Join Turner (1775-1851) as he progresses through the city, beginning at St. Mark's Basilica with the campanile towering above and the coral-colored exterior of the Doge's Palace. Drift onward toward the Bridge of Sighs and take a detour past the Hotel Europa, where Turner preferred to stay. Travel onward past the Giardini Reali, the Punta della Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute on your way to San Giorgio Maggiore and the Accademia. Drift away from the bustling markets around the Rialto on the Grand Canal heading toward the Frari and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, taking in the inspirations for Venetian masters such as Tintoretto and Veronese.

Turner's paintings and watercolours of Venice have long been celebrated as some of his most extraordinary creations. Ever since he began to exhibit them in the 1830s, viewers have been captivated by the potency of his atmospheric visions of the once-great city. With the exception of Canaletto, few artists have responded with such intense imaginative inventiveness to the conjunction of water, light and architecture unique to Venice. Turner's three visits to Venice, over a period of two decades, put him at the forefront of a generation of artists who seized on the potential of Venice as a subject, an achievement highlighted by the inclusion of paintings by Richard Parkes Bonington, Samuel Prout and others. The extent to which Venice's history shaped Turner's perception of the city is also examined, as are his interest in Venice's role in literature, from Shakespeare to Byron, and his reverence for the achievements of the great artists of the Venetian School: Titian, Bellini and Canaletto. Despite their apparent familiarity, Turner's translucent paintings present intriguing questions that force the modern viewer to re-examine them both on their own terms, and as markers in the development of Turner's late style. With the largest selection of Turner's paintings and watercolours of the City yet published, and contributions by Jan Morris, David Laven and Cecilia Powell, Turner and Venice is a testament both to Turner's evocative images and to the iconic city that inspired them.

In these brilliantly realized, linked tales, the real Venice is revealed – not the iconic tourist destination the city has become, but the mysterious society that resides behind its elegant doors and shuttered windows. With a sly and affectionate delicacy, Jane Turner Rylands, an American expatriate who has lived in Venice for thirty years, portrays a dozen Venetians– a construction foreman, a countess, a gondolier, a postman, an architect, a Baronessa, an English lord – as they pursue their respective interests. And in turn, through the perspective of those who live and work in this most alluring of cities, Venetian Stories illuminates canals and palazzos, churches and gondolas, large concerns and small rituals, with an uncommon intimacy.

JMW Turner is one of the greatest artists Britain has ever produced. His watercolours, with their extraordinary effects of shifting light and dramatic skyscapes, are especially highly regarded. For the first time, the secrets of Turner's technique are revealed, allowing present-day watercolourists to learn from his achievements.This book combines unrivalled knowledge of Turner's working methods from Tate curators and conservators with practical advice from some of the world's most respected watercolour experts. Twenty-two thematic exercises are illustrated with Turner's works. Expert contemporary watercolourists explain, step-by-step, how to paint a similar composition, learning from Turner's techniques. Packed with invaluable information, from the materials Turner used to achieve the masterpieces we know and love today, to the modern materials the twenty-first-century watercolour artist will need.Backed by the authority of Tate, the world centre for Turner scholarship, with a glossary of technical terms, this is an invaluable resource both for lovers of Turner's art and of watercolour painting.

A trio of short pieces on two cities of eternal magic, Venice and Rome. Iconic French novelist, playwright, and essayist Jean-Paul Sartre is widely recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his work has remained relevant and thought-provoking through the decades. The Seagull Sartre Library now presents some of his most incisive philosophical, cultural, and literary critical essays in twelve newly designed and affordable editions. "Venice speaks to us; this false witness's voice, shrill at times, whispering at others, broken by silences, is its voice." In these three moving short pieces, we discover Sartre as a master stylist, lyrically describing his time in two bewitching eternal cities--Venice and Rome. "Antiquity," Sartre writes, "is alive in Rome, with a hate-filled, magical life."

Turner's lifetime (1775-1851) was also the classic age of English watercolour, and his mastery and perfection of the medium coincided with its establishment as an independent art form. This volume examines the unique body of watercolours Turner produced.Few can doubt that J.M.W. Turner was the greatest exponent of English watercolour in its golden age. An inveterate traveller in search of the ideal vista, he rarely left home without a rolled up, loosebound sketchbook, pencils and a small travelling case of watercolours in his pocket. He exploited as no one before him the medium's luminosity and transparency, conjuring light effects on English meadows and Venetian lagoons and gauzy mists over mountains and lakes. Extraordinary in his own time, he has continued to thrill his countless admirers since.David Blayney Brown, one of the world's leading experts on Turner, reveals the role watercolours played in Turner's life and work, from those he sent for exhibition to the Royal Academy to the private outpourings in which he compulsively experimented with light and colour, which for a modern audience are among his most radical and accomplished works.