Turner the alchemist?

J.M.W. TURNER: ROMANTIC PAINTER OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION by William S. Rodner University of California Press, 1997

' Although Turner's library housed few scientific tomes, it did include books touching on religious and metaphysical matters. It has been suggested that Turner was fascinated by alchemy and the occult as well as by the conventional sciences and technology. The glowing furnaces he so enjoyed painting were an important alchemical symbol. Whereas to modern sensibilities alchemy is merely a primitive and misguided precursor of chemistry, Turner likely took it as seriously as he did Faraday's magnetic theory.

One might say that, sequestered in his studio, Turner was a kind of alchemist himself. As the conservation scientist Joyce Townsend notes in her 1993 book Turner's Painting Techniques, Turner was a tireless experimenter with new oil colors, all kinds of papers and new finishing techniques. Chemical and spectroscopic analyses of his pigments and painting techniques show that his methods were highly innovative. Seeking to express hitherto unknown special effects of light, shadow and color at their most extreme and exotic, Turner turned his studio into a kind of alchemical laboratory where newly minted pigments and other materials were constantly put to the test.

Turner's challenge was truly Promethean, enough to make a sorcerer out of anyone. He was striving to paint landscapes the world had never seen before, landscapes marked by chugging trains, churning steamboats and soot-belching factory smokestacks. To do justice to such stark manifestations of the new science and technology, he had to employ new tools: a revolutionary aesthetic that anticipated the French Impressionists, and a methodology marked by constant experimentation.'

Alison A Raimes

That's an interesting proposition. I wasn't aware of their *friendship* or that it was long. I just flicked through a couple of biographies and none mention it. I would imagine that his more famous *friendship* with John Ruskin, who supported and prohibited Turner, would have been more influential. He wrote about him in *Modern Painters* under an alias to get attention for him, but he also destroyed almost all of Turner's erotica art and a substantial amount of his abstract works as he believed both would damage his reputation. He probably also fought with him about the fat over lean rule

Just out of curiosity, what is it about Martin that you think would have influenced him? Where he is mentioned in the books I have here, it all indicates that Martin was influenced by Turner and not the other way round. I'd like to find out more though.

Alison A Raimes

I can't find any sources on this so I think it highly unlikely that they had the sort of long term friendship that you suggest. Turner entered the Royal Academy in 1789 at the age of fifteen - the year that Martin was born. To be honest, I have had a great deal of trouble finding anything on John Martin. Gombrich doesn't include him and he isn't in any of the basic art history encyclopedias. I found one site with some information and the date that he entered the Royal Academy but it is down today. From that site, I gather that Martin was just another struggling artist - I didn't even know he was from the village next to my home town (Haydon Bridge in Northumberland) - he isn't acknowledged as one of the greats in the way Turner is and has only become popular in recent years. In the recent televised documentary/dramatisation of Turner's life on BBC1, there was no mention of Martin at all. The two artists clearly shared an interest in the sublime like a number of Romantic artists of that time but that was not unusual.

Turner's work became increasingly abstract as he matured and he had the support of Ruskin which set him aside from other artists and pushed him to the forefront. His work was always causing mayhem at the RA - he was constantly criticised for *breaking the rules* of painting. Constable, on the othe rhand, who was much more traditional in his approach to painting, entered the RA very late in his life and was always in the shadow of Turner. Poor Constable spent his entire life trying to get into the Royal Academy and only achieved that when he was coming to terms with the death of his beloved wife - by which time he was no longer interested in reaching the pinnacle of his artistic career.

I don't see how any of this has anything to do with influences on Turner's continuous tendency to experimentation with the medium though. Let me know if you come across the source that you speak of though. Cheers

Alison

Alison A Raimes