Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA, 1775-1851
Turner was an English Romantic landscape painter and water-colourist. He is famous for his oil paintings and also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour and landscape painting. He is commonly known as “the painter of light” and his work is sometimes seen as a Romantic forerunner of Impressionism and even abstract art.
Turner’s imagination was stirred by shipwrecks, fires (such as the Burning of Parliament in 1834, an event which Turner rushed to witness first-hand), natural catastrophes and other natural phenomena such as storm, rain, fog and especially sunlight and effects of light. He was fascinated by the sea, as seen in Dawn after the Wreck (1840) and “The Slave Ship” (1840).
In his 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 also on the Impressionists who in some cases carefully studied his techniques.
A very brief history of the Life of JMW Turner
On the 23 April, 1775 Joseph Mallord William Turner was born, at 21 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London. In 1786 he stayed in Margate, where his earliest drawings were made.
In 1789 he stayed with an uncle at Sunningwell near Oxford. He was employed as a draughtsman by the architect Thomas Hardwick and later by the artist Thomas Malton whom he considered his real master influence and teacher. In December of that year he enterered the Royal Academy Schools.
1790 Turner exhibited first watercolour at the Royal Academy. He exhibited 2 more the following year. Later he joined a lif class there, exhibited more watercolours; in 1793 he was awarded Greater Silver Palette by the Royal Society of Arts for a landscape drawing.
Turner was influenced at this time by visits to Margate and also Oxford. He also visited Hereford and Tintern, then Kent and Sussex. In the next few years, many more watercolourswere painted and exhibited, of landscapes and building.
In 1796 he exhibited first oil painting along with several watercolours at the Royal Academy. Later that year he visited Brighton. In the following years he exhibited both oils and watercolours, the watercolours in greater quantity.
In February 1802 he was elected to the Royal Academy. From this date onwards he tended to produce a greater number of oil paintings than water colours.
18 April he opened his own gallery, Turner’s Gallery, on the corner of Harley Street and Queen Anne Street, showing oils and watercolours.
1811 Turner gave a lecture on Perspective and proposed a Chair of Landscape at the Academy.
In August 1819 Turner visited Italy for 6 months. In 1821 he visited France. In 18322 King George IV commissioned a large picture of the Battle of Trafagar.
The Fighting Temeraire, RMW Turner, voted the “greatest painting in Britain” in a 2005
In 1833 Turner made an extensive Continental tour including Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna and Venice. The next year his friend Mrs Booth was widowed and Turner saw the warship Temeraire on her way to being broken up.
1840 Turner travelled via Rotterdam and the Rhine to Venice and returns through Munich and Coburg. In 1841 in August–September he toured Switzerland, stayed at Lucerne and again in 1842 and 1843. By 1845 Turner had become friendly with John Ruskin. In 1846 he moved to Chelsea with Mrs Booth. His health began to fail.
1851 on the 19 October: 10 a.m. Turner died at his house at Davis Place, Chelsea. On the 30 of December he was buried in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.
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