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Timeline
| 1775 |
born April 23 in Covent Garden, son of a barber and wigmaker |
Self-Portrait
circa 1799
Oil on canvas
support: 743 x 584 mm
bequeathed by the artist 1856
N00458 |
| 1789 |
admitted to Royal Academy Schools |
| 1790 |
exhibited first work at Royal Academy |
| 1799 |
elected Associate Royal Academician |
| 1802 |
travelled to France and Switzerland |
| 1802 |
elected full Academician at Royal Academy
|
| 1807 |
appointed Royal Academy Professor of Perspective |
| 1807 |
published first instalment of
Liber Studiorum
 View
in Tate Collection
|
| 1825 |
began work on Picturesque Views in England and Wales |
| 1826 |
began work for illustrations for books of contemporary literature,
including the work of Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Rogers, and Lord Byron |
| 1829 |
father died |
| 1835 |
painted the burning of the old Houses of Parliament |
| 1843 |
defended by John Ruskin in first
volume of Modern Painters
View
in Tate Collection
|
| 1851 |
died December 19 and buried in St Paul's Cathedral |
His Time
View
in Tate Collection
|
| 1789 |
French Revolution began |
| 1792 |
Sir Joshua Reynolds died |
| 1793 |
France declared war on Great Britain |
| 1799 |
Napoleon seized power in France |
| 1802 |
Treaty of Amiens opened up Continental travel for one year |
| 1803 |
Napoleonic War began and continued
until 1815 as Napoleon conquered most of Europe
'War of 1812' between Britain and America broke out; continued until 1814 |
| 1824 |
Opening of Great Britain's first railway line, the Stockton-Darlington |
| 1837 |
Queen Victoria crowned |
| 1839 |
W.H. Fox Talbot (1800-1877) published discoveries on photography |
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Working Process
Turner travelled extensively around Britain on an almost annual
basis, filling hundreds of notebooks with his observations. It was
to this ever-expanding body of sketches that he turned when embarking
on new print projects, such as Picturesque Views in England and
Wales. In some cases he used material first set down more than
thirty years earlier as the basis for his highly detailed watercolours.
Once completed by Turner, these works would be purchased, or rented,
by a publisher and turned into prints. More than 800 designs were
published through this method.
Equipped with a graphite pencil and paper wherever he went, Turner
sketched a multitude of scenes. Only rarely did he work with watercolours
outdoors, claiming that in the time it took to complete one watercolour,
he could make fifteen drawings in pencil. He also made scant colour
notes in his sketchbook intended to trigger his memory of an atmospheric
effect.
When he arrived back in London from a trip, Turner set about creating
the watercolours that served as models for the prints. First, he
worked on three or four sheets of paper tacked or glued to a board.
Then he submerged the entire board in water to wet the sheets completely.
Turner worked each sheet in turn, pushing the pigment around to
capture the desired effects. On these sheets the basic structure
of a design would be established showing masses and shapes rather
than specific figures or forms. Once satisfied with the essential
composition, Turner worked up the details of the finished watercolour.
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The Theory of
the Sublime
Turner's work epitomised the aesthetic theory of the Sublime, which
prompted a surge in the popularity of landscape painting. Edmund
Burke's widely-read publication, Philosophical Enquiry into the
Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757, proposed
that nature, and consequently art, could produce two desired effects
on a viewer. The Sublime could be seen in the power and horror of
nature's magnificence, which could overcome a viewer with emotion.
Another effect was akin to the reaction of the eyes coming into
very bright sunlight after leaving a dark interior. As Burke put
it: "Such a light as that of the sun, immediately exerted on
the eye as it overpowers the sense, is a very great idea."
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The
Picturesque
The theory of the Picturesque was developed by the British
writer Reverend William Gilpin (1724-1804). He suggested that artists
and the general public should seek out and commune with nature,
always in search of a view that is pleasing to the eye. Turner's
prints made a major contribution to the growth of popular travel
literature in the nineteenth century, stimulating countless Britons
to set forth in search of natural beauty, as well as artistic and
spiritual enlightenment.
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Industrialisation
The inclusion of steamships in Turner's work is thought to be
a symbolic reference to modern industrial life and progress. The
advent of steam locomotion in sea and train travel had a tremendous
impact on nineteenth-century life. Speed, never a consideration
before, added a new vocabulary to the art of landscape painters,
essentially changing the way they experienced nature forever. Art
was an intermediary in the ongoing dialogue between man and his
world, at a time before photography could portray nature exactly.
Turner encountered photography around 1840, but, surprisingly,
he did not think it would threaten art: "We shall go about
in the country with a box like a tinker, instead of a portfolio
under our arm." Turner was far from hostile towards technology
and had clearly been interested in industrial scenes since the 1790s.
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The
Impressionists' Debt to Turner
Turner laid the groundwork for artists to come. His visions of light
and air, and of flux and change, would lead to Impressionism. If
Turner took from the seventeenth-century painter Claude Lorrain
the artist's ability to portray ambient vapour, then the Impressionists
took from Turner his brilliant palette of whites and yellows. Like
Turner, they also often completed paintings in the studio rather
than in the open air. Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)
noted: "The unity that the human spirit gives to vision can
only be found in the studio. It is there that our impressions, previously
scattered, are co-ordinated and enhance each others' value to give
the true poem."
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The Royal Academy
and the Society of Painters in Water-Colours
In late eighteenth-century Britain, the Royal Academy was the
only place where an artist could achieve fame or reputation. The
Royal Academy's hierarchy of subjects was widely known and respected:
first came history painting (the depiction of historical or literary
scenes, usually with large groups of figures), followed by landscape,
portraiture, and genre (the depiction of everyday life). In order
to elevate landscape painting within this hierarchical structure,
Turner imbued his landscapes with a higher moral meaning. If painting
and art were intended to teach a lesson and improve understanding
of the world, then Turner aimed to instil that lesson in his landscapes.
An ambitious young man, Turner was well aware that oil painting
was the ultimate means of expression for an artist. Turner also
explored other two-dimensional media, primarily watercolour and
printmaking. In the early part of the nineteenth century, British
watercolourists sought to establish the medium as painting's equal.
The Society of Painters in Water-Colours was founded in 1804 to
rival the Royal Academy and through simple competition to prove
watercolour's potential. There, the watercolourists achieved their
goal through the exploration of a wide range of techniques and through
the creation of large-scale, highly-finished works, framed and exhibited
like oil paintings.
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Late
Paintings
During the last twenty years of his life, the vibrant colour and
painterly qualities of Turner's exhibited paintings attracted an
increasing level of hostility and ridicule from the press. As a
result, the crisper, more restrained prints of his images were an
especially important means of retaining his popularity with a wide
audience. One of those who was introduced to Turner by this means
was the young John Ruskin, who went on to write an impassioned defence
of his hero: Modern Painters (1843). Ruskin was a passionate
advocate of the artist's modernity as the Victorian era dawned (Queen
Victoria was crowned in 1837), but the work of Turner's last decade
found favour with only a small group of loyal supporters.
From 1833 until his death in 1851, Turner spent much time in Margate,
on the coast near Dover, south east of London. His landlady, Sophia
Booth, became his helpmate, partner, and nursemaid as Turner's health
declined. He rarely used his name and was known as Admiral Booth
in the village. From his lodging windows, Turner had an excellent
view of the harbour and seems to have drawn many images of that
busy port. In 1845 he took a final trip to the continent, visiting
Dieppe, on the coast near Amiens and Rouen. His last years were
spent in failing health and lessening productivity.
The sea provided Turner a lifelong artistic inspiration as he endeavoured
to capture in two dimensions its natural beauty, fierceness, and
fury. Turner recorded the sea in all its various moods and repeatedly
tried to give expression to its endless ebb and flow. His views
also suggest mankind's place in the natural world, where the sea
is both a source of livelihood as well as a great and relentless
danger.
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Timeline