“Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino” by J.M.W. Turner is a landscape vision of the yet unexcavated Roman Forum, still called the Campo Vaccino meaning “Cow Pasture”, shimmering in the hazy light. Ten years after his final journey to Rome, Turner envisioned Rome from his memory. The churches and ancient monuments in and around the Roman Forum are dissolving as the moon rises on the left and the sun sets on the right.
This picture’s light effects exemplify Turner at his most accomplished, with Turner evoking less a place in the real world and more a place in the imagination.
“The moon is up, and yet it is not night.
The sun as yet divides the day with her.”
– Lord Byron
Images of Classical, Renaissance and Baroque Rome dominate the canvas. But in the foreground amidst these ancient splendours and history, the city’s inhabitants carry on with their daily activities in the emerging shadows of the Capitoline Hill.
Roman Forum
The Roman Forum is a rectangular plaza surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient buildings at the centre of the city of Rome. During Ancient Roman times the Forum was the centre of day-to-day life in Rome. It was the site of triumphal processions, elections, the venue for public speeches, criminal trials and commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city’s great men.
Located in the small valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archaeological excavations. The Roman Forum has been a source of inspiration for artists for centuries. Notable artists of the Forum include Giambattista Piranesi, Maerten van Heemskerck, Pirro Ligorio, Canaletto, Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Paolo Panini, Hubert Robert, J.M.W. Turner and many others.
View of the Roman Forum from the Palatine Hill
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner entered the Royal Academy of Art in 1789, aged 14, and his first watercolour was accepted for the Royal Academy summer exhibition of 1790 when Turner was 15. From a young art student trained in executing topographical watercolours, he became one of the most original artists of his time. Turner was a Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist, today known for his vivid colouration, imaginative landscapes and turbulent marine paintings. As a private, eccentric and reclusive figure, Turner was controversial throughout his career. He left over 2,000 paintings and 19,000 drawings and sketches.
Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino
- Title: Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino
- Artist: J.M.W. Turner
- Year: 1839
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions 90.2 cm × 122 cm (35.5 in × 48 in)
- Museum: Getty Museum
Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Name: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Born: 1775 – Covent Garden, London, England
- Died: 1851 (aged 76) – Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, England
- Nationality: English
- Movement Romanticism
- Famous Works:
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- The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons
- The Fighting Temeraire
- Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino
- The Burning of the Houses of Parliament
- Newport Castle
- The Grand Canal, Venice
- Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway
- Dido Building Carthage
- Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth
- The Slave Ship
- Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps
Reflections
- Can you imagine a time when the Roman Forum was Cow Pasture?
J. M. W. Turner Quotes
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“To select, combine and concentrate that which is beautiful in nature and admirable in art is as much the business of the landscape painter in his line as in the other departments of art.”
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“I have no secret but hard work. This is a secret that many never learn, and they don’t succeed because they don’t learn it. Labour is the genius that changes the world from ugliness to beauty and the great curse to a great blessing.”
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“I know of no genius but the genius of hard work.”
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“I don’t paint so that people will understand me; I paint to show what a particular scene looks like.”
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“It is necessary to mark the greater from, the lesser truth: namely, the larger and more liberal idea of nature from the comparatively narrow and confined; namely that which addresses itself to the imagination from that which is solely addressed to the eye.”
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“It is only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create.”
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“If I could find anything blacker than black, I’d use it.”
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There’s a sketch at every turn.
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“I did not paint… to be understood. I wished to show what such a scene was like.”
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“Painting can never show her nose in company with architecture but to have it snubbed.”
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Getty Museum
- “The Grand Canal in Venice from Palazzo Flangini to Campo San Marcuola” by Canaletto
- “Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino” by J.M.W. Turner
- “Irises” by Vincent van Gogh“Irises” by Vincent van Gogh
- “After the Bath, Woman Drying Her Back” by Edgar Degas
- Masterpieces of the Getty Museum
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“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
– Michelangelo
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Photo Credit: 1) J. M. W. Turner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons 2) Chalaph [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]