\n It was an unusual meeting of minds: the gruffly spoken son of a Covent Garden barber and the descendant of one of England\u2019s most powerful families. But when George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, welcomed the artist JMW Turner to Petworth House, his palatial 17th-century mansion in West Sussex, a long-standing relationship was sparked that would nourish the artistic vision of a painter commonly cited as Britain\u2019s favourite.\n<\/p>\n
\n Best known for his 1839 painting The Fighting Temeraire, emblazoned on our \u00a320 note and denoting the tension between old and new, Turner\u2019s vigorous swirls of sunlight, cloudy skies and stormy seas as the ship played its role in Nelson\u2019s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, demonstrated new possibilities for landscape painting.\n<\/p>\n
\n His emotionally driven, highly original works, elevated the genre above its low ranking in the artistic hierarchies and paved the way for a new, more impressionistic aesthetic that reshaped art history.\n<\/p>\n
\n This year is the 250th anniversary of Turner\u2019s birth in 1775, and Turner 250, a series of celebratory events at Petworth House, in the care of the National Trust since 1947, and home to Lord and Lady Egremont, who reside in the property\u2019s south wing. In addition to the 19 works by Turner on permanent display around the house, the servants\u2019 quarters will house a temporary exhibition Turner\u2019s Vision at Petworth (until 16 November) offering a close-up, says Sue Rhodes, Petworth House\u2019s Visitor Operations and Experience Manager, of \u2018how Turner used the Petworth landscape to help him with his creative practice and his ideas\u2019.\n<\/p>\n
\n Turner\u2019s Vision at Petworth features Turner\u2019s illustrations, sketches and paintings, including 10 loans from Tate. One of the exhibition\u2019s highlights is the oil painting Petworth House from the Lake: Dewy Morning (c.1810), which normally resides in the family\u2019s private quarters, above the fireplace in the White Library, with restricted public access. Presented alongside the sketch for it, the work was Turner\u2019s first commission for the Earl and is, says Sue, \u2018a really important painting in the story of that relationship\u2019.\n<\/p>\n
\n Petworth is perhaps best known for its magnificent Carved Room featuring the intricate wood carvings of the celebrated Dutch sculptor Grinling Gibbons, and the exhibition makes space to tell the story behind the four gold-coloured landscape paintings created by Turner between 1827 and 1830 and fitted into the room\u2019s elaborate panelling. Alongside two views of Petworth Park are paintings of Brighton Chain Pier and Chichester Canal, both constructions financially backed by the Earl, and a visible display of his philanthropy.\n<\/p>\n
\n A shrewd businessman, Turner was unafraid of embellishing to present his patron\u2019s property and projects in the best possible light. Visitors touring the grounds may notice discrepancies, for example, between Petworth Park and its depiction in oils. \u2018It\u2019s not that things have changed, he has actually moved hills and clumps of trees to create a better composition,\u2019 reveals Sue. \u2018Turner was creating these compositions to suit his artistic need, taking elements of the park that he liked and then putting them together.\u2019 The painting of Chichester Canal tells a similar story. \u2018You can stand on the Hunston bridge [today] and look at that view, but the cathedral is in a completely different place!\u2019 points out Sue, amused by this bold reconstruction of reality, but acknowledging its merits. \u2018Compositionally, it sits much better with the masts of the ships where Turner has put it,\u2019 she says.\n<\/p>\n
\n This re-imagining of the landscape to convey feeling rather than just capturing a physical reality was also a mark of Turner\u2019s creativity. \u2018He was very much about inspiration rather than imitation, and that\u2019s what he used to teach when he got further in his career and he was teaching at the Royal Academy,\u2019 Sue explains.\n<\/p>\n
\n In fact, much of his time at Petworth was spent roaming the estate with his sketchbook, looking, she says, for \u2018visual references that he was then able to look back on\u2019\u2212 a herd of deer, perhaps, a group of trees, or a sunset. Turner was granted full access to the grounds and even provided with a carriage to explore the county further and stay, for example, at East Lodge, the Earl\u2019s property (since demolished) in Kemptown, Brighton.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Earl was not the only patron to indulge Turner\u2019s love of the Sussex landscape. The painter\u2019s canvases and sketches reveal visits to Rye, Rosehill (now Brightling) Park, Hastings, Heathfield and Bodiam Castle. Petworth, however, had a special place in his heart and, with accommodation provided at the house, afforded him the time to drink in the atmosphere of the landscape, which he then translated vividly into his paintings. The beautiful grounds, designed by the esteemed landscape architect and gardener Lancelot \u2018Capability\u2019 Brown\u2019, provided a refuge to escape the bustle of London, relax, and above all, fish.\n<\/p>\n
\n While the Earl turned a blind eye to Turner\u2019s extended recreation time, another patron, Sir John Leicester of Tabley Hall, Cheshire, felt that the painter had somewhat overlooked the purpose of his visit. \u2018Turner is going to leave without having done anything,\u2019 he reportedly remarked. \u2018Instead of painting, he does nothing but fish!\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Back at the house, Turner was often one of several painters enjoying the hospitality of the Earl, who was a huge supporter of contemporary British artists. Petworth was \u2018quite unusual\u2019, stresses Sue, functioning rather like \u2018an informal art academy\u2019. There was no National Gallery at this time and Petworth\u2019s incredible art collection afforded artists the chance to see paintings by artists such as Titian, Claude Lorrain, Anthony van Dyck and Hieronymus Bosch up close. \u2018The artists were allowed to take them off the wall, take them to their own personal rooms, to a studio space that was made available to them so that they could study them,\u2019 she says. \u2018So having that kind of access to an art collection of this importance would have been really inspirational.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Petworth was a place where Turner could work in peace, but if he sought society, there was no shortage of interesting visitors milling around the house. \u2018It was a kind of melting pot of people discussing the arts, the landscape,\u2019 says Sue, and \u2018a great place for him to come together with like-minded people and maybe others with different views as well\u2019. Turner\u2019s 100 plus watercolours of Petworth evidence the lively life of the house, offering glimpses of dinner parties, billiard games and music recitals, as well as, according to an 1827 sketch, \u2018a bevy of beautiful women\u2019, which no doubt lifted his spirits. Turner was reputedly an irascible, rather surly character, but Petworth brought out the best in him. As the painter Charles Robert Leslie remarked: \u2018Turner is very pleasant here \u2026 and full of fun.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n House guests were bemused to discover people of lower social classes, such as Turner, nicknamed the Cockney rebel, enjoying extended stays at the property, but the Earl was untroubled by convention. \u2018He withdrew from London life and decided that if \u2018life\u2019 wanted him, they would come to Petworth,\u2019 shares Sue. He also had multiple mistresses, who would sometimes be in the house at the same time, and he sired a staggering 40 or more illegitimate children. It was perhaps this non-conformity that these two very different men recognised in each other. \u2018The Earl was not following the fashion with his artistic tastes. He was his own man and he had his own mind, and I think both men were a little bit like that,\u2019 suggests Sue. Though Turner preferred to paint in solitude, he made an exception for the Earl, unbolting the door to his studio when he detected his distinctive, unhurried gait, followed by the pitter-patter of his beloved spaniels.\n<\/p>\n
\n Turner\u2019s contributions to Petworth\u2019s extraordinary art treasures, and the stories they tell of his time here, promise an uplifting visit \u2013 and it\u2019s hoped that visitors will take away a homemade souvenir. In the spirit of the \u2018academy\u2019 that the Earl set up, they will be offered a complimentary art pack. For inspiration, visitors need only look around them as Turner did. As Petworth\u2019s loyal visitor once said of his art: \u2018There\u2019s a sketch at every turn.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Turner\u2019s Vision at Petworth is at Petworth House and Park until 16 November 2025. Additional admission fees for this exhibition apply. \u00a310 admission per adult, \u00a35 per child, under 5s go free. Tickets are purchased at the reception on arrival.\n<\/p>\n
\n www.nationaltrust.org.uk\/petworth-house<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was an unusual meeting of minds: the gruffly spoken son of a Covent Garden barber and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-321890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114980574000646885","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}