J. M. W. Turner Watercolors
Mystic Seaport Museum
Mystic, Connecticut 06355
Thursday through Sunday, 10-5 until
February 23
This exhibit of Turner’s works may
be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to enjoy the visual equivalent of
sitting in the corner of a music studio listening to (pick your composer –
Beethoven – Mozart – Paganini –…) practice and compose. I say maybe once-in-a-lifetime
because these Turner’s so rarely travel from the Tate in London and this will
be their only venue in the United States this trip and who knows when they
might come again.
Turner was a prodigy who enrolled
in the Royal Academy of Art at 14 and was included in their annual exhibition
at 15. When he died 61 years later he left over 500 oils, 2000 watercolors and
30,000 works on paper. He was famously eccentric; when he chose his pigments he
was interested in color and not in longevity, so much of his work is at risk of
fading if exposed to light, which is one reason the Tate so rarely allows them
to travel. We have this opportunity because the gallery at Mystic Seaport’s North
Gate was designed so that it might safely display the Turner’s.
But enough of those sorts of
details; if you feel the need for more of them, the review by Murray Whyte in
the Globe would be a good place to start; the digital reproductions of the
Turners in the online version are much better than those in the paper but no
substitute for the real thing. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/01/08/arts/swimming-dreamy-romantic-world-jmw-turner-watercolors/
However, given the rare opportunity
to witness these watercolors, which this exhibition affords, I suggest they should
be approached in the romantic spirit with which they were executed. Don't drive
down and arrive with your mind buzzed out by the realities of Expressways and
Interstates; instead, use public transportation and travel with a compatible
companion to arrive with your mind quiet, engaged and open for what these
Turner’s have to show us.
My sister and I chose the Northeast
Regional 93 (let us mourn for a moment the romantic past when it was The
Shoreline of the NYNH&H and the trains had names like "The Owl");
it left the Back Bay about 9:30 and deposited us in Mystic an hour and 20
minutes later. The museum was a pleasant three quarters of a mile walk north,
so we arrived at the gallery relaxed, warmed up and ready to receive. When we
filled up on a first course of the Turners we paused for a light lunch (at
Latitude 41 right next door) and conversation to digest what we had just seen. Then
back to the museum for another helping, which we followed with a leisurely mile
walk north to get the local bus to New London where we would catch the
Northeast Regional 174 for our return.
Standing on the platform as our
train approached, we shared an appreciation of the “Turner Sunset,” to which we
were being treated. Turner had taught us, Turner was teaching us, how to look
at the world, how to see.
--Wendell Smith
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