J. M. W. Turner: Watercolor Horizons
by Laura Heyrman
2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Mallord William Turner (English, 1775-1851), one of the artists who helped to establish the popularity of landscape painting in England in the first half of the 19th century. To celebrate this anniversary, many exhibitions are planned, including an intimate exhibition of Turner’s watercolors currently open at the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio (through June 15).
The Taft Museum is located in downtown Cincinnati, in a 200-year-old house which is on the National Register of Historic Buildings. Its galleries contain the extensive art collection gifted to the city by the museum’s founders, Anna Sinton Taft and Charles Phelps Taft (half-brother of President William Howard Taft). The collection of mostly European art ranges from Medieval works to the 19th century and is exhibited alongside period furniture in the restored spaces of the Neoclassical-style home.
The exhibition Watercolor Horizons comprises a dozen watercolor paintings drawn from the Taft’s own collection, as well as from the Cincinnati Art Museum’s holdings. Turner worked extensively in watercolor, from rough sketches to finished paintings for public exhibition, with the works shown in this exhibition falling into the latter category. The small paintings are shown in a suitably intimate room with informative labels addressing both the artist’s subject matter and his painting techniques. Viewers could also use magnifying glasses to explore the small details. Providing an opportunity for close study of Turner’s skillful handing of watercolor, this exhibition was a satisfying experience for me as a long-time admirer of the artist's work.
Turner was an artistic prodigy; at age 11, he was exhibiting and selling his drawings from his father’s barber and wig shop in London. The young artist entered the Royal Academy when he was 14 and a year later had his first watercolor exhibited at The Academy’s summer show. I’ve included this painting, A View of the Archbishop’s Palace, Lambeth (1790) in the slideshow, though it is not in the Taft exhibition. It demonstrates the young artist’s skill, but also allows us to see how the artist’s style changed as he became more experienced.
Turner’s early training was in architectural drawing and many of his early watercolors were architectural views, but he quickly shifted his subject matter to broader landscape views, a reflection of his own taste as well as the popularity of scenic views. The watercolors in this exhibition include locations in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. As in his oil paintings, Turner focused on the effects of light and weather and the power of nature. Valley of Chamouni is an example; in the foreground, Turner emphasizes a spiky broken tree silhouetted against a glacier and a landscape of mountains and thickening clouds. In Lyme-Regis, Dorsetshire, England, Turner’s love of dramatic weather effects is apparent in a very painterly scene of a shipwreck and on-shore rescuers. The vivid blue storm clouds open for a bright view of the city, which seems distant from the tragic events in the foreground. Such stormy contrasts are favorite themes in the artist’s oil paintings too, for example in Snow Storm (1812). tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-snow-storm-hannibal-and-his-army-crossing-the-alps-n00490
An important element of Turner’s watercolor work is his manipulations of paint and surface in creating his images. In the most recent work in the exhibition, Lake of Thun (c. 1845-1851), paint was applied with a sponge or cloth to create the foliage of the trees and perhaps the yellow hill on the left side, enhancing the misty quality of the whole painting. A favorite method of Turner’s was rubbing or wiping wet paint away to suggest light or reflections. In Weissenthurm and the Hoche Monument (1817), a small white spot just above the distant horizon shows where the artist wiped away the paint to depict the sun. This wiping technique also creates reflective water in the foreground of Chateau de Rinkenburg (1809). Two other techniques allowed Turner to achieve white highlights. In The Whale on Shore (c. 1837), an illustration of a scene from Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Pirate, small highlights on the many foreground figures were created by scraping away small bits of paper. Finally, in works like Lake Nemi (c. 1835), white gouache (opaque watercolor) was applied at key points, for the clouds and a distant waterfall in this case.
For many of the works in the exhibition, Turner had created pencil or even loose watercolor sketches on site and later, sometimes years later, he used his sketches to formulate a more complete image in the studio. The artist often copied his watercolors in engravings published to take advantage of the market for scenic views. Folkestone, Kent (c. 1822) was one of forty images Turner copied for his collection called Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England. The “picturesque” quality in this and many of Turner’s watercolors is created by the contrast between nature and the activities of the small figures in the foreground. In Folkestone, Kent, those figures are likely smugglers as the Thames River village was infamous for smuggling.
Beyond the small exhibition, the Taft exhibited two small watercolors elsewhere in the museum. Both Johnny Armstrong’s Tower (c. 1832) and Death of Lycidas (c. 1834) were created as illustrations for literary works. The former work was engraved for the title page of Sir Walter Scott’s Poetical Works, volume 2. It shows the tower house of a Scottish outlaw-hero. Death of Lycidas was engraved for inclusion in an 1835 edition of John Milton’s poems. The scene shows a shipwreck, with the faint figure of a poet drowning at the bottom edge of the vignette.
Turner’s late paintings, whether in oil or watercolor, are more painterly and abstract than those made earlier. By this point in his career, the artist had sufficient success to be independent of patrons and public taste. Of the works in this exhibition, Lake of Thun (mentioned above) and Coblenz (1842) represent this period of the artist’s career. Even in these works dominated by expansive washes of color and faint horizons, the foregrounds are populated by small gatherings of figures that provide narrative interest. The lower left corner of Coblenz shows a couple with a basket and a black and white dog, a delightful detail that I discovered thanks to the magnifying glass provided by the museum.
I’ll be returning to the art of J.M.W. Turner next month, focusing on the artist’s oil paintings and his influence on other artists. In the meantime, if you’re in the Cincinnati area in the near future, I highly recommend this gem of an exhibition. Even if you miss the exhibition, the Taft is worth a visit, with treasures of Medieval art, the Renaissance, and paintings by Rembrandt, Goya, Corot, among others – and two oil paintings by Turner.
J. M. W. Turner: Watercolor Horizons, through June 15, 2025. Taft Museum of Art, 316 Pike Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. taftmuseum.org/exhibitions/turner250
The following exhibitions are part of the Turner 250 celebration with more opening as the year goes on.
Turner Galleries, ongoing. Tate Britain, Millbank, London, England, UK. tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain/display/jmw-turner
Dialogues with Turner: Evoking the Sublime, through May 10, 2025. Museum of Art Pudong, No. 2777 Binjiang, Pudong, New Area, Shanghai, China. museumofartpd.org.cn/en/exhibitiondetail
Turner: In Light and Shade, through November 2, 2025. The Whitworth at the University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, England, UK. whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/turnerinlightandshade
J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality, March 29 to July 27, 2025. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions-programs/j-m-w-turner-romance-and-reality
