Turner in Cardiff

      A return trip to Cardiff on Friday to see the Turners on display at the National Museum of Wales.  A small exhibition of deeply evocative oils and watercolours from the permanent collection to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Turner's birth in 17175.  If I remember rightly the oils are all of the Kent coast, and the watercolours are of Wales.  It was quite something to to be able stand close to these remarkable paintings - works both delicate in the oily washes of paint and forceful in gestural impasto. Quite an emotional experience if truth be told.  Paintings that are rich in texture and colour and glow with vitality.  Yet, oddly enough, I was put in mind of the atmosphere created by the work of Caspar David Friedrich - both men exploring the place of humanity in the vastness of nature.

     The permanent collection at the National Museum is rather fine and it was very instructive to be able compare what I had just seen with the Canaletto - 'The Baccino di San Marco looking north' -  in the adjacent gallery.  Turner's technique, surprising perhaps, was not so far removed from that of the Venetian Vedutista - the same application of numerous thin washes of transparent colour, the smear of impenetrable impasto for such elements as a sail; the same impressionistic rendering of detail eg figures, and yet the results could not be more different.  From serenity and reasonableness to sturm und drang, of nature 'prowling round like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour'.