Joseph Mallord William TurnerRA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner,[a] was an English
Romantic painter,
printmaker and
watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative
landscapes and turbulent, often violent
marine paintings. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper.[1] He was championed by the leading English art critic
John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling
history painting.[2]
Turner was born in
Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower-middle-class family and retained his lower class accent, while assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame. A child prodigy, Turner studied at the
Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which he often only begrudgingly accepted owing to his troubled and contrary nature. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of
perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828. He travelled around Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.
Intensely private, eccentric, and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Evelina (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by the widow Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father in 1829; when his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. In 1841, Turner rowed a boat into the
Thames so he could not be counted as present at any property in
that year's census.[3] He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in
St Paul's Cathedral, London.[4]
Biography
Childhood
Turner's father William Turner (1745–1829) moved to London around 1770 from South Molton, Devon.[5]
Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on 23 April 1775 and baptised on 14 May.[b] He was born in
Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, in London, England.[6] His father was a barber and wig maker.[8] His mother, Mary Marshall, came from a family of butchers.[9] A younger sister, Mary Ann, was born in September 1778 but died in August 1783.[10]
Turner's mother showed signs of mental disturbance from 1785 and was admitted to
St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in Old Street in 1799. She was moved in 1800 to
Bethlem Hospital,[5] a
mental asylum, where she died in 1804.[c] Turner was sent to his maternal uncle, Joseph Mallord William Marshall, a butcher[11][12] in
Brentford, then a small town on the banks of the
River Thames west of London, where Turner attended school. The earliest known artistic exercise by Turner is from this period—a series of simple colourings of engraved plates from Henry Boswell's Picturesque View of the Antiquities of England and Wales.[13]
Around 1786, Turner was sent to
Margate on the north-east
Kent coast. There he produced a series of drawings of the town and surrounding area that foreshadowed his later work.[14] By this time, Turner's drawings were being exhibited in his father's shop window and sold for a few
shillings.[9] His father boasted to the artist
Thomas Stothard that: "My son, sir, is going to be a painter".[15] In 1789, Turner again stayed with his uncle who had retired to
Sunningwell (now part of
Oxfordshire). A whole
sketchbook of work from this time in Berkshire survives as well as a
watercolour of
Oxford. The use of pencil sketches on location, as the foundation for later finished paintings, formed the basis of Turner's essential working style for his whole career.[13]
Many early sketches by Turner were architectural studies or exercises in
perspective, and it is known that, as a young man, he worked for several architects including
Thomas Hardwick,
James Wyatt and
Joseph Bonomi the Elder.[16] By the end of 1789, he had also begun to study under the
topographical draughtsman
Thomas Malton, who specialised in London views. Turner learned from him the basic tricks of the trade, copying and colouring outline prints of British castles and
abbeys. He would later call Malton "My real master".[17] Topography was a thriving industry by which a young artist could pay for his studies.
Career
Turner entered the
Royal Academy of Art in 1789, aged 14,[18] and was accepted into the academy a year later by
Sir Joshua Reynolds. He showed an early interest in architecture but was advised by Hardwick to focus on painting. His first watercolour, A View of the Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth, was accepted for the
Royal Academy summer exhibition of 1790 when Turner was 15.
As an academy probationer, Turner was taught drawing from plaster casts of antique sculptures. From July 1790 to October 1793, his name appears in the registry of the academy over a hundred times.[19] In June 1792, he was admitted to the
life class to learn to draw the human body from nude models.[20] Turner exhibited watercolours each year at the academy while painting in the winter and travelling in the summer widely throughout Britain, particularly to
Wales, where he produced a wide range of sketches for working up into studies and watercolours. These particularly focused on architectural work, which used his skills as a draughtsman.[19] In 1793, he showed the watercolour titled The Rising Squall – Hot Wells from St Vincent's Rock Bristol (now lost), which foreshadowed his later climatic effects.[21] The British writer
Peter Cunningham, in his obituary of Turner, wrote that it was: "recognised by the wiser few as a noble attempt at lifting landscape art out of the tame insipidities ... [and] evinced for the first time that mastery of effect for which he is now justly celebrated".[22]
In 1796, Turner exhibited Fishermen at Sea, his first oil painting for the academy, of a nocturnal moonlit scene of
the Needles off the
Isle of Wight, an image of boats in peril.[23] Wilton said that the image was "a summary of all that had been said about the sea by the artists of the 18th century".[24] and shows strong influence by artists such as
Claude Joseph Vernet,
Philip James de Loutherbourg,
Peter Monamy and
Francis Swaine, who was admired for his moonlight
marine paintings. The image was praised by contemporary critics and founded Turner's reputation as both an oil painter and a painter of maritime scenes.[25]
Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in
the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to
Venice. Important support for his work came from
Walter Ramsden Fawkes of
Farnley Hall, near
Otley in Yorkshire, who became a close friend of the artist. Turner first visited Otley in 1797, aged 22, when commissioned to paint watercolours of the area. He was so attracted to Otley and the surrounding area that he returned to it throughout his career. The stormy backdrop of Hannibal Crossing The Alps is reputed to have been inspired by a storm over
the Chevin in Otley while he was staying at Farnley Hall.
Turner was a frequent guest of
George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, at
Petworth House in West Sussex, and painted scenes that Egremont funded taken from the grounds of the house and of the Sussex countryside, including a view of the
Chichester Canal. Petworth House still displays a number of paintings.
Later life
As Turner grew older, he became more eccentric. He had few close friends except for his father, who lived with him for 30 years and worked as his studio assistant. His father's death in 1829 had a profound effect on him, and thereafter he was subject to bouts of depression. He never married but had a relationship with an older widow, his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He is believed to have been the father of her two daughters Evelina Dupuis and Georgiana Thompson.[26] Evelina married
Joseph Dupuis on 31 October 1817. It was recorded that her mother, Sarah Danby, was a witness along with Charles Thompson.[citation needed]
Turner formed a relationship with Sophia Caroline Booth after her second husband died, and from 1846 he lived with her as "Mr Booth" or "Admiral Booth" in her house at 6 Davis's Place (now Cheyne Walk) in
Chelsea, until his death in December 1851.[27][28]
Turner was a habitual user of
snuff; in 1838,
Louis Philippe I,
King of the French, presented a gold
snuff box to him.[29] Of two other snuffboxes, an
agate and silver example bears Turner's name,[30] and another, made of wood, was collected along with his spectacles, magnifying glass and card case by an associate housekeeper.[31]
Turner formed a short but intense friendship with the artist
Edward Thomas Daniell. The painter
David Roberts wrote of him that, "He adored Turner, when I and others doubted, and taught me to see & to distinguish his beauties over that of others ... the old man really had a fond & personal regard for this young clergyman, which I doubt he ever evinced for the other".[32] Daniell may have supplied Turner with the spiritual comfort he needed after the deaths of his father and friends, and to "ease the fears of a naturally reflective man approaching old age".[32] After Daniell's death in
Lycia at the age of 38, he told Roberts he would never form such a friendship again.[33]
Before leaving for the Middle East, Daniell commissioned Turner’s portrait from
John Linnell. Turner had previously refused to sit for the artist, and it was difficult to get his agreement to be portrayed. Daniell positioned the two men opposite each other at dinner, so that Linnell could observe his subject carefully and portray his likeness from memory.[33]
Turner died of
cholera at the home of Sophia Caroline Booth, in
Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, on 19 December 1851.[28] He is buried in
St Paul's Cathedral, where he lies near the painter Sir
Joshua Reynolds.[5] Apparently his last words were "The Sun (or Son?) is God",[34] though this may be apocryphal.[35]
Turner's friend, the architect
Philip Hardwick, the son of his old tutor, was in charge of making the funeral arrangements and wrote to those who knew Turner to tell them at the time of his death that, "I must inform you, we have lost him."[citation needed] Other executors were his cousin and chief mourner at the funeral, Henry Harpur IV (benefactor of
Westminster – now Chelsea & Westminster – Hospital), Revd. Henry Scott Trimmer,
George Jones RA and
Charles Turner ARA.[36]
Art
Style
Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles". Turner was recognised as an artistic genius; the English art critic
John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature".[37]
Turner's imagination was sparked by shipwrecks, fires (including the
burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner witnessed first-hand, and transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen at the 1840 Royal Academy of Arts exhibition, where The Slave Ship (1840), and Rockets and Blue Lights (Close at Hand) to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water (1840) were first shown. A 2003 exhibition at the
Clark Art Institute suggested these two paintings were pendants, due in part to their similar content and size.[38]
Turner's work drew criticism from contemporaries. An anonymous review of the 1840 Royal Academy exhibition, later identified as
John Eagles, called the displayed paintings “absurd extravagances [that] disgrace the Exhibition”.[39]Sir George Beaumont, a landscape painter and fellow member of the Royal Academy, described his paintings as "blots".[40]
Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on
Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Claude had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at
Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorised the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.[5] His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in
Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.[41]
His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stay true to the traditions of English landscape. In Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature has already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects.[37]
In Turner's later years, he used oils ever more transparently and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognisable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting but exerted an influence on art in France; the
Impressionists, particularly
Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques. He is also generally regarded as a precursor of abstract painting.
High levels of volcanic ash (from the eruption of
Mount Tambora) in the atmosphere during 1816, the "
Year Without a Summer", led to unusually spectacular sunsets during this period, and were an inspiration for some of Turner's work.
John Ruskin said that an early patron,
Thomas Monro, Principal Physician of
Bedlam, and a collector and amateur artist, was a significant influence on Turner's style:
His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by his friend
Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate.
Together with a number of young artists, Turner was able, in Monro's London house, to copy works of the major topographical draughtsmen of his time and perfect his skills in drawing. But the curious atmospherical effects and illusions of
John Robert Cozens's watercolours, some of which were present in Monro's house, went far further than the neat renderings of topography. The solemn grandeur of his Alpine views were an early revelation to the young Turner and showed him the true potential of the watercolour medium, conveying mood instead of information.
Materials
Turner experimented with a wide variety of pigments.[42] He used formulations like
carmine, despite knowing that they were not long-lasting, and against the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded. Ruskin complained at how quickly his work decayed; Turner was indifferent to posterity and chose materials that looked good when freshly applied.[43] By 1930, there was concern that both his oils and his watercolours were fading.[44]
Clare Hall and
King's College Chapel, Cambridge, from the Banks of the River Cam, 1793, watercolour (note that this is the present-day
Clare College, formerly named Clare Hall, and not the present-day
Clare Hall)
The Departure of the Fleet, 1850, National Gallery, London
Legacy
Turner left a small fortune, which he hoped would be used to support what he called "decayed artists". He planned an almshouse at
Twickenham in west London with a gallery for some of his works. His will was contested and in 1856, after a court battle, his first cousins, including
Thomas Price Turner, received part of his fortune.[45] Another portion went to the Royal Academy of Arts, which occasionally awards students the Turner Medal. His finished paintings were bequeathed to the British nation, and he intended that a special gallery would be built to house them. This did not happen because there was disagreement over the final site. Twenty-two years after his death, the British Parliament passed an act allowing his paintings to be lent to museums outside London, and so began the process of scattering the pictures which Turner had wanted to be kept together.
One of the greatest collectors of his work was
Henry Vaughan, who when he died in 1899 owned more than one hundred watercolours and drawings by Turner and as many prints. His collection included examples of almost every type of work on paper the artist produced, from early topographical drawings and atmospheric landscape watercolours, to brilliant colour studies, literary vignette illustrations and spectacular exhibition pieces. It included nearly a hundred proofs of Liber Studiorum and twenty-three drawings connected with it. It was an unparalleled collection that comprehensively represented the diversity, imagination and technical inventiveness of Turner's work throughout his sixty-year career. Vaughan bequeathed the most of his Turner collection to British and Irish public galleries and museums, stipulating that the collections of Turner's watercolours should be 'exhibited to the public all at one time, free of charge and only in January', demonstrating an awareness of conservation which was unusual at the time.[46]
In 1910, the main part of the Turner Bequest, which includes unfinished paintings and drawings, was rehoused in the Duveen Turner Wing at the National Gallery of British Art (now
Tate Britain). In 1987, a new wing at the Tate, the
Clore Gallery, was opened to house the Turner bequest, though some of the most important paintings remain in the
National Gallery in contravention of Turner's condition that they be kept and shown together. Increasingly paintings are lent abroad, ignoring Turner's provision that they remain constantly and permanently in Turner's Gallery.
St. Mary's Church, Battersea, added a commemorative stained glass window for Turner, between 1976 and 1982.[47] St Paul's Cathedral, Royal Academy of Arts and the
Victoria & Albert Museum all hold statues representing him. A portrait by Cornelius Varley with his patent
graphic telescope (
Sheffield Museums & Galleries) was compared with his death mask (
National Portrait Gallery, London) by Kelly Freeman at Dundee University 2009–10 to ascertain whether it really depicts Turner. The
City of Westminster unveiled a memorial plaque at the site of his birthplace at 21 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, on 2 June 1999.[48]
Selby Whittingham founded The Turner Society at London and Manchester in 1975. After the society endorsed the Tate Gallery's Clore Gallery wing (on the lines of the Duveen wing of 1910), as the solution to the controversy of what should be done with the Turner Bequest, Selby Whittingham resigned and founded the Independent Turner Society. The Tate created the prestigious annual
Turner Prize art award in 1984, named in Turner's honour, and 20 years later the
Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours founded the
Winsor & Newton Turner Watercolour Award. A major exhibition, "Turner's Britain", with material (including The Fighting Temeraire) on loan from around the globe, was held at
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from 7 November 2003 to 8 February 2004. In 2005, Turner's The Fighting Temeraire was voted Britain's "greatest painting" in a public poll organised by the
BBC.[49]
Portrayal
Leo McKern played Turner in The Sun Is God, a 1974
Thames Television production directed by
Michael Darlow.[50] The programme aired on 17 December 1974, during the Turner Bicentenary Exhibition in London.[51]
British filmmaker
Mike Leigh wrote and directed Mr. Turner, a biopic of Turner's later years, released in 2014. The film stars
Timothy Spall as Turner, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey and Paul Jesson, and premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2014
Cannes Film Festival, with Spall taking the award for Best Actor.[52][53]
The Bank of England announced that a portrait of Turner, with a backdrop of The Fighting Temeraire, would appear on the £20 note beginning in 2020. It is the first £20
British banknote printed on
polymer.[54][55] It came into circulation on Thursday 20 February 2020.
^Although Turner was known by his middle name, William, he is now generally referred to by his initials, in order to avoid confusion with the artist
William Turner (1789–1862).
^Turner claimed to have been born on 23 April 1775, which is both
Saint George's Day and the supposed birthday of
William Shakespeare, but this claim has never been verified.[6] The first verifiable date is that Turner was baptised on 14 May, and some authors doubt the 23 April date on the grounds that high infant mortality rates meant that parents usually baptised their children shortly after birth.[7]
^Her illness was possibly due in part to the early death of Turner's younger sister. Hamilton suggests that this "fit of illness" may have been an early sign of her madness.[citation needed]
^Lacayo, Richard (11 October 2007).
"The Sunshine Boy". Time. Archived from
the original on 12 October 2007. At the turn of the 18th century, history painting was the highest purpose art could serve, and Turner would attempt those heights all his life. But his real achievement would be to make landscape the equal of history painting.
^
abPiper, David (2004). The Illustrated History of Art. Bounty Books. p. 321.
ISBN978-0753709696.
^Hamilton, James (2003). Turner: the late seascapes [exhibition, Sterling and Francine Clark art institute, Williamstown, Mass., 14 June - 7 September 2003, Manchester art gallery, Manchester, England, 31 October 2003 - 25 January 2004, Burrell collection, Glasgow, Scotland, 19 February - 23 May 2004]. New Haven London Williamstown (Mass.): Yale university press Sterling and Francine Clark art institute.
ISBN978-0-300-09900-3.
^Hamilton, James (2003). Turner: the late seascapes [exhibition, Sterling and Francine Clark art institute, Williamstown, Mass., 14 June - 7 September 2003, Manchester art gallery, Manchester, England, 31 October 2003 - 25 January 2004, Burrell collection, Glasgow, Scotland, 19 February - 23 May 2004]. New Haven London Williamstown (Mass.): Yale university press Sterling and Francine Clark art institute.
ISBN978-0-300-09900-3.
^Wilkinson, Gerald (1974). The Sketches of Turner, R.A. London: Barrie & Jenkins.
^"The Turner Museum". The Turner Museum and Thomas Moran Galleries. Archived from
the original on 16 February 2010. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
^Townsend, Joyce H. (1993). "The Materials of J. M. W. Turner: Pigments". Studies in Conservation. 38 (4): 231–254.
doi:
10.2307/1506368.
JSTOR1506368.
Venning, Barry (2003). Turner. Berlin: Phaidon Verlag GmbH.
ISBN0-7148-3988-4.
Wallace, Robert K. (1992). Melville & Turner: Spheres of Love and Fright. The University of Georgia Press.
ISBN0-8203-1366-1. "Wallace explores the stylistic and aesthetic affinities of English landscape painter J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) and American novelist
Herman Melville, establishing Turner as a decisive influence on the creation of Melville's Moby-Dick". (Quotation from dust jacket)
Williams, Roger (2018). A Year of Turner and the Thames. London: Bristol Book Publishing.
ISBN978-0-9928466-9-5.
Joseph Mallord William TurnerRA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner,[a] was an English
Romantic painter,
printmaker and
watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative
landscapes and turbulent, often violent
marine paintings. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper.[1] He was championed by the leading English art critic
John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling
history painting.[2]
Turner was born in
Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower-middle-class family and retained his lower class accent, while assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame. A child prodigy, Turner studied at the
Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which he often only begrudgingly accepted owing to his troubled and contrary nature. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of
perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828. He travelled around Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.
Intensely private, eccentric, and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Evelina (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by the widow Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father in 1829; when his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. In 1841, Turner rowed a boat into the
Thames so he could not be counted as present at any property in
that year's census.[3] He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in
St Paul's Cathedral, London.[4]
Biography
Childhood
Turner's father William Turner (1745–1829) moved to London around 1770 from South Molton, Devon.[5]
Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on 23 April 1775 and baptised on 14 May.[b] He was born in
Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, in London, England.[6] His father was a barber and wig maker.[8] His mother, Mary Marshall, came from a family of butchers.[9] A younger sister, Mary Ann, was born in September 1778 but died in August 1783.[10]
Turner's mother showed signs of mental disturbance from 1785 and was admitted to
St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in Old Street in 1799. She was moved in 1800 to
Bethlem Hospital,[5] a
mental asylum, where she died in 1804.[c] Turner was sent to his maternal uncle, Joseph Mallord William Marshall, a butcher[11][12] in
Brentford, then a small town on the banks of the
River Thames west of London, where Turner attended school. The earliest known artistic exercise by Turner is from this period—a series of simple colourings of engraved plates from Henry Boswell's Picturesque View of the Antiquities of England and Wales.[13]
Around 1786, Turner was sent to
Margate on the north-east
Kent coast. There he produced a series of drawings of the town and surrounding area that foreshadowed his later work.[14] By this time, Turner's drawings were being exhibited in his father's shop window and sold for a few
shillings.[9] His father boasted to the artist
Thomas Stothard that: "My son, sir, is going to be a painter".[15] In 1789, Turner again stayed with his uncle who had retired to
Sunningwell (now part of
Oxfordshire). A whole
sketchbook of work from this time in Berkshire survives as well as a
watercolour of
Oxford. The use of pencil sketches on location, as the foundation for later finished paintings, formed the basis of Turner's essential working style for his whole career.[13]
Many early sketches by Turner were architectural studies or exercises in
perspective, and it is known that, as a young man, he worked for several architects including
Thomas Hardwick,
James Wyatt and
Joseph Bonomi the Elder.[16] By the end of 1789, he had also begun to study under the
topographical draughtsman
Thomas Malton, who specialised in London views. Turner learned from him the basic tricks of the trade, copying and colouring outline prints of British castles and
abbeys. He would later call Malton "My real master".[17] Topography was a thriving industry by which a young artist could pay for his studies.
Career
Turner entered the
Royal Academy of Art in 1789, aged 14,[18] and was accepted into the academy a year later by
Sir Joshua Reynolds. He showed an early interest in architecture but was advised by Hardwick to focus on painting. His first watercolour, A View of the Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth, was accepted for the
Royal Academy summer exhibition of 1790 when Turner was 15.
As an academy probationer, Turner was taught drawing from plaster casts of antique sculptures. From July 1790 to October 1793, his name appears in the registry of the academy over a hundred times.[19] In June 1792, he was admitted to the
life class to learn to draw the human body from nude models.[20] Turner exhibited watercolours each year at the academy while painting in the winter and travelling in the summer widely throughout Britain, particularly to
Wales, where he produced a wide range of sketches for working up into studies and watercolours. These particularly focused on architectural work, which used his skills as a draughtsman.[19] In 1793, he showed the watercolour titled The Rising Squall – Hot Wells from St Vincent's Rock Bristol (now lost), which foreshadowed his later climatic effects.[21] The British writer
Peter Cunningham, in his obituary of Turner, wrote that it was: "recognised by the wiser few as a noble attempt at lifting landscape art out of the tame insipidities ... [and] evinced for the first time that mastery of effect for which he is now justly celebrated".[22]
In 1796, Turner exhibited Fishermen at Sea, his first oil painting for the academy, of a nocturnal moonlit scene of
the Needles off the
Isle of Wight, an image of boats in peril.[23] Wilton said that the image was "a summary of all that had been said about the sea by the artists of the 18th century".[24] and shows strong influence by artists such as
Claude Joseph Vernet,
Philip James de Loutherbourg,
Peter Monamy and
Francis Swaine, who was admired for his moonlight
marine paintings. The image was praised by contemporary critics and founded Turner's reputation as both an oil painter and a painter of maritime scenes.[25]
Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in
the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to
Venice. Important support for his work came from
Walter Ramsden Fawkes of
Farnley Hall, near
Otley in Yorkshire, who became a close friend of the artist. Turner first visited Otley in 1797, aged 22, when commissioned to paint watercolours of the area. He was so attracted to Otley and the surrounding area that he returned to it throughout his career. The stormy backdrop of Hannibal Crossing The Alps is reputed to have been inspired by a storm over
the Chevin in Otley while he was staying at Farnley Hall.
Turner was a frequent guest of
George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, at
Petworth House in West Sussex, and painted scenes that Egremont funded taken from the grounds of the house and of the Sussex countryside, including a view of the
Chichester Canal. Petworth House still displays a number of paintings.
Later life
As Turner grew older, he became more eccentric. He had few close friends except for his father, who lived with him for 30 years and worked as his studio assistant. His father's death in 1829 had a profound effect on him, and thereafter he was subject to bouts of depression. He never married but had a relationship with an older widow, his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He is believed to have been the father of her two daughters Evelina Dupuis and Georgiana Thompson.[26] Evelina married
Joseph Dupuis on 31 October 1817. It was recorded that her mother, Sarah Danby, was a witness along with Charles Thompson.[citation needed]
Turner formed a relationship with Sophia Caroline Booth after her second husband died, and from 1846 he lived with her as "Mr Booth" or "Admiral Booth" in her house at 6 Davis's Place (now Cheyne Walk) in
Chelsea, until his death in December 1851.[27][28]
Turner was a habitual user of
snuff; in 1838,
Louis Philippe I,
King of the French, presented a gold
snuff box to him.[29] Of two other snuffboxes, an
agate and silver example bears Turner's name,[30] and another, made of wood, was collected along with his spectacles, magnifying glass and card case by an associate housekeeper.[31]
Turner formed a short but intense friendship with the artist
Edward Thomas Daniell. The painter
David Roberts wrote of him that, "He adored Turner, when I and others doubted, and taught me to see & to distinguish his beauties over that of others ... the old man really had a fond & personal regard for this young clergyman, which I doubt he ever evinced for the other".[32] Daniell may have supplied Turner with the spiritual comfort he needed after the deaths of his father and friends, and to "ease the fears of a naturally reflective man approaching old age".[32] After Daniell's death in
Lycia at the age of 38, he told Roberts he would never form such a friendship again.[33]
Before leaving for the Middle East, Daniell commissioned Turner’s portrait from
John Linnell. Turner had previously refused to sit for the artist, and it was difficult to get his agreement to be portrayed. Daniell positioned the two men opposite each other at dinner, so that Linnell could observe his subject carefully and portray his likeness from memory.[33]
Turner died of
cholera at the home of Sophia Caroline Booth, in
Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, on 19 December 1851.[28] He is buried in
St Paul's Cathedral, where he lies near the painter Sir
Joshua Reynolds.[5] Apparently his last words were "The Sun (or Son?) is God",[34] though this may be apocryphal.[35]
Turner's friend, the architect
Philip Hardwick, the son of his old tutor, was in charge of making the funeral arrangements and wrote to those who knew Turner to tell them at the time of his death that, "I must inform you, we have lost him."[citation needed] Other executors were his cousin and chief mourner at the funeral, Henry Harpur IV (benefactor of
Westminster – now Chelsea & Westminster – Hospital), Revd. Henry Scott Trimmer,
George Jones RA and
Charles Turner ARA.[36]
Art
Style
Turner's talent was recognised early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles". Turner was recognised as an artistic genius; the English art critic
John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature".[37]
Turner's imagination was sparked by shipwrecks, fires (including the
burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner witnessed first-hand, and transcribed in a series of watercolour sketches), and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. He was fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen at the 1840 Royal Academy of Arts exhibition, where The Slave Ship (1840), and Rockets and Blue Lights (Close at Hand) to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water (1840) were first shown. A 2003 exhibition at the
Clark Art Institute suggested these two paintings were pendants, due in part to their similar content and size.[38]
Turner's work drew criticism from contemporaries. An anonymous review of the 1840 Royal Academy exhibition, later identified as
John Eagles, called the displayed paintings “absurd extravagances [that] disgrace the Exhibition”.[39]Sir George Beaumont, a landscape painter and fellow member of the Royal Academy, described his paintings as "blots".[40]
Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on
Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Claude had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at
Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorised the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.[5] His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in
Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.[41]
His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stay true to the traditions of English landscape. In Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature has already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects.[37]
In Turner's later years, he used oils ever more transparently and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognisable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting but exerted an influence on art in France; the
Impressionists, particularly
Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques. He is also generally regarded as a precursor of abstract painting.
High levels of volcanic ash (from the eruption of
Mount Tambora) in the atmosphere during 1816, the "
Year Without a Summer", led to unusually spectacular sunsets during this period, and were an inspiration for some of Turner's work.
John Ruskin said that an early patron,
Thomas Monro, Principal Physician of
Bedlam, and a collector and amateur artist, was a significant influence on Turner's style:
His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by his friend
Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate.
Together with a number of young artists, Turner was able, in Monro's London house, to copy works of the major topographical draughtsmen of his time and perfect his skills in drawing. But the curious atmospherical effects and illusions of
John Robert Cozens's watercolours, some of which were present in Monro's house, went far further than the neat renderings of topography. The solemn grandeur of his Alpine views were an early revelation to the young Turner and showed him the true potential of the watercolour medium, conveying mood instead of information.
Materials
Turner experimented with a wide variety of pigments.[42] He used formulations like
carmine, despite knowing that they were not long-lasting, and against the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded. Ruskin complained at how quickly his work decayed; Turner was indifferent to posterity and chose materials that looked good when freshly applied.[43] By 1930, there was concern that both his oils and his watercolours were fading.[44]
Clare Hall and
King's College Chapel, Cambridge, from the Banks of the River Cam, 1793, watercolour (note that this is the present-day
Clare College, formerly named Clare Hall, and not the present-day
Clare Hall)
The Departure of the Fleet, 1850, National Gallery, London
Legacy
Turner left a small fortune, which he hoped would be used to support what he called "decayed artists". He planned an almshouse at
Twickenham in west London with a gallery for some of his works. His will was contested and in 1856, after a court battle, his first cousins, including
Thomas Price Turner, received part of his fortune.[45] Another portion went to the Royal Academy of Arts, which occasionally awards students the Turner Medal. His finished paintings were bequeathed to the British nation, and he intended that a special gallery would be built to house them. This did not happen because there was disagreement over the final site. Twenty-two years after his death, the British Parliament passed an act allowing his paintings to be lent to museums outside London, and so began the process of scattering the pictures which Turner had wanted to be kept together.
One of the greatest collectors of his work was
Henry Vaughan, who when he died in 1899 owned more than one hundred watercolours and drawings by Turner and as many prints. His collection included examples of almost every type of work on paper the artist produced, from early topographical drawings and atmospheric landscape watercolours, to brilliant colour studies, literary vignette illustrations and spectacular exhibition pieces. It included nearly a hundred proofs of Liber Studiorum and twenty-three drawings connected with it. It was an unparalleled collection that comprehensively represented the diversity, imagination and technical inventiveness of Turner's work throughout his sixty-year career. Vaughan bequeathed the most of his Turner collection to British and Irish public galleries and museums, stipulating that the collections of Turner's watercolours should be 'exhibited to the public all at one time, free of charge and only in January', demonstrating an awareness of conservation which was unusual at the time.[46]
In 1910, the main part of the Turner Bequest, which includes unfinished paintings and drawings, was rehoused in the Duveen Turner Wing at the National Gallery of British Art (now
Tate Britain). In 1987, a new wing at the Tate, the
Clore Gallery, was opened to house the Turner bequest, though some of the most important paintings remain in the
National Gallery in contravention of Turner's condition that they be kept and shown together. Increasingly paintings are lent abroad, ignoring Turner's provision that they remain constantly and permanently in Turner's Gallery.
St. Mary's Church, Battersea, added a commemorative stained glass window for Turner, between 1976 and 1982.[47] St Paul's Cathedral, Royal Academy of Arts and the
Victoria & Albert Museum all hold statues representing him. A portrait by Cornelius Varley with his patent
graphic telescope (
Sheffield Museums & Galleries) was compared with his death mask (
National Portrait Gallery, London) by Kelly Freeman at Dundee University 2009–10 to ascertain whether it really depicts Turner. The
City of Westminster unveiled a memorial plaque at the site of his birthplace at 21 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, on 2 June 1999.[48]
Selby Whittingham founded The Turner Society at London and Manchester in 1975. After the society endorsed the Tate Gallery's Clore Gallery wing (on the lines of the Duveen wing of 1910), as the solution to the controversy of what should be done with the Turner Bequest, Selby Whittingham resigned and founded the Independent Turner Society. The Tate created the prestigious annual
Turner Prize art award in 1984, named in Turner's honour, and 20 years later the
Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours founded the
Winsor & Newton Turner Watercolour Award. A major exhibition, "Turner's Britain", with material (including The Fighting Temeraire) on loan from around the globe, was held at
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from 7 November 2003 to 8 February 2004. In 2005, Turner's The Fighting Temeraire was voted Britain's "greatest painting" in a public poll organised by the
BBC.[49]
Portrayal
Leo McKern played Turner in The Sun Is God, a 1974
Thames Television production directed by
Michael Darlow.[50] The programme aired on 17 December 1974, during the Turner Bicentenary Exhibition in London.[51]
British filmmaker
Mike Leigh wrote and directed Mr. Turner, a biopic of Turner's later years, released in 2014. The film stars
Timothy Spall as Turner, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey and Paul Jesson, and premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2014
Cannes Film Festival, with Spall taking the award for Best Actor.[52][53]
The Bank of England announced that a portrait of Turner, with a backdrop of The Fighting Temeraire, would appear on the £20 note beginning in 2020. It is the first £20
British banknote printed on
polymer.[54][55] It came into circulation on Thursday 20 February 2020.
^Although Turner was known by his middle name, William, he is now generally referred to by his initials, in order to avoid confusion with the artist
William Turner (1789–1862).
^Turner claimed to have been born on 23 April 1775, which is both
Saint George's Day and the supposed birthday of
William Shakespeare, but this claim has never been verified.[6] The first verifiable date is that Turner was baptised on 14 May, and some authors doubt the 23 April date on the grounds that high infant mortality rates meant that parents usually baptised their children shortly after birth.[7]
^Her illness was possibly due in part to the early death of Turner's younger sister. Hamilton suggests that this "fit of illness" may have been an early sign of her madness.[citation needed]
^Lacayo, Richard (11 October 2007).
"The Sunshine Boy". Time. Archived from
the original on 12 October 2007. At the turn of the 18th century, history painting was the highest purpose art could serve, and Turner would attempt those heights all his life. But his real achievement would be to make landscape the equal of history painting.
^
abPiper, David (2004). The Illustrated History of Art. Bounty Books. p. 321.
ISBN978-0753709696.
^Hamilton, James (2003). Turner: the late seascapes [exhibition, Sterling and Francine Clark art institute, Williamstown, Mass., 14 June - 7 September 2003, Manchester art gallery, Manchester, England, 31 October 2003 - 25 January 2004, Burrell collection, Glasgow, Scotland, 19 February - 23 May 2004]. New Haven London Williamstown (Mass.): Yale university press Sterling and Francine Clark art institute.
ISBN978-0-300-09900-3.
^Hamilton, James (2003). Turner: the late seascapes [exhibition, Sterling and Francine Clark art institute, Williamstown, Mass., 14 June - 7 September 2003, Manchester art gallery, Manchester, England, 31 October 2003 - 25 January 2004, Burrell collection, Glasgow, Scotland, 19 February - 23 May 2004]. New Haven London Williamstown (Mass.): Yale university press Sterling and Francine Clark art institute.
ISBN978-0-300-09900-3.
^Wilkinson, Gerald (1974). The Sketches of Turner, R.A. London: Barrie & Jenkins.
^"The Turner Museum". The Turner Museum and Thomas Moran Galleries. Archived from
the original on 16 February 2010. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
^Townsend, Joyce H. (1993). "The Materials of J. M. W. Turner: Pigments". Studies in Conservation. 38 (4): 231–254.
doi:
10.2307/1506368.
JSTOR1506368.
Venning, Barry (2003). Turner. Berlin: Phaidon Verlag GmbH.
ISBN0-7148-3988-4.
Wallace, Robert K. (1992). Melville & Turner: Spheres of Love and Fright. The University of Georgia Press.
ISBN0-8203-1366-1. "Wallace explores the stylistic and aesthetic affinities of English landscape painter J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) and American novelist
Herman Melville, establishing Turner as a decisive influence on the creation of Melville's Moby-Dick". (Quotation from dust jacket)
Williams, Roger (2018). A Year of Turner and the Thames. London: Bristol Book Publishing.
ISBN978-0-9928466-9-5.