Joseph Mallord William Turner i - Research Paper Example

Joseph Mallord William Turner Affiliation Joseph Mallord William Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on April 1775 in London, England (Shane & Turner, 2004). He is famous for being an English romantic landscape painter whose efforts in studies of color and light and atmosphere were of high range and sublimity. He was a son to a barber and attended school in Brentford. He showed interests of drawing at the age of ten, and his father sold some of them to his customers. He was able to exhibit his watercolors when he joined the Royal Academy schools in the late 1780’s.

In the early 1790’s, he spent most of his time during the summer touring England in search of subjects to fill his sketchbook that he would work on later (Ackroyd & Turner, 2006). Turner’s drawings were topographical in character, and his technique was traditional to imitate the best English masters who existed at that time (Townsend & Turner, 1996). He started working for various magazines in 1794 and got a job to make elaborations of many unfinished drawings that had been started by John Robert Cozen, who was a landscape painter (Shane & Turner, 2004).

The magazines he was working for at this time were the Pocket magazine and the Copperplate Magazine that were popular and the England citizens. It was through the influence of the deceased landscape writer, Cozen and Richard Wilson from Wales that Turner was able to become more imaginative and poetic in his landscapes (Turner & Bockemuhl, 2005).At the Royal Academy, he went through various exhibitions for his watercolors and oil painting. The greatest of all watercolors that Turner made was the Fishermen at sea back in 1796.

It had a moonlight scene and earned a lot of acknowledgement from critics as an original critical mind. At the age of 24, elections took place and he became an associate of the Royal Academy and later upgraded to become an academician three years later (Ackroyd & Turner, 2006). In 1800, Turner started a small studio in London and four years later opened a private gallery. In addition, he made trips in search of inspiration visiting various countries such as Wales and Scotland among others. He made more than five hundred drawings during his tour in Switzerland and France and studied the old Masters that is found in Louvre.

In 180, Turner started his enterprise whose focus was publishing plates that referred to as Lober Sturdiorum (Turner & Bockemuhl. 2005). His main aim was to have full documentation of great variety and range of watercolors and landscapes. He had a few engravers on board though he did most of the work in supervision (Wilton, 2006).His paintings took a new turn of quality and became increasingly atmospheric and luminous. Turner started to work on a series of Carthaginian subjects in 1814 until 1850 when he marked his last exhibition.

In 1815, he made trips abroad, completed 1500 drawings and later painted a series of pictures through the inspiration of what he had seen and gone through (Turner & Bockemuhl, 2005). Turner died on December 1951 and at his deathbed, he wished that he would be a reference to support what he referred to as decaying artists. Turner is regarded to be among the greatest founders of English watercolor landscape painting. His famous works include Dido building Carthage, burial at Sea, Venice, Calais Pier, Rain, Speed and Steam, Interior at Petworth, moonlight, Sun Setting over a Lake, slaves throwing overboard the Dead and Dying, snowstorm, Shade and Darkness and sunrise with Sea Monsters (Turner, Francis & Tate, 2000).

ReferencesAckroyd, P., & Turner, J. M. W. (2006). J.M.W. Turner. New York: Nan A. Talese.Shanes, E., & Turner, J. M. W. (2004). Turner: The life and masterworks. New York: Parkstone.Townsend, J., & Turner, J. M. W. (1996). Turners painting techniques. London: Tate Pub.Turner, J. M. W., Francis, M., Crary, J., & Tate Gallery Liverpool. (2000). J.M.W. Turner: The sun is god [texts by Mark Francis, Jonathan Crary.]. Liverpool: Tate Liverpool.Turner, J. M. W., & Bockemühl, M. (2005). J.M.W. Turner: 1775-1851 : the world of light and colour.

Köln [etc.: Taschen.Wilton, A. (2006). Turner as draughtsman. Aldershot: Ashgate.