J. M. W. Turner was constantly playing with paint and texture to capture light and feeling to enhance the emotion in his paintings. The fire engulfing the buildings in The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons is painted in vivid and easily seen brushstrokes, which are then reflected in the water. This use of paint and light in naturalistic settings was a formative influence on all of the Impressionists, who deeply studied Turner.

Figure: The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons by J. M. W. Turner (1834-5)

J. M. W. Turner frequently painted fires, winds, rain, ash, and snow, and particularly showed these forces dominating a human figure or human creation. Therefore, the burning of Parliament in 1834 let him show one of his favored themes, nature's power over humanity. The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons shows neither of the said Houses of Parliament, but does show an out-of-control fire spreading towards bridges and boats on the River Thames.

Figure: The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons by J. M. W. Turner (1834-5)

One of the signature techniques utilized by J. M. W. Turner was a consistent use of open brushstrokes to capture movement and natural effects. The open brushstrokes allowed Turner to layer paint and make a less-detailed shape for images such as fire, steam, and storms. This particular effect was also heavily employed by the Impressionists in the later nineteenth century in France.

Figure: The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons by J. M. W. Turner (1834-5)

This painting, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, was one of the key paintings that helped develop J. M. W. Turner's later style. While Turner always preferred sweeping landscapes with dramatic brushwork, by the 1830s, Turner was capturing natural disasters such as this fire with more abstract forms and innovative lighting techniques. The 1834 fire at Britain's Parliament, which engulfed both the seat of government and a large swath of London, was a natural subject for Turner to use these new techniques.

Figure: The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons by J. M. W. Turner (1834-5)

According to Paul Gauguin, the blue idol is meant to represent himself as "The Beyond." When painting this work, he was extremely distraught over the death of his daughter. As a result, he intended to commit suicide upon the completion of the work.

While van Gogh takes liberties with the movement of his paint, he maintains strict perspective in his painting of cypress trees. On the other hand, Gauguin rejects these rules and plays with the notion of space amongst his subjects.

Gauguin stipulated that painting be read right to left. Starting with childbirth, proceeding to the toils of young adulthood, to an elderly woman lost in her own thoughts, the painting is meant to depict the progression of life. Gauguin essayed to take his own life by consuming arsenic upon finishing the painting, an attempt that proved unsuccessful.

The use of highly visible, quick brushstrokes by Impressionists had two distinct advantages, creating a sense of motion in the painting and allowing the artist to capture light changes as he was painting outdoors. In Claude Monet's The Saint Lazare Station, the smoke billowing off the engines of the train are more realistically captured with the quick brushstrokes as they create a motion and a texture more consistent with smoke's real life properties.

Image is in the public domain, accessed through Wikipedia Media Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Monet_004.jpg

JMW Turner's work is titled The Slave Ship, but its central feature is sunlight coming through the haze of an oncoming storm on an ocean, which threatens the ship, causing the slave traders to throw over dead bodies to lose weight. The chaos and motion of this moment is captured by Turner through vivid brushstrokes that blend with one another throughout the painting.

Image is in the public domain, accessed through Wikipedia Media Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slave-ship.jpg

The Japanese tradition of ukiyo-e is an artistic movement which depicted simple, everyday scenes with a focus on highlight the subtle beauty of nature and life. All of these aspects are also very much present in Mary Cassatt's The Coiffure, which very delicately presents a woman fixing her hair in a scene that seems like a candid moment. Japanese artistic traditions were only discovered by European artists in the late 19th century, and Japanese art became highly influential among avant-garde artists in the last decades of the twentieth century.

Image is in the public domain, accessed through Wikipedia Media Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Cassatt_-_The_Coiffure_-_NGC_29882.jpg