I have been teaching 19th-Century European Art for several years. I like to show self-portraits of artists to students so that they can imagine what these “names” actually looked like. With J.M.W. Turner, I use the self-portrait here when he was 23 years old. There is no paintbrush in his hand and he is looking straight at the viewer from a frontal position—not the usual over-the-shoulder-looking-in-the-mirror pose of most self-portraits by artists. It suggests an eager, handsome and romantic-proud young […]

Categories: Gayle Rodda Kurtz, ZiLL • Tags: art, movies, Mr. Turner