Turner Joseph

Turner, JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM (1775-1851), the great painter, was the son of a barber. It is not certainly known where he was born. He had very little education, but his artistic gifts soon attracted notice, and he was taken up by Reynolds and Girtin. He began very early to exhibit at the Royal Academy, of which he was elected an associate at twenty-four and full member at twenty-eight. He very soon secured a good income, but continued to work hard and to live economically all his life. In 1799 he painted the Battle of the Nile, in 1802 his picture of Kilchurn Castle. Up to thIS time be had travelled much in England. He now began his Continental wanderings, among the fruits of which were Calais Pier, The Vintage at Macon, some Alpine studies, and his Venetian pictures. In 1807 was painted The Sun Rising in Mist, i 1813 The Frosty Morning, in 1815 Dido building Carthage, in 1838 Phyrne as Venus going to the Bath, in 1839 The Temeraire. This marked the highest point of his art. Meanwhile he had also produced The Rivers of England (1824), Ulysses deriding Polyphemus (l829), and The Rivers of France (1833-35), and had illustrated Rogers and Scott. All his life he had lived alone and wandered about in a mysterious manner, and he died in lodgings at Chelsea under an assumed name. By his will he had intended to provide for the foundation of an asylum for distressed artists, but legal difficulties prevented the carrying out of his wishes. Examples of his admirable etching are to be seen in the unfinished Liber Studiorum.