The Campo Santo
J. M. W. Turner·1842
Historical Context
The Campo Santo, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842, depicts the island cemetery of San Michele in the Venetian lagoon — the burial place of Venice since Napoleon closed the city's church cemeteries in 1807. Turner's choice of this subject in 1842 carries obvious resonances: he was sixty-seven years old, had recently buried several close friends, and was producing works increasingly saturated with themes of mortality and the passage of time. The Campo Santo — holy field — floating in the lagoon as a dedicated island of the dead, its cypress trees rising above the low walls, was one of the most poignant subjects Venice offered. In the same exhibition appeared work by the young John Ruskin, who would become Turner's most fervent champion in print. The painting was among those Ruskin specifically praised in Modern Painters (1843), whose first volume was partly a response to the critical dismissal of Turner's late works.
Technical Analysis
Turner dissolves the cemetery island into atmospheric light, using the flat lagoon and luminous sky to create a meditation on impermanence rendered in his most ethereal late manner.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the island cemetery itself — the Campo Santo of Venice visible across the lagoon as a low, flat form with the characteristic cypress trees that mark it as a place of burial.
- ◆Notice the flat lagoon stretching between the viewer and the island — Turner uses the expanse of water to create a meditative distance, the cemetery separate from the living city by the reflective lagoon.
- ◆Observe the atmospheric treatment of the pale sky and water — Turner uses the bleached, almost colorless quality of a Venetian lagoon morning to create a mood of peaceful melancholy.
- ◆Find the church of San Michele on the island — the white-walled church and its cypress trees barely distinguishable from each other within the overall pale luminosity of Turner's late manner.
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