HENRI MATISSE AND J.M.W. TURNER
Guest curator: Professor Selby Whittingham, assisted by the curators of The Turner Museum
Advised by Pissarro to see the Turners in London, on 18 January 1898 Matisse set off from Paris on his honeymoon. He
and his wife stayed at the Hôtel de Paris just behind the National Gallery, which was so dimly lit that he could sometimes
barely make out the paintings. The watercolors were, however, plentifully available (more so than subsequently at the Tate),
and, if he saw those of Luxembourg, he would have seen an anticipation of Fauvism.
Like Turner Matisse, also from the North, was influenced by the color and classical past of the Mediterranean.
The Golden Bough
As a delightful surprise, here is shown for the first time ever, side by side, The Golden Bough byJ.M.W. Turner of
1834 and by Thomas Moran, painted in 1862. [Which is which?]
Another delightful surprise: It is now suggested that the dancers in the panoramic Bonheur de Vivre - The Joy of
Living - created in 1905-1906 and La Danse - The Dance of 1909, owed a debt to those in The Golden Bough.
Here is a stunning version of The Dance:
They first appear in The Joy of Living – this musical canvas,
in the words of a critic when it was shown in 1906.
Matisse played the violin and Turner learnt to play the flute. Music underscored the painting of each.
Are there any further inspirations among the geniuses of civilization across the generations and centuries? - wonders
Douglass Montrose-Graem, the director of The Turner Museum. He posed the question: Have other artists been inspired by
William Blake, when in 2005 he mined his mind’s visual material for his I Delight to do the Will of God [www.delightdelight.org].
He came across Blake, 28, at his most enchanting: Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, painted about 1785.
Question by The Turner Museum: Then who influenced George Romney’s gigantic The Gower Family, painted around
1776, a decade earlier, specifically the four wee dancing countesses?
Matisse said that the secret of his art consisted of a meditation on
nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality.
Turner might have said the same of his golden visions.
Was their utopianism a compensation for early tragedy - the insanity of Turner's mother and the national scandal which
destroyed the family of Matisse’s wife - making each appear to some reserved and cold? The parallels between the two artists
have been instinctively sensed by later artists indebted to both.
Our guest-curator
Dr. Selby Whittingham founded The Turner Society of London, is now President of the Independent Turner Society. He
published numerous papers on art. Due to his tireless advocacy to respect the terms of Turner’s will which bequeathed a gift of
incalculable value to humanity, is arguably the most respected Turner authority on our planet.
Further reading and study
The Turner Museum’s files include this note on its engraved version titled Golden Bough, Lake Avernus: published in
1875, long after Turner’s death;
not considered an original Turner print by this museum
In the catalog of the pictures exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1834, this glorious work is called The Fates and the Golden
Bough. The painter, it appears, merely adopted the title for the purpose of giving a name to one of his most exquisite
imaginary delineations of Italian scenery. There is little in his figures, for example, which appear to bear much analogy to the
mythological hero Aeneas who needed a golden bough as a passport to visit his father in the underworld.
The picture recalls another Italian lake view by Turner – displayed in our adjoining exhibition: J.M.W. Turner and Pierre-August
Renoir.
The Golden Bough is a vision even Turner himself has rarely surpassed: do you note the graceful combination of classic
architecture, sparkling lake and ondulating hills? Enjoy its luminous quality, the light spread over the whole breadth of this
enchanted dream, and the transparent air through which the middle distance becomes clearly defined, while the far-off
mountains fade away into a soft, misty and dreamy distance. And delight in the most perfect harmony of form and color
apparent throughout. The Golden Bough, wherever it grew, could not hang in a more glorious spot than the artist has dreamed
up for us!
***
SUGGESTED READING
Places of Delight: The Pastoral Landscape (The Phillips Collection;
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988), tracing the fête champêtre and elegant
pastoral from Giorgione to Matisse. The essay by Lawrence Gowing, President of the Turner Society, made no mention of
Turner - maybe he was too fixated on Turner's oil technique? - though my articles on Turner and Watteau were cited in the
bibliography.
Fauvism, a good survey by my cousin Sarah Whitfield (Thames & Hudson 1991).
The Unknown Matisse, I, 1869-1908, by Hilary Spurling, who uncovered the connection with "the greatest swindle of the
century", the Humbert Affair (Hamish Hamilton 1998).
Albert Irvin by Paul Moorhouse of the Tate, on an artist professing
admiration of Turner and Matisse and distilling their color-steeped
euphoria (Lund Humphries 1998).
"Why this is the most beautiful modern painting in the world," by Jonathan
Jones, who compares La Danse with Turner (The Guardian Weekend, 19 January 2008).
ADVANCED BACKGROUND READING
Colour and Meaning: Art, Science and Symbolism by John Gage (University of California Press 1999).
J.M.W.Turner: The Making of a Modern Artist by Sam Smiles (Manchester
University Press 2007).
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