Monday, August 9, 2010

Turner's Revenge?

Exorbitant price for his painting "Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino" 

J.M.W. Turner, "Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino" 1840
[Uploaded from Wikipedia: Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino. Click image to see larger version]

Recently, a Turner painting, "Modern Rome Campo Vaccino," sold for US$44.9 million at a Sotheby's auction. (The painting can be viewed at Sotheby's site).

Many of Turner's contemporaries believed his art came from the devil, except for his devout follower, the art critic John Ruskin. Here is an article I wrote on Turner which I titled: Turner's Contrasts.

I think Turner was the precursor to the Impressionists, who led the way to abstraction, which, I think, is the end of art. Perhaps his fellow critics were right, after all. Still, I cannot but be mesmerized by his works.