Sun Yao: A Study of Brushstroke and Texture VOL.5

British painter J.M.W. Turner directly fused dramatic chiaroscuro with the intense textures of pigment and brushwork into his landscapes. He closely observed the shifts of color and light in nature — an approach that would ultimately influence the Impressionists. Before painting, he often prepared by sketching outdoors, carefully studying the intensity of light, the movements of clouds, wind, and rain. As a young man, he was already a gifted watercolorist, making his outdoor painting remarkably swift and direct. In watercolor, the bleeding of colors into one another profoundly shaped his later oil paintings. He also used direct brushstrokes in watercolor to capture contours and chromatic transitions, endowing his later oil works with a lively, spirited touch. At the time, oil painting was regarded as a “higher” art form, as it was suited to large-scale, carefully planned works. Watercolor, by contrast, was used primarily by landscape painters, and its modest scale was often seen as evidence of limited ambition. Turner was determined to prove that watercolor could be as majestic and impressive as oil — but to do so, he had to demonstrate equal command of both mediums. In his creative process, he began to introduce the characteristics of watercolor into his oils — chiefly by drawing on the drag and porous gaps left by a watercolor brush sweeping across paper, allowing different hues to intertwine and overlap. Colors blend and layer between brushstrokes and paper voids, producing effects that were blurred, subtle, and poetic. He carried this approach into his oil painting: by overlapping upper paint on still-wet lower layers, he generated uncertain tones, while using a palette knife to press uneven pigment and scrape through to the underlying color. Not until 21 did he feel confident enough to exhibit his first oil painting, Fishermen at sea, at the Royal Academy of Arts. Excerpted from Sun Yao’s The Study of Brushstroke and Texture in Oil Painting, published by Wenhui Publishing House in 2014.