Sunset over Goathland

Many years back I visited the National Gallery in London and checked out the Turners. It struck me at the time that my appreciation of art had in fact been replaced by a technical appraisal. I now see paintings in a completely different way.... but don't get me wrong J. W. M. Turner was a true master.

The paintings on show at the time included the Fighting Temeraire which had a similar sky to this one. It was a shame to see that they were all terribly faded, it would have been amazing to see them as they were when he had just painted them.

The other thing that struck me was that Mr Turner had painted all the skies on show in a similar way . He had a sky formula.

I was a little disappointed but also found it very liberating in that I was now allowed to construct paintings rather than slavishly trying to represent what I'd seen. If it was OK for the great Mr Turner then surely it was OK for me.