Biography of William Turner

Because of this, the contemporaries of William Turner made a very contradictory idea of ​​the personality of the artist. The only thing that is not in doubt is the talent, courage and unusual productivity of the master. In the early years and the beginning of the creative path, the future master of the romantic landscape in the family of a poor barber in London in the year was born. Problems in the family forced his father to convey his son under the guardianship of his uncle, when the boy was 10 years old.

Around the same time, he showed the ability to art. Having independently learned to draw landscapes of English cities and villages, he began to sell his first work in his father’s store. The development of talent was also facilitated by acquaintance with the topographer Thomas Molton. The successes of young Turner gave him the opportunity to successfully pass exams to the Royal Academy of Arts aged 14 years.

There, his teacher was the famous Joshua Reynolds, the theoretician of the idealistic direction in art. A year after admission to the Academy, the artist’s paintings began to be regularly exhibited in the expositions of the educational institution. At the age of 16, Turner spends his first creative trip to France, Switzerland and Italy. There he draws cities, mountains and sea.

Turner pays great attention to the study of the heritage of famous masters and techniques of image atmospheric phenomena. All this later created the conditions for creating a unique style inspired by the ideas of romanticism. The master refuses stereotypes and comes to a revolutionary idea at that time that art should act more actively on the feelings of the viewer.

To do this, he uses various techniques for blurring objects on the canvas, leaving a space for fantasy. The contours of steam locomotives, houses and trees are literally drowning in a light golden haze. At this time, Turner's love for various shades of yellow color is also clearly manifested. He will carry it through his whole life, and will say later on the deathbed: "The sun is God." The recognition of talent after graduation by the artist becomes a corresponding member of the Royal Academy, and after another eight years-a professor of prospects.

His work is taken to exhibitions, and amazing landscapes are ordered by merchants and aristocrats. By his thirty years, Turner managed to open his own gallery with which his father helped him, and become one of the most famous artists of England. But Turner was not going to rest on his laurels, and continued active work on the new artistic language of his landscapes. According to contemporaries, the artist managed to achieve a high level of detail in watercolor comparable to oil painting.

In parallel, the master traveled a lot and did a lot of sketches for future work. So on his canvases there were panoramas of Turin, Milan, Rome, Venice, Naples and other European cities. It should be noted that in their views on art, the English public at the beginning of the 19th century adhered to conservative positions. For this reason, Turner had many critics. He was accused of excessive liberty, “distorting” reality and the use of inexpressive colors.

In the late works of the master, abstractionism began to peep in general, which caused a violent reaction of the public and even insanity accusations. Nevertheless, attacks from fans of realism failed to force Turner to abandon their principles and a new artistic language, which still had to gain recognition throughout Europe several decades later. In memory of the Master in the year, a prize for artists of Great Britain was established.

The master created a huge number of landscapes in different techniques during a long creative career. Turner's enormous heritage has hundreds of oil paintings, thousands of watercolors and tens of thousands of sketches. We will meet closer to the most interesting of them. The transition of the Hannibal Army through the Alps ”Work marked the completion of an important stage in the work of the master.

After many years of study of atmospheric phenomena, the artist perfectly learned to portray the smallest turbulence on the canvas. The picture is devoted to the events of bloody wars between Rome and Carthage for dominion in the Mediterranean. The canvas depicts the transition of the commander of the commander Hannibal through the Alps to the capital of the Republic of Roman. In the background, you can see a barely noticeable silhouette of a battle elephant.

In it, he again turns to the plots of "Aeneid" by Virgil. Researchers suggest that the haze over the sea appeared as a result of a real atmospheric phenomenon, which was observed in the year of writing the picture. It was associated with the activity of the Indonesian ocean of the Tambor. Perhaps for this reason Turner during his travels in Europe was imbued with a special love for this old Italian city.

To work on the Venetian landscape, the master chose watercolor paints, drawing buildings in the background with the help of the finest brushes.

Here Turner uses his favorite technique for transmitting impressions with color. Prior to work on Jessica, the artist had a little experience in drawing people while studying at the Royal Academy.They say that to write a portrait of the heroine of Shakespeare's play “The Venetian merchant” Turner encouraged the statement of his colleague, that on the yellow background of people’s faces look not expressively expressively.

The artist took it as a challenge and created "Jessica." While working on the picture, he was inspired by Rembrandt's canvases. The space of the canvas is filled with a yellow-red haze hiding the disk of the rising sun, and the role of monsters is performed by air twists in the lower part of the picture. One glance at this landscape is enough to notice a resemblance to the paintings of French impressionists.

The influence of Turner's work on European painting fate gave the artist a unique chance to protect his innovative views in the most conservative European country of the 19th century. Turner's contemporaries believed that the task of art is just to reliably portray reality. Therefore, the poetic manner of the master often met the complete rejection of critics. Nevertheless, the artist managed to gain recognition and present the whole beauty of the romantic vision of the world.

The rich heritage of the master inspired artists to experiment far beyond the borders of Britain, creating the conditions for the emergence of impressionism, the first modernist direction of fine art. Art critic Kyivgallery.