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TURNER, JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM (1775–...

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Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 479 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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See also:

TURNER, See also:JOSEPH MALLORD See also:WILLIAM (1775–1851) , See also:English painter, was See also:born in See also:London on the 23rd of See also:April 1775. His See also:father, William Turner, a native of See also:Devonshire, kept a See also:barber's See also:shop at 26 See also:Maiden See also:Lane, in the See also:parish of St See also:Paul's, Covent See also:Garden. Of the painter's See also:mother, See also:Mary See also:Marshall or Turner, little is known; she is said to have been a See also:person of ungovernable See also:temper and towards the end of her See also:life became insane. Apparently the See also:home in which Turner spent his See also:child-See also:hood was not a happy one, and this may See also:account for much that was unsociable and See also:eccentric in his See also:character. The earliest known See also:drawing by Turner, a view of See also:Margate See also:Church, See also:dates from his ninth See also:year. It was also about this See also:time that he was sent to his first school at New See also:Brentford. Of See also:education, as the See also:term is generally understood, he received but little. His father taught him to read, and this and a few months at New Brentford and afterwards at Margate were all the schooling he ever had; he never mastered his native See also:tongue, nor was he able in after life to learn any See also:foreign See also:language. Notwithstanding this lack of scholarship, one of his strongest characteristics was a See also:taste for associating his See also:works with personages and places of legendary and See also:historical See also:interest, and certain stories of antiquity seem to have taken See also:root in his mind very strongly. By the time Turner had completed his thirteenth year his schooldays were over and his choice of an artist's career settled. In 1788–1789 he was receiving lessons from Palice, " a floral drawing See also:master; " from T. See also:Malton, a See also:perspective draughtsman; and from Hardwick, an architect.

He also attended Paul See also:

Sandby's drawing school in St See also:Martin's Lane. See also:Part of his time was employed in making drawings at home, which he exhibited for See also:sale in his father's shop window, two or three shillings being the usual See also:price. He coloured prints for engravers, washed in backgrounds for architects, went out sketching with See also:Girtin, and made drawings in the evenings for Dr See also:Munro " for See also:half a See also:crown and his supper." When pitied in after life for the See also:miscellaneous character of his See also:early See also:work, his reply was " Well! and what could be better practice? " In 1789 Turner became a student of the Royal See also:Academy. He also worked for a See also:short time in the See also:house of See also:Sir See also:Joshua See also:Reynolds, with the See also:idea, apparently, of becoming a portrait painter; but, the See also:death of Reynolds occurring shortly afterwards, this intention was abandoned. In 1790 Turner's name appears for the first time in the See also:catalogue of the Royal Academy, the See also:title of his solitary contribution being " View of the See also:Archbishop's See also:Palace, See also:Lambeth." About 1792 he received a See also:commission from See also:Walker, the engraver, to make drawings for his See also:Copper-See also:Plate See also:Magazine, and this topographical work took him to many interesting places. The natural vigour of his constitution enabled him to See also:cover much of the ground on See also:foot. He could walk from 20 to 25 M. a See also:day with ease, his baggage at the end of a stick, making notes and memoranda as he went. He See also:rose early, worked hard all day, wasted no time over his See also:simple meals, and his homely way of living made him easily contented with such See also:rude See also:accommodation as he chanced to find on the road. A year or two after he accepted a similar commission to make drawings for the See also:Pocket Magazine, and before his twentieth year he had travelled over many parts of See also:England and See also:Wales. None of these magazine drawings is remarkable for originality of treatment or for See also:artistic feeling. Up to this time Turner had worked in the back See also:room above his father's shop.

His love of secretiveness and solitude had already begun to show itself. An architect who often employed him to put in backgrounds to his drawings says, " he would never suffer me to see him draw, but concealed all that he did in his bedroom." On another occasion, a visitor entering unannounced, Turner instantly covered up his drawings, and, in reply to the intimation, " I've come to see the drawings for—," the See also:

answer was, " You shan't see 'em, and mind that next time you come through the shop, and not up the back way." Probably the increase in the number of his engagements induced Turner about this time to set up a studio for himself in See also:Hand See also:Court, not far from his father's shop, and there he continued to work till he was elected an See also:associate of the Royal Academy (1799). Until 1792 Turner's practice had been almost exclusively confined to See also:water See also:colours, and his early works show how much he was indebted to some of his contemporaries. There are few of any See also:note whose See also:style he did not copy or adopt. His first exhibited oil picture appeared in the Academy in 1793. In 1794–1795 See also:Canterbury See also:Cathedral, See also:Malvern See also:Abbey, Tintern Abbey, See also:Lincoln and See also:Peterborough Cathedrals, See also:Shrewsbury, and See also:King's See also:College See also:Chapel, See also:Cambridge, were among the subjects exhibited, and during the next four years he contributed no less than See also:thirty-nine works to the Academy. In the catalogue of 1798 he first began to add poetic quotations to the titles of his pictures; one of the very first of these—a passage from See also:Milton's See also:Paradise Lost —is in some respects curiously prophetic of one of the future characteristics of his See also:art: " Ye mists and exhalations that now rise From See also:hill or steaming See also:lake, dusky or See also:grey Till the See also:sun paints your fleecy skirts with See also:gold, In See also:honour of the See also:world's See also:great author rise." This and several other quotations in the following years show that Turner's mind was now occupied with something more than the merely topographical See also:element of landscape, Milton's Paradise Lost and See also:Thomson's Seasons being laid under frequent contribution for descriptions of sunrise, sunset, See also:twilight or See also:thunder-See also:storm. Turner's first visit to See also:Yorkshire took See also:place in 1797. It seems to have braced his See also:powers and possibly helped to See also:change the student into the painter. Until then his work had shown very little of the artist in the higher sense of the term: he was little more than a painstaking and tolerably accurate topographer; buteven under these conditions he had begun to attract the See also:notice of his See also:brother artists and of the critics. England was, at the time, at a See also:low point both in literature and art. Among the artists De Loutherbourg and See also:Morland were almost the only men of note See also:left.

See also:

Hogarth, See also:Wilson, See also:Gainsborough and Reynolds had passed away. See also:Beechey, See also:Bourgeois, Garvey, Farington—names well-nigh forgotten now—were the Academicians who painted landscape. The only formidable rivals Turner had to contend with were De Loutherbourg and Girtin, and after the death of the latter in 1802 he was left undisputed master of the See also:field. It is not, therefore, surprising that the See also:exhibition of his works in 1798 was followed by his See also:election to the associateship of the Royal Academy. That he should have attained to this position before completing his twenty-See also:fourth year says much for the See also:wisdom and discernment of that See also:body, which further showed its recognition of his See also:talent by electing him an Academician four years later. Turner owed much to the Academy. See also:Ruskin says, " It taught him nothing." Possibly it had little to See also:teach that he had not already been able to learn for himself; at all events it was See also:quick to see his See also:genius and to confer its honours, and Turner, naturally generous and grateful, never forgot this. He enjoyed the dignity of Academician for nearly half a See also:century, and during nearly the whole of that See also:period he took an active See also:share in the direction of the Academy's affairs. His speeches are described as " confused, tedious, obscure, and extremely difficult to follow "; but at See also:council meetings he was ever anxious to allay anger and See also:bitter controversy. His opinions on art were always listened to with respect; but on matters of business it was often difficult to know what he meant. His friend See also:Chantrey used to say, " He has great thoughts, if only he could See also:express them." When appointed See also:professor of perspective to the Royal Academy in 1808, this painful lack of expression stood greatly in the way of his usefulness. Ruskin says, " The zealous care with which Turner endeavoured to do his See also:duty is proved by a See also:series of large drawings, exquisitely tinted, and often completely coloured, all by his own hand, of the most difficult perspective subjects, illustrating not only directions of See also:line, but effects of See also:light, with a care and completion which would put the work of any See also:ordinary teacher to utter shame." In teaching he would neither See also:waste time nor spare it With his election to the associateship of the Academy in 1799 Turner's early struggles may be considered to have ended.

He had emancipated himself from hack work, had given up making topographical drawings of castles and abbeys for the engravers—drawings in which See also:

mere See also:local fidelity was the See also:principal See also:object—and had taken to composing as he See also:drew. Local facts had become of secondary importance compared with effects of light and See also:colour. He had reached manhood, and with it he abandoned topographical fidelity and began to paint his dreams, the visionary See also:faculty—the true See also:foundation of his art—asserting itself, nature being used to See also:supply suggestions and materials. His pictures of 1797–1799 had shown that he was a painter of no ordinary See also:power, one having much of the poet in him, and able to give expression to the See also:mystery, beauty and inexhaustible fullness of nature. His work at this period is described by Ruskin as " stern in manner, reserved, quiet, See also:grave in colour, forceful in hand." Turner's visit to Yorkshire in 1797 was followed a year or two later by a second, and it was on this occasion that he made the acquaintance, which afterwards ripened into a See also:long and staunch friendship, of See also:Fawkes of Farnley See also:Hall. From 1803 till 1820 Turner was a frequent visitor at Farnley. The large number of his drawings still preserved there—English, Swiss, See also:German and See also:Italian, the studies of rooms, outhouses, porches, gateways, of birds shot while he was there, and of old places in the neighbourhood—prove the frequency of his visits and his See also:affection for the place and for its hospitable master. A See also:caricature, made by Fawkes, and " thought by old See also:friends to be very like," shows Turner as " a little Jewish-nosed See also:man, in an See also:ill-cut See also:brown tail-coat, striped waistcoat, and enormous frilled See also:shirt, with feet and hands notably small, sketching on a small piece of See also:paper, held down almost level with his See also:waist." It is evident from all the accounts given that Turner's See also:personal See also:appearance was not of a See also:kind to command much See also:attention or respect. This may have pained his sensitive nature, and led him to seek See also:refuge in the solitude of his See also:painting room. Had he been inclined he had abundant opportunity for social and friendly intercourse with his See also:fellow men, but he gradually came to live more and more in a See also:state of See also:mental See also:isolation. Turner could never make up his mind to visit Farnley again after his old friend's death, and his See also:voice would falter when he spoke of the shores of the Wharfe. Turner visited See also:Scotland in 1800, and in 1801 or 1802 he made his first tour on the See also:Continent.

In the following year, of the seven pictures he exhibited, six were of foreign subjects, among them " See also:

Bonneville," " The Festival upon the Opening of the Vintage of See also:Macon," and the well-known " See also:Calais See also:Pier " in the See also:National See also:Gallery. The last-named picture, although heavily painted and somewhat opaque in colour, is magnificently composed and full of See also:energy. In 1802, the year in which Turner became a Royal Academician, he took his father, who still carried on the barber business in Maiden Lane, to live with him. The old man lived in his son's house for nearly thirty years, making himself useful in various ways. It is said that he used to prepare and See also:strain his son's canvases and See also:varnish them when finished, which may explain a saying of Turner's that " his father used to begin and finish his pictures for him." He also attended to the gallery in See also:Queen See also:Anne See also:Street, showed in visitors, and took care of the See also:dinner, if he did not himself See also:cook it. Turner was never the same man after his father's death in 1830, living a life of almost See also:complete isolation. In 1804 Turner made a second tour on the Continent, and in the following year painted the " Shipwreck " and " Fishing Boats in a See also:Squall " (in the See also:Ellesmere collection), seemingly in See also:direct rivalry of Vandervelde, in 18o6 the " Goddess of Discord in the Garden of the See also:Hesperides " (in rivalry of Poussin), and in 1807 the " Sun rising through Vapour " (in rivalry of See also:Claude).' The last two are notable works, especially the " Sun." In after years it was one of the works he left to the nation, on the See also:special See also:condition of its being hung beside the Claudes in the National Gallery. In this same year (1807) Turner commenced his most serious rivalry. Possibly it arose out of a See also:desire to break down Claude See also:worship—the then prevailing See also:fashion—and to show the public that there was a living artist not unworthy of taking See also:rank beside him. That the See also:Liber studiorum was suggested by the Liber veritatis of Claude, and was intended as a direct See also:challenge to that master, is beyond doubt. There is, however, a certain degree of unfairness to Claude in the way in which the challenge was given. Claude made drawings in brown of his pictures as they left the easel, not for publication, but merely to serve as private memoranda.

Turner's Liber drawings had no such purpose, but were intended as a direct See also:

appeal to the public to See also:judge between the two artists. The first of the Liber drawings was made in the autumn of 1806, the others at intervals till about 1815. They are of the same See also:size as the plates and carefully finished in See also:sepia. He left over fifty of these to the National Gallery. The issue of the Liber began in 1807 and continued at irregular intervals till 18 r9, when it stopped at the fourteenth number. Turner had resolved to See also:manage the See also:publishing business himself, but in this he was not very successful. He soon quarrelled with his engraver, F. C. See also:Lewis, on the ground that he had raised his charges from five guineas a plate to eight. He then employed See also:Charles Turner, who agreed to do fifty plates at the latter sum, but, after See also:finishing twenty, he too wished to raise his price, and, as a See also:matter of course, this led to another See also:quarrel. Reynolds, Dunkarton, Lupton, Say, Dawe and other engravers were afterwards employed—Turner himself See also:etching ' This spirit of rivalry showed itself early in his career. He began by pitting himself against his contemporaries, and afterwards, when his powers were more fully See also:developed, against some of the old masters, notably Vandervelde and Claude.

During these years, while he kept up a See also:

constant rivalry with artists living and dead, he was continuing his study of nature, and, while seemingly a mere follower of the ancients, was accumulating that See also:store of knowledge which in after years he was to use to such purpose. J. M. W. and mezzotinting some of the plates. Each part of the Liber contained five plates, the subjects, divided into " historical," " See also:pastoral," '` marine," &c:, embracing the whole range of landscape art. Seventy-one plates in all were published (including one as a See also:gift of the artist to his subscribers); ten other plates—more or less completed—intended for the fifteenth and sixteenth See also:numbers were never published, the work being stopped for want of encouragement. See also:Absence of method and business habits may account for this. Turner is said to have got up the numbers in his own house with the help of a See also:female servant. The plates, which cost the subscribers only five shillings apiece, were so little esteemed that in the early See also:quarter of the 19th century they were sometimes used for See also:lighting fires. So much has fashion, or public taste, changed since then that a See also:fine See also:proof of a single plate has sold for £210. The merit of the plates is unequal; some—for example, " Solway See also:Moss," " Inverary Pier," " See also:Hind See also:Head Hill," " See also:Ben See also:Arthur," " Rizpah," " Junction of the See also:Severn and Wye " and " See also:Peat See also:Bog "—are of great beauty, while a few are comparatively tame and uninteresting.

Among the unpublished plates " See also:

Stonehenge at Daybreak," " The See also:Stork and See also:Aqueduct," " The Via See also:Mala," " Crowhurst," and " Moonlight off the Needles " take a high place. The Liber shows strong traces of the See also:influence of Cozens and Girtin, and, as a matter of course, of Claude. In most of the designs the predominant feeling is serious; in not a few, gloomy, or even tragic. A See also:good See also:deal has been written about Turner's intention, and the " lessons " of the Liber studiorum. Probably his only intention in the beginning was to show what he could do, to display his art, to See also:rival Claude, perhaps to educate public taste, and at the same time make See also:money. If lessons were intended they might have been better conveyed by words. " Silent always with a bitter silence, disdaining to tell his meaning "—such is Ruskin's explanation; but surely Turner had little See also:reason for either silence or contempt because the public failed to see in landscape art the means of teaching it great moral lessons. The plates of the Liber contain an almost complete See also:epitome of Turner's art. It is sup-posed that his See also:original intention had been that the Liber should consist of one See also:hundred plates, and drawings for that number exist, but there was no public demand for them. Already in this work are seen strong indications of one of his most remarkable characteristics—a knowledge of the principles of structure in natural See also:objects; mountains and rocks are See also:drawn, not with topographical accuracy, but with what appears like an intuitive feeling for See also:geological formation; and trees have also the same expression of life and growth in the drawing of stems and branches. This instinctive feeling in Turner for the principles of organic structure is treated of at considerable length in the fourth See also:volume of See also:Modern Painters, and Turner is there contrasted with Claude, Poussin, and some of the Dutch masters, greatly to their disadvantage. After 1797 Turner was little concerned with mere topographical facts: his pictures might be like the places represented or not; much depended on the mental impression produced by the See also:scene.

He preferred to deal with the spirit, rather than with the local details of places. A curious example of the reasonableness accompanying his exercise of the imaginative faculty is to be found in his creations of creatures he had never seen, as, for example, the See also:

dragon 2 in the " Garden of the Hesperides " and the See also:python in the " See also:Apollo," exhibited in 1811. Both these monsters are imagined with such vividness and reality, and the sense of power and See also:movement is so completely expressed, that the spectator never once thinks of them as otherwise than representations of actual facts in natural See also:history. It needs but a little comparison to discover how far Turner surpassed all his See also:con-temporaries, as well as all who preceded him, in these respects. The imaginative faculty he possessed was of the highest See also:order, and it was further aided by a memory of the most retentive 2 " The See also:strange unity of vertebrated See also:action and of a true bony See also:contour, infinitely varied in every vertebra, with this glacial outline, together with the See also:adoption of the head of the See also:Ganges See also:crocodile, the See also:fish-eater, to show his See also:sea descent (and this in the year 1806, when hardly a single fossil saurian See also:skeleton existed within Turner's reach), renders the whole conception one of the most curious exertions of the imaginative See also:intellect with which I am acquainted in the arts " (Ruskin, Mod. Painters, v. 313). and unerring kind. A good See also:illustration of this may be seen at Farnley Hall in a drawing of a " Man-of-See also:War taking in Stores." Some one, who had never seen a first-See also:rate, expressed a wish to know what it looked like. Turner took a See also:blank See also:sheet of paper one See also:morning after breakfast, outlined the See also:ship, and finished the drawing in three See also:hours, See also:young Fawkes, a son of the house, sitting beside him from the first stroke to the last. The size of this drawing is about 16 in. by 11 in. Ruskin thus describes it: " The See also:hull of a first-rate occupies nearly one half of the picture to the right, her bows toward the spectator, seen in See also:sharp perspective from See also:stem to stern, with all her See also:port-holes, guns, anchors and See also:lower See also:rigging elaborately detailed, two other See also:ships of the line in the See also:middle distance drawn with equal precision, a See also:noble breezy sea, full of delicate drawing in its waves, a store ship beneath the hull of the larger See also:vessel and several other boats, and a complicated cloudy See also:sky, all drawn from memory, down to the smallest rope, in a drawing-room of a See also:mansion in the middle of Yorkshire." About the year 1811 Turner paid his first visit to Devonshire, the See also:county to which his See also:family belonged, and a curious glimpse of his simple manner of life is given by Redding, who accompanied him on some of his excursions.

On one occasion they spent a See also:

night together in a small road-See also:side See also:inn, Turner having a great desire to see the See also:country around at sunrise. " Turner was content with See also:bread and See also:cheese and See also:beer, tolerably good, for dinner and supper in one. In the little sanded room we conversed by the light of an attenuated See also:candle and some aid from the See also:moon until nearly midnight, when Turner laid his head upon the table and was soon fast asleep. Three or four hours' See also:rest was thus obtained, and we went out as soon as the sun was up to explore the surrounding neighbourhood. It was in that early morning Turner made a See also:sketch of the picture ' See also:Crossing the See also:Brook.' " In another excursion to See also:Borough See also:Island, " the morning was squally and the sea rolled boisterously into the See also:Sound. Off Stakes Point it became stormy; our Dutch See also:boat rode bravely over the furrows. Two of the party were ill. Turner was all the while quiet, watching the troubled scene. See also:Bolt Head, to seaward, against which the waves See also:broke with fury, seemed to absorb his entire notice, and he scarcely spoke a syllable. While the fish were getting ready Turner mounted nearly to the highest point of the island See also:rock, and seemed See also:writing rather than drawing. The See also:wind was almost too violent for either purpose." This and similar incidents show how careless of comfort Turner `was, and how devoted to his art. The tumult and discomfort by which he was surrounded could not distract his powers of observation; and some thirty years later there is still See also:evidence of the same kind.

In the catalogue of the exhibition of 1842 one of his pictures bears the following title, " See also:

Snow-Storm: See also:steam-boat off a See also:harbour's mouth making signals in shallow water, and going by the See also:lead. The author was in that storm the night the ` Ariel ' left See also:Harwich." From 1813 till 1826, in addition to his Harley Street See also:residence, Turner had a country house at See also:Twickenham. He kept a boat on the See also:river, also a See also:pony and See also:gig, in which he used to drive about the neighbouring country on sketching expeditions. The pony, for which Turner had a great love, appears in his well-known " Frosty Morning " in the National Gallery. He appears to have had a great affection for animals, and one instance of his tenderness of See also:heart is given by one who often joined him in the amusement of fishing, of which Turner was very fond. " I was often with him when fishing at Petworth, and also on the See also:banks of the See also:Thames. His success as an See also:angler was great, although with the worst tackle in the world. Every fish he caught he showed to me, and appealed to me to decide whether the size justified him to keep it for the table or to return it to the river; his hesitation was often almost touching, and he always gave the prisoner at the See also:bar the benefit of the doubt." In 1813 Turner commenced the series of drawings, See also:forty in number, for See also:Cooke's See also:Southern See also:Coast. This work was not completed till 1826. The price he at first received for these drawings was £7, 105. each, afterwards raised to £13, 2s. 6d. " Crossing the Brook" appeared in the Academy of 1815.

It may be regarded as a typical example of Turner's art at this period, and marks the transition from his earlier style to that of his maturity. It represents a piece of Devonshire scenery, a view on the river Tamar. On the left is a See also:

group of tall See also:pine-trees, beautifully designed and drawn with great skill and know-ledge of structure; in the foreground a couple of See also:children, with a See also:dog carrying a bundle in its mouth across the brook; and beyond, a vast expanse of richly-wooded country, with glimpses of a winding river, an old See also:bridge, a See also:mill, and other buildings, and, in the far distance, the sea. Both in See also:design and See also:execution this work is founded upon Claude. Some critics consider it one of Turner's greatest works; but this is open to question.' It can hardly be called a work in full colour: it is limited to greys and quiet greens for the See also:earth and See also:pale blues for the sky. It is a sober but very admirable picture, full of diffused daylight, and in the painting of its distance better than any master who had preceded him. The See also:fascination of the remote, afterwards so distinctive an element in Turner's pictures, shows itself here. Perhaps nothing tests the powers or tries the skill of the landscape painter more severely than the See also:representation of distant effects. They come and go so rapidly, are often in a high See also:key of light and colour, and so full of mystery and delicacy, that anything approaching to real See also:imitation is impossible. Only the most retentive memory and the most sensitive and See also:tender feeling will avail. These qualities Turner possessed to a remark-able degree, and as his powers matured there was an ever-increasing tendency in his art to See also:desert the foreground, where things were definite and clear, in order to See also:dream in the See also:infinite suggestiveness and space of distances. " See also:Dido See also:Building See also:Carthage " also belongs to this period.

It hangs beside the Claudes in the National Gallery. It pertains to the old erroneous school of historical painting. Towering masses of Claudesque See also:

architecture piled up on either side, porticoes, vestibules, and See also:stone pines, with the sun in a yellow sky, represent the Carthage of Turner's See also:imagination. With all its faults it is still the finest work of the class he ever painted. Carthage and its See also:fate had a strange fascination for him. It is said that he regarded it as a moral example to England in its agricultural decline, its increase of luxury, and its See also:blindness to the insatiable ambition of a powerful rival. He returned again to this theme in 1817, when he exhibited his " Decline of the Carthaginian See also:Empire: Hostages Leaving Carthage for See also:Rome "—a picture which Ruskin describes as " little more than an See also:accumulation of academy student's outlines coloured brown." In 1818 Turner was in Scotland making drawings for the Provincial Antiquities, for which Sir See also:Walter See also:Scott supplied the letterpress, and in 1819 he visited See also:Italy for the first time. One of the results of this visit was a great change in his style, and from this time his works became remarkable for their colour. Hitherto he had painted in browns, greys and blues, using red and yellow sparingly. He had gradually been advancing from the sober grey colouring of Vandervelde and See also:Ruysdael to the mellow and richer tones of Claude. His works now begin to show a heightened See also:scale of colour, gradually increasing in richness and splendour and reaching its culminating point in such works as the " Ulysses," " Childe Harold's See also:Pilgrimage," " The See also:Golden Bough," and " The Fighting Temeraire." All these works belong to the middle period of Turner's art (1829-1839), when his powers were entirely developed and entirely unabated. Much of his See also:meat beautiful work at this period is to be found in his water-colour drawings: those executed for See also:Whitaker's History of Richmondshire (1819-1821), for Cooke's Southern Coast (1814–1826), for The See also:Rivers of England (1824), for England and Wales (1829–1838), Provincial Antiquities (1826), See also:Rogers's Italy (1830), Scott's Works (1834), and The Rivers of See also:France (1833–1835) are in many instances of the greatest beauty.

Of the Richmondshire drawings Ruskin says, " The foliage is See also:

rich and marvellous in See also:composition, the rock and hill drawing insuperable, the skies exquisite in complex See also:form." But perhaps one of the greatest services Turner rendered to the art of England was the education of a whole school of ' " Crossing the Brook " was a great favourite with Turner. It was painted for a See also:patron, who, dissatisfied with it, left it on the painter's hands. The price asked (£goo) seems to have been part of the objection. Turner subsequently refused an offer of £1600 for it. engravers. His best qualities as a teacher came from the See also:union of strength and delicacy in his work; subtle and delicate tonality was almost a new element for the engraver to deal with, but with Turner's teaching and careful supervision his engravers by degrees mastered it more or less successfully, and something like a new development of the art of See also:engraving was the result. No better proof can be found of the immense advance made than by comparing the work of the landscape engravers of the pre-Turnerian period with the work of See also:Miller, Goodall, See also:Willmore, Cooke, See also:Wallis, Lupton, C. Turner, Brandard, Cousen, and others who worked under his guidance. The art of See also:steel engraving reached its highest development in England at this time. Rogers's Italy (1830) and his Poems (1834) contain perhaps the most beautiful and delicate of the many engravings executed after Turner's drawings. They are vignettes,' a form of art which Turner understood better than any artist ever did before—perhaps, we might add, since. " The See also:Alps at Daybreak," " See also:Columbus Discovering See also:Land," and " Datur Hora Quieti " may be given as examples of the finest.

In 1828 Turner paid a second visit to Italy, this time of considerable duration, on the way visiting See also:

Nimes, See also:Avignon, See also:Marseilles, See also:Genoa, Spezzia and See also:Siena, and in the following year he exhibited the " Ulysses Deriding See also:Polyphemus," now in the National Gallery. It marks the beginning of the central and best period of Turner's power. This work is so well known that description is hardly needed. The See also:galley of Ulysses occupies the centre of the picture; the oars are being thrust out and the sailors flocking up the masts to unfurl See also:sail, while Ulysses waves the blazing See also:olive See also:tree in See also:defiance of the See also:giant, whose huge form is seen high on the cliffs above; and the shadowy horses of See also:Phoebus are traced in the slanting rays of the rising sun. The impression this picture leaves is one of great power and splendour. The painting throughout is magnificent, especially in the sky. See also:Leslie speaks of it as " a poem. of matchless splendour and beauty." From this period onward till about 1840 Turner's life was one of unceasing activity. Nothing is more astonishing than his prodigious fertility; he rose early, worked from morning till night, entirely absorbed in his art, and gradually became more and more solitary and isolated. Between 1829 and 1839 he sent fifty-five pictures to the Royal Academy, painted many others on private commission, made over four hundred drawings for engravers, besides thousands of studies and sketches from nature. His See also:industry accounts for the immense quantity of work he left behind him. There is not the slightest evidence to show that it arose from a desire to make money, which he never cared for in comparison with his art. He has been accused, perhaps not without some cause, of avarice and meanness in his business dealings, and many stories are told to his discredit.

But in private he often did generous things, although owing to his reserved disposition his virtues were known only to a few. His faults on the other hand—thanks to the malice, or See also:

jealousy, of one or two individuals—were freely talked about and, as a matter of course, greatly exaggerated. " Keep it, and send your children to school and to church," were the words with which he declined repayment of a considerable See also:loan to a poor drawing-master's widow. On anothet occasion, when interrupted in his work, he roughly chid and dismissed the applicant, a poor woman; but she had hardly left his See also:door before he followed her and slipped a £5 note into her hand. His tenants in Harley Street were in arrears for years, but he would never allow his lawyer to distrain; and if further proof of his generosity were needed his great See also:scheme for bettering the condition of the unfortunate in his own profession should suffice. On one occasion he is known to have taken down a picture of his own from the walls of the Academy to make room for that of an unknown artist. " Of all the artists who ever lived I think it is Turner who treated the See also:vignette most exquisitely, and, if it were necessary to find some particular reason for this, I should say that it may have been because there was nothing harsh or rigid in his genius, that forms and colours melted into each other tenderly in his dream-world, and that his sense of gradation was the most delicate ever possessed by man " (See also:Hamerton. The first of Turner's Venetian pictures (" Bridge of Sighs, Ducal Palace and See also:Custom House, See also:Venice, Canaletti Painting ") appeared in the Academy in 1833. Compared with the sober, prosaic work of Canaletti, Turner's pictures of Venice appear like poetic dreams. Splendour of colour and carelessness of form generally characterize them. Venice appeared to him " a See also:city of rose and See also:white, rising out of an See also:emerald sea against a sky of See also:sapphire See also:blue." Many of these Venetian pictures belong to his later manner, and some of them, " The State Procession bearing Giovanni See also:Bellini's Pictures to the Church of the Redeemer " (exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1841), " The Sun of Venice Going to Sea " (1843), " Approach to Venice " (1844), and " Venice, Evening, Going to the See also:Ball " (1845), to his latest. As Turner See also:grew older his love of brilliant colour and light became more and more a characteristic.

In trying to obtain these qualities he gradually See also:

fell into an unsound method of work, treating oil as if it had been water-colour, using both indiscriminately on the same See also:canvas, utterly regardless of the result. Many of his finest pictures are already in a ruined state, mere wrecks of what they once were. " The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to her Last See also:Berth to be Broken Up " was exhibited in the Academy of 1839. By many it is considered one of his finest works. Turner had all his life been half a sailor at heart: he loved the sea, and See also:shipping, and sailors and their ways; many of his best pictures are sea pieces; and the old ships of See also:Collingwood and See also:Nelson were dear to him. Hence the pathetic feeling he throws around " The Fighting Temeraire." The old three-See also:decker, looking ghostly and wan in the evening light, is slowly towed along by a See also:black, fiery little steam tug—a contrast suggesting the passing away of the old order of things and the See also:advent of the new; and behind the sun sets red in a thick See also:bank of See also:smoke or mist. " The Slave Ship," another important sea picture, was exhibited in the following year, and in 1842 " See also:Peace: See also:Burial at Sea," commemorative of See also:Wilkie. Turner had now reached his sixty-seventh year, but no very marked traces of declining power are to be seen in his work. Many of the water-colour drawings belonging to this period are of great beauty, and, although a year or two later his other powers began to fail, his faculty for colour remained unimpaired almost to the end. He paid his last visit to the Continent in 1843, wandering about from one place to another, and avoiding his own countrymen, an old and solitary man. At his house in Queen Anne Street they were often ignorant of his whereabouts for months, as he seldom took the trouble to write to any one. Two years later (1845) his See also:health gave way and with it both mind and sight began to fail.

The works of his declining period exercised the wit of the critics. Turner See also:

felt these attacks keenly. He was naturally kind-hearted and acutely sensitive to censure. " A man may be weak in his See also:age," he once remarked, " but you should not tell him so." After 1845 all the pictures shown by Turner belong to the period of decay—mere ghosts and shadows of what once had been. In 185o he exhibited for the last time. He had given up attending the meetings of the Academicians; none of his friends had seen him for months; and even his old house-keeper had no idea of his whereabouts. Turner's mind had evidently given way for some time, and with that love of secrecy which in later years had grown into a See also:passion he had gone away to hide himself in a corner of London. He had settled as a lodger in a small house in See also:Chelsea, overlooking the river, kept by his old Margate landlady, Mrs See also:Booth. To the children in the neighbourhood he was known as " See also:Admiral Booth." His short, sailor-like figure may account for the idea that he was an impoverished old See also:naval officer. He had been ill for some See also:weeks, and when his Queen Anne Street housekeeper at last discovered his hiding-place she found him sinking, and on the following day, the 19th of See also:December 1851, he died. He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, in deference to a wish he had himself expressed. He left the large See also:fortune he had amassed (about £140,000) to found a charity for the " See also:maintenance and support of male decayed artists, being born in England, and of English parents only, and of lawful issue." His pictures he bequeathed to the nation, on condition that they were exhibited in rooms of their own, and that these rooms were to be called " Turner's Gallery." The will and its codicils were so confused that after years of litigation, during which a large part of the money was wasted in legal expenses, it was found impossible to decide what Turner really wanted.

A See also:

compromise was effected in which the wishes of everybody, See also:save those of the testator, were consulted, his next-of-See also:kin, whom he did not mean to get a single See also:farthing, inheriting the bulk of his See also:property. The nation got all the pictures and drawings, and the Royal Academy £20,000. If Turner had died early his reputation as an artist would have been very different from what it ultimately became. He would not have been recognized as a colourist. It was only after the year 182o that colour began to assert itself strongly in his work. He painted for many a year in greys and greens and browns, went steadily through " the subdued golden chord," and painted yellow mists and suns rising through vapour; but as time went on that was no longer enough, and he tried to paint the sun in his strength and the full glories of See also:sunshine. The means at the painter's disposal are, however, limited, and Turner, in his efforts after brilliancy, began to indulge in reckless experiments in colour. He could not endure even the slightest restraints which technical limitations impose, but went on trying to paint the unpaintable. As a water-colour painter Turner stands pre-eminent; he is unquestionably the greatest master in that See also:branch of art that ever lived. If his work is compared with that of See also:Barrett, or See also:Varley, or Cozens, or Sandby, or any of the earlier masters, so great is Turner's superiority that the art in his hands seems to be lifted altogether into a higher region. In 1843 a See also:champion, in the person of See also:John Ruskin, arose to defend Turner against the unjust and ignorant attacks of the See also:press, and what at first was intended as a " short pamphlet, reprobating the manner and style of these critics," grew into the five volumes of Modern Painters. Ruskin employed all his eloquence and his great See also:critical faculty to prove how immeasurably See also:superior Turner was to all who had ever gone before, hardly restricting his supremacy to landscape art, and placing him among the " seven supreme colourists of the world." Like most men of note, Turner had his enemies and detractors, and it is to be regretted that so many of the stories they set in circulation against his moral character should have been repeated by one of his biographers, who candidly admits having " spared none of his faults," and excuses himself for so doing by " what he hopes " is his " undeviating love of truth." The immense quantity of work accomplished by Turner during his lifetime, work full of the utmost delicacy and refinement, proves the singularly fine condition of his See also:nervous See also:system, and is perhaps the best answer that can be given to the See also:charge of being excessively addicted to sensual gratification.

In his declining years he possibly had recourse to stimulants to help his failing powers, but it by no means follows that he went habitually to excess in their use. He never lost an opportunity of doing a kindness, and under a rough and See also:

cold exterior there was more good and See also:worth hidden than the world imagined. " During the ten years I knew him," says Ruskin, " years in which he was suffering most from the evil-speaking of the world, I never heard him say one depreciating word of any living man or man's work; I never saw him look an unkind or blameful look; I never knew him let pass, without sorrowful remonstrance, or endeavour at mitigation, a blameful word spoken by another. Of no man, but Turner, whom I have ever known could I say this." Twice during his earlier days there are circumstances leading to the belief that he had the See also:hope of See also:marriage, but on both occasions it ended in disappointment, and his home after his father died was cheerless and solitary. Two See also:biographies of Turner have been written, one by Thornbury, the other by P. G. Hamerton. The work of the latter deserves the highest See also:commendation; it gives a clear and consistent history of the great artist, and is characterized by refined thought and critical insight. An excellent little See also:book by W. Cosmo See also:Monkhouse may alsobe noticed. Books upon Turner continue to appear, although it is scarcely to be expected that they can add to the facts already known about him. Turner and Ruskin .an exposition of the work of Turner from the writings of Ruskin, edited with a See also:biographical note on Turner by See also:Frederick See also:Wedmore, in two volumes, with ninety-one illustrations, was published by See also:George See also:Allen in 1900.

Perhaps the' most important See also:

recent work upon his art is Sir Walter See also:Armstrong's Turner (11901), which deals at considerable length with the events of his life, and with his pictures in oil and his drawings in water-colour. It also gives so far as possible a See also:list of his oil pictures, and for the first time a See also:pretty full list of his water colours, although the great painter's works in both See also:media are so numerous that it would be impossible to say that either is complete. See also J. M. W. Turner, by W. L. Wyllie, A.R.A. (19o5). The great authority on the Liber Studiorum is W. G. See also:Rawlinson (Turner's Liber Studiorum, 2nd ed., 1906).

(G.

End of Article: TURNER, JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM (1775–1851)

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