TURNER, 'JOSEPH MALLOnu WILLIAM (1775 1851). The most celebrated landscape painter of the English school. lie was born in Covent Garden, London, April 23, 1775. the son of William Turner, a barber. Almost in his in fancy he began to paint and draw. lie had but little schooling beyond reading, which he learned from his father, and writing, which was all lie acquired at the schools of Brentford and Hargate. During this time he was constantly em ployed in coloring prints and similar work. His father offered him every facility for artistic education in his power. Before 1789 the lad was placed with Thomas Walton, an architect, to learn perspective, but proved a sorry pupil. Afterwards he studied with Thomas Hardwick, on whose advice he entered the Academy Schools in 17S9 to study landscape. lie was admitted to the studio of Reynolds, under whom he copied portraits and perhaps learned oil technique; hut Sir Joshua had lint little influence upon the rising pupil.
His first drawing exhibited at the Academy was a view of Lambeth Palace (1790). During the following years he was lime]] occupied with designs for prints in magazines, which necessi tated sketching tours over a great part of Eng land and Wales. He continued his artistic' edu cation, however, as one of the coterie of young artists who frequented the hospitable abode of Dr. Thomas Munro, whom Ruskin calls "Tur ner's real master ;" this is only true in the sense that the artist profited by his patronage and more by his encouragement. In Munro's house he had opportunity to copy the early English water colorists and also the older masters; there, too, he met Girtin and Cozens. He was especially in fluenced by Girtin, the fonder of modern water color painting, with whom he sketched much and formed a fast friendship. The success of Gir tin's Yorkshire aquarelles moved Turner, in 1797, to make a similar attempt, and his travels in Yorkshire and the north resulted in his forming several important friendships among the northern gentry, like that with Dr. Whitaker, whose works Turner afterwards illustrated with some of his best designs. More than this, it had a marked influence upon his artistic career. as is shown by his exhibit at the Academy in 179S, which proclaimed Ids genius as a painter of poetic landscape, in such pictures as "Morning on the Coniston Fells, Cumberland" (National Gallery), and aquarellcs like "Norham Castle," Turner esteemed of high importance in his de velopment. In 1799 he exhibited several Welsh
subjects, in rivalry with Girtin, and his first picture of a naval emmgement, the "Battle of the Nile"—works which secured his choice as asso ciate of the Royal Academy.
With this year ceases what Ruskin calls Tur ner's period of development. and the period of his first style (18(10-20) begins. Dropping the topographical subjects which had previously been his chief interest, lie introduced historical and mythological motifs into his pictures, deliberately striving to equal or surpass the masters then most celebrated, van de Velde, Nicolas and Gaspard Poussin, and Claude Lorraine, in their own subjects. He was especially influenced by Claude, the great painter of light, which Tur ner also considered the chief problem of paint ing. In 1S02 he paid his first visit to the Con tinent, the results of which appeared in the ex hibition in the following year of pictures and drawings of the Savoy Alps, most of which are now in the National Gallery. as well as "Calais Pier," and a "Holy Family" of the same year. The same collection possesses his famous "Ship wreck" (1805) ; his "Garden of the Hesperides" (1806), painted in the classical style in rivalry with Poussin: and the "Sun Rising Through Vapor" (1807), one of hit best and most individ ual works. From 1807 to 1819 he was engaged in his Liber Studiorant ( q.v.) , in rivalry with Claude's Liter Veritatis. His work. however, went fur ther than Claude's, in that it purposed to illus trate all classes of landscape, while Claude's was merely for mirposes of identification of his pictures. The etchings for these plates, all of which were supervised or executed by Turner himself, show the master at his very best. Dur ing this period he also made travels in Devon shire, in the North of England, in Scotland, and on the Continent. Among other important works of this period are: "Apollo and Python" (1811) ; "Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps" (1812) ; "Crossing the Brook" (1815) ; and "Dido Building Carthage" (1815), the best of a Carthage series—all in the National Gallery.