J.M.W. Turner. Acuarelas. Tate Collection

P. 9

P R E S E NTAC I ÓN B E AT R IZ B U S TO S OYA N E D E L D I RE C TO RA D E L C E N T R O C U LT U RAL L A M O N E DA

P. 11

ACUARELAS DE TURNER, SANTIAGO M A R IA B A L S H AW D I RE C TO RA D E TAT E

P. 13

DESDE EL TALLER DE TU R NER : ESTU DIOS PAR A SU S P R OP IOS OJOS DAV ID B L AY N E Y B R O W N

P. 33

DE LA AR QU ITECTU R A AL PAISAJE: O B R A T E M P R AN A P. 53

NATU R ALEZA E IDEAL: O B R AS E N IN G L AT E R R A, ca. 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 1 5 P. 75

EN CASA Y EN EL EXTR ANJER O: 1815-1830 P. 93

LU Z Y COLOR P. 101

EL TU R ISTA ANUAL: 1830-1840 P. 119

MAESTR O Y MAGO: O B R A TAR DÍA P. 137

LISTADO DE OBR AS P. 145

ENGLISH TR ANSLATIONS

D E S D E E L TA L L ER D E TURN ER: ESTUD I OS PA R A S US P R O P I O S O J O S DAVI D B LAYNEY BR O WN

13

Resulta una reflexión convincente que el inmenso tesoro de acuarelas, dibujos y cuadernos de bocetos que integran el Legado Turner en la Tate Britain no habría sobrevivido si el mismo Turner hubiera tenido algo que ver con todo ello. Al igual que sus inconclusos cuadros y bocetos al óleo, las acuarelas y dibujos no formaban parte de sus planes para la posteridad: si su legado se hubiera constituido de acuerdo con sus intenciones, habría consistido tan solo de un centenar de pinturas al óleo y ninguna obra en papel. Que no sea así y que, por el contrario, se trate de una muestra extraordinaria de su genialidad como dibujante y, sobre todo, de su maestría con la técnica de la acuarela se debe a espíritus independientes del Tribunal de Lord Chancellor, quienes, en 1856, decretaron que el contenido completo de su taller pertenecería a Inglaterra.

El artista estaba influenciado por su deseo de que se creara una Galería Turner en la National Gallery –que solo coleccionaba pintura–. Sin embargo, la impresión que estos óleos podían transmitir habría sido inevitablemente limitada; Turner fue dibujante antes de haber sido pintor, y sus acuarelas fueron las primeras piezas con las que logró su reputación y sustento. Fue acuarelista toda su vida, y produjo obras para la venta y exhibición –a pedido– y, principalmente, con la finalidad de ser grabadas y reproducidas. De esto dependían, en buena medida, sus ingresos. Pero así como sus pinturas al óleo –terminadas y exhibidas– tenían un hinterland fascinante en las obras experimentales, bocetos y estudios en desarrollo en su taller, su producción como acuarelista y dibujante estaba sostenida por una vasta gama de dibujos y estudios, y por obra “realizada”, en palabras de John Ruskin, “para su propio deleite”. El Legado Turner es proporcionalmente rico en estas obras tanto como se queda corto en cuanto a acuarelas acabadas, enmarcadas o expuestas, que se fueron de las manos de su autor.

Esta es su característica principal. No debiéramos, por cierto, sentirnos desconcertados por una colección que nos ilumina de forma tan notable respecto de los métodos, ideas y técnicas de este gran maestro. Debiéramos celebrarlo, como lo intenta hacer esta exposición, con una selección de acuarelas y estudios privados pertenecientes al Legado Turner. A estos trabajos se suman algunas acuarelas acabadas, con la finalidad de mostrar cómo sus ideas tomaron forma definitiva. Inclusive estas obras permanecieron, a veces, en el ámbito privado, tal como La elección de Northampton, 6 de diciembre de 1830 [The Northampton Election, 6 December 1830] (p. 82), pintada durante o después de 1830 para la serie más importante de topografías grabadas, Vistas pintorescas en Inglaterra y Gales [Picturesque Views in England and Wales], pero que no fue reproducida. Que Northampton no haya sido publicada no significa una apreciación sobre su calidad, sino más bien del entusiasmo con el que representa la elección de Lord Althorp para el gobierno reformista de Lord Grey. Vendidos por suscripción, los grabados debían

43

Catedral de Durham. El interior, con vista hacia el Este a lo largo de la nave Sur, 1797-1798 Grafito, acuarela y gouache sobre papel 75,8 x 57,9 cm

44

Stourhead: Vista sobre el lago, 1798 (?)

Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 52,8 x 68,1 cm

45

Vista de la AbadĂ­a de Fonthill, ca.1799-1800 Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 105,5 x 71,1 cm

53

NATURALEZA E IDEAL: O B R A S E N I N G LATERR A, ca. 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 1 5

54

Syon House y el Palacio de Kew desde las cercanĂ­as de Isleworth ("El nido del cisne"), 1805 Acuarela sobre papel 68,4 x 101,3 cm

55

El vado, ca. 1805 Gouache, grafito y acuarela sobre papel 54,5 x 75,9 cm

67

El Faro de Eddystone, ca. 1817 Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 25,4 x 38,3 cm

93

LUZ Y COLOR

94

Paisaje idealizado de estilo italiano con ĂĄrboles sobre un lago o bahĂ­a, iluminado por un sol bajo, ca. 1828-1829 Acuarela sobre papel 31,2 x 43,9 cm

95

Castillo de Harlech, ca. 1834-1835 Acuarela sobre papel 30,6 x 48,7 cm

LISTADO DE OBRAS J. M . W TUR N ER

137

Vista en el río Avon Gorge View in the Avon Gorge 1791 Pluma y tinta, y acuarela sobre papel 23,1 x 29,4 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856

Richmond, Yorkshire: Estudio de color Richmond, Yorkshire: Colour Study 1797-1798 Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 42,2 x 54,7 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856

El Panteón, la mañana luego del incendio The Pantheon, the Morning after the Fire 1792 Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 39,5 x 51,5 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856

Catedral de Durham. El interior, con vista hacia el Este a lo largo de la nave Sur Durham Cathedral: The Interior, Looking East along the South Aisle 1797-1798 Grafito, acuarela y gouache sobre papel 75,8 x 57,9 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856

Molino en la colina sobre un vasto paisaje con río sinuoso A Windmill on a Hill above an Extensive Landscape with Winding River 1794-1795 Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 19 x 27,7 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856 Mujer anciana en la cocina de una cabaña (“Interior de un cabaña, Estudio en Ely”) An Old Woman in a Cottage Kitchen (‘Internal of a Cottage, a Study at Ely’) 1795-1796 Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 20,4 x 27 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856 Claro de luna sobre el mar, con distantes acantilados Moonlight over the Sea, with Distant Cliffs 1796-1797 Gouache y acuarela sobre papel 13,4 x 20,9 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856 Castillo de Norham: Estudio de color Norham Castle: Colour Study ca. 1798 Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 66,2 x 83,8 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856

Stourhead: Vista sobre el lago Stourhead: View over the Lake 1798 (?)

Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 52,8 x 68,1 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856 Vista de la Abadía de Fonthill View of Fonthill Abbey ca. 1799-1800 Grafito y acuarela sobre papel 105,5 x 71,1 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856 Castillo de Caernarvon, Gales del Norte Caernarvon Castle, North Wales Exhibido en 1800 Acuarela sobre papel 70,6 x 105,5 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856 Un poeta y otros personajes, con una multitud de bailarines en un paisaje con montañas a lo lejos A Bard and other Figures, with a Crowd of Dancers, in a Landscape with Distant Mountains ca. 1799-1800 Acuarela sobre papel 54 x 74,7 cm Tate: Aceptado por la nación como parte del Legado Turner 1856

J.M.W. TURNER WATER CO LO U RS TAT E CO LLE C T I O N

145

PREFACE Centro Cultural La Moneda begins a new period, seeking to enrich its visitor’s experience by means of providing the schedule with meaning and depth, as well as giving relevance to the intercultural character as part of these renewed emphases.

Within this framework, the past and its pertinence to the present is one of the significant and transversal elements; the J.M.W. Turner exhibition will without a doubt contribute to this aspect. Of remote territories and old times, these eighty four works, brought to Chile for the first time, question the spectator in search of this critical reflection which today is the central editorial line of the CCLM. Turner’s images evidence that only small pieces of paper, water, graphite, ink and watercolors suffice to involve the spectator in a consistent and unique poetic experience. In effect, this works on paper, so minimal in their material resources, but at the same time so majestic, allow us to immerse ourselves in the extreme sensibility and study that characterizes the renown British painter, reminding us from art of the sublime character of nature.

His sharp gaze of landscape is today more than ever an alert call, when climate change and the vertigo of our societies prevent us from valuing and protecting these vast territories we inhabit.

The arrival of these Turner watercolors to Chile represent a landmark, as this is the first exchange project of the Centro Cultural La Moneda and Tate, one of the world’s most prestigious institutions.

We appreciate the confidence Tate has given us in this initiative, which we hope is the beginning of future collaborations.

Its director, Maria Balshaw has been a decisive support during this process. At times stories are constructed in unpredictable ways, and in this one Frances Morris, Tate Modern Director has had a fundamental role. We thank her for opening the doors for this collaboration, and also Daniel Slater, Head of International Collection Exhibitions at Tate Gallery for his dedication and for being available during each of the project’s phases, and to Curator David Blayney Brown, who presents us this symphony of works in an articulated manner, allowing us to stop, observe and feed our reflexivity through these images. We acknowledge each of the Tate and CCLM team members, for their work today allows us to directly enjoy the eternal genius of J.M.W. Turner.

Beatriz Bustos Oyanedel Director, Centro Cultural La Moneda.

148

FROM TURNER’S STUDIO: STUDIES FOR HIS OWN EYES David Blayney Brown It is a sobering thought that the immense treasure of watercolours, drawings and sketchbooks that forms part of the Turner Bequest at Tate Britain would not survive together had Turner himself had anything to do with it.

Like his unfinished pictures and sketches in oils, these were excluded from his plans for posterity: if enacted as he intended, his legacy would consist of just a hundred finished oil paintings and no works on paper at all. That it does not, and is instead such an extraordinary showcase for his genius as a draughtsman and his mastery of the medium of watercolour above all, is due to the independent minds of the Chancery Court who, in 1856, ruled that the entire contents of his studio should belong to the nation.

Turner was constrained by his hope that a Turner Gallery would arise at the National Gallery, which only collected pictures. But the impression given by these finished oils would inevitably have been limited. Turner was a draughtsman before he was a painter, and watercolours were the first works by which he made his reputation and living. He was a watercolourist all his life, making work for sale and exhibition, on commission, and above all to be engraved and reproduced. This accounted for a substantial part of his income. But just as his finished and exhibited oil paintings had a fascinating hinterland in the experimental works, sketches and pictures in progress in his studio, so his output as watercolourist and draughtsman was supported by a vast wealth of sketches and studies and by work ‘realised’, to borrow a phrase of John Ruskin’s, ‘for his own pleasure’.

The Turner Bequest is proportionately rich in these as it is short of the finished, engraved or exhibited watercolours that left Turner’s hands.

That is its special character. We should certainly not be embarrassed by a collection that gives such unique insights into a great artist’s working methods, ideas and techniques. We should celebrate it, as this exhibition seeks to do, selected mainly from the private watercolours and studies in the Turner Bequest. These are joined,

for comparison, by a small group of oil paintings – also mainly made for himself and kept in his studio – and a few finished works to show how his ideas reached final form.

Even these sometimes remained largely private, such as The Northampton Election, 6 December 1830 (p.82) made, in or after 1830, for Turner’s most important series of engraved topography, Picturesque Views in England and Wales, but not reproduced. That Northampton was not published was no reflection on its quality, but rather of the enthusiasm with which it depicts the election of Lord Althorp to the reforming government of Lord Grey. Sold by subscription, the prints had to appeal to all shades of opinion, but today this subject stands out as a warmly sympathetic commentary on Britain’s national life at a time of momentous change. Northampton was bought by the art-loving Scottish laird, H.A.J. Munro of Novar, who was Turner’s companion on a tour of the Aosta valley in 1836, and watched him making studies of Mont Blanc, tinted by changing light (p. 111).

Turner’s mastery and perfection of watercolour coincides with its establishment as an independent art form. His lifetime was also the classic age of English watercolour, when practitioners seized higher status, formed their own societies and exhibiting bodies, and their work got bigger, leaped from the album and portfolio into frames and onto the wall, and found new patrons and collectors. Watercolour was more affordable, accessible and democratic than oil, in sympathy with the temper of the time and its rising middle class. It appealed to amateurs, women as much as men, many of them taught by the professionals who offered simplified versions of their trade-mark methods. It acquired an aura of modernity; and a flattering (if sometimes exaggerated) association with the national character in which foreigners colluded with the patriotic British themselves.

For Romantic critics, especially those like Théophile Gautier who looked at it from outside, it was at once typically British and a model for the paradoxical blend of sophistication and spontaneity that they longed to set at the heart of contemporary aesthetics.

Turner was at the forefront of these developments, but he also stood apart from them. He never, for example, showed at the ‘Old’ Water-Colour Society, of which two

149

close friends, W.F. Wells and James Holworthy, were founder members in 1804, but continued to send his watercolours to the Royal Academy where he made his name – though in a diminishing stream which dried up altogether in 1830. Beyond the Academy, his watercolours appeared in his own gallery from 1804 and in independent exhibitions, such as those held in the London house of his friend and patron Walter Fawkes in 1819 or in the premises of publishers and engravers – W.B. Cooke in 1822-4 or Moon, Boys and Graves in 1833 and 1834. Late in his working life he was selling direct to clients like Munro through an agent, Thomas Griffith; then, and as early as his first tour of the Alps in 1802, he obtained commissions by making drafts or ‘sample studies’ to entice his collectors. He was constantly dreaming up new opportunities to promote his work and boost his income, and arguably too close an association with any partisan body (the new watercolour societies were soon in conflict) would have been a restriction as well as an irrelevance. Even if we set aside his private use of watercolour as a means of technical experiment, formal or colouristic exploration or study from nature, it is clear that his public watercolour career followed strategies wholly his own. Whether in variety of subject matter, technical development or the range of outlets through which it reached the public, it refuses to be pigeonholed. Perhaps the most obvious proof of his distance from his contemporaries is that, having first cemented his reputation with some of the grandest of the new ‘exhibition watercolours’, he was by the 1820s making most of his commercial watercolours for the engraver, and quite comfortable with the idea that the print was the main avenue of communication with his public. But, never one to fit a consistent pattern, he returned in the 1840s to independent finished watercolours that remain unparalleled expressions of the medium on its own terms.

From Architecture to Landscape: Early Work Turner was never typical of his time. As a boy he chose one of the emerging career options for an artist – that of topographical draughtsman – and transformed it, first by raising the stakes of this particular game in scale, technique, ambition and price, then moving on to oil as well and showing his mettle as a serious painter. The master who spun gauzy, tinted mists over mountains and lakes began by rendering brick and stone. By about 1788, when he was thirteen, he had got to know one moderately successful architect, Thomas Hardwick, and the following year he was working for the man he described as his ‘real master’, Thomas Malton, who drew buildings in colourful landscape settings. His job was to make presentation views, in convincing perspective and to scale in appropriate settings, to show clients how their projects would look when built. Did Turner ever think back to this sort of work when drafting his ‘sample studies’ of pure landscape in later life? At any rate, the skills he learned in these early exercises could usefully be transferred more widely, to the newly-booming industry of topographical view-making.

A number of artists were making views of buildings and landscape, often for the engraver, in a typical house- style of the period, tinting careful outline drawings with touches of local colour applied over a monochrome ground of grey or grey-blue; Turner learned fast from them, then left them standing.

Among his early architect-contacts were the dynasty led by the fashionable James Wyatt. James was the architect of the Pantheon, the grand theatre and assembly rooms in London’s Oxford Street whose destruction by fire Turner depicted in a big watercolour in 1792 (p. 36). With its dawn light bursting through the now-roofless ruin on a frosty winter morning and crowd of firemen and onlookers, realised in confident draughtsmanship and evocative colouring, it was one of his earliest exhibits at the Royal Academy, where he had been a student since 1789. Far more than an architectural rendering, this raised urban topography to the status of art.

Clearly, his independent skills, both technical and conceptual, were developing fast. Outside London, his growing sensitivity to nature and landscape soon put him