British painter Joseph Mallord William Turner: biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

There is not much information about the life of this artist, and many of them are contradictory. It is known that William carefully concealed his life and deliberately distorted the facts of his biography. William Turner is an artist who believed that his work would tell the best about him. According to the generally accepted version, William's birthplace is London. However, the artist himself announced at different periods of his life as him a number of regions of England. And there are many such contradictions in his biography.

Origin and childhood

We assume that Joseph Mallord William Turner (years of life - 1775-1851) was born in the British capital, London. The father of the future artist kept a barbershop. In Turner's time, these establishments were as popular meeting places as English pubs. Father Joseph's barbershop was frequented by poets, engravers, and painters. The father hung his son's watercolors on the walls for sale.

Training

Turner (his self-portrait is presented above) in 1789 was admitted to a school operating at the Royal Academyarts. Already at the age of 15, William Turner exhibited his watercolor for the first time at the Academy. His biography was marked during the years of study by both study and work. William mastered the technique in which topographic landscapes were made - accurate small views of parks, estates, cathedrals and castles. In addition, he worked to order - he copied the works of old masters.

Return to oil painting

William Turner's art is not limited to watercolors. The artist in the 1790s decided to turn to oil painting. In 1801, he created a painting en titled "Danish Vessels in the Wind", which is an imitation of the Dutch masters. This work testified to the increased skill of the novice artist. It was executed so well that some even thought that Turner copied the old landscape.

Serving at the Royal Academy of Arts

The artist was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1802. William Turner served her until the end of his days. He gave lectures to both students and the general public, took part in the organization of exhibitions.

Landscape on the Thames

Turner in the period from 1806 to 1812 created a series of sketches - images of the banks of the river. Thames. These include the watercolor "Landscape on the Thames" painted around 1806 (otherwise the work is called "Landscape with a White Rainbow"). Nature, the main and constant hero of the artist, in his mind increasingly appeared not just as a majestic spectacle. Historical events played out against its background. Turner depicted in the style of a Dutch marinamodern storyline. The theme of the picture is the death of a passenger ship. At the same time, the image of the raging sea occupies two-thirds of the canvas. Whitish openwork foam forms a huge shaft on the surface of the sea. This is the compositional core of the canvas. In the center of the rampart is a boat crowded with people. This is the only object in the whole composition that maintains balance. On the crest of the shaft on the right, a sailboat soars up, which has finally lost its stability. Lost control of the dying ships are located on the left and in the depths of the canvas. Their masts are broken, their sails are torn off, and their decks are flooded with water.

Hannibal Crossing the Alps

This picture was created by William in the year of Bonaparte's invasion of Russia. It is known that the latter was compared with Hannibal, the commander of the city-state of Carthage, who competed for dominion over the Mediterranean with Ancient Rome. Turner used his favorite technique in the composition: he entered the most dramatic part of the canvas into the oval. Snow flakes, a blizzard twist into a large funnel, which drags the confused warriors into the crevice of the mountains. The blizzard is amazingly accurately written. William Turner once observed her at a friend's estate. The artist sketched this bad weather on a postal envelope and said that in 2 years everyone in his picture would see this blizzard. The work was completed in 1812.

A picture with an interesting story

William's watercolor technique became more and more virtuosic and complex over time. In 1818 he created the work "First Class Resupplying Frigate". According to the storyeyewitnesses, the story of its creation is as follows. The son of William's friends asked Turner, who was staying with them, to draw a frigate. William took the sheet, poured liquid paint onto the paper. Then, when the paper got wet, he began to rub it, scrape it off. At first everything seemed like chaos, but gradually, as if by magic, a ship began to be born. The drawing was already presented in triumph by the time of the second breakfast.

"Liber Studiorum" and book design by English writers

Twice William Turner de alt with graphics. In the period from 1807 to 1819, he tried to create a kind of encyclopedia of the landscape in engravings. The artist gave this work a Latin title, which means "Book of Etudes" ("Liber Studiorum"). He intended to execute it on 100 sheets in various engraving techniques. William wanted to show how the development of the landscape took place in European painting. This venture, however, failed. Nevertheless, Turner brought up a group of excellent engravers at this job.

In the 1820s and 30s, William worked on a commission to design the works of English writers W alter Scott and Samuel Rogers. The books of these authors were very successful, so engravings from William's drawings hung in almost every English home.

Ulysses taunts Polyphemus

In 1829, after a trip to Italy, the artist created one of the best historical paintings in his work. The work is called "Ulysses taunts Polyphemus". Ruskin called this painting his "central"Ulysses" - a work that was called an operatic scenery, a melodrama. It was noted that the sun floods Ulysses' galley even in parts where its rays cannot penetrate, and that the contrast between the brilliance of the morning sky and the darkness of the Cyclops cave is too great. William was never troubled by inaccuracies of this kind, he increased the size of the bell towers and castles, moved them where he saw fit, if the structure of the picture required it. Also, Turner often increased the sonority of color when the expressiveness of the whole benefited from this.

London Parliament Fire

Turner's pinnacle of craftsmanship dates back to the mid-1830s. William gave painting lessons at the opening days, finishing his paintings here. Before the eyes of astonished artists and an enthusiastic public, Turner practically finished his 1835 painting "The Fire of the London Parliament", a painting of 1835, in a few hours. The fire itself had happened a year earlier, in 1834. The dramatic spectacle was watched by hundreds of people. Turner was deeply shaken by this raging element. Right on the spot, the artist made 9 watercolors. A year later, based on them, he painted a large oil painting.

The last voyage of the ship Courageous

This work was first presented in 1839. She is one of the best in the work of William. It is known that the artist valued this work very much, he was so attached to it that he did not agree to sell it for any money.

Turnerdepicted the setting sun, against the background of fiery clouds from which we observe the movement of the "Brave". This is a warship, a veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar. A small jet-black self-propelled vessel is towing a military general to the banks of the Thames. Here it will be disassembled. Most likely, the plot of the picture was born in the imagination of William, and was not copied from nature. The sad and lyrical image of a dilapidated ship embodies the bygone era of sailboats. In addition, it serves as a reminder of the perishability of all things.

Slave Ship

The slave trade has been one of the most important sources of income for England for several centuries. Parliament, during Turner's lifetime, passed a law banning human trafficking. However, for a long time the stain on the conscience of the nation troubled the imagination of poets, writers and artists. The picture is based on a real event. The captain who transported the slaves decided to throw overboard people who fell ill with cholera, since, according to the law, he could only get insurance for those who died at sea. Thus, freed from excess cargo, the ship moves away from the storm. The slaves thrown by him perish in the waves. Their bodies are tormented by predatory fish, causing the water to turn bloody.

Turner's late works

It should be noted that Turner's later works are painted with transparent, light, quick strokes. The artist preferred light colors, loved white and shades of brown and yellow. He never used black and green colors in his works. Turner's work in the 1840sbecame more and more incomprehensible to the public. The artist either painted streams of rain through which the contours of the steamer are barely visible (1832 painting "Staffa, Fingal's Cave"), then a slave ship from which sick blacks are pushed into the sea (the aforementioned work "The Slave Ship" of 1840), then a rushing train (painting of 1844 "Rain, steam and speed"). Thus, William rather unexpectedly and sensitively responded to contemporary events. It seemed to him exciting and poetic the achievements of technological progress, and the actions of people - cruel and disgusting.

Rain, steam and speed

This work was presented at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1844. From the depths of space filled with smoke and steam, a train rushes towards the viewer along the bridge over the River Thames. The contours of the car blur, its details merge into a brown spot. This gives the impression of fast movement. Contemporaries were skeptical about this work of Turner. Many of them expressed doubts about the reality of the depicted scene.

William's Testament

William Turner, whose paintings were no longer popular, gradually began to lose interest in the public. He exhibited his works less and less, hiding from fans and friends for a long time. William died leaving a lengthy will to posterity. His last will was to open a nursing home for the elderly artists, as well as a gallery of his paintings, at his expense. In addition, he wanted a landscape painting class to be established at the academy. However, it turned outotherwise: canvases, studies and watercolors are the only legacy left by William Turner. His paintings captured the wonderful world that the artist saw. They managed to immortalize the name of their creator.

Turner William Joseph, whose works are of great interest all over the world today, is a recognized master who is especially highly appreciated by the Impressionists. In his work, they are attracted by light and shade effects, motifs of the sea and snowy weather, and the richness of shades of white. Although it should be noted that the type of "disaster landscape" so widely represented in William's work is alien to them.