Brush with greatness as Ronnie salutes Turner

ROLLING Stone Ronnie Wood is such a big fan of JMW Turner that he bought the house he died in. To honour the artist he adores, the guitarist purchased Turner's former residence, a splendid Grade II-listed 18th-century property on Cheyne Walk.

- BY JAMES RAMPTON

This Chelsea street was once nicknamed "Rolling Stones Row" because Mick Jagger and Keith Richards also owned properties there.

A highly accomplished painter himself, whose portraits of fellow musicians have sold for as much as £21,000 apiece, Ronnie has had a lifelong passion for Turner.

The artist's work still has enormous potency 250 years after his birth. Arguably the greatest British artist of all time, he painted tempestuous landscapes and seascapes laden with emotion that mesmerise us to this day.

His 1839 picture, The Fighting Temeraire, is regularly voted the finest-ever British artwork.

Ronnie begins by emphasising that Turner's work has the capacity to overwhelm him in a good way.

He says: "The impact of Turner gets me so involved that I have to go to my studio - I've quite a few studios around the world - where I just get possessed and influenced by the artist.

"I love Turner's colours and his thickness of paint - that really gets me. You get into the way he works, and I'm blown away by his stuff. I'm always very excited looking at all this work."

The Rolling Stone goes on to outline how Turner has been a huge influence on both his art and his music: "I've been inspired by Turner in my painting and throughout my musical career.

"I've always taken my art materials on the road with me and done a little sketch here and there. Sketching is a bit like a song."

At the start, he adds: "You have the sketch of a melody, and then you take it into the studio and embroider it and develop the song until you have the final mix. Turner's work shows that same drive and inspiration."

Ronnie, 78, has been passionate about art since the age of 10, when he entered a BBC competition show entitled The Sketch Club.