J M W Turner in Wales

Turner self-portrait

Joseph Mallord William Turner  (1775-1851)

A book was published by the Mostyn Art Gallery in 1984 as an essay and catalogue relating to the 'Turner in Wales' Project.

"As an inspiration for his art, Wales belongs very much to the first ten years of Turner's career, the decade from 1790, when he first showed a watercolour at the Royal Academy, to 1800 when, having already been elected a very young Associate of that Institution, he was on the threshold of Full Academicianship. He visited Wales five times in eight years: with the except of a brief excursion along the Dee to Corwen in 1808 he never went there again. He was to draw on these early tours occasionally in later life - notably for a group of sixteen subjects in the long series of Picturesque Views In England and Wales that he produced in the 1820s and 30s.But in the great mass of his output from 1800 onwards Welsh subjects are rare, a state of affairs that contrasts startingly with the wealth of Cambrian drawings, watercolours and oil paintings of the 1790s. These are works of a richness and vitality, a readiness of inspiration and a fecundity of technical invention, that rival those of any other period of his life, and they must count among the most intent of all romantic landscapes......"

For a list of titles inspired by Turner's visits to Wales, click on the link below:

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/Turner.html

For a series of images of Turner's paintings, click below:

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/turner/