Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775, Covent Garden, London – 1851, Chelsea) – British painter, master of romantic landscape, watercolourist and engraver. Predecessor of the French impressionists. The artist’s legacy consists of more than 550 oil paintings, 2000 watercolours and 30,000 works on paper.

William Turner was born in late April – early May 1775 in the London district of Covent Garden in a poor family. All his life he retained his cockney accent and carefully avoided the attributes of success and fame.

Turner himself called his date of birth April 23, which, however, is disputed by a number of researchers. The artist’s father, William Turner, was a wig maker, and in the late 1770s he opened a barber shop. In 1785, due to the difficult situation in the family (since 1785, his mother had been showing signs of mental disorder, which later developed into illness), Joseph William was sent to the London suburb of Brentford, where he lived with his uncle.

While still in Brentford, Joseph showed an interest in the visual arts. Turner’s earliest known artistic exercise dates from this period – a series of simple colorings of engraved plates from Henry Boswell’s Picturesque View of the Antiquities of England and Wales. Around 1786, Turner was sent to Margate on the north-east coast of Kent. There he made a series of drawings of the town and its environs, which anticipated his later work. By this time, Turner’s drawings were displayed in the window of his father’s shop and sold for a few shillings. His father was proud of William.

After school in the late 1780s, he settled in London, where he worked for architects and surveyors. By the end of 1789, he also began studying with the surveyor Thomas Malton, who specialized in London landscapes. Turner mastered the basic techniques of the craft under his guidance, copying and coloring sketches of British castles and abbeys. He would later call Malton “My real teacher.” The surveyor’s work was in demand, and the young artist Turner was able to pay for his studies with the income from this work.

In December 1789, 14-year-old Turner was enrolled in the Royal Academy of Arts, and Reynolds examined him. At the academy, William attended Reynolds’s last lectures, who had a significant influence on Turner. Later, the artist carefully studied the entire course of lectures by the first president of the academy, dedicated to the idealistic trend in art.

Already the following year after admission, Turner’s watercolour work “View of the Archbishop of Lambeth’s Palace” was exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Academy of Arts. Turner’s first oil painting, Fishermen at Sea, which was exhibited, appeared in 1790. Subsequently, Turner regularly exhibited at the Academy. From 1791, he worked as a stage designer at the Pantheon Opera House on Oxford Street and earned extra money by giving lessons.

Turner made his first sketching trip in 1791. Later, he traveled a lot with a traveling palette and made sketches in Europe (Switzerland, the French Alps, Italy). Turner left behind more than ten thousand drawings and sketches. The materials from the traveling albums served as the basis for the artist’s paintings and watercolours, which he worked on in London, sometimes referring to his very old sketches.

On November 4, 1799, Turner, who had become a popular artist by that time, was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Academy. In 1801, he exhibited his painting “The Sea at Bridgewater” at the Academy, which was a resounding success, and the artist Benjamin West even compared Turner to Rembrandt. On February 10, 1802, Turner became the youngest artist to be awarded the title of Royal Academician. This title gave him the right to exhibit without the selection committee that pre-screened all works. In 1804, he opened his own gallery, which he finally abandoned after the death of his father.

Already in the 1800s, Turner’s successes drew criticism from the collector and artist George Beaumont, who criticized the “liberties” and bright colors of his paintings. Later, the artist’s innovative work, anticipating the achievements of painting of the late 19th – early 20th centuries, caused a mixed reaction in the society of his time. The Victorian public, who preferred photographic realism, saccharine sentimentalism, and a “harmonious” but inexpressive color scheme, did not accept many of his paintings well. In the 1830s and 1840s, critical attacks on Turner became increasingly common. Some of his works, bordering on abstractionism, earned the artist a reputation as a madman. Queen Victoria refused to knight him. One of the few who stood up for Turner was John Ruskin, who called him “the greatest artist of all time.” A number of his paintings were exhibited posthumously, and his significance was not fully appreciated until the 20th century.