Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino (detail), 1839, J. M. W. Turner. Oil on canvas. The J. Paul Getty Museum
J. M. W. Turner and the Painting/Poetry Conundrum
GETTY CENTER
Harold M. Williams Auditorium
Andrew Wilton, chairman of the Turner Society and curator emeritus of the Turner Bequest at the Tate Britain, speaks about J.M.W. Turner's relationship with poetry, an art form he admired, studied, and practiced. Horace's dictum that poetry does what painting does (Ut pictura poesis) underlay much of 18th-century thought, which Turner thoroughly absorbed as evidenced by his innovative synthesis of the two art forms.
