If we look at the arc of Turner’s career we find that some things remain fairly stable and some evolve over the course of it’s long trajectory. Throughout the course of his career he utilized a number of different mediums. In the first part of his career his major works were dominated by the use of watercolors. If we look back at the paintings that he exhibited at the Royal Academy (see Turner’s Work: An Overview) we see that at the initial part of his career it was dominated by this medium. He begins to introduce the use of oils into the canvases and later they come to dominate the major works that he exhibits for the rest of his career. Apart from any aesthetic concern, oil was simply the medium of prestige at the time. To be considered a major of painter of note, one generally produced large canvases in oil for exhibition. In addition to his major exhibited works in oil, Turner continued to produce a large number of watercolors (as well as oils and works in mixed media) for various patrons and buyers throughout his career.
If we look at the graph below there are a few trends that become immediately clear. Perhaps the most obvious is that his largest canvases in size were his oils. Almost all the canvases in the upper part of the graph (largest by size) are major works produced in oil for exhibition.
Beyond his major exhibited work however he also utilized many other media including a large number of mixed media. Among his drawings and sketches there was a large amount of variation in the media that he worked in. Referring to the above graph, the lower portion is crowded with many small works in a variety of mixed media. Many of these were sketches and drawings that were produced fairly quickly and were not meant to be exhibited.
In the above graph, all works indicate the specific medium (or mixed media) of the work. In addition to watercolor and oil Turner also used gouache, graphite, pastel, crayon, chalk and ink (among others) in a variety of combinations.
For the diagram below, the data was cleaned and all works were separated into one of four categories: Oil, Watercolor, Mixed Media (Watercolor) and Mixed Media (Non-Watercolor). The largest number of works by medium in the dataset are watercolors mixed with other media followed by watercolors only. As we saw above, although oils comprise a smaller percentage of his total work they hold an outsize place in terms of his largest pieces and his major exhibited works. The final category represented is Mixed Media (Non-Watercolor). The range changes quite a bit over the years, however, and the diagram allows one to explore year by year to see the variation.
Turner often returned to the same subject again and again, sometimes over the course of many years. This is the case with the Swiss mountain called The Rigi, located in the Swiss Alps and surrounded by three lakes including Lake Lucerne. Turner returned to this location four times between 1836 and 1844 and produced numerous different compositions of the Rigi viewed from across Lake Lucerne. He sketched it variously at sunrise and sunset, seeking to work out different aspects of the interplay between light and shadow; form and movement. Among his many sketches are ‘Pink Rigi’, ‘Blue and Grey Rigi’ and ‘Red Rigi’.
In the work below we find a finished watercolor ‘Blue Rigi, Sunrise, 1842’ along with a sample study of the work produced some time in the year previous. In the sample study he focuses on studying the form of the mountain and the reflection that it produces on the lake, making only the barest hints at water and sky beyond this. In the finished watercolor, the lake in the foreground and the sky above are much more textured and nuanced. He places boats and birds upon the placid water, completing the elegant and tranquil effect of the whole.
Turner employed a number of different techniques throughout his career. One was to produce ‘color beginnings’ or ‘color studies’ in which he would begin to plan out the color composition and design before attempting to produce a finished work. He would sometimes produce a number of color beginnings of the same subject. Some of these would eventually be transformed into finished watercolors and oils, though often they would not. Many color studies and unfinished sketches are represented in the Tate dataset They offer offer a fascinating and priceless window into his artistic process. The initial color study could often be quite formless and abstract in nature; indistinct and chaotic washes of color that might only hint at possible form and shape.
The work below, ‘A Storm (Shipwreck)’, [exhibited at the British Museum] is a watercolor he produced in 1823. It represents a tempestuous seascape in which a ship is being battered and engulfed in vortex of water and wind. Turner produced three extant color beginnings of the work, one of which is represented alongside it here. In the earlier work the ship, waves and rock are broad washes of color, which take form and shape in the finished work. One can observe how he reverses the layout of the piece with the wave and rock being moved from the left to the right side of the canvas.