Also at the National Gallery of Art is an exhibition of works by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851). He's a superstar in art. Utterly amazing and revolutionary. Early works depict grand landscapes and seascapes like this image of Switzerland's St. Gottlieb's pass. The subject is one of Europe’s most amazing and profound locations. The work my quintessential early favorite.
And from here Turner moves more and more toward the abstract, the impressionistic -- always with light in the apex of the composition. As an unremarkable artist I am in love with light, but like so many artists my love is based on what light does in the context of objects. Turner loves light for the way it crowns a hyper-impression of objects. To the point of leaving objects unrecognizable at first glance, but light profoundly present. You see this in watercolors like the one of many of his sketches of the burning of Parliament.
Dead after 76 years of life in 1851, you can see how 100 years later, abstract expressionists picked up the mantel. How many of us have a genius 100 years ahead of our lives? Go see it, if you can.
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