J. M. W. Turner

I never really "got" painting when I was a kid. In no small part this was probably because my art teacher for the first six years of my life was Mrs. Bedian. My only enduring memory of Mrs. Bedian (besides the enormous relief I felt whenever we had substitutes) was her raw, primal anger whenever anything went wrong. In third grade, when someone spilled some paint, she made us all write letters to her about how sorry we were. I wasn't sorry and I was a snarky little bastard, so I wrote a three page treatise about all the ways things hadn't gone wrong (both generally in class that year and specifically in that incident; I remember only the line "It's not like it was India ink," which a recent issue of Uncle Scrooge Adventures had convinced me was just about the most indelible thing in the world, though I don't know if that's actually true). I was sent to the office; the office wasn't Mrs. Bedian's room, so I was happy. Awesome.

Anyway, I hated her and what I associated with her, including painting. (I might actually have had something against the arts before that; when I was in preschool I rejected the nickname "Drew" because it implied that I had just drawn something, which was, of course, ludicrous. I was a weird kid.) My eyes were opened not by the Impressionists, or by the Mannerists, or by the Surrealists: I realized that there was a point to painting because of J. M. W. Turner.

The above work is titled The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, generally given as the first three words. I think this is the Turner work that specifically made me realize what was up with art, nine years ago or so. The sky, the play of warm and cold colors, the way he gave texture to the air... Turner might not be revered as the greatest painter around; I know a lot of people who find him trite, actually. But I still think he's pretty amazing, and nine years ago, his work was the world to me: it opened up an entire world to me.