The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, c. 1822–1824
Oil on canvas
H 261.5 x W 368.5 cm
National Maritime Museum
This is Turner’s only work by ‘royal command’ and the largest and most publicly controversial painting of his career. George IV gave him the commission late in 1822 on the advice of Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy. It was to form a naval pair with Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg’s 1795 view of The Battle of the Glorious First of June 1794, in a patriotic post-war redecoration of the State Rooms at St James’s Palace.
In 'The Harbours of England' Ruskin grasped this elemental component when he likened the uncontrollability of the ship’s sails, as Turner shows them, to ‘as many thunderclouds’, most of 'Victory’'s falling with her foremast and at the same time as Nelson. Also symbolically, the falling mast bears his white vice-admiral’s flag, while the code flags spelling ‘d-u-t-y’ – both the last word of his famous Trafalgar signal and the last coherent thought he spoke (‘Thank God I have done my duty’) – are coming down from the mainmast. More on this painting
Detai; The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, c. 1822–1824
Oil on canvas
H 261.5 x W 368.5 cm
National Maritime Museum
This work depicts a scene from the Battle of Trafalgar. The British had twenty-seven ships to the thirty-three of the Franco-Spanish fleet. Despite this, the British came out as decisively victorious and captured or destroyed nineteen of the Franco-Spanish ships. At the height of the battle Nelson was shot from a nearby French ship and mortally wounded. Despite this upsetting death, the victory at Trafalgar represented a crucial naval victory for the British. Their dominance effectively established them as the great naval power and ended Napoleon’s plans to conquer England. More on the Battle of Trafalgar.
Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower-middle-class family. He lived in London all his life, retaining his Cockney accent and assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame.
attributed to Joseph Mallord William Turner
Diana and Callisto (after Wilson), c.1796
Oil paint on canvas
565 × 914 mm
Tate
Turner’s earliest history paintings followed the example of the Welsh artist Richard Wilson. This picture is loosely based on an engraving of one of Wilson’s views of Lake Nemi in the collection of Turner’s patron, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, at Stourhead in Wiltshire.
Located south-east of Rome, Lake Nemi occupies a volcanic crater and was known as the mirror of Diana. This standard association led Wilson (and subsequently Turner) to add an incident from the myth of Diana to the foreground. More on this painting
In Greek mythology, Callisto was a nymph, and one of the followers of Artemis (Diana for the Romans) who attracted Zeus. According to some writers, Zeus transformed himself into the figure of Artemis to lure Callisto and seduce her. She became pregnant and when this was eventually discovered, she was expelled from Artemis's group, after which a furious Hera, the wife of Zeus, transformed her into a bear. Later, just as she was about to be killed by her son when he was hunting, she was set among the stars as Ursa Major ("the Great Bear"). She was the bear-mother of the Arcadians, through her son Arcas by Zeus. More on Callisto
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Shipping by a Breakwater, c.1798
Oil paint on mahogany
302 × 194 mm
Tate
Turner first made drawings of sea-going ships while visiting relatives at Margate at the age of about ten. Years later, when shown a print after the seventeenth-century Dutch marine artist Willem van de Velde, he is said to have declared, 'That made me a painter'. More on this painting
A child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman.
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 tricks of the trade, copying and colouring outline prints of British castles and abbeys. He would later call Malton "My real master". Topography was a thriving industry by which a young artist could pay for his studies.
He began to travel to Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)
Fishermen at Sea, c. 1796
Depicting The Needles
Height: 914 mm (35.98 in); Width: 1,222 mm (48.11 in)
Tate Britain
This is a moonlit scene in the tradition of Horace Vernet, Philip de Loutherbourg and Joseph Wright of Derby. These painters were largely responsible for fuelling the 18th-century vogue for nocturnal subjects. The sense of the overwhelming power of nature is a key theme of the Sublime. The potency of the moonlight contrasts with the delicate vulnerability of the flickering lantern, emphasising nature’s power over mankind and the fishermen’s fate in particular. The jagged silhouettes on the left are the treacherous rocks called ‘the Needles’ off the Isle of Wight. More on this painting
The Needles is a row of three stacks of chalk that rise about 30m out of the sea off the western extremity of the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. The Needles were a site of a long-standing artillery battery, from the 1860s to 1954, which was eventually decommissioned. More on The Needles
In 1796, Turner exhibited Fishermen at Sea (See above), his first oil painting for the academy, of a nocturnal moonlit scene of the Needles off the Isle of Wight, an image of boats in peril. Wilton said that the image was "a summary of all that had been said about the sea by the artists of the 18th century".
J. M. W. Turner
The Fifth Plague of Egypt, c. 1800
Oil on canvas
Height: 48 in (121.9 cm); Width: 72 in (182.8 cm)
Indianapolis Museum of Art
This dark, tempestuous painting marks the rise of Turner as a full-fledged Romantic painter. Relying on vast scale, dynamic movement, and dramatic subject, his composition appeals primarily to the emotions to communicate its message. Turner’s motive for painting this canvas, which was his first major work exhibited at the Royal Academy, may have been a desire to impress British critics and viewers with his ability to handle serious themes. However, it does appear that the young painter mistitled his picture, as this canvas actually depicts the seventh plague of Egypt, when Moses stretched his arms toward heaven and thunder, hail, and fire rained on the pharaoh and his people. More on this painting
The Indianapolis Museum of Art, home to the largest Turner collection outside the UK.
Joseph Mallord William Turner
The Tenth Plague of Egypt, c. exhibited 1802
Oil paint on canvas
1435 × 2362 mm
Tate
This painting illustrates a passage from the Bible. It describes one of the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians by God as punishment for enslaving the Jewish people: the killing of all the first-born sons of the Egyptians. The dark clouds in the sky emphasise the power of forces beyond human’s control. Turner exhibited the picture just a couple of months after becoming a full member of the Royal Academy. Depictions of stories from the Bible and ancient Greek and Roman myth was seen by the Academy as the most important form of art. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Detail; The Tenth Plague of Egypt, c. exhibited 1802
Oil paint on canvas
1435 × 2362 mm
Tate
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Light and Colour (Goethe’s Theory) - the Morning after the Deluge - Moses Writing the Book of Genesis, c. exhibited 1843
Oil paint on canvas
787 × 787 mm
Tate
Made during the latter years of Turner's career, this painting depicts the aftermath of the Great flood story told in the Book of Genesis.[2] The role of man is portrayed as passive through his inability to control nature, which is beautiful to the eye yet has the power to destroy and recreate life. This piece also illustrates Turner's belief in God's omnipotence as it is He who creates the flood, allows Noah to survive, and inspired Moses to write the Book of Genesis. Genesis, in this case leads back to the creation of man, light, and the water which light is being reflected on. More on this painting
He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which due to his troubled, contrary nature, were often begrudgingly accepted. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828.
National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London
Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London)
Intensely private, eccentric and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Eveline (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father, after which his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. In 1841, Turner rowed a boat into the Thames so he could not be counted as present at any property in that year's census. He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London. More on Joseph Mallord William Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner
The Shipwreck, c. exhibited 1805
Oil paint on canvas
1705 × 2416 mm
Tate
Turner had a lifelong passion for the sea. Shipwrecks and other disasters were a popular theme when Turner painted this. They demonstrated the powerful forces of the elements and the fears of those who travelled far from home. We don’t know whether this painting was inspired by an actual shipwreck. Turner demonstrates the trauma and horror of a shipwreck with dramatic realism. These dark colours are common in Turner’s early paintings. They provide a contrast to the white crests of the waves. More on this painting
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)
Dido Building Carthage aka The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, c. 1815
Oil on canvas
155.5 x 230 CM
The painting is one of Turner's most important works, greatly influenced by the luminous classical landscapes of Claude Lorrain. Turner described it as his chef d'oeuvre. First exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1815, Turner kept the painting until he left it to the nation in the Turner Bequest. It has been held by the National Gallery in London since 1856.
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)
Detail; Dido Building Carthage aka The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, c. 1815
Oil on canvas
155.5 x 230 CM
The subject is a classical landscape taken from Virgil's Aeneid. The figure in blue and white on the left is Dido, directing the builders of the new city of Carthage. The figure in front of her, wearing armour and facing away from the viewer, may be her Trojan lover Aeneas. Some children are playing with a flimsy toy boat in the water, symbolising the growing but fragile naval power of Carthage, while the tomb of her dead husband Sychaeus, on the right side of the painting, on the other bank of the estuary, foreshadows the eventual doom of Carthage. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, c. exhibited 1812
Oil paint on canvas
1460 × 2375 mm
Tate
The painting depicts the struggle of Hannibal's soldiers to cross the Maritime Alps in 218 BC, opposed by the forces of nature and local tribes. A curving black storm cloud dominates the sky, poised to descend on the soldiers in the valley below, with an orange-yellow Sun attempting to break through the clouds. A white avalanche cascades down the mountain to the right. Hannibal himself is not clearly depicted, but may be riding the elephant just visible in the distance. The large animal is dwarfed by the storm and the landscape, with the sunlit plains of Italy opening up beyond. In the foreground, Salassian tribesmen are fighting Hannibal's rearguard, confrontations that are described in the histories of Polybius and Livy. The painting measures 146 × 237.5 centimetres (57.5 × 93.5 in). It contains the first appearance in Turner's work of a swirling oval vortex of wind, rain and cloud, a dynamic composition of contrasting light and dark that will recur in later works, such as his 1842 painting Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth.. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775 - 1851
Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey, c. 1829
Oil on canvas
132.5 x 203 cm
National Gallery
The subject of this painting is taken from Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey. It shows Ulysses sailing from the island where Polyphemus, a one-eyed giant, had held him and his men captive. Wearing a helmet and a scarlet cloak, Ulysses raises his arms in victory as he stands on the deck of his ship, below a red banner, looking back at the island. He lifts the flaming torch with which he blinded Polyphemus, whose huge shadowy body lies sprawled across the clifftop that towers above. Luminous sea nymphs and flying fish gather at the ship’s prow as a blazing sun rises through the morning mists.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775 - 1851
Detail; Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey, c. 1829
Oil on canvas
132.5 x 203 cm
National Gallery
The painting signals the increasing role of colour and light in Turner’s historical landscapes. It also marks the increasingly expressive direction his painting was to follow and anticipates the visionary qualities of his late work. Writing in 1856, the English art critic John Ruskin declared it to be ‘the central picture of Turner’s career'. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner
View of Orvieto, Painted in Rome, 1828, reworked 1830
Oil paint on canvas
914 × 1232 mm
Tate
Orvieto is a city and comune in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are completed by defensive walls built of the same stone, called tufa. More on Orvieto
Turner painted this picture in 1828, during his stay in Rome. Unlike many of his Italian landscapes, it shows a real place. Turner made several sketches of Orvieto on his journey to Rome. The final painting combines these sketches with compositions Turner admired in the work of the 17th-century classical landscape painter, Claude Lorrain.
This is one of a small group of paintings Turner showed in an exhibition he held at his lodgings in Rome in 1828. He may have reworked it before showing it in London two years later. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)
Lifeboat and Manby Apparatus Going off to a Stranded Vessel Making the Signal (Blue Lights) of Distress, c.1831
Oil on canvas
H 91.4 x W 122 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Manby apparatus was a lifesaving device consisting of a rope fired from a mortar. Captain George Manby invented it after a shipwreck in 1807 at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in the year that this work was exhibited. More on this painting
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)
The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, c. 1834 or 1835
Oil on canvas
Height: 36.2 in (92 cm); Width: 48.5 in (123.1 cm)
Philadelphia Museum of Art
"Shortly before 7 o'clock last night the inhabitants of Westminster, and of the districts on the opposite bank of the river, were thrown into the utmost confusion and alarm by the sudden breaking out of one of the most terrific conflagrations that has been witnessed for many years past....The Houses of the Lords and Commons and the adjacent buildings were on fire."
So wrote the London Times on October 17, 1834. Turner witnessed the event, along with tens of thousands of spectators, and recorded what he saw in quick sketches that became the basis for this painting. Flames consume Saint Stephen's Hall, the House of Commons, and eerily illuminate the towers of Westminster Abbey, which would be spared. On the right the exaggerated scale and plunging perspective of Westminster Bridge intensify the drama of the scene, which Turner observed from the south bank of the Thames River. More on this painting
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)
The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, 16 October 1834, c. 1834
Oil on canvas
Height: 92 cm (36.2 in); Width: 123 cm (48.4 in)
Cleveland Museum of Art
Turner painted two versions of this event. This painting views the fire downriver, from the southeast bank of the Thames, while the second version at the Philadelphia Museum of Art views the fire from directly across Westminster Bridge.
Fire consumed London’s famous Houses of Parliament on the night of October 16, 1834, and people gathered along the banks of the river Thames to gaze in awe at the horrifying spectacle. Initially, a low tide made it difficult to pump water to land and hampered steamers towing firefighting equipment along the river. The blaze burned uncontrollably for hours.
J. M. W. Turner records the struggle as the boats in the lower-right corner head toward the flames. Although Turner based the painting on an actual event, he magnified the height of the flames, using the disaster as the starting point to express man’s helplessness when confronted with the destructive powers of nature. Brilliant swathes of color and variable atmospheric effects border on abstraction. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London)
The Fort of L'Esseillon, Val de la Maurienne, France, c. 1835–36
Watercolor
7 3/4 x 11 in. (19.7 x 28 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
We look southwest along the Arc River gorge toward the Fort of L’Esseillon, a stepped construction on a slope in the middle distance, with snowcapped peaks beyond. The complex was built between 1819 and 1836 to guard the Mont-Cenis Pass into Italy after France ceded Savoy to Piedmont. Turner likely borrowed details of the composition from an engraved illustration in an 1827 book written by his friend William Brockedon. The drawing’s detailed handling suggests a date in the 1830s, though it was likely finished before the artist set out for France in 1836—a tour during which he typically worked in a looser manner. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London)
Detail; The Fort of L'Esseillon, Val de la Maurienne, France, c. 1835–36
Watercolor
7 3/4 x 11 in. (19.7 x 28 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)
The Beacon Light, c. circa 1840
Medium painting
DHeight: 61.5 cm (24.2 in); Width: 96 cm (37.7 in)
National Museum Cardiff
Turner captures the effect of light on a raging sea and the spray from the waves crashing against the cliff. His intention here was to explore the nature of the sea under a changing sky, rather than to depict a specific place. However, the discovery of a painted out lighthouse on the cliff edge has prompted new research into a possible location. Traditionally said to show The Needles, Isle of Wight, it is now thought to depict the coastline from St Margaret’s-at-Cliffe, north of Dover looking towards the South Foreland Lighthouse, where there was both a beacon and a lighthouse. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner (English, 1775–1851)
Slave Ship, c. 1840
Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On
Oil on canvas
90.8 x 122.6 cm (35 3/4 x 48 1/4 in.)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Turner based the painting on an 18th-century poem that described a slave ship caught in a typhoon and on the true story of the Zong, a British ship whose captain, in 1781, had thrown overboard sick and dying enslaved people so that he could collect insurance money only available for those "lost at sea." Turner captures the horror of the event and the terrifying grandeur of nature through hot, churning color and light that merge sea and sky. The critic John Ruskin, the first owner of "Slave Ship," wrote, "If I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single work, I should choose this." More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner
War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet, c. exhibited 1842
Oil paint on canvas
794 × 794 mm
Tate
This scene shows French military leader Napoleon in exile on the island of St Helena. He had been sent there after being defeated by a British-led army in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon died in St Helena in 1821. This work was painted in the year his ashes were returned to France. The image does not appear to celebrate or condemn Napoleon, but instead suggests the pointlessness of war. The isolated uniformed body appears out of place in its surroundings. The red background invokes the trauma of battle. In verses attached to the canvas, Turner refers to the sunset as a ‘sea of blood’. More on this painting
Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775 - 1851
Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway, c. 1844
Oil on canvas
91 x 121.8 cm
National Gallery, London
A steam engine comes towards us as it crosses the Maidenhead Railway Bridge in the rain. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the bridge was completed in 1838. We are looking east towards London as the train heads to the west. The exaggeratedly abrupt foreshortening of the viaduct, which our eye follows to the horizon, suggests the speed with which the train bursts into view through the rain. Turner lightly brushed in a hare roughly midway along the rail track to represent the speed of the natural world in contrast to the mechanised speed of the engine. The animal is now invisible as the paint has become transparent with age, but it can be seen in an 1859 engraving of the painting. More on this painting
Whalers, ca. 1845
Oil on canvas
36 1/8 x 48 1/4 in. (91.8 x 122.6 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The painting depicts a wounded sperm whale thrashing in a sea of foam and blood. In the background is a ghostly three-masted whaling vessel.
Turner was seventy years old when Whalers debuted to mixed reviews at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1845. Its subject proved elusive, as the English novelist William Thackeray observed: "That is not a smear of purple you see yonder, but a beautiful whale, whose tail has just slapped a half-dozen whale-boats into perdition; and as for what you fancied to be a few zig-zag lines spattered on the canvas at hap-hazard, look! they turn out to be a ship with all her sails." Apparently Turner undertook the painting—which was returned to him—for the collector Elhanan Bicknell, who had made his fortune in the whale-oil business. More on this painting
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