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Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Claude had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorised the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral. His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints. |
His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stay true to the traditions of English landscape. In Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature has already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects. |
In Turner's 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 on art in France; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques. He is also generally regarded as a precursor of abstract painting. |
High levels of volcanic ash (from the eruption of Mount Tambora) in the atmosphere during 1816, the "Year Without a Summer", led to unusually spectacular sunsets during this period, and were an inspiration for some of Turner's work. |
John Ruskin said that an early patron, Thomas Monro, Principal Physician of Bedlam, and a collector and amateur artist, was a significant influence on Turner's style: |
His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by his friend Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate. |
Together with a number of young artists, Turner was able, in Monro's London house, to copy works of the major topographical draughtsmen of his time and perfect his skills in drawing. But the curious atmospherical effects and illusions of John Robert Cozens's watercolours, some of which were present in Monro's house, went far further than the neat renderings of topography. The solemn grandeur of his Alpine views were an early revelation to the young Turner and showed him the true potential of the watercolour medium, conveying mood instead of information. |
Materials |
Turner experimented with a wide variety of pigments. He used formulations like carmine, despite knowing that they were not long-lasting, and against the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded. Ruskin complained at how quickly his work decayed; Turner was indifferent to posterity and chose materials that looked good when freshly applied. By 1930, there was concern that both his oils and his watercolours were fading. |
Gallery |
Legacy |
Turner left a small fortune, which he hoped would be used to support what he called "decayed artists". He planned an almshouse at Twickenham in west London with a gallery for some of his works. His will was contested and in 1856, after a court battle, his first cousins, including Thomas Price Turner, received part of his fortune. Another portion went to the Royal Academy of Arts, which occasionally awards students the Turner Medal. His finished paintings were bequeathed to the British nation, and he intended that a special gallery would be built to house them. This did not happen because there was disagreement over the final site. Twenty-two years after his death, the British Parliament passed an act allowing his paintings to be lent to museums outside London, and so began the process of scattering the pictures which Turner had wanted to be kept together. |
One of the greatest collectors of his work was Henry Vaughan, who when he died in 1899 owned more than one hundred watercolours and drawings by Turner and as many prints. His collection included examples of almost every type of work on paper the artist produced, from early topographical drawings and atmospheric landscape watercolours, to brilliant colour studies, literary vignette illustrations and spectacular exhibition pieces. It included nearly a hundred proofs of Liber Studiorum and twenty-three drawings connected with it. It was an unparalleled collection that comprehensively represented the diversity, imagination and technical inventiveness of Turner's work throughout his sixty-year career. Vaughan bequeathed the most of his Turner collection to British and Irish public galleries and museums, stipulating that the collections of Turner's watercolours should be 'exhibited to the public all at one time, free of charge and only in January', demonstrating an awareness of conservation which was unusual at the time. |
In 1910, the main part of the Turner Bequest, which includes unfinished paintings and drawings, was rehoused in the Duveen Turner Wing at the National Gallery of British Art (now Tate Britain). In 1987, a new wing at the Tate, the Clore Gallery, was opened to house the Turner bequest, though some of the most important paintings remain in the National Gallery in contravention of Turner's condition that they be kept and shown together. Increasingly paintings are lent abroad, ignoring Turner's provision that they remain constantly and permanently in Turner's Gallery. |
St. Mary's Church, Battersea, added a commemorative stained glass window for Turner, between 1976 and 1982. St Paul's Cathedral, Royal Academy of Arts and the Victoria & Albert Museum all hold statues representing him. A portrait by Cornelius Varley with his patent graphic telescope (Sheffield Museums & Galleries) was compared with his death mask (National Portrait Gallery, London) by Kelly Freeman at Dundee University 2009–10 to ascertain whether it really depicts Turner. The City of Westminster unveiled a memorial plaque at the site of his birthplace at 21 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, on 2 June 1999. |
Selby Whittingham founded The Turner Society at London and Manchester in 1975. After the society endorsed the Tate Gallery's Clore Gallery wing (on the lines of the Duveen wing of 1910), as the solution to the controversy of what should be done with the Turner Bequest, Selby Whittingham resigned and founded the Independent Turner Society. The Tate created the prestigious annual Turner Prize art award in 1984, named in Turner's honour, and 20 years later the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours founded the Winsor & Newton Turner Watercolour Award. A major exhibition, "Turner's Britain", with material (including The Fighting Temeraire) on loan from around the globe, was held at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from 7 November 2003 to 8 February 2004. In 2005, Turner's The Fighting Temeraire was voted Britain's "greatest painting" in a public poll organised by the BBC. |
Portrayal |
Leo McKern played Turner in The Sun Is God, a 1974 Thames Television production directed by Michael Darlow. The programme aired on 17 December 1974, during the Turner Bicentenary Exhibition in London. |
British filmmaker Mike Leigh wrote and directed Mr. Turner, a biopic of Turner's later years, released in 2014. The film stars Timothy Spall as Turner, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey and Paul Jesson, and premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, with Spall taking the award for Best Actor. |
The Bank of England announced that a portrait of Turner, with a backdrop of The Fighting Temeraire, would appear on the £20 note beginning in 2020. It is the first £20 British banknote printed on polymer.It came into circulation on Thursday 20 February 2020. |
See also |
List of paintings by J. M. W. Turner |
Explanatory notes |
Citations |
General and cited sources |
Bailey, Anthony (1998). Standing in the Sun: A Life of J. M. W. Turner. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6604-4. |
Finberg, A. J. (1961) [1939]. The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Hamilton, James (2007). Turner. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-6791-3. |
Harrison, Colin (2000). Turner's Oxford. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum. |
Hill, David (2008). Turner and Leeds: Image of Industry. Jeremy Mills Publishing. |
Moyle, Franny (2016). Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner. Penguin/Random House. ISBN 978-0-241-96456-9. |
Warburton, Stanley (2008). Discovering Turner's Lakeland. Lytham St Annes: Stanley Warburton. |
Whittingham, Selby (1993–1996). An Historical Account of the Will of J. M. W. Turner, R.A. London: J. M. W. Turner, R.A., Publications. |
Wilton, Andrew (2006). Turner in His Time (revised ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-23830-1. |
Further reading |
Ackroyd, Peter (2005). J. M. W. Turner. Ackroyd's Brief Lives. New York: Nan A. Talese. ISBN 0-385-50798-4. |
Barker, Elizabeth E. "Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
Bockemühl, Michael (2015) [1991]. J. M. W. Turner, 1775–1851: The World of Light and Colour. Köln: Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-6325-1. |
Hamilton, James (1998). Turner and the Scientists. London: Tate Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85437-255-0. |
Joll, Evelyn; Butlin, Martin; Herrmann, Luke, eds. (2001). The Oxford Companion to J. M. W. Turner. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0-19-860025-9. |
Singh, Iona (2012). "J.M.W. Turner as Producer". Color, Facture, Art & Design. Winchester, UK; Washington, DC: Zero Books. pp. 129–152. ISBN 978-1-78099-629-5. |
Townsend, Joyce (1993). Turner's Painting Techniques. London: Tate Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85437-202-4. |
Venning, Barry (2003). Turner. Berlin: Phaidon Verlag GmbH. ISBN 0-7148-3988-4. |
Wallace, Robert K. (1992). Melville & Turner: Spheres of Love and Fright. The University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-1366-1. "Wallace explores the stylistic and aesthetic affinities of English landscape painter J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) and American novelist Herman Melville, establishing Turner as a decisive influence on the creation of Melville's Moby-Dick". (Quotation from dust jacket) |
Williams, Roger (2018). A Year of Turner and the Thames. London: Bristol Book Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9928466-9-5. |
Wilton, Andrew (1982). J. M. W. Turner: France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland. New York: George Braziller. ISBN 978-0807610466. |
External links |
"Turner, Joseph Mallord William" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. |
400 artworks by or after J. M. W. Turner at the Art UK site |
The Turner Society |
Turner & the 1834 Parliament Fire – UK Parliament Living Heritage |
Christie's Videos – Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA Archived 31 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine |
Sotheby's Videos – The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA |
Sotheby's Videos – Modern Rome Campo Vaccino and The condition of Modern Rome, Campo Vaccino J. M. W. Turner, RA |
J.M.W. Turner exhibition catalogs |
Web site of the Tate Turner Collection, includes the "Turner Bequest" of over 300 Oil paintings and over 30,000 sketches. The catalogue holds records of over 40,000 works by Turner |
Works by J. M. W. Turner at Project Gutenberg |
Works by or about J. M. W. Turner at the Internet Archive |
A Brief History of Abstract Art with Turner, Mondrian and More |
"Turner's Whaling Pictures", The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 73, no. 4 (Spring, 2016) |
Johnson, Ken (3 June 2016). "In Turner Paintings at the Met, the Bloody Business of Whaling". The New York Times. pp. C23. ProQuest 2310050465. |
Rocks at Colgong on the Ganges., engraved by Edward Goodall for Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon. |
"Splendid Lies" review by John Updike of J.M.W. Turner: an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., October 1, 2007 – January 6, 2008; the Dallas Museum of Art, February 10 – May 18, 2008; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, June 24 – September 21, 2008. |
Turner's poems and other texts (Bibliotheca Augustana) |
Joseph-François Ducq, a Flemish historical and portrait painter, was born at Ledeghem in 1763. He studied at Bruges, and then under Suvée in Paris, where he obtained the second grand prize in 1800, and a medal in 1810. He also spent a considerable time in Italy, but returned to Bruges in 1815, and became a professor in the Academy. He died at Bruges in 1829. Amongst his chief works are: |
Meleager. 1804. |
Devotion of a Scythian. 1810. |
Marriage of Angelica and Medora. 1812. |
Venus emerging from the Sea. (Brussels Museum) |
William I., King of the Netherlands. (Bruges Academy.) |
Van Gierdergom. (Bruges Academy.) |
References |
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "Ducq, Josephus Franciscus". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). Vol. I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons. |
Judith Jans Leyster (also Leijster; baptised July 28, 1609 – February 10, 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works, portraits, and still lifes. Her work was highly regarded by her contemporaries, but largely forgotten after her death. Her entire oeuvre came to be attributed to Frans Hals or to her husband, Jan Miense Molenaer. In 1893, she was rediscovered and scholars began to attribute her works correctly. |
Biography |
Leyster was born in July 1609 in Haarlem to a local cloth maker who later became a brewer. She was the eighth child of Jan Willemsz Leyster. While the details of her training are uncertain, she was mentioned by contemporary Haarlem poet Samuel Ampzing in his book Beschrijvinge ende lof der stadt Haerlem (1628). |
Some scholars speculate that Leyster pursued a career in painting to help support her family after her father's bankruptcy. She may have learned painting from Frans Pietersz de Grebber, who was running a respected workshop in Haarlem in the 1620s. During this time her family moved to the province of Utrecht, and she may have come into contact with some of the Utrecht Caravaggisti.Leyster's first known signed works, Serenade and Jolly Topper, are dated 1629, when the artist was twenty years old. By 1633, she was admitted as a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. Some sources say she was the first woman registered by the Guild; others say it was Sara van Baalbergen in 1631. Dozens of other female artists may have been admitted to the Guild of St. Luke during the 17th century; however, since the medium in which they worked was often not listed, it is difficult to determine how many were painters. At the time, artists working in embroidery, pottery painting, metal and wood were included in guilds, and some were included for continuing the work of their deceased husbands. |
It has been suggested that Leyster's Self-Portrait, c. 1633 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), may have been her presentation piece to the Guild. This work marks a shift from the rigidity of earlier women's self-portraits toward a more relaxed, dynamic pose. It is very relaxed by the standards of other Dutch portraits and comparable to some of Frans Hals's work. However, it seems unlikely that she wore such formal clothes when painting in oils, especially the very wide lace collar. |
Within two years of entering the Guild, Leyster had taken on three male apprentices. Records show that Leyster sued Frans Hals for accepting a student who left her workshop for his without first obtaining the Guild's permission. The student's mother paid Leyster four guilders in punitive damages, only half of what Leyster asked for, and Hals settled his part of the lawsuit by paying a three-guilder fine rather than return the apprentice. Leyster herself was fined for not having registered the apprentice with the Guild. Following her lawsuit with Frans Hals, Leyster's paintings received greater recognition. |
In 1636, Leyster married Jan Miense Molenaer, a more prolific artist than herself who worked on similar subjects. In hopes of better economic prospects, the couple moved to Amsterdam where Molenaer already had clients. They remained there for eleven years before returning to Heemstede in the Haarlem area. There they shared a studio in a small house located in the present-day Groenendaal Park. Leyster and Molenaer had five children, only two of whom survived to adulthood. |
Most of Leyster's dated works were produced before her marriage and are dated between 1629 and 1635. There are few known pieces by her painted after 1635: two illustrations in a book about tulips from 1643, a portrait from 1652, and a still life from 1654 that was discovered in a private collection in the 21st century. Leyster may have worked collaboratively with her husband as well. She died in 1660, aged 50. She was buried at a farm just outside of Haarlem. None of her artwork was publicly displayed or attributed to her for close to 200 years. The fact that the inventory of her estate attributed many of the paintings to "the wife of Molenaer", not to Judith Leyster, may have contributed to the misattribution of her work to her husband. |
Work |
Leyster signed her works with a monogram of her initials JL with a star attached. This was a play on words: "Leister" meant "Lead star" in Dutch and for Dutch mariners of the time it was the common name for the North Star. The Leistar was the name of her father's brewery in Haarlem. Only occasionally did she sign her works with her full name. |
She specialized in portrait-like genre scenes, typically of one to three figures, who generally exude good cheer and are shown against a plain background. Many are children, and others are men drinking. Leyster was particularly innovative in her domestic genre scenes. These are quiet scenes of women at home, often with candle- or lamplight, particularly from a woman's point of view. The Proposition (Mauritshuis, The Hague) is an unusual variant on these scenes, said by some to show a girl receiving unwelcome advances, instead of depicting a willing prostitute, the more common scene under such a title. The fact that the female subject is sewing in the scene may also have double meanings as the dutch word for sewing is sometimes used as a metaphor for sex. However, this interpretation is not universally accepted. Ann Sutherland Harris has interpreted the painting to be of a woman receiving an honest marriage proposal. |
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