TURNER, dosErtr MALLARD the greatest of British landscape painters, was born at 26 Maiden lane, Covent Garden, London, in 1775. The precise day of his birth is unknown; but an approximation to it is furnished by his baptism, which is reg istered in the parish church as of date May 14 of that year. He was the son of a barber, and received an exceedingly defective education. Ilis turn for art showed itself very early, and drew attention to-the boy. To a Dr. tIonro, in particular, who gave him access to his excellent collection of water color drawings, and otherwise kindly further ance, he used afterward to express his obligations. In 1789, he became a student at 1.11.
Royal academy, where, doubtless, he learned something; hut throughout he seems to have been indebted less to any formal teaching than to the tentative efforts of his own singularly original genius. In 1787, when only twelve years old, he exhibited two draw ings at the Royal academy. Again, in 1790, he exhibited; and thence onward till his death, with intermission of only one or two years, his pictures were regularly to be found on the walls. His success is sufficiently shown in the fact that so early as 1799 lie was elected an associate of the Royal academy, and only three years afterward attained the full dignity of academician. The honor was worthily bestowed on one whose claim was already admitted as the first landscape painter of his time; but his election in 1807 to the post of professor of perspective could scarcely be considered so judicious. A man so abnor mally illiterate that his simplest note included a crop of solecisms, was not likely to succeed as a lecturer; and as a lecturer he failed utterly. The knowledge which he abundantly possessed, he could not in the least communicate; and after a very few years, he ceased to make the attempt. In the exercise of his art, Turner traveled much; he was frequently in Scotland, France, Switzerland, and the Rhine countries; and in 1819, 1829, and 1840, he paid visits to Italy. His industry was almost as unexampled as his genius. To the exhibitions of the Royal academy, he contributed in all 259 pictures; but among these, many of his finest works were not included; and in another branch of art, the amount of his achievement was extraordinary. In 1808, he commenced the
publication of his famous Laer Studiorum, a series of engravings from original designs, which ranks as one of his most important undertakings; to this is to be added his Scenery of the Southern Coast, England and Hales, Rivers of England, Rivers of France, etc. ; and besides, his services were continually in request as an illustrator. The illustrated edition of Rogers's Poems is his most celebrated work in this kind, and is quite unique in mag nificence. At his death, which took place Dee. 19, 1851, at Chelsea, where his few last Tears were passed in a small house by the river side, it was found that he had bequeathed to the nation the noble collection of his works, which now occupies a room in the National gallery, and remains a permanent monument of the power and splendor of his genius, if also of its occasional eccentricity and extravagance. The large fortune, amounting to something like which he had amassed by his industry and thrift combined, he left to found an asylum for decayed artists; but owing to some technical defect in his will, this purpose could not be carried out.
Of the genius of Turner, and the various phases through which it was developed till it sunk in the decay and deliration obvious in the work of his few last years, we cannot here attempt to treat. In the eloquent pages of Mr. Ruskin's Modern Painters, the sub ject will be found thoroughly discussed. There are lives of Turner by Walter Thorn bury (1861) and by P. G. Hamerton (1879). The picture presented, especially by the former, is a somewhat dark and painful one. This creator of the beautiful on canvas was in his character and way of life by no means so surprising a revelation of it. He was coarse, sensual, sordid, avaricious: of his inordinate passion for money, many odd anecdotes are extant; but it is only fair to say, that by the few friends who knew him intimately, he was held to be essentially a man of kindly and generous nature. He lies buried in the crypt of St. Pains, beside sir Joshua Reynolds.