Turner and the Sublime

Turner and the Sublime by Wilton, Andrew. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780226061894.

Throughout his life Turner was profoundly influenced by the eighteenth-century aesthetic theory of the "sublime." However, as Andrew Wilton now shows, the sublime was not merely a springboard for Turners innovations; he reinterpreted the theory with great individualism and offered it to the world as a fresh and even more far-reaching philosophy of art. The 140 illustrations, which include 32 in color, reproduce watercolors and prints that demonstrate the development of Turners response to the sublime in areas as various as architecture, the picturesque, the "terrific," the sea, cities, mountains, and lakes. Many of the subjects have not previously been published.