I presented the ideas of Johannes Itten in that class (see previous post) and also the paintings of Turner.
Art historians discuss Turner in connection with the aesthetic of the Sublime, a central idea in Romanticism. The Sublime was opposed to beauty, restraint, balance, harmony. Romantic poets felt tormented by infinite longing and passion that could not be contained. In their debates about form and content , form lost its former respect. The content of turbulent emotion and the newly discovered dark aspects of the psyche—not as sin but as depth and authenticity—were seen to correspond to the awe and terror of natural forces , such as mountains and oceans.
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 –1851) is famous for his seascapes, which are most often turbulent and terrifying: burning ships; ship wrecks; 
drowning, shackled slaves; blazing orange skies. Though he was a member of the Royal Academy, he had to endure much ridicule from his contemporaries who preferred polite, sedate , well-ordered pictures to be mollified by.
Turner also painted landscapes. He hated the color green and painted landscapes while avoiding that color. What is a landscape? We keep coming back to that question in my landscape class. Turner assures us that it’s not about the color green.
I didn’t present the Sublime in class. Just looking at Turner gives you goose bumps and you GET it. Elaine C. again faced a white canvas by putting down color and letting the form follow. This is a small painting, about 12 x 16. If it were 48 x 64, it would pull us into the Romantic Sublime.
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artamaze by Katherine Hilden 