Delphi Collected Works of J. M. W. Turner (Illustrated)

J. M. W. Turner

(1775–1851)

Contents

The Highlights

FISHERMEN AT SEA

BUTTERMERE LAKE, WITH PART OF CROMACKWATER, A SHOWER

SELF PORTRAIT, 1799

THE FALL OF AN AVALANCHE IN THE GRISONS

SNOW STORM: HANNIBAL AND HIS ARMY CROSSING THE ALPS

BONNEVILLE, SAVOY WITH MONT BLANC

THE SHIPWRECK

DIDO BUILDING CARTHAGE

THE BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF LORDS AND COMMONS

ULYSSES DERIDING POLYPHEMUS

PEACE — BURIAL AT SEA

THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE

SHADE AND DARKNESS — THE EVENING OF THE DELUGE

THE SLAVE SHIP

RAIN, STEAM AND SPEED — THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY

SNOWSTORM — STEAM-BOAT OFF A HARBOUR’S MOUTH

LANDSCAPE WITH DISTANT RIVER AND BAY

A DISASTER AT SEA

NORHAM CASTLE SUNRISE

The Oil Paintings

THE OIL PAINTINGS

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF OIL PAINTINGS

The Watercolour Paintings

THE WATERCOLOUR PAINTINGS

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WATERCOLOURS

The Biographies

TURNER by William Cosmo Monkhouse

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER by George Reid

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

© Delphi Classics 2014

Version 1

Masters of Art Series

J. M. W. Turner

By Delphi Classics, 2014

COPYRIGHT

Masters of Art - J. M. W. Turner

First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2014.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 90890 962 6

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is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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The Highlights

Turner’s birthplace, 21-22 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London

The same building today

The birthplace in 1850

THE HIGHLIGHTS

In this section, a sample of Turner’s most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions, special ‘detail’ reproductions and additional biographical images.

FISHERMEN AT SEA

J. M. W. Turner is regarded by many as Britain’s greatest artist, whose works have become iconic symbols of the Romantic art movement. He became known as ‘the painter of light’, due to his increasing interest in brilliant colours and the contrast between light and dark in his many landscapes and seascapes.

Turner was born on 23 April 1775 in London. His father, William Turner (1745-1829), was a barber and wig maker and his mother, Mary Marshall, came from a family of butchers. In 1785, his mother suffered from severe mental illness and was admitted first to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in Old Street in 1799 and then Bethlem Hospital in 1800, where she died four years later. The young Turner was sent to stay with his maternal uncle, Joseph Mallord William Marshall, in Brentford, then a small town on the banks of the Thames, west of London. The earliest surviving artistic exercise by Turner is a series of simple colourings of engraved plates from Henry Boswell's Picturesque View of the Antiquities of England and Wales.

In 1786 Turner was sent to Margate on the north-east Kent coast. There he produced a series of drawings of the town and surrounding area foreshadowing his later work. Turner would return to the town many times in his adult life. By this time, Turner’s drawings were being exhibited in his father's shop window, selling for a few shillings. Many early sketches were architectural studies or exercises in perspective, as he worked for several architects in his adolescence. By the end of 1789, he had also begun to study under the topographical draughtsman Thomas Malton, who specialised in London views. Turner learned from him the basic conventions of the trade, copying and colouring outline prints of British castles and abbeys. Turner would later regard Malton as my real master.

That same year, the artist entered the Royal Academy of Art schools, at the age of fourteen; he was accepted into the academy a year later. Sir Joshua Reynolds, president of the Royal Academy, chaired the panel that admitted him. The following canvas, Fishermen at Sea (1796), is the first oil painting that Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy, portraying a moonlit scene in the tradition of Horace Vernet, Philip de Loutherbourg and Joseph Wright, whose works fuelled the eighteenth century interest in nocturnal subjects.

In his younger years, Turner travelled around the British Isles extensively, filling his notebook with impressions he received wherever he went.  When he was aged twenty, it was a visit to the Isle of Wight that inspired what would become his first great oil painting, Fishermen at Sea.  It depicts a scene close to the famous ‘Needles’ rocks, off the coast of the Isle of Wight. The sense of the overwhelming power of nature is a key theme of the painting, with the ascending brilliance of the moonlight contrasting strongly with the delicate vulnerability of the flickering lantern held by the fishermen, emphasising nature’s power over mankind. The jagged outlines of rocks and the violence of the waves enforce the impression of the fishermen’s perilous fate. 

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‘Moonlight’ by Philip de Loutherbourg, 1777 — a likely source of inspiration

The Needles, Isle of Wight

BUTTERMERE LAKE, WITH PART OF CROMACKWATER, A SHOWER

Buttermere Lake, with Part of Cromackwater, a Shower was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798 and depicts a Lake District scene conceived during Turner’s first tour of the region the previous year. The canvas is based on a sketchbook study, later worked up in watercolour to portray the stormy conditions, which the artist literally noted down for himself by writing the word ‘Black’ on the surface of the lake. This strong use of black dominates the gloomy mood of the work, which is otherwise enlivened by the rainbow, a frequent motif employed by the artist. It is a work that concerns the power of the Sublime, encouraging the viewer to contemplate Nature’s grandeur.

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SELF PORTRAIT, 1799

In this early self portrait we can note the subtle blend of light and dark, illuminating the face of the young twenty-four year old artist.  Dating from around 1799, the painting was most likely intended to mark Turner’s election as a full member of the Royal Academy, a momentous occasion for any aspiring artist. This meant that he could now exhibit his works on the walls of the Academy without fear of rejection by any members of the committee.

Despite his relative youth, Turner had already made a name for himself as an original, accomplished painter with the technical abilities of someone many years more experienced. He had been described in London newspapers as an artist that ‘seems thoroughly to understand the mode of adjusting and applying his various materials’ and ‘their effect in oil or on paper is equally sublime’. The portrait, which is now housed in Tate Britain, depicts a confident young man, who stares assertively at the viewer, hinting at his ambitions and skilled abilities as an artist.

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Royal Academy of Arts, London, in Turner’s time

The Royal Academy today, with a statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds, its founder, presented at the front

THE FALL OF AN AVALANCHE IN THE GRISONS

During an interlude of peace in 1802, a consortium of patrons clubbed together to send Turner to Paris, in order to study in the Louvre. To begin with, he embarked on a tour of the Alps, whose sublime beauty and constant climatic change taught the young artist the awesome scale and mutability of nature. The Alpine tour resulted in some spectacular watercolours and oil paintings. Although he never witnessed an avalanche himself, an account of a devastating one in the Grisons prompted Turner to create the following painting in 1810. The tragic event occurred at Selva, killing twenty-five people.

The canvas depicts huge rocks, driven before the weight of snow, crashing down upon a small chalet. Turner opted to portray not a single human figure, concentrating on the unparalleled might of nature instead. Turner creates an almost abstract scene of overwhelming elemental forces and the portrayal of the superior power of nature would later become one of the most recurring themes in his oeuvre.

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Selva, Grisons, today

SNOW STORM: HANNIBAL AND HIS ARMY CROSSING THE ALPS

In 1802 Turner visited the Val d’Aosta in north-western Italy, which he used as the setting of this major historical painting.  Although he never witnessed a snow storm in Italy, the artist had seen one in Yorkshire, which he used as inspiration for this monumental work.  The painting depicts the Carthaginian leader Hannibal’s invasion of Italy in 218 B.C. Hannibal’s army, stretched across the bottom of the canvas, is approaching the rocky landscape and is about to be engulfed in an approaching storm. At the time of composition, Turner was interested in the recent war between France and the surrounding countries. Noting a parallel between Hannibal and Napoleon, who had crossed the Alps to invade Italy in 1797, the artist uses the storm to symbolise the downfall of empires past and present, perhaps even giving a warning against Britain’s thirst for power. Here, as in many of his other works, Turner identifies both nature and history as powerful forces against human accomplishment.

For Turner, the figure of Hannibal leading his armies to attack Rome had powerful associations with Napoleon’s military exploits. These connections had also been openly portrayed in a series of official portraits of Napoleon, about to lead his armies across the St Bernard Pass, by the French neo-classical artist Jacques-Louis David.  However, Turner’s painting does not celebrate the power of the individual, but instead suggests man’s vulnerability in the face of nature’s supreme force; Hannibal is unrecognisable and the soldiers indistinct while the darkness gathers around them.

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‘Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass’ by Jacques-Louis David, 1800

Val d’Aosta, Italy

BONNEVILLE, SAVOY WITH MONT BLANC

Now housed in the Dallas Museum of Art, this painting was originally exhibited in 1803. Turner had first visited France and Switzerland in July, 1802, following the Treaty of Amiens. Bonneville was on the primary route for Alpine travel and the Mont Blanc area inspired the young artist with its dramatic scenery, crowned by the Alps. Turner used numerous sketches from the trip to create this oil painting, which depicts a calm lake, with reclining peasants and a town in the foreground, while the soaring mountains dominate the background. The painting shifts from darker earth tones on the right to lighter colours on the left, culminating with the imperious peaks of Mont Blanc.

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A view in the Bonneville, Haute-Savoie area today

THE SHIPWRECK

Turner’s ongoing fascination with the sea is demonstrated by The Shipwreck and his many other marine paintings. The power of the storm and man’s subjectivity to such strength was a theme often revisited by the artist. His love for the seaside is believed to have begun in 1786, when he attended school in Margate. Throughout his lifetime he often visited the English seaside town, creating a range of works exploring the coastline and the power of the sea.

In 1802 Turner took a very influential trip to the Louvre, allowing him to study Dutch storm paintings, believed to have partly inspired the following seascape.  Housed today in Tate Britain and first exhibited in 1805, The Shipwreck reveals the primal force of the elements over the vulnerability of man.  It is unknown whether this painting was inspired by an actual shipwreck or the reissue in 1804 of a famous poem on the theme by William Falconer. Turner depicts the essence of such an experience with realism and horror. The dark tonality, often found in Turner’s early paintings, provides a foil to the dominant white crests of the waves. The artist portrays the power of the angry sea; where man will struggle and fight, and still be mercilessly overcome.

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Tate Britain, London, where a vast majority of Turner’s works are on permanent display

It is believed by some art critics that this popular poem inspired Turner’s dramatic painting of the same theme:

An Extract from ‘The Shipwreck’ by William Falconer

Again she plunges! hark! a second shock

Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock —

Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries

The fated victims cast their shuddering eyes

In wile despair; while yet another stroke

With strong convulsions rends the solid oak.

‘Waves Breaking on a Lee Shore at Margate’, 1840 — one of Turner’s many paintings of his favourite seaside town

Margate from the sea, 1840

Love Lane, Margate, where Turner went to school, aged 11

DIDO BUILDING CARTHAGE

OR, THE RISE OF THE CARTHAGINIAN EMPIRE

This painting is one of Turner’s most important works and was greatly influenced by the classical style of Claude Lorraine (1600-1682). On visiting the Louvre in 1802, Turner was enthralled by the ethereal quality of Claude’s landscapes, and the Italian Master’s art was to have a lasting impression on the young artist. Once completed, Turner regarded Dido Building Carthage as his masterpiece, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1815.  He kept the painting with him until his death, when it was left it to the nation in the Turner Bequest in 1856 and is now housed in London’s National Gallery. The painting was widely admired when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy and Turner later exhibited a companion piece titled The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire in 1817.

The subject is a classical scene taken from Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid.  Dido , the Queen of Carthage, is represented as a figure in blue and white on the left, as she directs the builders of her new city. The figure in front of her, wearing armour and facing away from the viewer, is most likely her lover Aeneas, the poem’s protagonist. Some children are playing with a toy boat in the water, symbolising the growing but fragile naval power of Carthage, while the tomb of Dido’s dead husband Sychaeus can be glimpsed to the right of the painting.  The gloom on the other bank of the estuary foreshadows Carthage’s eventual doom.

The top half of the canvas is dominated by an intense yellow sunrise, suggesting the dawn of a new empire. The surreal brilliance of the sky’s colour became a hallmark of many of Turner’s paintings.  The eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in April 1815 created magnificent sunrises and sunsets, which many believe inspired Turner’s paintings at this time.

In the first draft of his will in 1829, Turner stipulated that he should be actually buried in the canvas of the painting, but he changed his mind to make a donation of Dido Building Carthage and The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire to the National Gallery, on condition that his two paintings should always be displayed on either side of Claude’s Lorraine’s Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, a painting that Turner always revered. His revised will of 1831 changed the bequest, stipulating that Dido Building Carthage should be accompanied by Turner’s Sun rising through Vapour and that they should be exhibited alongside Claude’s Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba and Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca.

A codicil in 1848 donated the remainder of Turner’s completed works to the new National Gallery, so they could be displayed together. The Turner Bequest was contested by his relatives, but resolved by 1856 when the paintings were acquired by the Gallery. Most of Turner’s works eventually moved to Tate Britain in the early 20th century, but Dido Building Carthage and Sun rising through Vapour remained in the National Gallery with Claude’s two paintings, complying with the artist’s dying wish. All four paintings are presented together in their correct order in this eBook for the reader’s enjoyment.

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‘The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba’ by Claude Lorraine, 1648

Turner’s ‘Sun Rising through Vapour’, c.1806

‘Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca’ by Claude Lorraine, 1648

Claude Lorraine, whose landscape paintings greatly influenced Turner’s art

‘The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire’, 1817 — Turner’s companion piece to ‘Dido Building Carthage’, which he originally planned to display with Claude’s paintings, but later changed his mind.

A contemporary depiction of the eruption of Mount Tambora

The National Gallery, London, where several of Turner’s most celebrated oil paintings are housed

THE BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF LORDS AND COMMONS

Turner completed two oil paintings depicting the fire that broke out at the Houses of Parliament on the evening of 16 October, 1834. The artist himself witnessed the event from the south bank of the River Thames, opposite Westminster. He made sketches using both pencil and watercolour in two sketchbooks from different viewpoints, including one from a rented boat. The sketchbooks were left by Turner to the National Gallery as