J.M.W. Turner

J.M.W. TURNER

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on 23 April 1775. At his death he left about 350 paintings and nearly 20 000 drawings and watercolours - all of which became the property of the state. He wished that his works should be kept together as a whole and viewed as such. Today one may visit the large Turner collection in the Tate Gallery in London and do just that, though what many consider his greatest painting, "Rain, Steam and Speed", hangs in the National Gallery. He died just before 9 a.m. on 19 December 1851 in his house overlooking his beloved Thames, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.
click on thumbnails for larger image


Rain, steam and speed: The Great Western Railway	The fighting 'Temeraire' tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838

Norham Castle, Sunrise
c. 1845
A Fire at Sea
c. 1835

Sun Setting over a Lake
c. 1840
The Burning of the Houses of Parliament
1834

The Fall of an Avalanche in the Grisons
exh. 1810 for comparison: The Hay-Wain
by John Constable (1776-1837)

Like all artists he had had to create the taste by which he is understood. ... But the internal growth of the art of painting has itself created the taste by which more and more of the work which was not only unintelligible in its own day but remained unappreciated into the twentieth century is now accessible and can become the vehicle of communication. He was a genius not only in the volume and energy of his work, but in also in its inexhaustibility as a source of fresh experience.
source: Turner - Graham Reynolds

All the paintings above are in the Tate's Clore Gallery, apart from the first two and the Constable which are in the National Gallery.


Sun Setting over a Lake c. 1840	The Burning of the Houses of Parliament 1834


The Fall of an Avalanche in the Grisons exh. 1810	for comparison: The Hay-Wain by John Constable (1776-1837)