British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner's lifelong fascination with Italy is spotlighted in an exhibition opening in Ferrara on Sunday.
Entitled simply Turner And Italy, the exhibit at Palazzo dei Diamanti will look at the influence Italian artists had on Turner's work and his passion for Italian landscapes.
The extensive selection of oils, watercolours, drawings, etchings and sketches will span the British artist's entire career, from his earliest youthful paintings through to the masterpieces of his final years.
It will start by considering the impact of Italian masters on his work, while still a student of Thomas Monro in London.
However, the true influence of Italy emerges most clearly from paintings produced during and after Turner's three trips to the Mediterranean country.
The exhibit is divided into sections that provide a chronological map of Turner's development based on different periods of his life.
The first section will showcase oils and watercolours depicting British mountains and Italian-inspired views created by a young Turner, who at that time looked both to classical artists and British contemporaries, such as John Robert Cozens and Richard Wilson.
The next part features a series of paintings and drawings from Turner's 1802 voyage across France and through the Alps on his first trip to Italy.
After returning to the UK, he produced a number of new paintings based on studies from the trip, such as his light-imbued reproduction of the Lake of Averno.
In 1819, Turner returned to Italy, spending time in Venice, Rome and Naples. This stay resulted in a series of stunning watercolours and led to a turning point in his style.
The intensity of the Italian light and its omnipresent reminders of the past are visible in works such as his sweeping view across St Peter's Square, entitled Rome, From The Vatican (1820).
Italy continued to exert its spell on Turner in later years, drawing him back in 1828-9.
He spent most of his time in Rome, creating the ambitious, almost abstract studies in light and colour that he would later be best remembered for.
The exhibition wraps up with two sections on Turner's later years: his Venetian views and the airy, emotional landscapes that characterized the most radical, and final period of his work.
The exhibition opens in Palazzo dei Diamanti on November 16 and will run until February 22. It then travels to Edinburgh, where it will open in the National Gallery of Scotland on March 23.
