Author Description

From front flap: "Color has always been recognized as J. M. W. Turner's most personal achievement as a painter; yet, until recently, his extraordinarily original qualities have been treated only descriptively, from the outside. The general neglect of the artist's written work-his poetry and lectures-has made it hard for students of the paintings to recognize the intellectual concerns that lay behind many of them, or to understand the conceptual aspect of Turner's artistic personality. Now that some of these writings have been published, the range and nature of his mind are clearer, but only a fragment of his discussion of color has hitherto been made available, and it has not so far been used to illuminate the course of his development as a colorist... Color in Turner traces the formation of Turner's leading conceptions as a colorist, on the basis of his writings on color, which are published in extenso for the first time, and on the basis of a study of his developing practice, accessible in contemporary accounts of his working method and in the large body of unfinished studio material in the Turner Bequest in the British Museum and the Tate Gallery."