Visione di Medea

Turner painted this in Rome in 1828, on his second long stay in Italy, and first showed it there in a small exhibition he set up in his own rented rooms. The subject is Medea, the sorceress of Greek myth, working her spells in a rage after Jason, the man she had helped and married, cast her aside. Around her the paint dissolves into smoke and swirling colour, the story half swallowed by light. Turner wanted the picture in the Royal Academy exhibition back in London the next year, but it did not reach England from Italy in time. When it finally hung, in 1831, it was placed right next to a calm, green Constable, John Constable's view of Salisbury Cathedral.