Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)

ANNUAL REPORT - A 2006. ÉV - MARTON OROSZ: Sea Battles: The Painter's View in the Art of Veronese, Turner and Kandinsky

16 JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER. THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR, SECOND SKETCH. LONDON. TATE BRITAIN In the sixteenth century Venice was the homeland of rich colours. Veronese, her celebrated painter originally intended this work as a votive offering and it ornamented the right wing of the Rosary Altar church dedicated to the martyrdom of Saint Peter in Murano. The aim of the allegorical battle scene was to praise the schematically represented sea battle. The contrast of the above and below emphasizes to the "heavenly sphere", distinguished by thunderclouds with curly edges, intervening in the earthly struggle, i.e. helping the Christians to victory over the Ottoman fleet. Turner painted the Battle of Trafalgar in 1822, by order of King George IV, which w

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as the artist's only commission from the court. The exhibited second sketch of the painting excellently expresses the experience of defencelessness through landscape, in a typically Romantic vein, by showing the struggling forces of nature through a myriad of colours and by the spirally built composition so characteristic of Turner's compact way of representation. The Kandinsky painting on display was created in the first phase of the abstract art of the twentieth century. This was the phase that worked out a self-ruling visual world but which still harked back to the lyric version of expressionism. Painted in 1913, the work could only refer