With his visit to Italy in 1819 begins his second style (1820-35), the period of his most perfect works, distinguished by lightness and brilliancy of color. Ceasing to imitate the old masters, he nevertheless clung to the clas sicist idea of ideal composition. This mature style is well represented by the first of the series of the wonderful Italian pictures upon which his fame chiefly rests—the "Bay of 1Sathe, with Apollo and the Sibyl" (1823) ; also by "Dido Directing the Equipment of the Fleet" (1828) ; "Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus" ( 1829) ; "Cali gula's Palace and Bridge" I 1531) ; and '•Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (1832). During 1833-46 lie often visited Venice, which for sonic time ex ercised a paramount influence upon his art. Of his numerous Venetian subjects the National Gallery possesses a rich collection of water colors, and the "Grand Canal." in the Metro politan Museum, New York City, is a fine ex ample of the oils. He found time, however, for other subjects, like "Saint Michael's Mount, ( 'ornwall" (1834), and "The Fighting Ygm' 1-air.-" (HU), the hest known and most popular of his works. Ilis time was still much occupied with designs for i1luktrations. like Rirers of England and 1'orls of Englad. in 1824. The drawings for the series England and IVales (1627.3S), in which several line engravers under Turner's supervision brought this art to a new perfection, are wonderful in color and atmos pheric effect. In 1830 appeared the lovely illus trations to Rogers's Italy; in 1833 the first of his Rivers of France, the drawings for which are among the most perfect of his works. He also illustrated the works of Byron, Scott, Milton, Campbell, Rogers's Poems, and \loore's Epi curean.
The third period of Turner's art (1835-45) is characterized by the relinquishment of classic composition and a more direct communion with nature, of which he endeavored to render his splendid impressions, foreshadowing the modern Impressionists. Though it tended to become more dreamlike and unreal in character, his work was more wonderful in color than ever. To this period belong many of his greatest works, such as the "Slave Ship" ( 1840, Boston Museum) ; "Snow Storm" (1842) ; "Approach to Venice" (1843) ; "Rain. Steam, and Speed" (1844)—all in the National Gallery. Here belongs also a series of attempts to represent vague thoughts in color language. like "War—The Exile" (ib., 1842), and many of his pictures of Alpine scenery, the grandeur of which he has rendered as no other painter, in such paintings as "The Sphigen." After 1845 his mind and sight began to fail; but though his work was incoherent, it was still good in color. He began a new series, "The Whalers," which he did not live to com plete. He died at Chelsea, December 19, 1851, and was buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral. He left a fortune of £140,000, and a splendid collec tion of his own works, 262 oils, 135 water colors, 1757 studies in color, and almost innu merable sketches. In later life he refused most tempting offers to sell his best works, although the buyers intended to bestow them upon the nation, because he wished to do this himself. Most of these works are in the National Gallery. He intended that his fortune should be devoted to the establishment of pen sions for indigent English artists, but his will was broken and most of it fell into the hands of the lawyers and relatives. Though very economi
cal, even sordid in his personal habits, he was generous to others. There has been much useless prattle about his private life and character. Those who knew him best found him infinitely tender, a kind and dutiful son, and a faithful friend. His brusque manner was but a foil of his retiring disposition, which made him inac cessible to society. It is difficult to reconcile these characteristics and the exquisite refinement of Turner's art with the supposed coarse char acter of his relation to women.
Turner's life was one continuous course of prosperity, and he fully achieved the fame he so ardently desired; in l802 he was elected Academician, and in 1808 became professor of perspective at the Academy. He easily eclipsed in the public favor all landscapists of his day. In later life his works were attacked, but to atone for this he found in John Ruskin the most elo quent advocate ever possessed by any artist, though these eulogies have created several wrong ideas about Turner's art. The chief characteris tic of Turner does not consist, as Ruskin main tains, in his fidelity to Nature. He was indeed one of the profoundest students of Nature that ever lived; but he sought to render her more ideal, beautiful, and sublime than reality, much as was done by Byron and Shelley in literature. His master passions in art were the rendition of light, in which he surpassed even Claude, and that subtle quality which Ruskin calls the "Tnrnerian mystery," by which objects are ren dered with a certain hazy indistinctness of the highest poetical effect. His chief technical qual ity is not naturalism, but a splendid and bril liant, though sometimes unreal, color. He was as subtle and refined in drawing as in composition. Others have painted more intimate phases of landscape than he, but in range of subject, im agination. and sublimity Turner has never been equaled. Though unsound in oil technique. as is evinced by the ruined state of many of his best works, he was a consummate master of water-color (q.v.), which in his bands became a new art. He was himself an excellent etcher and engraver, trusting to mezzotint to produce the light and shadows; and his designs for illus trations produced a new school of line engraving in England. His facility of execution and dili gence were well-nigh incredible, as may be seen from the large number of works in the public and private collections of England. A number of collections in the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum, Lenox Library, and Van derbilt collection in New York City, possess good examples of his work, both in oil and water color.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. The most brilliant and symBibliography. The most brilliant and sym- pathetic appreciation of Turner is Ruskin's Mod ern Painters (London. 1843-60). the chief pur pose of which is to show his superiority to all painters who preceded. Its value is, however, rather literary than critical, and it should be compared with the more sober judgment of works like Hamerton's Life of Turner (ib.. 1879). Of the other lives, Thornbury's (ib., 1862) is uncritical, though containing valuable material ; far better is that of Cosmo Monkhouse (ib., 1882), who also wrote the good article in the Dictionary of National Biography. Consult also the monographs by Burnet (London, 1859) and Dafforne (lb., 1877).