Turner In His Time

I checked this book out at my local library. It is so good, I'm going to buy it. While I knew who Turner was and had seen one or two reproductions of his work in books about other, later artists, I had seen little of his work and knew nothing about him before reading this book. It has been an absolutely wonderful introduction and has spurred me to look for more about Turner's art. There are something like 168 reproductions of oil paintings, watercolors, and drawings; most of them are large and in color; all of them are outstanding. I have looked at them in awe. The great landscape painter is himself a marvel. His prodigious talent revealed itself very early (by age 11 at least) and was recognized by his father, a London barber. He hung his son's paintings in the window of his barbershop with prices attached. Thus, Turner was a professional from childhood. In as much he was blessed with a reasonably long, healthy, and extremely productive life as well as extraordinary creativity which increased, rather than decreased with age, Turner left the world with a huge treasure-trove of great art. Stylistically it spans the period from the Old Masters of the seventeen century to the Expressionists, and in my view, towards the end of his career, it verges on Abstract Expressionism.This book is a biography of the artist as he was perceived during his life. Thus, it is filled with an abundance of quotations from contemporary sources, which serves to make Turner a very real and likeable, though very prickly, man. However, the emphasis is on the pictures. Wilton is a Turner scholar. His discussion is well-informed, without being pedantic or impenetrably academic. He has appended lists of the contents of Turner's house/studio and the contents of his library, which were made after his death, a bibliography, and an index of the pictures included in the book, which identifies their locations.

I bought this book for the illustrations after I was presented with a gift copy of the superb biography of Turner by Franny Moyle. The reproduction is excellent and the book is worth it for the illustrations alone. The introduction was very annoying after reading Moyle's work since it emphasized all the old negative attitudes towards Turner by earlier biographers, where he was considered insane, overly eccentric and morally corrupt in contrast to Moyle's tolerance, astute assessment of the man and her skilled writing of his interesting and unusual life. I stopped reading the introduction and just enjoyed the plates.

This book is better than anticipated. People who do not use Amazon are often skeptical about the reviews, but by reading the reviews submitted about this book, I resolved to buy it, since the review assured me the pictures were LARGE and first quality. Well, they really are. I am reading the book now, and although Turner's life and personality do not lend themselves to superlatives, the author does his very best to show the quirkiness of the artist. If you want a melodramatic text, go read a book on Van Gogh. Turner's paintings are all the melodrama you need.

I generously, rate this book as a "C" or 3 stars. I own several books on JMW Turner and his works. I can say with total certainty that there are NO excellent books and only a very few remotely good books on JMW Turner and his works. Presently, I own four books with the best book on JMW Turner and his works being the Taschen Basic Art Series 2.0 on Turner (I rate as a B-). Almost unbelievable, the tiny 96 page, 8" x 10" book that cost $11 (new) is the best book available! This book (In His Time) cost myself $44 and as soon as the CV-19 panic eases, I will donate it to my local public library as it takes up too much space for something so useless. Excellent or even good art books must show many of the artist's best works in a large format with appropriate colors. Turner is COLOR and LIGHT. To not demonstrate both is a sin. Additionally, all books (excepting the TBAS 2.0 series) show an extraudinary limited selection of Turner's greatest masterpieces. Some books have a wide selection of his second rate works. Why bother? Unfortunately, this book fails on all levels. Very disappointing and at $44 - ouch.

On page 86 there were explicitly pornographic images. They were drawings depicting penetration in full detail. I value art books highly in our home and want our children to learn art history and appreciate art. If these images were simply nudes then I wouldn't have objected to their inclusion in this book. But depictions of explicit sexual acts are unacceptable. I don't want my children stumbling on these pictures, so I cut out the page. It was a simple enough solution, but should not have been necessary to begin with. These images really didn't contribute anything to the understanding of Turner's career, technique, or artistic achievements.The book did have nice sized images, although many could have been larger. And the colors were reproduced nicely. A large, and comprehensive volume on Turner, it makes a fine addition to our library and an invaluable resource book.

Great book for studying Turner who was such a master of light.

i wasn't sure about this book at first - i really wanted to see it before i buy it.but i give it a try - i trusted reviews..and it really is a nice book!best turner book ever.

what's not obvious is that a whole lot of the photos are in black and white. I know from other sources that the color is a significant part of the magic of his work. Mine also arrived damaged (soaking wet), so I haven't been able to do more than thumb through it. So I can't comment on text etc. I'll have to wait until I get a readable one.

I bought this as a birthday present for my son, who lives in Spain, so it was a little time before I was able to ask his opinion...now I have it! He says that he would definitely give it a 5 star. He felt that it was full of interesting facts about Turner's Life and his works which he did not know before...and discovered paintings he had not seen before. I chose Turner because I know that it is one of my son's favourite painters. Having seen some of the other books I would recommend this. It is the most excellent value for money .

Turner was a painter way ahead of his time - I love his work, especially his later, more impressionistic style. Andrew Wilton's book is both a superb biography and a great catalogue of his work. The colour reproductions, on good quality paper, are good for a book of this size even if some of the colours seem a little muted compared to the originals - this, I assume, is down to limitations of the printing process. Even so, I rate this book 5 stars overall!

Being a massive Turner fan, I'm an enthusiast collector of books about his work. This one, I must say, it's without any doubt the best of all. Perfect format, fantastic printing (which is very hard to achieve without distorting the magnificent colours of the original paintings) and a brilliant original investigation about his life is something that definitely you are not going to find in any other publication. Plus, is much cheaper via Amazon UK than at the very Tate Britain shop. Absolutely recommended.

If you are a follower of Turner's work this book is an excellent read, it also proves an eclectic mix of illustrations that are laid out with the appropriate text so one doesn't need to search for them. Although I have read most books on this subject I found this one a useful edition, well written and well researched. Anyone who has seen the film Mr.Turner would find this book fills in missing links and sorts out the conjecture. If you like Turner, I would highly recommend it.

This is a beautiful, heavy book, very extensive. Unfortunately I had to return it to Amazon as, once again, the book was damaged through careless, too tight packaging. This has happened twice before so I will no longer order beautiful coffee table books from Amazon.