Portal:J. M. W. Turner
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Introduction
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known as J. M. W. Turner and contemporarily as William Turner,[a] was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist, known for his expressive colourisation, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower middle-class family. He lived in London all his life, retaining his Cockney accent and 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 21. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which due to his troubled, contrary nature, were often begrudgingly accepted. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the Academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828, although he was viewed as profoundly inarticulate. He traveled to 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, Eveline (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father, after which his outlook deteriorated, and his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. He lived in near poverty circumstances and in poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged seventy-six. Turner is buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London.
Selected general articles
- Mr. Turner is a 2014 biographical drama film based around the last twenty-five years of the life and career of painter J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). Written and directed by Mike Leigh, the film stars Timothy Spall in the title role with Dorothy Atkinson, Paul Jesson, Marion Bailey, Lesley Manville, and Martin Savage. It premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, where Spall won the award for Best Actor and cinematographer Dick Pope received a special jury prize for the film's cinematography.
The film was critically acclaimed and received four nominations each at the 87th Academy Awards and 68th British Academy Film Awards. Read more...
The Beacon Light is a painting by J. M. W. Turner. It was given to the National Museum of Wales by the Davies sisters (Gwendoline and Margaret). For some time it was regarded as a fake, but is now accepted as authentic. Read more...
Dido building Carthage, or The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire is an oil on canvas painting by J. M. W. Turner. The painting is one of Turner's most important works, greatly influenced by the luminous classical landscapes of Claude Lorraine. Turner described it as his chef d'oeuvre. First exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1815, Turner kept the painting until he left it to the nation in the Turner Bequest. It has been held by the National Gallery in London since 1856.
The subject is a classical landscape taken from Virgil's Aeneid. The figure in blue and white on the left is Dido, directing the builders of the new city of Carthage. The figure in front of her, wearing armour and facing away from the viewer, may be her Trojan lover Aeneas. Some children are playing with a flimsy toy boat in the water, symbolising the growing but fragile naval power of Carthage, while the tomb of her dead husband Sychaeus, on the right side of the painting, on the other bank of the estuary, foreshadows the eventual doom of Carthage. Read more...
Sandycombe Lodge is a Grade II* listed house at 40 Sandycoombe Road, Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. In the picturesque-cottage style, it was designed and built in 1813 by the artist J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) as his country retreat and as a home for his father William (1745–1829). Turner lived there from 1814 to 1826. Originally known as Solus Lodge, it is the only surviving building designed by Turner, and shows the influence of his friend Sir John Soane. The appearance of the house had been much altered by the addition of second floors to the original side wings.
When it was built, Twickenham was rural, as can be seen in the engraving Sandycombe Lodge, Twickenham, Villa of J. M. W. Turner (1814) that was engraved by W. B. Cooke after William Havell and is now held at Tate Britain. Read more...
The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805 is an 1822 painting by British artist J. M. W. Turner. It was commissioned by King George IV as a part of a series of works to decorate three state reception rooms in St James's Palace and link the Hanoverian dynasty with military success. This work was Turner's only royal commission, and was to stand as the pendant piece to Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg's Lord Howe's action, or the Glorious First of June.
This massive history painting measures 2,615 millimetres (8 ft 6 15⁄16 in) x 3,685 millimetres (12 ft 1 1⁄16 in) and was given to Greenwich Hospital shortly after its original installation. The painting now hangs in the National Maritime Museum, also in Greenwich, London. Read more...
Rome, From Mount Aventine is an 1835 painting by J M W Turner, based on drawings made by him in the city in 1828. It shows a view of the city of Rome from the Aventine Hill.
It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836, where it was described by the Morning Post as "one of those amazing pictures by which Mr Turner dazzles the imagination and confounds all criticism: it is beyond praise”. Read more...
Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino is a landscape by British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner completed in 1839. It is Turner's final painting of Rome and had been in the possession of the family of the 5th Earl of Rosebery since 1878, until the painting came to auction, 7 July 2010. It was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and was subject to an export bar to allow a British gallery time to attempt to match the Getty's bid. Read more...
The Fifth Plague of Egypt is an oil painting by Romantic English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner currently in the permanent collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Despite its title, it depicts Moses cursing the Egyptians with a plague of hail and fire, known as the seventh plague. Read more...
The Slave Ship, originally titled Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on, is a painting by the British artist J. M. W. Turner, first exhibited in 1840. Measuring 35 3/4 x 48 1/4 in. in oil on canvas, it is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In this classic example of a Romantic maritime painting, Turner depicts a ship, visible in the background, sailing through a tumultuous sea of churning water and leaving scattered human forms floating in its wake. Read more...
Snow Storm, or Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth, (full title: Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead. The Author was in this Storm on the Night the "Ariel" left Harwich) is a painting by English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) from 1842.
Though panned by many contemporary critics, critic John Ruskin commented in 1843 that it was "one of the very grandest statements of sea-motion, mist and light, that has ever been put on canvas". Read more...
Turner Contemporary is an art gallery in Margate, Kent, England, intended as a contemporary arts space and catalyst for the regeneration of the town. The title commemorates the association of the town with noted landscape painter J. M. W. Turner, who went to school there, and visited throughout his life.
The original designs by Norwegian architects Snøhetta would have made the gallery part of the harbour itself. Some critics, however, questioned the prudence of placing part of Britain's national art treasures in a spot that is exposed to the full fury of the North Sea. The costs of the original design, and controversy over the decision to change its structure from concrete to steel, have led to a legal battle, in an attempt to recover some of the costs. It was later moved to a plot of land adjacent to the harbour, on the site of a boarding house where Turner once stayed. Read more...
Port Ruysdael is an 1826 oil on canvas painting by the English painter J. M. W. Turner. It is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven.
Turner painted this as a tribute to Dutch Golden Age painter Jacob van Ruisdael. There is no port by the name of Port Ruysdael. In 1844 he painted another tribute to Ruisdael, named Fishing Boats bringing a Disabled Ship into Port Ruysdael which is at the Tate Gallery in London. Read more...
The Dort, or Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort packet-boat from Rotterdam becalmed is an 1818 painting by J M W Turner, based on drawings made by him in mid September 1817. It shows a view of the harbour of Dordrecht. It is the finest example of the influence of Dutch marine painting on Turner's work.
It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1818, where it was described by The Morning Chronicle as "one of the most magnificent pictures ever exhibited, and does honour to the age". In 1832, John Constable wrote of the picture, "I remember most of Turner's early works; amongst them one of singular intricacy and beauty; it was a canal with numerous boats making thousands of beautiful shapes, and I think the most complete work of a genius I ever saw". Read more...- Thomas Price Turner (c. 1790–1868) was a British musician, and was one of the artist J. M. W. Turner's first cousins. Following the artist's death in 1851, Thomas Price Turner was one of a group of interested parties who contested J. M. W. Turner's will. The first cousins were awarded part of J. M. W. Turner's legacy in 1856.
Turner was a professor of music in Exeter and was a secondary at Exeter Cathedral from 1820 until 1857. He had his own band. He sang in the 1834 Handel Commemoration in London, as J.M.W.Turner noted on looking at the programme. Two years later Turner's daughter Maria Harriet married a London builder and surveyor, whom she later deserted for another husband. Read more...
Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus is an 1829 oil painting by Joseph Mallord William Turner. It depicts a scene from Homer's Odyssey, showing Odysseus (Ulysses) standing on his ship deriding Polyphemus, one of the cyclopes he encounters and has recently blinded, who is disguised behind one of the mountains on the left side. Additional details include the Trojan Horse, a scene from Virgil's Aeneid, on one of the flags and the horses of Apollo rising above the horizon. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1829. Acquired by the National Gallery in 1856, the painting is on display in room 34. Read more...- War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet is an oil painting of 1842 by the English Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner (1775 - 1851). Intended to be a companion piece to Turner's Peace. Burial at Sea, War is a painting that depicts a moment from Napoleon Bonaparte's exile at Saint Helena. In December 1815, the former Emperor was taken by the British government to the Longwood House, despite its state of disrepair, to live in captivity; during his final years of isolation, Napoleon had fallen into despair. Turner's decision to pair the painting with Peace was heavily criticized when it was first exhibited but it is also seen as predecessor to his more famous piece Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844). Read more...
The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838 is an oil painting by the English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. It was painted in 1838 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839. The 98-gun ship HMS Temeraire was one of the last second-rate ships of the line to have played a distinguished role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The painting depicts HMS Temeraire being towed by a paddle-wheel steam tug towards its final berth in Rotherhithe in south-east London in 1838 to be broken up for scrap. The painting hangs in the National Gallery, London, having been bequeathed to the nation by the artist in 1851. In 2005 it was voted the nation's favourite painting in a poll organised by BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Read more...
Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway is an oil painting by the 19th-century British painter J. M. W. Turner.
The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844, though it may have been painted earlier. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery, London. Read more...
The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons is the title of two oil on canvas paintings by J. M. W. Turner, depicting the fire that broke out at the Houses of Parliament on the evening of 16 October 1834.
Along with thousands of other spectators, Turner himself witnessed the Burning of Parliament from the south bank of the River Thames, opposite Westminster. He made sketches using both pencil and watercolour in two sketchbooks from different vantage points, including from a rented boat, although it is unclear that the sketches were made instantly, en plein air. The sketchbooks were left by Turner to the National Gallery as part of the Turner Bequest and are now held by the Tate Gallery. Some other sketches in Turner's sketchbooks, previously thought to also show the Burning of Parliament, have been reassessed and may be sketches of the fire that destroyed the Grand Storehouse at the Tower of London on 30 October 1841. Read more...
Tate Britain: usual venue for the awarding of the Turner Prize.
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and usually staged at Tate Britain, though in recent years the award ceremony has sometimes been held in other UK cities. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the UK's most publicised art award. The award represents all media.
As of 2004, the monetary award was established at £40,000. There have been different sponsors, including Channel 4 television and Gordon's Gin. A prominent event in British culture, the prize has been awarded by various distinguished celebrities: in 2006 this was Yoko Ono, and in 2012 it was presented by Jude Law. Read more...
Fishermen at Sea, 1796, the first oil painting by J. M. W. Turner to be exhibited at the Royal Academy, in 1796
Fishermen at Sea, sometimes known as the Cholmeley Sea Piece, is an early oil painting by English artist J. M. W. Turner. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1796, and has been owned by the Tate Gallery since 1972.
The painting measures 36 by 48.125 inches (91.44 cm × 122.24 cm). It depicts a moonlit view of fishermen on rough seas near the Needles, off the Isle of Wight. It juxtaposes the fragility of human life, represented by the small boat with its flickering lamp, and the sublime power of nature, represented by the dark clouded sky, the wide sea, and the threatening rocks in the background. The cold light of the Moon at night contrasts with the warmer glow of the fishermen's lantern. Years later, Turner made a similar sketch, Moonlight at Sea (The Needles), c.1818, as an example of marine art for his Liber Studiorum. Read more...
The Fountain of Indolence is an oil painting by the English artist J. M. W. Turner. First exhibited in 1834, it is now in the collection of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Read more...
The Blue Rigi, 29.7 × 45 centimetres (11.7 × 17.7 in), 1842, Tate Gallery
In 1842, British artist J. M. W. Turner painted three watercolours of the Rigi, a mountain in the Alps in Central Switzerland, which he had visited the previous summer. Widely regarded as some of his finest works, the watercolours capture the transitory effects of light and atmospheric conditions at the Rigi. According to John Ruskin, "Turner had never made any drawings [watercolours] like these before, and never made any like them again ... He is not showing his hand in these, but his heart."
The Blue Rigi, Sunrise, better known simply as The Blue Rigi, was acquired in 2007 by the Tate Gallery in Britain for £4.95m, matching the price achieved at auction in 2006, then the largest sum paid by the Tate for a single artwork. The Red Rigi is held by Australia's National Gallery of Victoria and shows the mountain blushed by the evening sun. The Dark Rigi is held in a private collection. Many preparatory sketches are held by the Tate as part of the Turner Bequest. Read more...
Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) – The Morning after the Deluge – Moses Writing the Book of Genesis is an oil painting by the English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (c.1775–1851), first exhibited in 1843. Read more...
The Blue Rigi, 29.7 × 45 centimetres (11.7 × 17.7 in), 1842, Tate Gallery
In 1842, British artist J. M. W. Turner painted three watercolours of the Rigi, a mountain in the Alps in Central Switzerland, which he had visited the previous summer. Widely regarded as some of his finest works, the watercolours capture the transitory effects of light and atmospheric conditions at the Rigi. According to John Ruskin, "Turner had never made any drawings [watercolours] like these before, and never made any like them again ... He is not showing his hand in these, but his heart."
The Blue Rigi, Sunrise, better known simply as The Blue Rigi, was acquired in 2007 by the Tate Gallery in Britain for £4.95m, matching the price achieved at auction in 2006, then the largest sum paid by the Tate for a single artwork. The Red Rigi is held by Australia's National Gallery of Victoria and shows the mountain blushed by the evening sun. The Dark Rigi is held in a private collection. Many preparatory sketches are held by the Tate as part of the Turner Bequest. Read more...
J.M.W. Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, 1812.
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps is an oil on canvas painting by J. M. W. Turner, first exhibited in 1812. Left to the nation in the Turner Bequest, it was acquired by the National Gallery in London in 1856, and is now held by the Tate Gallery.
The painting depicts the struggle of Hannibal's soldiers to cross the Maritime Alps in 218BC, opposed by the forces of nature and local tribes. A curving black storm cloud dominates the sky, poised to descend on the soldiers in the valley below, with an orange-yellow sun attempting to break through the clouds. A white avalanche cascades down the mountain to the right. Hannibal himself is not clearly depicted, but may be riding the elephant just visible in the distance. The large animal is dwarfed by the storm and the landscape, with the sunlit plains of Italy opening up beyond. In the foreground, Salassian tribesmen are fighting Hannibal's rearguard, confrontations that are described in the histories of Polybius and Livy. The painting measures 146 × 237.5 centimetres (57.5 × 93.5 in). It contains the first appearance in Turner's work of a swirling oval vortex of wind, rain and cloud, a dynamic composition of contrasting light and dark that will recur in later works, such as his 1842 painting Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth. Read more...
Sunrise with Sea Monsters is an unfinished oil painting by English artist J. M. W. Turner.
It is in the permanent collection of Tate Britain. Read more...
The frontispiece
Liber Studiorum (Latin: Book of Studies) is a collection of prints by J. M. W. Turner. The collected works included seventy-one prints that he worked on and printed from 1807 to 1819. For the production of the prints, Turner created the etchings for the prints, which were worked in mezzotint by his collaborating engravers.
The original models for the printmakers to follow were mainly in sepia watercolour, sometimes with elements in pencil and other media, and are now in Tate Britain as part of the Turner Bequest. Altogether there are over 100 paintings relating to the series, included some not published in the end. There are also numerous less formal drawings and watercolour studies in the Tate of the same subjects made by Turner on the spot or later. Read more...
Did you know...
- ... that from 2020, the Bank of England £20 note will feature J. M. W. Turner and his painting The Fighting Temeraire?
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Selected images
The house in Maiden Lane where Turner was born, c.1850s
One of Turner's most successful "house portraits": Raby Castle, the Seat of the Earl of Darlington. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Whalers, 1845, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Fishermen at Sea, exhibited in 1796 was the first oil painting exhibited by Turner at the Royal Academy.
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