The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free is an exhibition at the Tate Britain in London, that explores the later, sometimes controversial, work of brilliant British painter J.M.W. Turner.

Some of the work was controversial in Turner’s experimental approach to composition, rendering, and portrayal of light, notably the further dissolution of form into light and color, culminating in a approach sometimes called his “vortex technique”. Even critics who had been staunch supporters of Turner prior to his late career, like John Ruskin, were convinced that Turner had basically lost it.

That impression has persisted in history books, but the new exhibition aims to correct that impression.

There is a brief set of slides on the Tate’s site with some preview images, that have larger versions when clicked on. You can also click through to the dedicated page for some of the pieces in the Tate’s permanent collection, and you may find larger versions of others elsewhere; notably, the remarkable Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus (above, top, with detail) that is available in high resolution on the Google Art Project and Wikimedia Commons.

The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free will be on display at the Tate until 25 January 2015, it then travels to the U.S. for venues in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Dutch-born 19th century painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema spent the majority of his highly successful career in England, where his meticulously crafted depictions of decadent luxury cast in the settings of classical antiquity were in high demand.

Alma-Tadema was one of the most highly regarded Victorian painters of the time, and was tremendously influential on other painters, including many of the Pre-Raphaelites. When the 20th century Modernists became the artistic establishment, Alma-Tadema, like most other Victorian Academic painters, was not only diminished in status, but actively reviled as the kind of facile but artistically empty painting that modernism was to free us from (sigh).

Alma-Tadema’s work experienced a revival in popularity in the mid to late 20th century — among real people, not art critics, and his work has been particularly influential among contemporary fantasy and concept artists.

I wrote about Alma-Tadema here on Lines and Colors back in 2005, when I was only putting up a single image per article, and though I’ve since added a few Alma-Tadema “Eye Candy” posts, I thought it was about time for a revisit to highlight some of his beautiful work.

I’ve provided some links below to some image archive resources on the web.

Eye candy indeed.