Podcast — Episode 46
Turner’s Modern World: A Conversation with George Shackelford
Turner’s Modern World at the Kimbell Art Museum; Turner’s Modern World catalog.
What made Turner modern? (1:00) — Stylistic transition in the 1830s; “painting with tinted steam”; The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (4:30) — The sublime and the incomprehensibly powerful; painting a steamship in a snowstorm (8:00) — Contrast with Ruskin on medievalism and industrialization; The Thames Above Waterloo Bridge; canals and steam engines (12:30) — Mark Twain trashes The Slave Ship; evolving reception and public appreciation of Turner’s style (17:15) — A British painter; traveling in Europe; Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen; seeing Venice, Venetian painting and Vesuvius; seeing European painting at the National Gallery in London and the Dulwich Picture Gallery (24:00) — Political and social conflicts in 19th-century England; the class system and political reform; women’s suffrage; the wreck of the Amphitrite (31:30) — The wide range of Turner’s patrons; painting a scene in Venice and a nocturne of coal barges being loaded (38:00) — Viewing Turner: in person vs. online (43:15)