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JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775–1...

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Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 479 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOSEPH MALLORD See also:WILLIAM See also:TURNER (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, See also:William See also: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: