Turner's Influence on the Impressionists

J.M.W Turner
Rain, Steam, and Speed—the
Great Western Railway
1844
Oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

J.M.W Turner
Rough Sea with Wreckage
c.1840
Oil on canvas
Tate Gallery, London

J.M.W Turner
The Evening Star
c.1830
Oil on canvas
National Gallery, London.

J.M.W Turner
The Evening Star
c.1830
Oil on canvas
This painting was
considered
unexhibitable by
the National
Gallery until 1905.

“[In Turner] Darkness was discarded and
weaving, shimmering veils and touches of
color suggested space and solidity and
depth. This was Impressionism forty years
earlier and it is no wonder that when Monet
and Pissarro were in London in 1870 as
refugees during the Franco-Prussian War,
they were thunder-struck by Turner's
experiment.”
Daniel Cotton Rich
Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago
November 1946
J.M.W Turner
The Long Cellar at Petworth House
c.1835
Oil on wooden panel

In 1910 the British art critic Lewis Hind
singled Turner’s paintings of Petworth as
showing an: ‘astonishing foreshadowing of
Impressionism.’
J.M.W Turner
The Long Cellar at Petworth House
c.1835
Oil on wooden panel

Constable too is implicated:
“Indirectly, Impressionism owes its birth to
Constable; and its ultimate glory, the works
of Claude Monet, is profoundly inspired by
the genius of Turner ... it cannot be too
clearly understood that the Impressionistic
idea is of English birth.”
John Constable
The Hay Wain
1821
Oil on canvas
Wynford Dewhurst
Impressionist Painting: Its Genesis and Development
1904

“In London [Monet and Pissarro] studied
[Turner's] work and analysed his technique.
They are struck primarily by his snow and ice
effects. They are astonished by the way he
has succeeded in giving an impression of
whiteness to the snow, they who so far had
not been successful with their big white
patches laid on with wide sweeps of the
brush. They come to the conclusion that this
marvelous result is not obtained by using a
uniform white but by a large number of
patches of different colour placed alongside
one another and, from a distance, giving the
desired effect.”
Paul Signac in 1899
recalling earlier conversations
with Monet and Pissarro
George Seurat
Portrait of Paul Signac
1890
Conté pastel on paper
Private collection

“In 1870 I was in London with Monet and we met
Charles Daubigny and Bonvin; Monet and I were
enthusiastic about the London landscapes. Monet was
working in the parks while I, staying in Lower Norwood,
then a charming district, studied the effects of fog,
snow and spring. We were working from nature and
later Monet painted in London some superb fog studies.
We also used to go to the museum. The watercolours of
Turner as well as the works of John Constable certainly
had their effect on us. We admired Thomas
Gainsborough, Thomas Lawrence, Joshua Reynolds and
the others at the Royal Academy…”
Camille Pissarro
interviewed by Dewhurst c.1902
Photograph of Camille Pissarro
reproduced in Dewhurst’s book

"Turner and Constable have
been useful to us as have all
the great painters. But the
basis of our art is indisputably
of French tradition. Our
masters are Clouet, Nicolas
Poussin, and Claude Lorrain;
the 18th century with Chardin,
and the group of 1830 with
Corot."
Camille Pissarro
interviewed by Dewhurst in 1902
Wynford Dewhurst
The Picnic
1908
Oil on canvas
Manchester City Art Gallery

“This Mr. Dewhurst understands nothing of the
Impressionist movement, he sees only a mode of
execution and he confuses the names of the artists, he
considers Jongkind inferior to Boudin, so much the
worse for him! He says that before going to London we
had no conception of light. The fact is we have studies
that prove the contrary. He omits the influence which
Claude Lorrain, Corot, the whole eighteenth century
and Chardin especially exerted on us. But what he has
no suspicion of, is that Turner and Constable, while they
taught us something, showed us in their works that
they had no conception of the analysis of shadow,
which in Turner's painting is simply used as an effect, a
mere absence of light.”
Camille Pissarro
private letter to his son Lucien, shortly after being

“I do not think, as you say, that the Impressionists are
connected with the English school, for many reasons
too long to develop here. It is true that Turner and
Constable have been useful to us, as all painters of
great talent have; but the base of our art is evidently of
French tradition, our masters are Clouet, Nicolas
Poussin, Claude Lorrain, the eighteenth century with
Chardin, and 1830 with Corot.”
Camille Pissarro
private letter to his son Dewhurst, shortly after being

“Turner was the first of the Impressionists, and after a
lapse of eighty years he remains the greatest ...Turner is
the father of the Impressionists. Their discoveries are
his.”
Robert de la Sizeranne
The Studio magazine Paris special
Winter 1903/1904

“In 1870 I was in London with Manet and we met
Charles Daubigny and Bonvin; Monet and I were
enthusiastic about the London landscapes. Monet was
working in the parks while I, staying in Lower Norwood,
then a charming district, studied the effects of fog,
snow and spring. We were working from nature and
later Monet painted in London some superb fog studies.
We also used to go to the museum. The watercolours of
Turner as well as the works of John Constable certainly
had their effect on us. We admired Thomas
Gainsborough, Thomas Lawrence, Joshua Reynolds and
the others at the Royal Academy but we were
particularly taken by the landscapists who were nearer
to what we were seeking in 'plein air', light and fleeting
effects.”
Camille Pissarro

Born in 1783 at Deritend, near Birmingham,
the son of blacksmith.

c.1798 he was apprenticed to a miniature painter
named Albert Fielder.
Studied drawing with Joseph Barber.

Became an apprentice theatre scene painter with
a man surnamed Da Maria (first name unknown).

Became an apprentice theatre scene painter with
a man surnamed Da Maria (first name unknown).
After an argument with the theatre manager Cox
left for London and became a struggling
draughtman and freelance theatre set painter.

Cox’s hero at the time,
according to his
biographer Neal Solly
(1873) was Turner
“no artist appreciated
Turner’s genius more
than Cox did”
- Neal Solly
Despite near poverty he
subscribed to Turner’s
Liber Studiorum.

Gatehouse
THE NORWICH SCHOOL
Its aims were "an enquiry into the
rise, progress and present state of
painting, architecture, and
sculpture, with a view to point out
the best methods of study to attain
the greater perfection in these
arts."

In 1839 Cox met William
Müller.

“The last and surest method of
obtaining instruction from the
works of others is not so much by
copying them as by drawing the
same subjects from nature
immediately after a critical
examination of them, while they are
fresh in the memory.”
David Cox

In 1841 Cox returned to Birmingham.
He suffered a stroke in 1853.
In 1857 his eyesight had deteriorated.
In 1859 a retrospective exhibition was held at the
German Gallery in Bond Street, London.

In 1841 Cox returned to Birmingham.
He suffered a stroke in 1853.
In 1857 his eyesight had deteriorated.
In 1859 a retrospective exhibition was held at the
German Gallery in Bond Street, London.
In 1857 John Ruskin condemned the work of the
Society of Painters in Water-colours as "a kind of
potted art, of an agreeable flavour, suppliable and
taxable as a patented commodity.”
Only Cox was spare Ruskin’s ire. None of the other
members comes near these works of David Cox in
simplicity or seriousness.”
David Cox died in 1859.

Turner's Influence on the Impressionists

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