Turner Joseph William Wallpapers

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(born April 23, 1775, London, Eng. — died Dec. 19, 1851, London) British landscape painter. The son of a barber, he entered the Royal Academy school in 1789. In 1802 he became a full academician and in 1807 was appointed professor of perspective. His early work was concerned with accurate depictions of places, but he soon learned from Richard Wilson to take a more poetic and imaginative approach. The Shipwreck (1805) shows his new emphasis on luminosity, atmosphere, and Romantic, dramatic subjects. After a trip to Italy in 1819, his colour became purer and more prismatic, with a general heightening of key. In later paintings, such as Sunrise, with a Boat Between Headlands (1845), architectural and natural details are sacrificed to effects of colour and light, with only the barest indication of mass. His compositions became more fluid, suggesting movement and space. In breaking down conventional formulas of representation, he anticipated French Impressionism. His immense reputation in the 19th century was due largely to John Ruskin's enthusiasm for his early works; 20th-century critics celebrated the abstract qualities of his late colour compositions.

In 1802, Turner made a trip to the Continent, where he painted his famous Calais Pier (National Gall., London). From then on he traveled constantly in England or abroad, making innumerable direct sketches from which he drew material for his studio paintings in oil and watercolor. Turner showed a remarkable ability to distill the best from the tradition of landscape painting and he helped to further elevate landscape (and seascape) as important artistic subject matter. The influence of the Dutch masters is apparent in his Sun Rising through Vapor (National Gall., London). In the vein of the French classical landscape painter, Claude Lorrain, he produced the Liber Studiorum (1807-19), 70 drawings that were later reproduced by engraving under Turner's supervision. Among the paintings evocative of Claude's style are his Dido Building Carthage (National Gall., London) and Crossing the Brook (Tate Gall., London). Despite his early and continued success Turner lived the life of a recluse. As his fame grew he maintained a large gallery in London for exhibition of his work, but continued to live quietly with his elderly father.

Turner's painting became increasingly abstract as he strove to portray light, space, and the elemental forces of nature. In fact, some of his modern admirers have noted that the true subjects of his late paintings are the radiance of light and the vitality of paint itself. Characteristic of his later period are such paintings as The Fighting Téméraire and Rain, Steam, and Speed (both: National Gall., London). His late Venetian works, which describe atmospheric effects with brighter colors, include The Grand Canal (Metropolitan Mus.) and Approach to Venice (National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.). Turner encountered violent criticism as his style became increasingly free, but he was passionately defended by Sir Thomas Lawrence and the youthful Ruskin. Visionary, revolutionary, and extremely influential, these late paintings laid the groundwork for impressionism, postimpressionism, abstract expressionism, color-field painting, and a myriad of other art movements of the late 19th and 20th cents. Turner's will, which was under litigation for many years, left more than 19,000 watercolors, drawings, and oils to the British nation. Most of these works are in the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery, London. Many of Turner's oils have deteriorated badly.

See his watercolors (ed. by M. Butlin, 1962); catalog by A. J. Finberg (1968); biographies by A. J. Finberg (2d ed. 1961), J. Lindsay (1966), A. Bailey (1998), J. Woodhouse (2000), and J. Hamilton (2003); studies by J. Rothenstein and M. Butlin (1964), L. Gowing (1966), J. Gage (1969), and W. Gaunt (1971); M. Butlin and E. Joll, The Paintings and Drawings of J. W. M. Turner (1987); W. S. Rodner, J. M. W. Turner: Romantic Painter of the Industrial Revolution (1997); G. Finley, Angel in the Sun: Turner's Vision of History (1999); I. Warrell, Turner and Venice (2004).