Turner is considered to be a root of abstract modern art, an artist way ahead of his time. Visitors to exhibitions of JMW Turner's paintings often use terms like "abstract," "atmospherics", and "luminosity" to express what they're viewing.

While his contemporaries would paint recognizable subjects in discernible forms,Turner transformed his subjects into fantastic splashes of color, eliciting an emotional and subconscious response. I like to think he didn't paint to entertain the eye, but painted boldly to challenge the soul.

He was born in 1775, a year before the American Revolution, and he died ten years before the Civil War. For timeline perspective, Turner was 21 years older than Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and Claude Monet was an eleven year old boy when Turner died. Picasso was born thirty years after Turner died. Turner's art was uninformed by any of those great artists who followed him. No one forged his path.

Today, art lovers appreciate how Turner was ahead of his time, but in his time, art aficionados did not hold him in quite such high regard. His contemporary audience was used to neoclassical pictures. The accolades he received were hard earned. Consequently, although he made a living from his art, he never achieved great fame or or widespread acceptance in his lifetime.

Part of his "problem" was Turner's trait of avoiding any appearance of success. He was of lower-middle class origins, and he was proud of his background. He retained his Cockney accent throughout his life. He lectured for twenty years at the Royal Academy of Art, but was viewed as profoundly inarticulate.

As he aged, he became more morose. He neglected his London Gallery which fell into disrepair, and his last years were spent in near poverty. He is buried in the crypt below St. Paul's Cathedral in London. He left behind 2,000 paintings and 19,000 drawings. His paintings are on the walls of many museums throughout the UK, Europe and the United States.

The largest collection resides in the Tate Britain. Turner's favored subjects were landscapes of England, maritime scenes, European paintings, most notably from two trips to Italy, and finally Biblical, historical or mythologically themed paintings. Below are many of the Tate Britain's Turner collection of his English Landscapes. Over the next three issues, we will write about the Tate's JMW Turner Maritime, Mythological and European paintings.

Morning Amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland, exhibited 1798 ... Turner first visited this region in 1797. He often introduced paintings for the Royal Academy catalogue. For this work, Turner chose lines from Milton's Paradise Lost, "noting the mists and exhalations of the atmosphere at Sunrise."

Willows Beside a Stream, 1805 ... When painting scenes of the Thames, Turner sometimes worked aboard a boat, painting from a roll of prepared canvas which he unfurled as needed, tacking down a section as needed, fitted to a size regularly used for exhibitions.

Abington, 1806 ... Downstream from Oxford on the Thames lies the market town of Abington. This work marks a contemporary scene, with the delivery of building materials for the town's new prison.

Ploughing Up Turnips near Slough Windsor, 1809 ... Although this painting's golden lighting appears idyllic, it really shows the hard physical labor necessary to raise food during the Napoleonic Wars. King George III allowed the cultivation of turnips on royal land to help make the island nation self-sufficient. The workers endure difficulties ... a woman nurses while working the fields and a man mends a broken plough.

Sketch of a Bank with Gipsies, 1809 ... This small painting depicts a rough and untidy landscape, most noticeably topped by two cattle silhouetted against the blue sky.

Windsor Castle from Salt Hill, 1805-10 ... This painting is done on mahogany veneer in wide format, not Turner's usual practice. Although he did not do this painting outdoors, it is an example of the closest he ever came to making exacting studies of nature like his contemporaries did, especially John Constable.

The Quiet Ruin, Cattle in Water, exhibited 1809 ... During the Napoleonic Wars, scenes of rural life in Britain touched a patriotic nerve and were appealing to many buyers. Ruins and rough hillsides gave audiences a "pleasure of roughness."

St. Mawes at the Pilchard Season, exhibited 1812 .... In 1811, Turner visited the West Country, creating a series of engraved views of the South Coast, showing the region's scenery, industry and defensive role in the Napoleonic Wars. The Fishing Village of St. Mawes was a key industry of the region. Pilchard is a name given to various small oily fish related to herring.

England Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent's Birthday, 1819 ... This is a large painting and hung for years on the end wall of Turner's Gallery. Turner's birthday was April 23, the same as the Prince Regent, and it is thought to have also been the birthday of William Shakespeare.

George IV at St. Giles, Edinburgh, 1822 ... This painting shows a service held at St. Giles Cathedral on August 25, 1822, in honor of the King's state visit to Scotland. This painting is Turner's nod to fellow artist the Scotsman David Wilkie, whose style of genre painting is emulated here.

George IV at the Provost's Banquet in the Parliament House, Edinburgh, 1822 ... George's visit to Scotland was the first since the Act of Union in 1707, over a hundred years earlier. In this scene, George IV is presented with a silver bowl of rose water to wash his hands. The Scottish writer Walter Scott, wearing a brown coat, can be seen at the head of the long Table.

River Scene with Cattle, c 1808 ... Mellow lighting and pinkish clouds recall the 17th century Dutch painter Aelbert Cuyp. This painting was recorded to have hung at the Picture Gallery at Tabley House, Cheshire, in the home of Turner's patron, Sir John Leicester. Later, it must have been returned to Turner.

Breakers on a Flat Beach, 1835-40 ... It is not known if Turner painted this scene in Margate or in his London studio. Margate is located at the eastern tip of the County of Kent. He enjoyed getting out of London, and often traveled to Margate by steam boat, a trip of several hours. He loved the coastal light, and claimed the skies over the Isle of Thanet were the most beautiful in Europe.

Interior of a Great House, The Drawing Room, East Cowes Castle, c 1830 ... East Cowes Castle was located on the Isle of Wight and was the home of the architect John Nash. The drawing room's subdued light is disrupted by a burst of sunlight from the adjacent conservatory. Turner achieved the effect of the contrasting lighting by erratically building up his dazzling light with palette knife and other improvised processes.

Sunrise of a Castle on a Bay Solitude, 1840-45 ... This oil painting is one of several images he reworked from a set of mezzotints known as the Liber Studiorum 1807-19. This deliberately reworked piece was done as a tribute to Claude Lorrain's paintings.

Waves Breaking on a Lee Shore at Margate, 1840 ...

In his later years Turner spent much of his time at Margate with his companion, Mrs. Booth. He studied the coast at different times of day and in various weather conditions, creating dozens of works in oil or watercolor in which the sea itself was the main subject.

This picture looks across the sands to Margate’s harbour wall and lighthouse. The rough waves crash against the shore and create white plumes of spray depicted with thick impasto paint. Although the sky at the right is grey, above Margate it is golden and bright.

Norham Castle Sunrise, 1845 ... Norham Castle is on the Tweed River, on the border between Scotland and England in Northumberland. This work is unfinished and unexhibited in Turner's lifetime. Here he uses pure colors rather than contrasting tones, expressing the blazing light as the historic building and the landscape merge.

Cezanne's approach to portraiture was unconventional and played a part in his radical style and method. Cezanne did not accept commissions for portraits. For him, portraits were an ongoing experiment, an exploration, a pictorial language, a way to capture his intense perceptions of the world around him.

His subjects were, for the most part, people he knew well, including a number of self portraits.

Subjects included his family, friends, art world admirers and members of the hard laboring working class of Aix-en-Provence whom he liked and admired.

The exhibition includes over 60 portraits drawn from museum and private collections around the world. Several paintings are from the National Gallery of Art's collection, while many have never been exhibited in the United States before.

The exhibition points out the influence cast by Paul Cezanne. London's The Guardian points out that modernism has too many fathers already, but says the exhibition goes out of its way to quote both Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso who reverently referred to Cezanne as "the Father of us all."

Achille Emperaire, 1866-67 ... Achille Emperaire was an artist, ten years older than Cezanne. The two met in the early 1860's at Charles Suisse's Paris studio and remained friends for ten years.

Cezanne praised Emperaire's artistic talents saying "He's a very talented boy and nothing in the art of the Venetians has been lost on him." Success eluded him though, and only a small number of his works remain. This painting's title is a pun, the sickly and deformed body of Emperaire as he sits on a throne. The pun, "Emperaire", seated on a majestic throne, recalling "Emperor" Napoleon.

The Artist's Father Reading L'Evenement, 1866 ... This painting is a declaration of Cezanne's independence. His father was a banker, and Cezanne's relationship with him was emotionally charged. Cezanne rejected his father's world, and his dreams for him to pursue a career in law or banking. The newspaper being read by his father in this portrait contains an article about Emile Zola, a childhood friend of Cezanne who encouraged Cezanne to study art in Paris. Later, Zola became an art critic for L'Evenement.

Uncle Dominique in Smock and Blue Cap, 1866 ... In 1866, 27 year old Cezanne lived at his family's home near Aix-en-Provence. He did a series of his mother's brother, Dominique Aubert, wearing different costumes. His uncle must have been a willing and able model. A friend reported that for a period of time, "Every day there appears a new portrait of him." Cezanne did these portraits with palette knife directly on coarsely woven canvas, giving them a "gutsy" character.

Paul Cezanne, Self Portrait 1880-81 ... By the early 1880's, Cezanne began distancing himself from his fellow impressionists. His beard now is neatly trimmed, and he introduces a stylistic development known as his "constructive brushstroke" technique. In this technique, he used similarly sized parallel brushstrokes to create a sense of volume. In this portrait, Cezanne seems to take great enjoyment modeling his egg-like head.

Boy in a Red Waistcoat, 1888 ... Cezanne both admired and felt connected with the past. This very modern painting is influenced by Cezanne's study of 16th century portraits, retaining their sense of elegance. But it also owes much to its composition of shapes and colors. The angles and arcs of the background make the painting difficult to read, dividing rather than defining the space. In a way, this is a bridge painting, spanning a reverence for old pictures with beautiful subjects and abstract painting, moving with a harmony of color.

Madame Cezanne in a Yellow Chair, 1888 ... This is one of four portraits done of Cezanne's wife Hortense as she modeled in this red dress. Her posture is central to the painting, tilting in a spatially complex composition. The portrait was done in an apartment rented by Cezanne at 15 quai d'Anjou in Paris between 1888 and 1890.

Gustave Geffroy, 1885 ... Geffroy was a French novelist and art critic, and one of the earliest historians of Impressionism. He wrote a sympathetic article in Le Journal praising Cezanne, who at the time was receiving little praise anywhere else. Monet introduced Cezanne to Geffroy. This portrait was done in Geffroy's home study over three months. Cezanne was not pleased with the final painting and never finished it. After Cezanne's death, Cubists were interested in its geometrical style, noting the geometrical dimensions of the bookcase ad the perspective of the large table at which Geffroy is seated. They were impressed with the contrasting angles of the books both in the case and upon the table, giving the painting movement.

Woman with a Coffeepot, 1895 ... The model for this painting probably worked at Jas de Bouffan. Cezanne seldom used professional models because he painted so deliberately and slowly. This painting is not about the woman or the coffeepot, but rather a study in forms. Cezanne stresses the geometry of his composition, emphasizing volumes, the slant of the table. It seems to announce the coming of Cubism. At this point in his career, Cezanne said he wanted "to treat nature through cylinders, spheres and cones." Yet, Cezanne shows sympathy for the simple life, showing his model's dignified face and rough working hands.

Man in a Blue Smock, 1896-97 ... Around 1900, Cezanne began recruiting workers from his family's estate to pose for his paintings. The worker in Man in a Blue Smock appears also in Cezanne's famous "Cardplayers" paintings. For the remainder of Cezanne's career, he maintained his interest in portraits of rural workers.

Man with Crossed Arms, 1899 ... The bulk of this anonymous subject is accentuated by the layers of his clothing. The uneven tilt of the wainscotting and his gaze up and to his right is accentuated by the slightly different angles of the line between his eyes, his moustache and his lips. The man's face seems to be viewed at different angles simultaneously, almost anticipating the work of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso which was just over the artistic horizon.

Ambroise Vollard, 1899 ... was one of the most important contemporary art dealers during the early years of the twentieth century. He helped establish and offered emotional support to numerous unknown artists, among them Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. Cezanne worked the equivalent of two weeks on this portrait, and never declared it finished. Photographers and painters often go out of their way to help their subjects be at ease. But here, Vollard sits with pursed lips, eyes almost in shadow, nearly clenched hands and crossed legs. Vollard's business mantra was "buy low, sell high." His clients included Albert C. Barnes and Gertrude and Leo Stein.

The Gardener, Vallier, 1906 ... Vallier was a gardener and handyman at Cezanne's house in Aix-en-provence. Cezanne painted six portraits of him, all not too long prior to Cezanne's death in October of 1906. Throughout his career, he increasingly used a vivid palette applied with sensitive brushstrokes, creating challenging compositions with planes and angles and color tones blending with energy, alive and gripping. His work did pave the way for Cubism and abstract painting.

Ruth was born to a rather well-off family in Pasadena in 1904. Her parents had high plans for her future. They wanted her to attend Vassar, but she insisted on going to art school.

Beginning with a correspondence course with the Kansas City Art Institute, she followed with studies at Los Angeles's Stickney Memorial School and the Otis Art Institute, followed by work in New York at the Art Students League and studies in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. With a Bohemian spirit, she followed her time in Paris with mural and fresco studies in Florence.

As a single young woman in Paris, Ruth was limited in what she could do, and Ruth did not like being limited. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts did not allow unmarried young women to work from a nude model, although Ruth had done just that while a student at the Art Students League. So, while in Paris, she improved her oil painting techniques and visited museums studying, especially the Dutch and Flemish masters.

"Adventurous" and "independent" are certainly two adjectives which describe Ruth well. Unwilling to be bound by the restrictions of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, she and a companion went to Italy, studying mural and fresco techniques at the Florence Academy. There, she met a young Italian artist and moved with him to Rome.

But in 1928, her parents came to Italy with urgency, squelching Ruth's independence. With their daughter securely recaptured, they returned to her home in Pasadena, without Ruth's Italian artist husband.

Back in Pasadena, Ruth lived with her parents. We can't help but assume she felt humiliated and defeated. She found some freedom as she used a spare bedroom as her studio. But given her experiences in New York, Paris, and Florence, the living arrangements back in Pasadena must have felt confining and prison-like. In 1931, she married Henry Fracker, an electrical engineer from Pasadena's California Institute of Technology. The marriage ended in divorce, and Ruth may have entered into this marriage as a ticket out of her family's home.

Her family's values were politically conservative and staunchly Republican, but one can easily see from Ruth's art, that she was empathetic with social concerns.

She was not shy to use her artistic talents to express her daring views. In The Housewife, she shows a woman enslaved and held captive by wifely duties while serving an inattentive husband. The woman's blank stare, eyes which seem to be speaking volumes, as if stating, "I didn't sign up for this."

In Working Stiff, Ruth clearly depicts the hopelessness and despair of a young jobless man during the Great Depression. Although appearing quite able, the young man seems void of prospects. He falls limp, draped over a stairway, a red kerchief seemingly representing his life's blood draining from him.

In The Struggle, done for an art competition at Los Angeles' 1932 Olympics, is an artistic double entendre. In one sense, it clearly depicts the athleticism and beauty of two wrestlers' straining muscles as they compete with fierceness, a fitting subject for the Olympics. But in another sense, the racial elements of this painting cannot be dismissed. Done four years before Jessie Owens' gold medal victories in Berlin and five years before Joe Lewis won the Heavyweight Championship, this painting is a daring statement of a struggling black athlete. With agony on his face, he strains against a white opponent. This painting, especially with the black athlete appearing to have the advantage, was a daringly radical image in 1932 America.

Ruth's artistic career enjoyed many exhibitions and awards, but critical acclaim seems to have not been Ruth's goal. In 1953, she was given a solo exhibition at the Pasadena Art Institute, but she did not attend. She left on a six week volunteer tour to Korea where she and a small group of artists, including some from Walt Disney Studios, entertained soldiers in hospitals and rehab centers, drawing and giving portraits to the injured.

In 1959, she met and married an LA lawyer. Ruth was 56 at the time and the couple moved to Ojai, CA. She continued to paint, but did not show her work. In 1970, Ruth was found to have breast cancer and had a radical mastectomy. She recovered for a time, but the disease returned. She passed away in 1978 at the age of 74.

Judging from her work, she would have gotten along well with other Depression era artists. Who knows how her career would have gone had she been in the company of Maynard Dixon and Dorothea Lange or had benefited from the tutelage of Thomas Hart Benton or Diego Rivera? From her paintings, Ruth seems to be straining for freedom, enlightenment, reaching for the light, seeking a release from all the forces which bound her.

Linda Sorensen's paintings currently showing at:

Bodega Landmark Gallery Collection,
located inland in the town of Bodega, west end of town a half block from the Casino, and just across from the General Store and the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department.

Corrick's "Art Trails Gallery,"
located in downtown Santa Rosa on 4th Street, just steps from Santa Rosa's reopened Town Square.

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art