A Change in Artistic Style
Do you think a change in artistic style could ever warrant a belief that someone is struggling with their mental health? Before you answer, come on a little journey with me. Imagine for a moment that you are a painter trying to use color to capture the light surrounding you. As you create, you feel moved to display not what you have been taught since you were a young teenager and not what is socially acceptable but what exists deep within. You start using paint in an unconventional way. Sometimes, you abandon all painterly techniques in favor of using your hands, scratching the surface, and creating with freedom others have seldom experienced. Perhaps the above description is a picture of your chosen practice in 2025. In our contemporary age, no one would question your approach to the painting process or wonder if you had lost your sanity.
However, how might the narrative change if this were the 1820’s – 1840’s and the way you create has been unexplored until this time in history?
This is the world in which J.M.W. Turner lived and created. Turner was a British artist who found great success early in his career. He was a child painting prodigy and applied to the Royal Academy of Art at the age of 14, beginning his education there the following year (The Art Story Contributors, 2016). He painted in the Romantic style, and until he was nearly 50, his art was well-known and well-liked.
Was this always there?
By the time Turner was in his late 30s, his paintings had become characterized by an atmospheric luminescence. (The Art Story Contributors, 2016). Shortly before he turned 50, Turner’s art style became freer and looser, and he based his art on capturing light and shadow through the use of color. At this point, he gave little regard to the formal instruction he had received. One critic described Turner’s art as “the product of a mentally disturbed man” (Livesley, 2014, page 25). A patron of Turner’s early work, William Beckford, complained about Turner’s later paintings to journalist Cyrus Redding, saying that Turner “paints now as if his brains and imagination were mixed upon his palette with soapsuds and lather” (Brown, 2014, page 33). However, there is no record of Turner suffering from mental illness. His health had declined, but this was more likely due to heart disease (Smiles, 2014, page 14).
There is speculation that Turner suffered from cataracts due to staring at the sun and a desire to paint it and depict the color it presents (Livesley, 2014, page 26). Such vision obstructions could be, in part, responsible for Turner’s change in style. Another theory suggests that the use of lead paint may have caused Turner to develop a tremor in his hands, similar to those associated with Parkinson’s disease (Livesley, 2014, p. 30). This theory is based on a tremor evident in Turner’s handwriting. However, such a tremor in handwriting could be accounted for if Turner was writing while riding in a stagecoach or on a train (Livesley, 2014, page 30).
It could be speculated that Turner’s art change was inside him all along. One could even assume he simply chose not to express this style until the right time. Perhaps Turner waited for a time when he had found success in other ways, had an established art career, and felt secure in his identity as an artist before he really began painting the way he had always wanted. Turner’s early sketchbooks indicate that he started exploring the concept of being freer and abandoning naturalism in his color choices around age 25. It would be nearly 20 years before his less conventional work would make it out of his sketchbook, onto painting panels to share with others, and into gallery exhibitions. (Smiles, 2014, page 22).
There was method to the “madness”
Even though there are several theories about Turner’s change in artistic style, he had other reasons for creating the way he did. Sometimes, he chose to use his artwork to allude to ethical concerns in hopes of garnering a response from viewers (Smiles, 2014, page 22). However, a desire to represent light became the primary subject of his art. He studied and painted it with intensity (Koppelman, 2023). Through his study of light, Turner led the way for the movement known as Abstract Expressionism. The methods Turner used to paint during this later stage of his career extended to mark-making, which involved scratching and scraping, as well as blotting and using his fingers. Such marks were made using his palette knife to render lively indications on his paintings (Ashmolean Museum Staff, n.d.). Turner had what was considered an evolving style (Ashmolean Museum Staff, n.d.). Additionally, Turner used his oil paints in an increasingly transparent manner to evoke nearly pure light through shimmering color (Boyle, 2022).
Turner’s intense interest in atmospheric phenomena and the appearance of light combined with his unique process enabled him to convey his thoughts visually. His perception was unique no matter if he was demonstrating the darkness, the radiance of light, or how light appeared under different circumstances. Turner showed how painters can use light and color to portray emotion, which became of utmost importance in his work.
What was Turner trying to say?
It is speculated that Turner used light in his paintings to represent various concepts symbolically. Turner was not representing the natural world in an obvious manner by painting a storm or fire but instead was displaying the world as ever-changing, a place where solid forms become unsteady light and the rhythms of that light morph into a landscape illuminated by such (Smiles, 2014, page 22). In fact, “Turner’s commitment to a world understood as in a state of flux chimed with a particularly turbulent period in history” (Smiles, 2014, page 22). Even though some have called Turner a painter ahead of his time, his paintings fit the challenges of the day in many ways. The traditional methods that the Academy painters used and accepted were designed for another era and could not take on all that Turner attempted to represent in his art (Smiles, 2014, page 23).
Turner used his mastery of capturing light to bring physical illumination to practices of the day that did not sit well with him. He was an ardent abolitionist, and after learning of the true story of the Zog, Turner created one of his most famous paintings, Slave Ship, c. 1840. The Zog was a British ship that, when faced with a typhoon, the crew threw sick and dying enslaved people from its decks to the ocean below to collect insurance money (Museum of Fine Arts Boston). Turner used the painting to bring others to the abolitionist movement. He placed numerous symbols throughout the painting to help bring awareness to such practices, such as a shackled leg swarming with hungry fish, a display of beauty mixed with horror (Lewis & Lewis, 2019 p. 353). Additionally, the sunset symbolizes the dawning of a new era (Guillot, 2023), implying Turner believed the new era to be free from such barbaric practices.
To further his symbolic study of light, Turner explored using light to represent God. Turner envisaged that capturing a sunset on canvas is like opening the viewer’s eyes to the Divine (Backholer, 2022). Using light representatively to allude to the presence of God is a concept that deepened for Turner throughout his art career. Turner believed light to be the emanation of the Spirit of God. In later paintings, Turner focused laboriously on representing God through light, so much so that the subject matter of the paintings became light itself, leaving out solid objects and details and instead focusing on how light appeared on water, radiating in the sky, and emanating from fires (2024a).
Using symbolism and light, Turner broached some of the more serious topics of his time, from references to the Divine to concepts that resonated with him. While different forms of symbolism play a part in Turner’s work, the symbolic use of light plays a much stronger role. This use of light enables Turner to allude to atmospheric phenomena such as snow, storms, and the setting sun. We witness an ever-changing, dynamic world through his expert use of light.
References:
Ashmolean Museum Staff. (n.d.). J.M.W. Turner: Reflections on the painter of light. Ashmolean Museum
Backholer, P. (2022, March 1). The Bible, art and J.M.W. Turner – the painter of light. By Faith, Christian Inspiration, ByFaith Media.
Boyle, L. (2022, February 14). J. M. W. Turner: Painter of light – Jane Austen articles and blog. JaneAusten.co.uk
Brown, D. B. (2014). “Born again”: Old and New in Turner’s Later Work. In J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free (pp. 33–37). essay, Getty Publications.
Guillot, J. (2023, July 27). Discover J. M. W. Turner through 8 Paintings. The Collector.
Joseph Mallord William Turner Biography. Joseph Mallord William Turner. (2024a).
Koppelman, D. (2023, December 17). Light and dark, hiding and showing in Joseph Mallord William Turner. TERRAIN GALLERY.
Livesley, B. (2014). The Later Life of Turner: Body and Mind. In J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free (pp. 25–31). essay, Getty Publications.
Lewis, R., & Lewis, S. I. (2019). The power of art. Cengage.
Museum of Fine Arts Boston. (n.d.). Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On) Collections Catalogue . Slave ship (slavers throwing overboard the dead and dying, typhoon coming on) – works – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Smiles, S. (2014). Turner In and Out of Time. In J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free (pp. 13–23). essay, Getty Publications .
The Art Story Contributors. (2016, January 15). JMW Turner Paintings, bio, ideas. The Art Story.
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