Though I in no way consider myself a connoisseur of art, I do enjoy strolling through the National Gallery or the Hugh Lane, when it is open, allowing myself be drawn into the worlds of the artists.

Each year during the month of January, the Turner Exhibition goes on show and focuses on a different aspect of his painting. This year’s ‘On Tour with Turner’ was based on Turner’s enthusiasm for travel and depicted the dynamic changes that occurred during his lifetime in both his style of painting and the modes of travel on offer at this time.

The National Gallery’s Turner collection was bequeathed to the Gallery by the wealthy art collector, Henry Vaughan, in 1900. Part of the conditions set down by Vaughan was that the collection be shown only during the month of January with free public access.

My visit this year started with a 10.30 lecture by Niamh McNally. The highlight of that for me was the slide show which afforded an enlarged version of Turner’s works as in the exhibition hall the lighting is dimmed to protect the paintings.

Turner (1775-1851) was brought up in Covent Garden and was said to have never lost his Cockney accent. His earlier tours were confined to England, Wales and Scotland due to war between France and Britain. In 1802, on declaration of peace, at age 27 he went on his first continental tour but with the onset of the Napoleonic wars his continental travel ceased again from 1803 to 1817.

The onset of summer, with the closing of the Royal Academy exhibition, was his signal to depart and he returned to London each October to produce exhibition and commissioned works from the data in his sketchbooks.

It is said that Turner was precise in his travel preparations, always travelling lightly and economically, consulting the latest practical guidebooks. He carried rolled-up sketchbooks of which about 300 survive, pencil sketching being his favourite medium to capture the essence of his subject, and often adding written notes on colours.

These sketches could be worked on in the studio years later. He also had an umbrella with a dagger concealed in its handle to ward off would-be marauders.

Delacroix, the French painter, on meeting Turner in Paris about 1829 remarked that Turner looked like a farmer, rather coarse, with big shoes and a hard, cold manner.

Turner’s paintings and watercolours depict places and modes of transport which he observed and experienced directly. One can glimpse the risk of boat travel of that time in the mad swirling seas and skies tossing the boats in ‘Fishing Boats entering Calais Harbour’ circa 1816. He described himself as being “nearly swampt” on various Channel crossings.

On his first continental tour, Switzerland’s majestic mountains represented for Turner his most perfect concept of a sublime landscape and he filled nine sketchbooks with 500 drawings.

The etchings ‘Lake Thun’ and ‘Mont St Gothard’ encapsulate his fascination with the storms he witnessed in these mountains.

18th century travel was painstakingly slow whether by land or sea allowing Turner to make numerous sketches of the ever-changing scenes. The 19th century brought about a revolution in transport forms with the building of new roads and canals and the arrival of the railway and steamboats, all of which Turner incorporated into his paintings. In 1821 with the first steamships, sea crossings to the Continent became somewhat less dangerous

My favourite in this year’s exhibition was ‘The Bay of Uri, Lake Lucerne, Switzerland’, 1841, a pencil and watercolour done towards the end of his career. Its soft, muted colours, showing the misty lake, distant mountains and clouds wafting dreamily across the canvas, conveyed a sense of tranquillity and peace.

Above: ‘The Junction of the Thames and the Medway’ by Turner (1807).