william turner short biography

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Early life and works

Middle years.

• Later life and works

J.M.W. Turner

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• National Gallery of Art - Biography of Joseph Mallord William Turner
• Royal Academy of Arts - J.M.W. Turner RA (1775 - 1851)
• The Art Story - Joseph Mallord William Turner
• Tate - J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Biography of Joseph Mallord William Turner
• The Victorian Web - Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
• Art in Context - William Turner - The Life and Romantic Works of J. M. W. Turner
• J.M.W. Turner - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

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J.M.W. Turner (born April 23, 1775, London , England—died December 19, 1851, London) was an English Romantic landscape painter whose expressionistic studies of light, color, and atmosphere were unmatched in their range and sublimity.

Turner was the son of a barber. At age 10 he was sent to live with an uncle at Brentford, Middlesex, where he attended school. Several drawings dated as early as 1787 are sufficiently professional to corroborate the tradition that his father sold the boy’s work to his customers. Turner entered the Royal Academy schools in 1789 and soon began exhibiting his watercolors there. From 1792 he spent his summers touring the country in search of subjects, filling his sketchbooks with drawings to be worked up later into finished watercolors. His early work is topographical (concerned with the accurate depiction of places) in character and traditional in technique, imitating the best English masters of the day. In 1794 Turner began working for engravers, supplying designs for the Copper Plate Magazine and the Pocket Magazine . He was also employed to make copies or elaborations of unfinished drawings by the recently deceased landscape painter John Robert Cozens . The influence of Cozens and of the Welsh landscape painter Richard Wilson helped broaden Turner’s outlook and revealed to him a more poetic and imaginative approach to landscape, which he would pursue to the end of his career with ever-increasing brilliance.

From 1796 Turner exhibited oil paintings as well as watercolours at the Royal Academy. The first, Fishermen at Sea (1796), is a moonlight scene and was acclaimed by a contemporary critic as the work “of an original mind.” In 1799, at the youngest permitted age (24), Turner was elected an associate of the Royal Academy , and in 1802 he became a full academician, a dignity he marked by a series of large pictures in which he emulated the achievements of the Old Masters, especially the 17th-century painters Nicolas Poussin , Claude Lorrain , Aelbert Cuyp , and Willem van de Velde the Younger. In 1807 he was appointed professor of perspective.

Turner’s private life, such as it was, was secretive, unsociable, and somewhat eccentric . In 1798 he entered into an affair, which was to last about 10 years, with Sarah Danby, a widow who probably bore him two children. In 1800 Turner’s mother became hopelessly ill and was committed to a mental hospital. His father went to live with him and devoted the rest of his life to serving as his son’s studio assistant and general agent. Also about 1800 Turner took a studio at 64 Harley Street, London, and in 1804 he opened a private gallery, where he continued to show his latest work for many seasons. He was by this time overwhelmed with commissions , and the success of his career was assured.

Turner continued to travel in search of inspiration. He visited Wales in 1792, 1795, and 1798, Yorkshire and the Lake District in 1797, the Midlands in 1794, Scotland in 1801, and the European continent for the first time in 1802. The crossing to Calais was rough, and in his picture Calais Pier (1802–03) he left a vivid record of his experience upon arrival. He made more than 400 drawings during this tour of France and Switzerland and continued for many years to paint pictures of scenes that had impressed him on the trip. He also studied the Old Masters at the Louvre .

Turner’s many marine subjects, in which he dramatically builds upon the foundation of the Dutch 17th-century tradition, reveal his methodical attempt to master every landscape style he admired and the ease with which he accomplished this. The rivalry he felt with painters who had influenced his style is suggested by his bequest to the National Gallery of his Dido Building Carthage, or the Rise of the Carthaginian Empire (1815) and Sun Rising Through Vapour: Fishermen Cleaning and Selling Fish (1807) on condition that they be hung beside his two favourite Claudes. However, the treatment of landscape in the Thames oil sketches of about 1805 and in The Shipwreck (1805) suggests that at this time Turner was developing his original approach to landscape—emphasizing luminosity, atmosphere, and Romantic, dramatic subjects.

In 1807 Turner began his great enterprise of publishing a series of 100 plates known as the Liber Studiorum , inspired, in part, by Claude’s own studio record, Liber veritatis (begun in 1635 and continued until his death in 1682). Turner’s aim was to document the great variety and range of landscape; some of the subjects were taken from his own existing paintings and watercolors. He employed several engravers, although he supervised the work at every stage, etched some of the plates himself, and made innumerable preparatory drawings. The publication was issued in parts consisting of five plates each and covering all the styles of landscape composition , including historical, architectural, mountainous, pastoral, and marine. The first part appeared in June 1807 and the last in 1819, when Turner evidently lost interest in the project and abandoned it after the publication of 71 plates.

During the second decade of the 1800s, Turner’s painting became increasingly luminous and atmospheric in quality. Even in paintings of actual places, such as St. Mawes at the Pilchard Season (1812), the hard facts of topography are diffused behind pearly films of color; other pictures, such as Frosty Morning (1813), are based entirely on effects of light. In works such as Snowstorm: Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), Turner used the power of natural forces to lend drama to historical events. Turner was much in demand as a painter of castles and countryseats for their owners, while he also continued to excel in marine painting. Turner’s masterpiece of this period is the Dort , or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed (1818), a tribute to Cuyp.

With Dido and Aeneas, Leaving Carthage on the Morning of the Chase (1814), Turner began a series of Carthaginian subjects. The last exhibitions of his life, at the academy in 1850, included four works on the same theme. By appending long poetic quotations from James Thomson ’s “Seasons” (1726), from works by Lord Byron , John Milton , William Shakespeare , and Alexander Pope , or attributed to his own poetic composition Fallacies of Hope (never completed), Turner showed that he regarded the literary-historical interpretation of his works as being of paramount importance.

The coming of peace in 1815 allowed Turner to travel abroad. After a trip to the field of Waterloo and the Rhine in 1817, Turner set out in the summer of 1819 on his first visit to Italy. He spent three months in Rome—also visiting Naples, Florence, and Venice—and returned home in midwinter. During his journey he made about 1,500 drawings, and in the next few years he painted a series of pictures inspired by what he had seen. They show a great advance in his style, particularly in the matter of color, which became purer and more prismatic, with a general heightening of key. A comparison of The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl (1823) with any of the earlier pictures reveals a far more iridescent treatment resembling the transparency of a watercolor . The shadows are as colourful as the lights, and he achieves contrasts by setting off cold and warm colors instead of dark and light tones.

During the 1820s Turner alternated tours of the continent with visits to various parts of England and Scotland. In 1827 he painted brilliant sketches of the regatta at Cowes, and in 1828 he went to Italy again. From 1828, and particularly after his father’s death in 1829, Turner often visited the earl of Egremont at Petworth, Sussex, producing splendid sketches of the earl’s house and its gardens.

J.M.W. Turner

(1775-1851)

Who Was J.M.W. Turner?

A sickly child, J.M.W. Turner was sent to live with his uncle in rural England, and it was during this period that he began his artistic career. As a landscape painter, Turner brought luminosity and Romantic imagery to his subjects. His work—initially realistic—became more fluid and poetic, and is now regarded as a predecessor to Impressionism.

Early Years

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born circa April 23, 1775, in Covent Garden, London, England. His father, a wig-maker and barber, supported the family through his wife’s struggles with mental illness, a condition worsened by the death of Turner’s younger sister in 1786.

Turner was sent to live with an uncle in nearby Brentford in 1785 but returned to Covent Garden by the end of the decade. Although he received little formal schooling, Turner was clearly a talented artist, and by age 13 he was selling drawings that were featured at his father's shop. The Royal Academy of Arts admitted Turner in late 1789, and the following year he was given the chance to display his work in the Royal Academy Exhibition.

Artistic Innovation and Success

In 1793, the Royal Society of Arts awarded the 17-year-old the “Great Silver Pallet” for landscape drawing. Turner soon earned a steady income through a variety of artistic endeavors, including selling designs to engravers, coloring sketches and providing private lessons. Among the artists who influenced his works during this period were Thomas Gainsborough, Henry Fuseli, Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, Michael Angelo Rooker and Richard Wilson.

Turner began traveling through Europe extensively and was particularly inspired by his visits to Venice. His initial efforts reflected his training as a topographic draftsman and resulted in realistic depictions of landscapes, but over the years he developed his own style. Known as the “Painter of Light,” he created scenes of luminous imagery using brilliant colors. His works -- watercolors, oil paintings and engravings -- are now regarded as a predecessor to Impressionism.

In 1807, Turner accepted a position as professor of perspective at the Royal Academy, where he lectured until 1828. He grew increasingly eccentric and secretive, avoiding contact with virtually everyone except for his father, and was embittered when Queen Victoria passed him over for knighthood. Turner continued to hold exhibitions but begrudgingly sold his paintings, the loss of each one catapulting him into a prolonged state of dejection.

Despite his unusual behavior, Turner continued to produce great works of art. Though he is best known for his oil paints, he is also considered one of the founders of English watercolor landscape painting. His famous works include Dido Building Carthage (1815), The Grand Canal, Venice (1835), Peace - Burial at Sea (1842) and Rain, Steam and Speed (1844).

Turner exhibited his works for the last time in 1850. He produced thousands of pieces over the course of his career; approximately 2,000 paintings became the property of private collectors, while another 19,000 drawings and sketches and nearly 300 finished and unfinished oil paintings were left behind at two studios

Personal Life and Death

Although Turner never married, he fathered two daughters, Eveline and Georgiana. Their mother was assumed to be Mrs. Sarah Danby, the widow of a London composer. However, many believed the children’s mother was actually Mrs. Danby’s niece, Hannah, who was employed by Turner as a housekeeper.

The artist died on December 19, 1851, in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London, England. His will allocated generous sums to Hannah Danby and to programs to support what he called "decaying artists," although relatives successfully contested the funding of those programs through litigation. Turner also bequeathed a large collection of paintings to his country, and at his request, he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: J.M.W. Turner
• Birth Year: 1775
• Birth date: April 23, 1775
• Birth City: London, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: J.M.W. Turner was a British landscape painter of the 18th and 19th centuries whose work is known for its luminous, almost abstract quality.
• Astrological Sign: Taurus
• Royal Academy
• Death Year: 1851
• Death date: December 19, 1851
• Death City: London, England
• Death Country: United Kingdom

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: J.M.W. Turner Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/jmw-turner
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 21, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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Joseph Mallord William Turner

British Painter

Summary of Joseph Mallord William Turner

Turner took classical genres and scenes - the stately landscape in well-designed compositions and historical events writ large - and infused them with a new dynamic in painting. He reflected on the increasing importance of individual experience in the era of the Enlightenment, where the perceptions of human beings led to exalted personal moments and sublime interactions with nature. Through this dedication to rendering heightened states of consciousness and being, he helped define the cross-disciplinary artistic movement of Romanticism , setting the stage for later developments in painting subjective experiences that would lead to Impressionism . In some of his later works especially, Turner responded to the arrival of the modern era by making the contraptions of human invention powerfully, sometimes threateningly present.

Accomplishments

• Striving for greater subjective effects, he ignored and even exploded the precise rendering of details and static scenes that previous generations' masters and his peers still pursued. Instead he developed painterly effects to render perceptions from closely observed nature, resulting in swirling clouds of varied light and bold arrays of color dabbed in oil. Many of these techniques in paint to evoke sensations of the "Sublime" would become the substance and subject matter of the generation of painters working in Abstract Expressionism .
• The subjects chosen for many of his paintings emphasized the power of nature in a way that had not previously been depicted - making the human figure and all that civilization had built seem minuscule and fragile in comparison.
• Turner helped establish landscape painting - and especially its water-based corollary, seascapes - as an artistic genre for greater respect and exploration, compared to what had existed before or during his own time.
• Turner also incorporated novel motifs from the modern industrial era into his paintings - steamships and railway trains figuring prominently - foreshadowing a recurrent fascination with these elements of modern life that would figure in later generations of visual artists - from the Futurists , muralists such as Diego Rivera to contemporary artists such as Matthew Barney .

Important Art by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Dutch Boats in a Gale ('The Bridgewater Sea Piece')

Dutch Boats in a Gale was commissioned by the third Duke of Bridgewater as a companion piece for a 17 th -century seascape, Ships on a Stormy Sea by Willem van de Velde the Younger. In this painting, Turner shows ominous clouds and a stormy sea with boats struggling on the rough water. In contrast to the companion piece, Turner's boats look doomed to collide, conveying a sense of danger. This piece from 1801 is evidence of the influence of Dutch painters on Turner's early work but already with the sort of turbulence featured in it that became one of Turner's hallmarks.

Oil on Canvas - The National Gallery, London

Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps

In this painting, Turner depicts Hannibal's soldiers in their struggle to cross the Alps in 218BC. There is a curved arch of black storm clouds hovering over the soldiers with a golden sun peeking through the grayness. In the foreground, the soldiers are fighting local tribes in the murky darkness, while ahead in the distance the plains of Italy are bathed in sunlight. At the right is an avalanche of snow descending down the mountain. Hannibal's location is not clear, but he may be riding the elephant barely visible in the distance. Turner created this painting during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and France. He saw parallels between Hannibal and Napoleon, and this painting is his response to Jacques-Louis David's portrait of Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801-1805). This work is the first painting where Turner uses a swirling vortex of wind, rain, snow and clouds that he returned to often in later works, such as Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842). His ongoing investigations of light and atmosphere greatly influenced future Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, such as Monet and Pissarro.

Oil on Canvas - Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom

The Burning of the Houses of Parliament

In 1834 a fire engulfed the Houses of Parliament and burned for hours while Londoners watched the horrifying event. Turner made a series of sketches, watercolors, and oil paintings of the spectacle from the viewpoint of the Thames River. This watercolor and gouache on paper shows a closer view of the fire and those gathered to watch. Turner uses color to convey the magnificent light and heat: as much the subject of the painting, as the event of the burning building itself. This favoring of the elemental aspects of the conflagration, as well as the fire itself, embodies one of Turner's favored themes as well: the puniness and ephemerality of man's efforts in the face of nature.

Watercolor and gouache on paper - Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom

The Fighting Temeraire Tugged To Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up

In The Fighting Temeraire , Turner depicts a once powerful and magnificent warship being towed to its final destination to be broken up for scraps. In the painting, the ship appears like a ghost in the background being towed by a small, dark, steam-powered tugboat. The sails of the other vessels in the background form a triangle within a larger triangle of blue sky. Behind the Temeraire , the sun is setting and the moon casts a beam across the river. This painting symbolizes the end of an era, the end of heroic power, and the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Steam-powered vessels were taking the place of the large sailing vessels of the past. It is suggested that the ship may also symbolize Turner himself as he contemplated his accomplishments of the past, his mortality, and saw new artists being recognized. Turner took some liberties in portraying this event, for example the Temeraire did not have its masts intact when it was towed. He wanted to portray her in her former majestic state and so included them in the painting. His revision of details demonstrated a liberation from "just facts" that was an innovation inspiring future modern painters to feel freer in their interpretations of depicted scenes.

Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On)

In this painting, Turner shows a ship in the background moving through a tumultuous sea, and in the foreground, in the ship's wake, dark-skinned bodies with chains on their legs, while hovering nearby are fish and sea creatures looking dangerously ready to devour them. Turner based this painting on a poem that described the Zong , a slave ship caught in a typhoon, and the true story of that ship in 1781, when its captain ordered 133 sick and dying slaves thrown overboard so that he could collect the insurance money. Turner timed the exhibition of this painting to coincide with the meeting of the British Anti-Slavery Society. Although the British Empire had outlawed slavery in 1833, Turner believed slavery should be outlawed throughout the world, and his hope was that Prince Albert would be moved to increase anti-slavery efforts when he viewed the painting. Alongside the painting, Turner displayed lines from his unfinished poem, "Fallacies of Hope": "Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay; Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds Declare the Typhon's coming. Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard The dead and dying - ne'er heed their chains Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope! Where is thy market now?" John Ruskin, the first owner of Slave Ship , wrote, "If I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single work, I should choose this."

Oil on Canvas - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Light and Color (Goethe's Theory) - the Morning after the Deluge - Moses Writing the Book of Genesis

The unusual square shape of this late painting, with even dimensions on all sides, indicates neither the conventional orientation for the genre of either landscape or portraiture, further channeling the subjective experience by focusing the viewer's gaze into the center of a sort of elemental vortex. The primary figures - Moses and a serpent - are represented hazily amid the sort of seemingly formless fields of color and light that critics who were contemporaries of Turner often objected to in his later works. Meanwhile the relative brightness of Turner's palette in this moody work hints at darker aspects that might be apprehended from the Biblical story of redemption after the trial of the flood. This is associated with the sub-title of the piece - where the potential feeling of triumph or relief for those who survive such catastrophes is mixed with an awareness that the same dark forces may produce a new crisis at any time in the future. Turner uses his own treatment of the phenomenon of color and light to represent a version of the Biblical tale as seen through a perceptual filter related to Goethe's psychological and philosophical account of the way humans actually experience color as a phenomenon. Through this combination Turner furthers a Romantic update of both the classical Bible story and the work of Goethe - another exemplar of latter day Classicism and prototypical instigator of Romantic notions - in the generation leading up to Turner's own time.

Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway

This painting depicts a steam-powered train speeding across a modern bridge away from London. In the distance is an older bridge and in the lower right is a small hare. Some suggest that the hare is not only one of nature's symbols of speed, but that Turner is warning us of the dangers of technology destroying nature in its race toward progress. The only highly detailed section in the painting is the smoke stack of the train, showing Turner's ability to create provocative paintings with very little detail.

Biography of Joseph Mallord William Turner

Childhood and education.

Joseph Mallord William Turner's actual birthdate is unconfirmed, but he was baptized on May 14, 1775. His father, William Turner was a barber and wig maker and his mother, Mary Marshall, came from a family of butchers. His younger sister, Mary Ann, was born in September 1778, but died when she was 5 years old.

At the age of ten, due to his mother's signs of mental instability, Turner was sent to live with an uncle in Brentford, Middlesex, a small town on the banks of the Thames, to the west of London. In Brentford, Turner began his artistic activities by coloring a series of engraved plates. Later, in 1786, he was sent to Margate where he attended school and also began to draw the town and surrounding area. Back in London, his father exhibited these drawings in his shop and sold them for a few shillings each. Sketching the town and countryside and later creating finished paintings from location sketches would become his working style throughout his career. Although he lived in different areas around London and later traveled widely, he remained a Londoner throughout his life and never lost his Cockney accent. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Turner did not adopt an elitist air as he climbed the professional ladder. In contrast, John Constable famously jockeyed for position in terms of social status and by literally contriving to displace a Turner painting in one exhibition at the Royal Academy with one of his own. Though Turner spent time in the society of noble patrons, he preferred to frequent his humbler residences in Chelsea and the fishing village of Margate, even later in life, while also sojourning ceaselessly in the country and seaside in pursuit of striking subjects out in the natural world.

Early Period

Early in Turner's career, he created architectural studies for several architects and later worked with a topographical draughtsman. As a result, many of his early drawings and watercolors included architectural subjects. At the age of 14, he entered the prestigious Royal Academy of Art, and was accepted as an Academy member a year later. Founded by an act of King George III in 1768, the Academy was an important broker of taste as well as a crucial node in the network of possible sales and commissioning - especially from the Royal Family and nobility - for its artist members. Although he was interested in architecture, he was advised by the architect Thomas Hardwick to continue painting. During this period, Turner produced watercolors that were exhibited every year at the Academy. His routine was to paint in the winter and travel in the summer throughout England and Wales. In 1796, he exhibited his first oil painting, Fishermen at Sea at the Royal Academy. It was a nocturnal moonlit scene, the type of nighttime painting that was popular at the time. He was praised for this piece, and it established him as both an oil painter and a portrayer of maritime scenes.

In 1799, at the age of 24, Turner was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. At this time, he painted a flattering self-portrait, indicating his belief that he had "arrived." In 1802 he became a full academician. Further recognition came in 1807, at the age of 32, when he was appointed professor of perspective. By 1800, he was already financially prosperous and moved to a better address in London, Harley Street, where he shared a flat with J.T. Serres, an older marine painter. In 1804, he opened a gallery on Harley and Queen Anne Street to exhibit his work.

He expanded his travels to the European continent in 1802, visiting France and Switzerland. A group of noblemen sponsored this trip, and he was provided with a French-speaking guide and a small coach. He documented the trip with his painting, Calais Pier (1802-3) and made more than 400 drawings during this journey.

Mature Period

In his early paintings Turner attempted to master other styles he admired, such as the realistic, orderly pictorial techniques of Willem van der Velde and Claude Lorrain, but by 1805 his oil sketches and paintings such as The Shipwreck demonstrated his own original approach to landscapes and seascapes. By his late 30s, his work became increasingly atmospheric and luminous. In paintings such as Snowstorm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812), he started to focus his efforts on portraying the power of nature and man's insignificance in the face of it, while creating a historical rendering. In addition to painting, Turner was interested in poetry, especially Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore and John Milton, and he wrote his own poetry as well, including an unfinished and unpublished work, Fallacies of Hope , in 1812. Much later, when Turner exhibited Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On) (1840) at the Royal Academy, he included excerpts of his poetry alongside the painting.

With the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Turner was able to travel abroad again. In the summer of 1819, he made his first trip to Italy, visiting Rome, Naples, Florence, and Venice. During this time, he made about 1,500 drawings from which he developed several paintings. These paintings, such as The Grand Canal, Venice (1835) show a change in how he used color - with many transparent layers, warm and cool colors creating form, and, more generally, a bolder range.

Turner was very private about his personal life, and he became more eccentric as he grew older. He had few close friends, but was very close with his father who lived with him for 30 years and worked as his studio assistant, cook and gardener. His mother had died in 1804, probably in the mental hospital in Bethlem. After his father died in 1829, Turner suffered bouts of depression. Although he never married, he had two daughters, Eveline and Georgianna, with an older widow, Sarah Danby. Turner wrote in one of his sketchbooks that "Woman is doubtful love" and there is some evidence that the actual mother of his daughters was Sarah Danby's niece who was his housekeeper for a period of time. Later, he had a relationship with Sophia Caroline Booth, living as 'Mr. Booth' in her house in Chelsea.

Late Period

Turner continued to travel in his later years, visiting Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Denmark and Czechoslovakia. He sketched tirelessly, and his bequest included approximately 19,000 sketches from these travels. His paintings became more fluid and atmospheric with minimal details. Some examples during this period include The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up (1839) and Rain, Steam, and Speed - the Great Western Railway (1844). These paintings expressed Turner's response to the changes being introduced by the Industrial Revolution. Turner's innovative style in these later paintings was criticized publicly, and John Ruskin , an English art critic and long-time supporter of Turner's work, defended him by publishing Modern Painters (1843-60). Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy for the last time in 1850.

The Legacy of Joseph Mallord William Turner

Turner died in Cheyne Walk in Chelsea on December 19, 1851, and he is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. He left most of his fortune to found a charity for "decayed artists," and he bequeathed his finished paintings to the National Gallery. As a result of litigation by relatives much of the fortune was inherited by them and both the finished and unfinished paintings became national property as a group under the name The Turner Bequest . Most of Turner's paintings are now housed in the Tate Britain with several important works held by the National Gallery. In 1984, the Tate Britain created the prestigious Turner Prize art award, and in 2005, Turner's The Fighting Temeraire was voted Britain's "greatest painting" in a BBC public poll.

Among painters, Turner's impact has been felt for more than two centuries now: his representation of the confrontation humans experienced upon encountering the effects of their own machine inventions in the modern era was an early attempt to engage with the world-changing Industrial Revolution. Even more influential was his mode of representation: impressionistic renderings of the effects of nature that expressed inner psychological states to the point of extreme, extraordinarily early abstraction - to a degree that would only be engaged with again as fully by painters more than a century later.

Turner's work, especially his late work, was deeply admired by the abstract painter Mark Rothko . One can see the influence in Rothko's large canvases of subtly shifting layers of color. In 1966 when Rothko saw an exhibition of Turners in a show sub-titled Imagination and Reality at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he was quoted as saying, "This guy Turner, he learnt a lot from me." The radical nature of Turner's engagement with issues that were not only ahead of its time but still relevant in the contemporary moment was shown by this rare embrace of the work of a pre-modern master by a museum dedicated to modern art. In 2009, the Tate Britain displayed a selection of Turners in a room opposite another dedicated to six Rothko paintings, allowing visitors to compare the "striking affinity" between the two artists' work.

Furthermore, Turner's investigations of color and light inspired the contemporary Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson to create a series of color experiments, each inspired by a different Turner painting. Eliasson states, "I have carefully dissected the amount of color tones, darkness and brightness in a group of Turner paintings, and then made a kind of 'color chart portrait' of each one, using the exact same colors and amount of light and darkness."

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Joseph Mallord William Turner

• J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free Our Pick By David Blayney Brown, Amy Concannon, Sam Smiles
• Standing in the Sun: A Life of J.M.W. Turner By Anthony Bailey
• The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., 2 nd ed., 1961 By A.J. Finberg, H.F. Finberg
• Tate Collection Our Pick
• The National Gallery
• The Turner Society
• Tate's JMW Turner Blockbuster Dazzles By Lorena Munoz-Alonso / ARTNet News ARTWORLD / September 9, 2014
• Late Turner at Tate Britain review - an exciting, entrancing show By Jonathan Jones / The Guardian / September 8, 2014
• How JMW Turner Set Painting Free Our Pick By Alastair Sooke / BBC / October 21, 2014
• Rothko and Turner receive joint billing at Tate for first time Our Pick By Stephen Adams / The Telegraph / March 23, 2009
• Mr. Turner Mike Leigh, 2014

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Biography Online

J. M.W. Turner Biography

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851) was an English romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. He is famous for his expressive paintings of landscapes and the sea. He was fascinated by violent weather and the interplay of light on dark, stormy scenes. Increasingly he experimented with imaginative interpretations of his subjects, becoming a fore-runner for impressionist painting. Turner is often referred to as the ‘Painter of Light’

Short Biography J.M.W Turner

His career was considerably helped by benefactors such as Walter Ramsden Fawkes, of Farnley Hall, near Otley. Turner visited Otley on several occasions and loved the surrounding Yorkshire countryside. He also secured the patronage George O’Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont at Petworth House in West Sussex.  Turner also took the opportunity to travel around Europe, visiting famous art museums in Paris, Vienna and Switzerland.

“It is necessary to mark the greater from the lesser truth: namely the larger and more liberal idea of nature from the comparatively narrow and confined; namely that which addresses itself to the imagination from that which is solely addressed to the eye.”

– Turner

Turner loved to paint landscapes and nature. His method of work was to visit suitable locations and make pencil sketches, he then took these back and filled in the painting with colour at a later stage. Much of his work is inspired by different locations in England and Wales. He also frequently visited the coast and the Isle of Wight to capture scenes of the sea, which was one of his great loves. He was particularly fascinated with the extremes of nature such as violent storms. Turner was adept at creating a sense of drama in his painting – the combination of movement and a sharp contrast between sunlight and the dark clouds.

“Fishermen at Sea” 1792

An apocryphal tale suggests Turner tied himself to the mast of a ship during a storm so he could witness the buffeting of nature.

Shipwreck (1805)

John Ruskin once described Turner as the artist who could most “stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature.” (Piper 321)

“‘Look at this thunderstorm! Isn’t it grand? – Isn’t it wonderful? – Isn’t it sublime? There, Hawkey [his friend Mr. Fawkes]; in two years you will see this again, and call it ‘Hannibal Crossing the Alps’ – J.M.W. Turner

“To select, combine and concentrate that which is beautiful in nature and admirable in art is as much the business of the landscape painter in his line as in the other departments of art.”

– Turner, c. 1810

However, his innovations and freedom with form were not universally accepted, some prominent art critics were hostile to Turner’s art. For example, the Royal Academy’s President, Benjamin West described Turner’s paintings of the Thames as ‘crude blotches’. Others felt he was undermining the great Masters of the past. It is possible Turner’s prickly temperament didn’t help endear him to others either. However, Turner was undeterred and with his financial freedom, followed his own tastes and creativity.

Turner, like many artists of his generation, was fascinated with light. Turner is reported to have said on his deathbed ‘ God is light ‘. Many of his paintings are noted for their vivid depictions of light which were often the focus of his paintings.

The Fighting Temeraire (1835)

Personal life

Turner never married but fathered two daughters with his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He was known for his eccentric and reclusive life-style. He was ill at ease amongst social circles, especially high-brow art contemporaries, he was perhaps conscious of his strong Cockney accent which marked him out as different. One member of the Royal Academy, Joseph Farington, described Turner as ‘confident, presumptuous – with talent’ but Farington later noticed Turner’s seeming mental decline and he came to regard him with ‘puzzled incomprehension’.

For many years, Turner lived with his father, with whom he had a close relationship. After his father’s death in 1829, he became more secluded and prone to periods of depression. For the last 18 years of his life, he formed a relationship with Sophia Caroline Booth, who lived in Chelsea.

Turner died on 19 December 1851 from cholera, whilst living in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. His last words were reported to be “The Sun is God” also recorded as “God is light”.

Chichester Canal circa 1828

Turner helped elevate landscape painting and is often seen as a Romantic painter who helped influence the new movement of Impressionism. Along with John Constable , he is considered one of the finest British artists of all time.

Citation:  Pettinger, Tejvan . “J.M.W. Turner Biography”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net. Published 23 May 2014. Last updated 6 March 2020.

Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner

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Joseph Mallord William Turner

Turner is perhaps the best-loved English Romantic artist. He became known as 'the painter of light', because of his increasing interest in brilliant colours as the main constituent in his landscapes and seascapes. His works include water colours, oils and engravings.

Turner was born near Covent Garden in London and entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1789. His earliest works form part of the 18th-century topographical tradition. He was soon inspired by 17th-century Dutch artists such as Willem van der Velde , and by the Italianate landscapes of Claude and Richard Wilson .

He exhibited watercolours at the Royal Academy from 1790, and oils from 1796. In 1840 he met the critic John Ruskin, who became the great champion of his work.

Turner became interested in contemporary technology, as can be seen from 'The Fighting Temeraire' and 'Rain, Steam and Speed' . At the time his free, expressive treatment of these subjects was criticised, but it is now widely appreciated.

Turner bequeathed much of his work to the nation. The great majority of the paintings are now at Tate Britain.

This person is the subject of ongoing research. We have started by researching their relationship to the enslavement of people.

Biographical notes

Slavery connections.

Subscribed to an investment scheme which relied upon enslaved labour. In 1805, Turner bought one £100 share in the Dry Sugar Work Pen (St. Catherine parish, Jamaica), a cattle farm worked on by enslaved people. Turner would have expected to receive an annual income of at least £15, but the scheme failed in its first year and he lost his investment (S. Smiles, ‘Turner and the slave trade: Speculation and representation, 1805-40’, The British Art Journal , Vol. 8, No. 3 (Winter 2007/8), 47-54). Like many British artists of the time, Turner also had professional relationships with a number of patrons and collectors who were active in British slave ownership and trading and used their wealth to buy and/or commission artworks.

Abolition connections

ODNB states that ‘In 1840 Turner was represented by seven paintings at the Royal Academy, including another of his most famous works, Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhon coming on (BJ 385; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts), which is better known as ’The Slave Ship‘. This great icon of the anti-slavery campaign was given by his father as a new year gift in 1844 to John Ruskin, who wrote some of his most stirring passages in its praise, before finding it ’too painful to live with‘ and sending it to auction in 1869. The critics were almost unanimous in reviling ’The Slave Ship‘, and most of Turner’s other 1840 exhibits …’. (Luke Herrmann, ‘Turner, Joseph Mallord William (1775–1851)’, C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online], Oxford 1992 -, ] < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27854 > accessed 6 August 2021.)

See also Laura Brace, ‘Fallacies of hope: Contesting narratives of abolition in Turner’s Slave Ship’, Atlantic Studies , vol. 17, no. 4, 2019, 441-461 < https://doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2019.1669419 >; John McCoubrey, ‘Turner’s Slave Ship: Abolition, Ruskin, and reception’, Word & Image , vol. 14, no. 4, 1998, 319-353, < https://doi.org/10.1080/02666286.1998.10443961 >.

National Gallery painting connections

Donor: the Turner Bequest comprised 100 finished pictures, 182 unfinished pictures and 19,049 drawings and sketches in colour and pencil. The majority of the bequest was transferred to the National Gallery of British Art [Tate] in 1897.

The following paintings from Turner’s Collection, donated via the Turner Bequest, have remained at the National Gallery: NG472, NG479, NG498, NG508, NG521, NG524, NG538, NG1991, NG1984.

Another painting by Turner is on long loan: L297.

Bibliography

M. Czubińska, Turner: malrz żywiołów: przewodnik (exh. cat., Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg; Muzeum Narodowe, Cracow; Turner Contemporary, Margate), Kraków 2011

L. Herrmann, 'Turner, Joseph Mallord William', in C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford 1992-, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27854 Checked and found — Item on publisher's website

History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History , London 1964-, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/ Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

J. Lewison, Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings (exh. cat., Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgard; Tate, Liverpool), London 2011

I. Richter-Musso and O. Westheider, Turner and the Elements (exh. cat., Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg; Muzeum Narodowe, Cracow; Turner Contemporary, Margate), Munich 2011

D.H. Solkin (ed.), Turner and the Masters (exh. cat., Tate Britain, London; Galeries nationaux du Grand Palais, Paris; Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid), London and New York 2009

D.H. Solkin (ed.), Turner et ses peintres (exh. cat., Tate Britain, London; Galeries nationales, Grand Palais, Paris; Museo nacional del Prado, Madrid) 2010

D.H. Solkin (ed.), Turner y los mastros (exh. cat., Tate Britain, London; Galeries nationaux du Grand Palais, Paris; Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid), Madrid 2010

UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership , London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

I. Warrell, Turner Inspired: in the Light of Claude (exh. cat., The National Gallery, London), London 2012

O. Westheider and M. Philipp (eds.), Turner: malarz żywiołów (exh. cat., Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg; Muzeum Narodowe, Cracow; Turner Contemporary, Margate), Kraków 2011

A. Wilton, 'Turner, J(oseph) M(allord) W(illiam) ', in J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online , Oxford 1998-, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T086656 Checked and found — Item on publisher's website

Paintings by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Paintings previously owned by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Joseph mallord william turner (1775–1851).

"Dark Prison (Carcere Oscura)"

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Saltash with the Water Ferry, Cornwall

View of London from Greenwich

Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute

The Lake of Zug

Elizabeth E. Barker Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2004

London-born Joseph Mallord William Turner was the most versatile, successful, and controversial landscape painter of nineteenth-century England. Demonstrating mastery of watercolor , oil painting, and etching , his voluminous output ranges from depictions of local topography to atmospheric renderings of fearsome storms and awe-inspiring terrain. Though profoundly influenced by landscapists and history painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Turner was an innovator who has been hailed as a forerunner of modernist abstraction.

Turner profited from extensive training both within and outside of the Royal Academy (RA) Schools . He was admitted to the RA’s Plaster Academy at the age of fourteen, and to the Life Class three years later. He gained additional experience coloring prints, working as an architectural draftsman, and designing theatrical sets. In the 1790s, he participated in an informal “Academy,” where he joined with Thomas Girtin and other young men in copying from prints, watercolors , and topographical drawings at the home of the physician and alienist Dr. Thomas Monro.

These early lessons in topography ( 59.23.23 ) stayed with Turner throughout his life. His first exhibited paintings were carefully delineated watercolors of recognizable English monuments and landscapes. Although Turner would later develop an extensive visual vocabulary that ranged far beyond precise renderings, first-hand observations remained crucial to his working method. Over the course of five decades, he filled hundreds of sketchbooks with visual records of scores of tours through England ( 89.15.9 ), Scotland, and Wales, and around the Continent to Belgium, France, Holland, Italy, the Rhineland, Switzerland ( 59.120 ), and elsewhere. Turner relied on these on-site sketches to inform even his most highly imaginative paintings. For instance, Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute  ( 99.31 ), exhibited at the RA in 1835, combines multiple viewpoints to present an impossible view of several Venetian landmarks.

Watercolors inspired by these tours provided fertile ground for Turner’s technical experimentation and, when used as the bases of print series, helped him to disseminate his principles and earn a sizable income. In the 1810s and 1820s, he produced series of small-scale topographical watercolors in which he evoked forms by layering blocks of color according to a classification system of “light” and “dark” colors that challenged many assumptions of contemporary color theory. The watercolors’ light-filled, expressionistic appearance reflects this innovative technique. To create details, Turner scraped, blotted, and wiped the paint while it was still wet, and scratched into or drew on dry surfaces. Watercolors of English rivers, ports, and coastal scenes served as the basis for mezzotint and engraving series, including the Ports of England (1826–28). Turner adapted his watercolor methods to oil paintings, which he built up from foundations of color to create uniquely evocative shapes and glowing forms.

The seventy prints of his Liber Studiorum (1807–19; Windmill and Lock , Tate, London) express Turner’s elevated ambitions most clearly. These atmospheric images, which combine his own etched outlines with mezzotints applied by other artists, present six categories of landscape: Pastoral, Marine, Mountainous, Historical, Architectural, and Epic Pastoral. The title deliberately echoes the Liber Veritatis , a compilation of prints by the esteemed seventeenth-century painter of idealized landscapes Claude Lorrain . Turner may have produced another series of mezzotints singlehandedly; these images, never published, are known as the Little Liber (ca. 1824–26).

Turner believed that landscapes could convey a full range of artistic, historical, and emotional meanings, and presented himself as an heir to the great history painters of the past. As a young man, he learned to imbue his paintings with powerful expression by studying Piranesi’s imposing architectural fantasies ( 06.1051.3 ) and copying works by Renaissance and Baroque masters. The legacies of Poussin , Raphael, Titian , and others are evident throughout his oeuvre. Turner specifically claimed Raphael and Rome as his inspirations in Rome, from the Vatican. Raffaelle, Accompanied by La Fornarina, Preparing His Pictures for the Decoration of the Loggia (1820; Tate, London).

Turner’s forays into poetry complemented and enhanced the narratives of his landscape paintings. In 1798, he began including quotes from poets—for instance, Milton and Lord Byron—as accompaniments to his paintings in RA catalogue entries. He first used selections from his unfinished poem “Fallacies of Hope” when he exhibited Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps (1812; Tate, London). Excerpts from the poem would accompany many of Turner’s subsequent paintings, though the text was never completed or published.

In addition to narrating tales from the distant past, Turner also found subjects in the world around him. Interested in expressing grand emotions, he was particularly attracted to sublime or awesome aspects of contemporary life. When, on October 16, 1834, the Houses of Parliament were ravaged by fire, he observed the conflagration from a boat in the Thames and recorded the scene in watercolors and oil paintings ( The Burning of the Houses of Parliament , Tate, London). He memorialized yet a greater tragedy in Slave Ship  (1840; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), indicting the slave trade’s calculated horrors with agitated brushstrokes congealing into violent waves beneath a blood-red sky. The nearly abstract Rain, Steam, and Speed—The Great Western Railway (1844; National Gallery, London) evokes the Industrial Revolution’s rapid transformations through strong diagonals, bold contrasts of light and dark, and tumultuous handling.

Turner elicited strong responses from friends and foes alike. On the one hand, he was respected by many colleagues. Having become a full member of the RA at age twenty-six, he was elected Professor of Perspective five years later. He remained active in the Academy throughout his life, serving in various governing roles that culminated in a brief tenure as acting president in 1845. Yet Turner continually elicited disdain from some conservative critics. In 1836, a vituperative review lambasting his loose handling inspired John Ruskin to take up Turner’s defense. Ruskin’s argument for Turner’s genius ultimately grew into the five-volume Modern Painters (published 1843–60). Upon his death, Turner joined the notable Britons buried in Saint Paul’s Cathedral. His bequest of 300 oil paintings and more than 20,000 works on paper soon entered the collection of London’s Tate Gallery.

Barker, Elizabeth E. “Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/trnr/hd_trnr.htm (October 2004)

Further Reading

Gage, John. J. M. W. Turner: "A Wonderful Range of Mind." . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Lindsay, Jack. Turner: The Man and His Art . London: Granada, 1985.

Wilton, Andrew. J. M. W. Turner: His Art and Life . New York: Rizzoli, 1979.

Wilton, Andrew. Turner in His Time . New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987.

Additional Essays by Elizabeth E. Barker

• Barker, Elizabeth E.. “ The Printed Image in the West: Mezzotint .” (October 2003)
• Barker, Elizabeth E.. “ John Constable (1776–1837) .” (October 2004)
• Barker, Elizabeth E.. “ Watercolor Painting in Britain, 1750–1850 .” (October 2004)
• Barker, Elizabeth E.. “ William Blake (1757–1827) .” (October 2004)

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Who Was J. M. W. Turner?

Alice Loxton

19 jan 2021, @history_alice.

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden in 1775. His father, William Turner, was a barber and wig-maker.

Throughout his life he would remain true to these roots – unlike many other artists who bent to societal refinement, Turner retained a thick cockney accent even at the pinnacle of his professional career .

A capacity for artistic skill was evident at an early age. At 14, in December 1789, he entered the Royal Academy Schools, where he began drawing casts of ancient sculptures in the Plaister Academy.

One of Turner’s early self portraits. Image credit: Tate / CC.

He was accepted to the Academy by Sir Joshua Reynolds the following year, where he progressed to life classes and work experience with architects and architectural draughtsmen.

Unlike young men of culture before him, Turner was unable to travel on a Grand Tour of Europe due to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars – although he did visit Italy later in his life.

Not to be disheartened, he toured the Midlands in 1794, the North in 1797, Wales on several occasions and Scotland in 1801. This exploration of the British Isles is sure to have contributed to his deviation from the styles of Old Masters, who were heavily influenced by the Italian Renaissance.

Recognition at the Royal Academy

He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790, and initial commissions were architectural and topographical watercolours – views of Salisbury, the estate at Stourhead and Fonthill Castle. However, he soon explored themes in history, literature and myth.

A 1799 watercolour of Fonthill Abbey by Turner. Image credit: Public Domain.

His work was received with great acclaim and he was soon labelled a prodigy. It was no surprise when he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1799 and Academician in 1802, at which time he moved to a smarter address at 64 Harley Street.

In 1808 he was appointed as Professor of Perspective, meaning he added ‘P.P.’ to the ‘R.A.’ after his signature.

Whilst teaching at the Academy, Turner produced a prolific amount of work. At his death he left behind more than 550 oil paintings and 2,000 watercolours.

A pioneer of Romanticism

A key figure in Romanticism, alongside artists like John Constable, Turner chose to unearth the extreme drama in natural scenes.

Nature, once considered pastoral and benign, could be seen as beautiful, powerful, unpredictable or destructive. His imagination was sparked by shipwrecks, fires and wild natural phenomena such as sunlight, rain, storm and fog.

He was celebrated by the art critic John Ruskin who described his ability to:

‘stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature’

‘Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps’ was painted in 1812. It depicts the vulnerability of Hannibal’s soldiers who sought to cross the Maritime Alps in 218 BC.

As well as a curving black storm cloud filling the sky, a white avalanche crashes down the mountain. In the foreground Salassian tribesmen attack Hannibal’s rear-guard.

‘Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps’ by JMW Turner. Image credit: Public Domain.

He painted many events of his own time, including the burning of Parliament in 1834, which he witnessed first-hand.

‘The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up’ was painted in 1838. The 98-gun HMS Temeraire played a decisive role at the Battle of Trafalgar . Here, the hero of a glorious epoch of the Royal Navy is sombrely towed by a paddle-wheel steam tug towards south-east London, to be broken up for scrap.

The old ship maintains a stately splendour, her ghostly colouring contrasting to the blackened tugboat and smokestack – the symbol of the new age of industrialism.

In 1781, the captain of a slave ship ‘Zong’ had ordered 133 slaves to be thrown overboard in order to collect insurance payments. Turner depicted this in ‘The Slave Ship’.

Turner’s The Slave Ship – its full name is more explicit: Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhoon coming on (1840). Image credit: MFA Boston / CC.

It was an event which shocked the British public, and propelled campaigns for abolition. Although slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, it remained legal in other parts of the world, and was still a topic of debate at the time of Turner’s painting in 1840.

Turner wrote a poem to accompany the work

Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay; Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds Declare the Typhon’s coming. Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard The dead and dying – ne’er heed their chains Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope! Where is thy market now?

Ruskin, the first owner of ‘The Slave Ship’, wrote about the work:

‘If I were reduced to rest Turner’s immortality upon any single work, I should choose this’

In 1844, Turner’s interest in industry and technology drew him towards the steam revolution championed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

In ‘Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway’, a steam engine hurtles towards us as it crosses the Maidenhead Railway Bridge, completed in 1838. The two arches of the bridge were the widest and flattest ever built anywhere in the world at the time.

The Board of the GWR were so sure the bridge might collapse that they insisted the scaffolding was kept up, even once it was completed. Brunel duly obeyed, but secretly lowered the scaffolding so it washed away at the next flood, and proved the strength of his design.

Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed (1844). Image credit: Public Domain.

Turner took great interest in these events. Like many Victorians, he was thrilled by the potential of modern technology. In his painting, the speed of the locomotive bursting through the rain is accentuated by visual trickery, as the viaduct has exaggeratedly abrupt foreshortening.

Turner’s intensity of light placed him in the vanguard of English painting, and had a profound effect on French Impressionists – Monet carefully studied his work. However, it had not always been appreciated.

In earlier years, The Royal Academy President, Benjamin West, denounced it as ‘crude blotches’, and he was tarnished as a ‘white painter’ because of the use of luminous, pale tones.

A troubled artist

Throughout his life, Turner was an introspective and troubled character. As a young adult he was briefly admitted to St Luke’s Hospital for Lunaticks in Old Street in 1799 and then Bethlem Hospital in 1800.

At the Royal Academy , he seemed to be a mixed blessing, as he was often reported to be pushy and aggressively rude. Joseph Farrington, who supported Turner’s election as an Academician, described him as ‘confident, presumptuous – with talent’, but later regarded him to be troubled by ‘puzzled incomprehension’.

As he grew older, he became increasingly reclusive, eccentric and pessimistic – and his art grew wilder and more intense. His father’s death provoked bouts of depression and poor health, and his gallery fell into disrepair.

He never married, although he bore two daughters by his housekeeper: Eveline and Georgiana.

He died of cholera in 1851 and is buried near Sir Joshua Reynolds in St Paul’s Cathedral .

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J.m.w. turner: sketchbooks, drawings and watercolours, joseph mallord william turner 1775–1851.

David Blayney Brown December 2012

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851’, artist biography, December 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours , Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www .tate .org .uk /art /research -publications /jmw -turner /joseph -mallord -william -turner -1775 -1851 -r1141041, accessed 28 September 2024.