Turner, Joseph Mallord William (1775–1851)

The Shipwreck, by J M W Turner, is an early work, from 1805, but already deals with one of his most important themes. In the storm and the lowering clouds it is possible to anticipate the later Turners, with their almost impressionistic swirling brushstrokes of light and colour.

Mountainous Landscape, by J M W Turner, is more an imagined scene than an attempt to depict a real landscape. As his vision progressed, Turner crowded his pictures with effects, attempting to show, as he does here, the grandeur of nature, but adding his own emotional reaction to the scene.

English painter. He was one of the most original artists of his day. He travelled widely in Europe, and his landscapes became increasingly Romantic, with the subject often transformed in scale and flooded with brilliant, hazy light. His innovative use of emotive colour, as in The Slave Ship (1840; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts); and his passionate depiction of feeling as it exists in the natural environment, had a tremendous influence on modern art. Many later works anticipate Impressionism, for example Rain, Steam and Speed (1844; National Gallery, London).

A precocious talent, Turner entered the Royal Academy schools in 1789. In 1792 he made the first of several European tours from which numerous watercolour sketches survive. His early oil paintings show Dutch influence (such as that of van de Velde), but by the 1800s he had begun to paint landscapes in the ‘Grand Manner’, reflecting the Italianate influences of Claude Lorrain and Richard Wilson.

Many of his most dramatic works are set in Europe or at sea, for example, Shipwreck (1805), Snowstorm: Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), and Destruction of Sodom (1805), all at the Tate Gallery, London; and The Slave Ship. Turner was also devoted to literary themes and mythologies, such as Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829; Tate Gallery, London).

His use of colour was enhanced by trips to Italy (1919, 1828, 1835, and 1840), and his brushwork became increasingly free, allowing him to capture both the subtlest effects of light and atmosphere and also the most violent forces of nature. Although encouraged by the portraitist Thomas Lawrence and others early in his career, he failed to achieve recognition, and it was not until he was championed by the critic John Ruskin in Modern Painters (1843) that his originality was fully appreciated.

In his old age he lived as a recluse in Chelsea, London, under an assumed name. He died there, leaving to the nation more than 300 paintings, nearly 20,000 watercolours, and over 19,000 drawings. In 1987 the Clore Gallery extension to the Tate Gallery, London, was opened to display his bequest.

Turner was born in London. His general education was limited, but early experience as a copyist in the house of the art collector Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), where he began a close friendship with Thomas Girtin, enlarged his view of painting and drawing. In 1789 he entered the Royal Academy schools. He began as a topographical watercolourist, and first exhibited in oils in 1796.

While travelling in France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Rhineland as well as in Britain, he constantly recorded the effects of sea, sky, mountain, and plain in watercolour. He continued to produce series of watercolour studies, which were issued as engravings, throughout his life, for example Rivers of France (1833–35) and Rivers of England (1823–27). He became professor of perspective at the Royal Academy from 1807 and deputy president in 1845.