At the Tate Britain: the omnipresence, even refulgence, of light in J.M.W. Turner’s late paintings, and yet its obliquity. Why both, simultaneously? Light becomes more noticeable—more a fact of what we see and observe, and not just the precondition of seeing and observing—when its source is masked?
What his critics saw as paintings of nothing were depictions of light itself, attempts to depict its play across impossibly epic screens; light itself is the subject, and not merely what it illuminates.
Posts
