In the western art history, there are two great landscape painters from England: Joseph Mallord William Turner (baptized 14 May 1775 – 19 December 1851) and John Constable. They are regarded as the two people really let British landscape painting get rid of the influence from Holland, France, and Italy, and get own independence. In “Turner and the Barber’s Shop”, author John Berger narrates the life and art of one of those two great painters: Joseph Turner. Turner was born in London, the son of a barber. “He was a child prodigy” and entered the Royal Academy Schools at fourteen (215). Next, he had his own studio at eighteen, and his father becomes the assistant and factotum. He had very close relation with his father, and the barber’s shop
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In Turner’s later painting, Peace: Burial at Sea, he expressed directly to the death theme. The black peace and white light expresses the cycle of life and nature. This concept not only shows his attitude towards death, but also an expression of religion. “The first half of the British 19th century was profoundly unreligious. This may have forced Turner to use nature symbolically” (Berger 216). This religious expression is clearer in The Angle Standing in the Sun, which is related to the Bible: Genesis. As symbolization, this picture reveals his religious passion, which performs by the sun and shows the carnival of life. Martin and Evelyn also argue that “[t]here is also a possibility that Turner, in declining health, saw the picture as a summing up of his career”. Therefore, why did Turner look up the sun that shone all over the world at the last minute of his life? Especially, in his unfinished production Norham Castle: Sunrise, the world seems likes boundless under the warm sunlight. Probably, for Turner, life is very small by attaching to the sun but pleased with himself. Turner may want to tell us that everyone should get enjoyment by himself or herself in his or her life, even the life is weak and the world is
In Turner’s later painting, Peace: Burial at Sea, he expressed directly to the death theme. The black peace and white light expresses the cycle of life and nature. This concept not only shows his attitude towards death, but also an expression of religion. “The first half of the British 19th century was profoundly unreligious. This may have forced Turner to use nature symbolically” (Berger 216). This religious expression is clearer in The Angle Standing in the Sun, which is related to the Bible: Genesis. As symbolization, this picture reveals his religious passion, which performs by the sun and shows the carnival of life. Martin and Evelyn also argue that “[t]here is also a possibility that Turner, in declining health, saw the picture as a summing up of his career”. Therefore, why did Turner look up the sun that shone all over the world at the last minute of his life? Especially, in his unfinished production Norham Castle: Sunrise, the world seems likes boundless under the warm sunlight. Probably, for Turner, life is very small by attaching to the sun but pleased with himself. Turner may want to tell us that everyone should get enjoyment by himself or herself in his or her life, even the life is weak and the world is