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 Joseph Mallord William Turner overturned 19th Century
conventions by painting the vitality of his age, challenging the
boundaries of realism and abstraction with a boldness that
prefaced Impressionist greats such as Claude Monet and Camille
Pissarro.
More than 150 years after Turner's death in 1851, Mike Leigh's
film "Mr Turner" explores the life of the grunting London-born
son of a barber who used rags, spit and his thumbnail to create
some of Britain's most impressive paintings.
Filmgoers can also catch an exhibition of Turner's revolutionary
later works at London's Tate gallery.
"Everybody can find their own Turner," David Brown, Tate curator
of British Art in the 1790-1850 period, told Reuters. "He has so
much to offer. It's the sheer color and excitement of the paint
which people respond to."
Brown said he wanted to show off the breadth of Turner's work,
putting it back into its context without portraying him as just
a stepping stone to later movements such as the Impressionists
or abstract expressionists.
Sometimes unpleasant and even unkind, the Turner of Leigh's film
can also be charming and fun, bursting into song to entertain
his lover, Sophia Booth.
Behind the artist's swagger lay his genius. In one scene, while
the finest artists of the day are putting finishing touches on
works hanging at the Royal Academy, Turner strides up to his own
painting of ships at sea and daubs a brazen stroke of red in the
center, later fashioned into a buoy.
The cavalier gesture infuriates - and steals the thunder from -
his great rival John Constable, laboring away meticulously at
his magisterial "The Opening of Waterloo Bridge", the work of
more than a decade.
Director Leigh is known for spending months with actors before
filming to develop characters, and using improvisation to help
create the script. The portrayal of Turner won the best actor
prize at Cannes for regular Leigh collaborator Timothy Spall,
leading to inevitable Oscar buzz.
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It has also drawn visitors to the gallery to see the work.
"The film revealed such a fascinating personality and showed his
work so beautifully that I felt it was a perfect opportunity to then
see the pieces first hand," Zoe Hamilton, 31, said among the crowds
at the Tate's "Late Turner, Painting Set Free".
The late works on display are from a period when Turner had lost
favor with critics of the day, who questioned his sanity and lurid
colors. In the film, he is mocked on stage at the theater. Even
Queen Victoria is shown scorning his later works.
But it was the art from this period, when Turner battled ill health
and derision to blur the limits of reality in his paintings, that
has also elicited the greatest response from subsequent generations
of artists from Monet to Henri Matisse.
So taken with Turner was the U.S. painter Mark Rothko that in 1970
he donated a set of murals to the Tate so they could hang at the
same gallery as Turner's work.
"You're always aware of him, you're always in awe of this character
because he so dominates what we think of as painting," said portrait
painter Tim Wright, who spent two years teaching Spall to paint as
preparation for playing Turner.
(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
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