Grimaldi Forum Monaco

Turner’s Sublime Legacy

This summer, the Grimaldi Forum is delving into the light and colours of Turner, juxtaposing the works of the English painter and precursor of the abstract movement with those of recent artists.

Last year, the major exhibition of the works of Claude Monet (1840-1926) in the Espace Ravel attracted some 120,000 visitors. This year, the Grimaldi Forum Monaco is taking us even further back in the history of art, and of those who set the scene for the modernism movement by breaking away from academic rules, with the light-filled canvases of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851). Following on from the 2021 Turner exhibition at the MNBAQ (Quebec’s national museum of fine art), the 80 or so paintings and works on paper curated by Elizabeth Brooke, Senior Project Curator at the Tate Modern, remind us just how great a part this English watercolourist and printmaker played in establishing landscape painting as a major genre, with his atmospheric effects heightened by touches of silver and gold. Be it his resplendent paintings of Venice’s lagoon, the turbulent clouds of his storms at sea or his vast skies and mountain landscapes, Turner’s expert portrayal of beauty borders on the sublime. The open spaces and turmoil of his landscapes unleashed emotions which paved the way for the future Impressionists and even later movements. This 2,000m² exhibition is special in that it juxtaposes these paintings with the works of modern and contemporary artists.

Between man and the elements

First, we enter a darkened room, as if in preparation for dawn to break. The exhibition then opens with Turner’s early paintings of the English landscape, which also fired the imagination of Richard Long, an iconic figure of the Land Art movement, whose 1979 Slate Circle is also exhibited. We then climb up into the mountains, at times majestic and at times the site of avalanches, culminating in 30 photos of glaciers by the contemporary artist Ólafur Elíasson, who shines the spotlight on nature. Next, the human story unfolds with mythological or biblical scenes such as Tobias and the Angel and works depicting Venice and its Doge’s Palace so infused by light that the architecture ends up absorbed in its mystical powers. We finish with the colours, sensations and contemporary response of Howard Hodgkin whose views of Venice at night are charged to saturation point with carborundum and black. Turner also painted seascapes and storms, such as his famous 1846 Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish! In the latter years of this pioneering painter’s life, the exhibition highlights what remained, the horizon and the straight lines separating areas of colour, which of course echo the work of Rothko. Turner may have glorified the landscape genre, but he was also one of the painters of the Industrial Revolution who questioned the impact of human activities, because this is of course a long-standing issue

Turner, le sublime héritage. 

En dialogue avec des artistes contemporains

Jusqu’au 1^er septembre 2024

Tous les jours de 10h à 20h

Nocturnes : les jeudis jusqu’à 22h 

(sauf le 29 août reporté au vendredi 30 août)

Grimaldi Forum Monaco- Espace Ravel

10 avenue Princesse Grace, Monaco

Tél. +377 99 99 30 00