Turner is like nature

This exhibition fills gaps in our knowledge of William Turner (1775-1851): Covering three major areas, Turner. Three Horizons, which shines with expertise and fascination for arguably the most extraordinary painter of the early 19th century. It covers Turner's self-dramatization as a provocative and intangibly talented painter, his private and working life, especially his experiments on canvas, and the reception history of his work from the last 200 years. Turner, who is often referred to as the first modern painter today, shocked and fascinated his contemporaries in equal measure with his abstract-looking landscape and seascapes. While some accused him of straying too far from the nature whose light and atmosphere he sought to depict, others, such as John Ruskin, spoke in the highest praise: »Turner is like nature, and paints more of nature than any man who ever lived.« The exhibition at the Lenbachhaus in Munich includes some 40 paintings and an additional 40 watercolors and sketches, representing all phases of the painter's career. The exhibits can be viewed from October 28, 2023 to March 10, 2024.

Turner came from a humble background. Thanks to his talent and diligence, he became known for his landscape and architectural drawings, so that at the age of 14 he received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Arts in London. There was no chair for landscape painting there − in contrast to history painting, for example, it was not considered an academic genre − which is why he trained himself autodidactically in nature and on artistic idols. Nature always dominated, its light and atmosphere depicted in a way that had not been seen before. Especially in modernism, Turner was a model for entire generations of painters because of his implied abstraction. The now famous Turner Prize is named after him.