painting by Turner

"The Battle of Trafalgar as seen from the Mizin Starboard Shrouds of the Victory," 1806-08.

"The Fall of an Avalanche in the Grisons," 1810

"Fishing upon the Blythe Sand, Tide Setting In," 1809

"Van Tromp Returning after the Battle off the Dogger Bank," Exhibited 1832

"Snow Storm - Steamboat off a Harbour's Mouth," Exhibited 1842
One scene in the movie shows Turner being lashed to the mast of a ship during a snow storm in order to prepare for creating this painting.