_-_Returning_from_the_Ball_(St_Martha)_-_N00543_-_National_Gallery.jpg&width=1200)
Returning from the Ball (St Martha)
J. M. W. Turner·1846
Historical Context
Returning from the Ball (St Martha), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1846 as a companion to Going to the Ball (San Martino), completes Turner's diptych of Venetian night scenes that are among the most beautiful and the most purely atmospheric paintings of his entire career. The St Martha of the subtitle refers to the Venetian parish church of Santa Marta on the Giudecca, its festival falling on the same November date as San Martino's. Together the two paintings — figures going to and returning from a night entertainment in gondolas on the Venetian lagoon — create a narrative cycle of departure and return rendered in Turner's most extreme late atmospheric manner. The palette of the returning painting is characteristically cooler than the departure — the ball's warmth receding as the gondolas move through moonlit water toward home. Turner's final Venice was a city experienced in the imagination as much as in reality, a luminous world of perpetual atmospheric event that existed in his mind long after the last actual visit of 1840.
Technical Analysis
The painting demonstrates the artist's mature command of technique, with accomplished handling of color, form, and atmospheric effects that reflect both personal artistic development and the broader stylistic conventions of the Romantic period.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the Venetian scene Turner creates — 'Returning from the Ball (St Martha)' showing the festival of Santa Marta in Venice, boats returning through the luminous Venetian night.
- ◆Notice the nocturnal quality Turner achieves — the night Venice rendered with cool, luminous blues and the warm artificial lights of the festival boats creating the characteristic Venetian night atmosphere.
- ◆Observe the gondolas visible on the water — their dark forms within the luminous reflections on the lagoon, Turner using the boats to establish the Venetian identity of the nocturnal scene.
- ◆Find the reflections of festival lights in the water below — Turner uses the lagoon's reflective surface to double the illuminations of the Venetian celebration, creating mirrored light effects in the dark water.
.jpg&width=600)