Unfinished work
On tourism in London, surprising goodness, & J.M.W. Turner
Before visiting London a few weeks ago, I received a few recommendations that I put in my back pocket to optimize my trip. These tips included using ApplePay for the Tube instead of stressing about buying a pass (easy!), visiting the Borough Market (magical!), and hitting up any of the museums because they are free to the public! (This last fact is still a novelty to me as I realize museums in the United States have always felt inaccessible to me. When I waffle between buying expensive tickets or visiting on a free day and fighting the crowds, I usually end up opting out entirely.)
I found myself walking into the Tate Britain and feeling a bit like a thief as I entered without a ticket. Nobody stopped me — in fact an employee readily ushered me up the stairs towards the myriad of exhibit options. My friend and I found ourselves magnetically drawn towards the wing with the J.M.W. Turner paintings. I had seen his work when the exhibit came to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston the previous year, and had returned multiple times to take it in.
Turner told stories with his art work. He told the stories of the poor and the underserved. He held space for both modern progress and ancient beauty. He played with light intensely. His paintings were so full of movement that at times they seem to catapult out of the canvas and envelope the viewer. His work captivated me.
As we walked into the wing we found ourselves in the midst of a guided tour through the exhibit - yet another free gift that caught me off guard. The guide shared the stories and histories of many of Turner’s paintings in each room. She offered a wealth of knowledge, was an excellent story teller, and drew our eyes through the paintings with a hospitable expertise and contagious awe.
We finished the tour in the room with Turner’s latest works. They happened to be some of my favorites. You could tell that his style had changed over the years; that he had moved on from the grandiosity of his early experimentation and relaxed into his masterful play with light that was simultaneously understated and transcendent. I had found myself drawn to these paintings the year before, and now here I was again basking in the same mysterious light.
Norham Castle, Sunrise c. 1845. Oil Paint on canvas.
As the guide moved us towards the end of the tour, what caught my ear was the fact that these paintings were unfinished. She shared that it was possible that Turner set them up with the intention of finishing them in a public painting “performance” of sorts. But it is equally possible that they were just never complete in his eyes. Regardless, these paintings had been locked up in a basement until they were uncovered after his death.
I found myself mystified that these unfinished masterpieces were so profoundly powerful — speaking anyway, giving light, lifting the gaze towards something greater than themselves. Did Turner ever plan to share them? Was he too much of a perfectionist to display these incomplete works? I left the exhibit in awe that unfinished work could be so powerful, sitting with the reality that my own perfectionism is often a paralyzing force that inhibits me from putting my work, my words into the light.
Sometimes the unfinished still speaks. I’m no Turner, but who am I to get in the way of something that might be bigger than myself?