Whilst the U.K. is in lockdown & we're unable to visit museums & galleries it seems a good time to explore some of Britain's incredible art on LoveNotes, whilst pairing them with our bags of course!
J.M.W Turner - Staffa | 1844 | Tate Gallery
This could easily be compared to a late 60's Rothko painting but instead it was created 125 years earlier by Turner. It's a sketch in pencil & watercolour of Staffa, a tiny island off the west coast of Scotland.
Staffa, with its basalt columns rising out from the Atlantic, is an extraordinary geological site. Yet, it's not the unique rock formations which Turner is interested here, but rather the feeling of the place. That heart pang you get when a ray of light pierces through an opening in the cloud & in this case illuminates a cliff face. Turner's oil painting of Staffa (below, right) is a refined version of the sketch but there's something about the reductive & immediate nature of this watercolour.
In either medium, Turner's focus is the same; how colour & light play for & against each other to create an atmosphere. Transposing that atmosphere to paper & canvas, in a way that only J.M.W Turner knew how.
"It is only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create"
- J. M.W. Turner.
Muted Spring tones inspired by Staffa's basalt rocks & Turner's study.
