Joseph Mallord William Turner
Valley of Aosta: Snowstorm, Avalanche, and Thunderstorm
1836–37
J.M.W. Turner's 'Valley of Aosta: Snowstorm, Avalanche, and Thunderstorm' (1836–1837) distils the Romantic Sublime: the painter, who sketched the Alps during his 1836 tour, built the later canvas into a vortex of snow, ice, thunder, and falling rock in which a single foreground group of travellers is almost lost. A pinnacle of Turner's elemental late mode, the oil on canvas has been at the Art Institute of Chicago since 1947.
Exhibition Venue
Image source: Art Institute of Chicago