Joseph Mallord William Turner and Hillary Rodham Clinton have one thing - maybe two - in common; an understanding of the expressiveness of color, particularly orange, and the fact that both, in their respective periods, face(d) mixed reception. What influenced Clinton's choice of orange for her pantsuit ensemble during the Democratic National Convention last week was not far removed from the same Goethean color theory that inspired Turner. And like Clinton, who for this choice became the butt of many late-night talk show jokes, so too did Turner face ridicule.

Currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an exciting survey of Turner's majestic oeuvre. It's a rare exhibit and one not to miss, even if nineteenth century painting isn't your cup of tea. For it was Turner's commitment to capture on canvas and paper the ethereal qualities of light and air and the temporality of nature that makes his work resonate on a visceral level with contemporary viewers. 

A landmark of early nineteenth century painting, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812) is one of the highlights of the exhibit and marks a significant epoch in Turner's artistic development. It is here where we see the beginnings of what art historians call the Turnerian vortex; a whirlpool of light and color that poetically consumes everything in its trajectory. The violence of imperial conquest, here implicitly connecting the Punic Wars to the Napoleonic Wars - Hannibal's 218 BC crossing of the Alps to Napoleon's 1800 AD crossing of the Alps - does not take center stage. Rather, the omnipotence of nature and its capability to annihilate both the human race and all of the surrounding natural landscape is what dominates the picture plane.

This theme of history as sublime catastrophe carries over to another star of the show, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 (1835), on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The painting captures a riveting testimony to a major event turned public spectacle, when the old Parliamentary building situated along the Thames River caught fire in 1834. Turner witnessed the event in person and made a number of watercolor sketches, also on view at the Met, that demonstrate his interest in the sublime as a source of terror and beauty, shock and awe. Also, we see in this painting the intensity of color as a medium capable of expressing sheer emotion, a use of color as subject matter unparalleled in contemporaneous Romantic painters.

As Turner advanced in his career, this notion of color as subject matter led him to make pictures of almost pure abstraction, ones that left him to die in 1851 in relative obscurity despite a successful career. The Met ends its exhibit with a large selection of these paintings and watercolors, which critics once called "the fruits of a diseased eye and a reckless hand." In Turner's late works, mostly unfinished, one sees a precursor to twentieth century modernist painting. Today, I do not think there is a single art historian who would dispute Turner's greatness, and this exhibit continues to prove what a genius he was. 

Images:  The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 (1835); Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812). Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.