"Soon, painters will be carrying a box around the world, like a tinkerer, instead of a drawing board under their arms."
This is a sentence that the protagonist John Turner said to the photographer in the photo studio, and it is also one of the two most deafening words he said in "Mr. Turner". This sentence really accurately predicts the situation in the future. Look at today, not only painters, but even ordinary people can take pictures everywhere with cameras or mobile phones, and the function of painting has been weakened by a large part.
Compared to poets and writers (such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, etc.), British artists are obviously less famous than their continental counterparts. At least for those of us who have received popular education, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and even Austrian, Dutch, and Belgian masters in music or painting are more heard than in England.
The same is true, it was not until John Turner came into being in the nineteenth century that British painting saw the light of day. It can be said that before him, British paintings were mostly unable to go abroad, and after him, they were able to keep pace with France and Italy. But even so, John Turner and his works were underestimated for a long time, and some works were buried in the basement of the National Gallery in England for decades without anyone caring. Since the late 1960s, a wave of research on Turner has been revived in the academic world, and the artistic value of his works has been recognized and highly appraised by most people.
In 2014, British director Mike Lee's "Mr. Turner" won the Palme d'Or when it was released at the Cannes Film Festival, and Timothy Spall, who played Turner, also won the title of Best Actor for his outstanding performance. . Who are Mike Lee and Timothy Spall? The former is a British national treasure director with the same reputation as Ken Roach, and has always been known for his realism; while the latter is a top student at the Royal Academy of Arts in the United Kingdom. The most famous image is almost tailor-made for him in the "Harry Potter" series. The big mouse "Peter Pettigrew". The two became involved in "Secrets and Lies" in 1996. Since then, Spall has become Mike Lee's royal actor. Director Lee's creative concept of focusing the camera on civilian life has vividly brought out Timothy Spall's advantage: blue-collar A classy family background, a working South London accent, a solid foundation in drama, and a "don't go crazy, don't live" way of acting. The artistic path of the two can be said to be a hit and miss.
"Mr. Turner" is also a typical "Mike Lee" style work. The director did not use the usual documentary techniques, but presented Turner's daily life in a prosaic way and from a trivial perspective, achieving a balance between art and life, and presenting a complex soul with flesh and blood in front of the audience. At the same time, because Turner is known as the "Master of Light", in order to vividly express Turner's life and creative normality, Mike Lee accurately grasped the light and style in the lens, and vividly restored the scenery and composition in Turner's works , creating a dreamy texture like a Victorian watercolor.
John Turner himself had a rough appearance, and not only did he rarely paint self-portraits, but he was even described by the French painter Delacroix, who painted "Liberty Leading the People": "The appearance of an English peasant, wearing a fat black coat, a wide Shoes, blunt and indifferent manner." To this end, the director specially customized clothes and hairstyles for the characters, and with Timothy Spall's stubby and bloated figure, a sloppy and comical image appeared on the screen: coughing like a hulking monster , trembling, the lower lip pouted proudly, showing a look of disapproval of the world.
In order to find the feeling of Turner, Spot turned to British artist Tim White for a three-year study, including general art history, aesthetic theory, color palette, painting techniques, and Turner's iconic painting method, until there was a One day, he actually copied Turner's masterpiece "Blizzard—Steamboat at the Exit of the Harbor". And in order to imitate the voice and state of the old Turner, Spo spoke with a mouthful of old phlegm most of the time, and even did not wash his hands or hair for a month, and his nails and neck exuded an unpleasant stench. It is the perfect interpretation of John Turner, who deserves the title of Best Actor at Cannes.
John Turner is a combination of "genius" and "monster". In the field of painting, Turner was a complete genius. One of his main contributions in the history of painting is to place landscape painting on an equal footing with history painting and portrait painting. For example, in "Slave Ship" and "Blizzard: Hannibal and his army crossed the Alps" in the film, the characters appear extremely fragile and insignificant in the face of violent natural phenomena such as the sea, huge waves, and blizzards, reflecting Turner Pessimistic view of nature: Humans will never be able to compete with nature. No wonder the English poet Tennyson called him "the Shakespeare of landscape painting".
His other major contribution was his inspiration for the Impressionists of later generations. In his later years, Turner became a school of his own, gradually drifting away from the mainstream of the refined academic school, and his understanding of color, light and atmosphere became more outlined, and he painted a large number of abstract landscape paintings. As shown in the film, although it was ridiculed and ridiculed by the rhetoric at the time, it was half a century ahead of Impressionism. Monet, Renoir and other younger generations have not forgotten this outstanding British master. walked ahead of them.
These achievements are inseparable from Turner's own character. The first was his obsession with painting. Turner in the film is almost either painting or on the way to draw from life. France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, no matter the mountains or cliffs, there are his footprints everywhere. Every time he returned from his trip, he always brought back a large number of sketch notes, which became the original material for his future paintings. The second is good humanistic quality. In history, he has the habit of composing poems with paintings, sometimes citing other people's verses, and sometimes improvising on his own, which is similar to the tradition of blending poetry and painting in Chinese paintings. In the film, he also recites poems and talks about music with female pianists. Duan, it is these qualities that laid the foundation for his creative quality. There is also a point that cannot be ignored, that is, Turner has a curiosity that dares to try and learn from things. For example, in order to explore colors, he mixed daily ingredients and sputum into paint to paint. In the film, he even spit directly on the drawing board; another example is the 67-year-old who asked sailors to tie himself to the mast of a ship for four full lengths. For hours to observe the blizzard, the result was severe bronchitis; if he lived in the period of the Industrial Revolution, when trains began to appear in large numbers, he keenly brought them into his field of vision and opened up a new world for landscape painting; the film There is also an interesting scene in the book. Mrs. Somerville, who is also a scientist and an artist, came to visit and demonstrated on the spot the experiment of making iron needles magnetic. Perhaps this explained that Turner's blizzard was drawn by electromagnetic waves. Rumors of academic influence.
But in life he is like a monster. Turner's self-care ability is very poor. In his 50s, his father needs to take care of his daily life, from buying painting supplies to handling business, and even shaving his beard. Emotionally, he believed that marriage and art could not coexist, so he never married until he announced his will after his death, and no one knew that he had had two daughters with a friend's widow. In the film, he and this Mrs. Danbi have been separated for many years and are in the same situation. Although he does not worry about food and clothing by selling paintings, he is indifferent and indifferent to his two daughters. He also frequents brothels and uses Hannah, the maid who has been with him for many years, as a tool to vent his lust. The film does not shy away from Turner's rough and ruthless side, and truly shows his emotions. His passion for art contrasts sharply with his alienation from life.
John Turner died at his home in Chelsea, London on December 15, 1851, looking at the light pouring into the house from the window, leaving his last words: "The sun is God!" Consistent with historical facts, it was his partner Mrs Booth in his later years who accompanied him to the end of his life in the film, and only the hunched figure of the maid Hannah was left in the old house. Through Spall's eyes and the brush in his hand, we see Turner's controversial but magnificent life. There are no beautiful women and no ups and downs in "Mr. Turner", but after careful review, the whole film is permeated with a touch of sadness, and there is no lack of peaceful and far-reaching harmonious rhythm.
To put it another way, Turner had an unfulfilled wish during his lifetime: to create a fund to assist talented and impoverished young artists. It was not until 1984 that the Tate Gallery helped him realize this wish, naming the most important annual contemporary art award in the UK with the name "John Turner". By the way, the great painter in the film has another deafening remark. When a businessman was about to offer 100,000 pounds to buy all his works and manuscripts, Turner flatly refused, and said calmly that he would donate them all to the country for free.
"I hope to see my works exhibited in the same place in the future, and all my paintings can be enjoyed by the public for free."
♑
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