Incandescence: Turner in Venice

We sneaked a day off work and popped up to Coniston, to meet a friend and view the Turner exhibition at Brantwood.

This exhibition marks the first ever public exhibition at Brantwood devoted to Turner. It showcases Turner’s magnificent Venice: the Piazzetta with the Ceremony of the Doge Marrying the Sea, together with a suite of watercolours from Turner’s visit in 1840, the year in which Ruskin and Turner first met.  This meeting was to become incredibly important to the lives and reputations of both men.



The paintings chart the passage of light across the hours of a single day.  In Venice, Turner expressed the many elements of his artistic inspiration in the all-consuming energy of light. History, society, architecture, boats, sea and sky –all melt together in a timeless luminescence. Turner’s Venice became Ruskin’s Venice and Turner became one of the great shaping forces of Ruskin’s life.

The exhibition, small but beautifully curated, was a pleasure and added to Brantwood's attraction on such a beautiful summer's day.