Turner Museum Exhibition Cosmic

A few introductory words about the enlarged details
we offer with our Turner prints

Turner is admired by countless millions for his sweeping panoramas, inimitable color combinations and magnificent skies. He was equally a master of small details - glimpses of every day life in his time and all time.

One is perfectly delighted to find out that these moments of every day life have not changed much in the last two hundred, sometimes not even in the last two thousand years! We at The Turner call them cosmic moments.

The Turner pioneered the presentation of such cosmic moments in all its exhibitions starting in the early 1980's. The concept was developed further and in some depth in our 1990 exhibition Turner's Cosmic Optimism. In the catalogue of that show we asserted that Turner was basically a highly spiritual and optimistic artist, an opinion finally getting increasing acceptance.

Using state-of-the-art technology, our curators select, reproduce and enlarge at least one, however mostly two or more details of the original work. This innovative way to shed more light on Turner's masterpieces on paper received such wide-spread approval we decided to display a permanent show devoted to Turner's inimitable cosmic moments. They are a Turner 'trade-mark'. They demonstrate clearly that Turner regarded an image as a holistic whole and how very successful he was from the very beginning of his artistic career integrating the scenery, mostly ever-changing, never-changing nature, with humanity's (and the animals!) ever-changing, never-changing presence. We trust these enlarged details will increase your appreciation of Turner's genius and your enjoyment from your much appreciated visit to The Turner.

Initially, we select several widely differing images - a testimony to Turner's tremendous versatility. We plan to add many more :

1. Autumn - Sowing Grain, from the 1818 edition of Aqua Pictura, a manual on how to create a work of art . Reproduced here is the final leaf in the album. It is a colored aquatint, that is an etching, a drawing on a metal plate, by means of nitric acid by which an effect is produced resembling a watercolor painting.

2. Pope's Villa, a jewel of an engraving on copper from 1810, based on Pope's Villa at Twickenham, a 1807 oil painting. Reproduced here is an extremely rare proof print pulled off the plate before the final version which appeared in the 1811 edition of a de-luxe portfolio, Britton's Fine Arts of the English School To Turner's dismay - his rural retreat was just a short distance away on the banks of the river Thames - that historic landmark, built by the famed poet-satirist Alexander Pope, was demolished. in 1807. Turner's serenely beautiful memorial is tinged with sweet melancholy.

3. Dunwich - this dramatic seascape created around 1827, was never published. Reproduced here is the final version of the very rare engraving on copper, after Turner added a streak of lightning in the sky - a text-book example how the artist improved on the original water color design during the print-making process.