Turner and the Sun in Winchester

Thanks to the work of the Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester is very honoured to have on loan a stunning selection of works by JMW Turner (1775-1851). This exhibition presents Turner's works focusing on his studies of light. His extraordinary talents as a painter make him one of the greatest British artists, if not universal artists. Though profoundly influenced by landscapists and history painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Turner was an innovator who has been hailed as a forerunner of modernist abstraction. The exhibitions explores the importance of light to Turner and shows us his techniques and experimental studies that made him such a forward thinking artist. However, it is important to remember to differentiate between how we see Turner’s works today, to how they would have been seen in his time. The works in the exhibition were painted for different purposes and although now we see his oeuvre in its totality, in his time Turner would not have wanted his sketches to be exhibited. The universality of his work in his depiction of light and the power and energy of the sun, represent the foundation of our humanity that makes him such a profound artist.