Summer skywatching with the great painter J.M.W. Turner

The painter J.M.W. Turner loved to look at the sky. In particular, he loved the skies in Kent, just off the coast of southeastern England. He first visited the beaches there as a child in the late 18th century and continued to visit all his life. As a successful artist, he was much in demand back in London. In spite of our romantic visions of starving artists, happy and free, the career of a full-time artist isn’t entirely without responsibility. There are always deadlines to meet, pictures to be painted for clients that may not spark interest, and the demands of constantly selling pictures in order to put bread on the table.

Turner wasn’t immune to those pressures. For him, the skies of the North Sea just off the coast became a refuge from the big city. In the city, the sky is tame, framed by windows or glimpsed between buildings, but at the beach the sky is boundless.

Joseph Mallord William Turner looked for a long time at those skies and made sketch after sketch in his notebooks. He never sold the paintings. They were quick impressions, studies of mood and color. His more finished art pieces are often full of amazing skies, and the mood he could create was masterful. Those paintings are justifiably adored. For a long time, his watercolor sketches were ignored. But appreciation of them has grown over the years and they’re now extremely popular.

When I was a young disagreeable art student, I might have tried to argue that his popularity means Turner is mediocre and makes overly sentimental pictures. For some reason, I thought that popularity means an artist has “sold out.” I don’t know what I was thinking. Turner is incredibly popular, yes, but not because he sold out. He’s popular because his work is gorgeous and evocative. Looking at one of his paintings places me right back at the beach gazing in awe at a cloud shelf off of Cape Cod.

Great art doesn’t need to be obscure and purposely off-putting. Great art might be undervalued or popular, hanging in a museum or in a garage, from a famous artist or a no-name. None of that really matters. What matters is that a work of art touches on the transcendent. This is why we love certain pictures. They make us feel loved. Through them, we are touched by beauty. We can take comfort in the fact that God is out there somewhere, and that He made all this for us.

This is how I feel when I look at Turner’s skies. I feel loved.

Like Turner, I spend a lot of time looking at the sky. July sunsets, puff-ball torn clouds, and peregrines navigating the updrafts will hold my attention for long periods of time. I love the sound of the sky as it pushes through the forest in the evening, and how it reaches down to rattle dry leaves across the ground. During these summer months when the pace of life slows and getaways are possible, I particularly seek out big skies in rural areas or beaches.

I recently hiked and road my bike around the mountains of North Carolina in the pre-dawn because I wanted to see the skies at sunrise. When I can, which only happens every other year or so, I try to make it to a beach because there’s nothing better than a sky above a body of water. I was once on a tall hill overlooking Lake Michigan where people gathered on the shore to watch the sunset, when it finally melted into the water like a fiery phoenix, hundreds of people spontaneously clapped. I wonder if, in that moment, they felt loved.

My favorite place to look at the sky, though, is from the deck of a cabin on a piece of family property in the Missouri River valley. I return to it year after year and every time the sun sets over the Ozark hills the atmosphere takes on a particular color and texture that I’ve never seen before (and will never see again). Turner, too, would revisit the beach in Kent over and over so he could observe the changing sky. In particular, he was fascinated with the interaction of the sun with cloud and water. The colorful effect creating every day a new sky, the sun like a beacon of eternity.

Perhaps you have a favorite place to look at the sky. Maybe you just returned from your happy place, a beach or lake you visit year after year on summer vacation. The dreamy quality of Turner’s work is a perfect match for those long summer days near the water.

He captures what it’s like to remain peacefully in a place without a care in the world, eyes only for God’s glory.