Joseph Mallord William Turner, War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet exhibited 1842. Tate.
9 rooms in JMW Turner
This gallery focuses on the reactions to Turner’s paintings when they were first shown. Whether his works were praised or mocked, he never failed to steal the limelight in exhibitions
Having been picked out by art critics as ‘one to watch’ in his late teens, by his thirties Turner was known as a showman. His paintings drew crowds and regularly caused a sensation. He exhibited his work in various locations, from the Royal Academy in London to galleries in Rome. At the age of 29, he opened his own London gallery, giving him control over the display of his paintings.
Turner used exhibitions to show off his skills and stay relevant to the changing modern world. He often felt the need to compete directly with other artists. Fellow landscape painter John Constable said that Turner had ‘fired a gun’ by changing his painting to compete with Constable’s when they were exhibited together. Turner was notorious for using the so-called exhibition ‘Varnishing Days’ to finish his paintings in public. This fuelled gossip about his unconventional techniques and ability to conjure a masterpiece at speed.
Over time Turner’s work divided opinion. He became the artist that journalists loved to hate. They challenged the evolution of his style – his use of brighter colours and sketchy brushwork – and were puzzled by his subject matter. Responding to these hazy landscapes, one critic wrote that ‘to do justice to Turner, it should always be remembered that he is the painter not of reflections, but of immediate sensations.’ Turner claimed not to care what critics thought of his work and remained committed to showing his work in public. He last exhibited work in 1850, the year before he died.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage - Italy exhibited 1832
This painting was so popular that visitors to the Royal Academy were advised to arrive at opening time to avoid the crowds. Art critics, however, slated Turner’s colouring. Its ‘red glow’, said one, was ‘fatiguing to the eye’. Another reminded Turner that his hero, 17th-century landscape master Claude, painted Italy in hues subtler than the ‘colours of the rainbow.’ Its title refers to a poem by the most gossiped-about poet of the day, Lord Byron. Turner showed his painting with lines from Byron’s poem: ‘...and now, fair Italy! / Thou are the garden of the world...’.
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artworks in Turner and his Critics
Joseph Mallord William Turner, A Country Blacksmith Disputing upon the Price of Iron, and the Price Charged to the Butcher for Shoeing his Poney exhibited 1807
At the 1807 Royal Academy exhibition this painting hung next to one by celebrated newcomer, David Wilkie. Turner wanted to prove he could paint scenes of everyday life just as brilliantly as Wilkie. Opinion was divided, but one observer said Wilkie’s painting was ‘flung into eclipse’ by Turner’s and that Turner’s work ‘killed’ others nearby. Its subject, an argument over a blacksmith’s prices, reflects the Napoleonic Wars’ impact on life in Britain. Such trades had to increase prices after 1806, when the government introduced a pig iron tax to pay war debts.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Harvest Dinner, Kingston Bank exhibited 1809
The ‘dinner’ here is no feast. Five adults, one of whom cradles a baby, share one small basket of food on a hot late summer day. Turner had sketched these people at Kingston-upon-Thames in 1805, possibly from a boat on the river. Like in other paintings he made, Turner draws attention to the hardship faced by labourers. He may have intended its title to be ironic – for harvest is a time of plenty for all except those whose labour is exploited for profit. When this painting was first exhibited in Turner’s own London gallery it was admired by younger artists John Sell Cotman and David Cox, who made pencil drawings of it.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Vision of Medea 1828
To ready this work for exhibition in Rome, Turner painted a length of rope yellow and nailed it around the edge as a makeshift frame. The painting’s subject is from Greek mythology. Rejected by Jason, leader of the Argonauts, Medea’s pain led her to kill the children she shared with him. Ingredients for the spell she is casting, including a snake and poisonous herbs, feature at lower left. Difficult to make out the detail, it was ridiculed. One reviewer said it may as well have been hung upside down. Another called it a ‘an agony of ochre’.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Queen Mab’s Cave exhibited 1846
Turner exhibited this work at the British Institution, an exhibition venue run by art collectors. One reviewer called it ‘a daylight dream... of gorgeous, bright, and positive colour, not painted but apparently flung upon the canvas’. To artist and critic John Ruskin, this was a ‘strange example of the way in which the greatest men may at times lose themselves.’ The character of Queen Mab appeared in William Shakespeare’s plays. Driving her chariot over sleeping people, she uncovers secret hopes in dreams. Turner references A Midsummer Night’s Dream here, but he may have also read Queen Mab by Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Mercury Sent to Admonish Aeneas exhibited 1850
In 1850 Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy for the final time. Revisiting a subject that had inspired him as a young artist, these last exhibits told the story of Trojan hero Aeneas, by Roman poet Virgil. Wearing a helmet and cloak, Aeneas stands on the left with Cupid, the Roman god of love. The winged messenger, Mercury, may have already flown away. Virgil describes him melting into the air. Turner paints a veil of mist glittering in the rising sun. Critics were both impressed and puzzled. One declared that Turner had swapped the ‘dignity’ of old age for the ‘effervescence of youth’.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet exhibited 1842
This painting reflects Turner’s lifelong engagement with topical subjects and his use of different shaped canvases. In December 1840 a grand state funeral was held for French military commander and political leader Napoleon I. Turner, however, imagines him alone and powerless in exile on the island of St. Helena. He is guarded by a British soldier. Despite its patriotic theme, the critics attacked this painting. ‘Truly ludicrous’, wrote one, complaining that the reflection of Napoleon’s boots in the water suggested he was standing on ‘two long black stilts’. Turner paired this work with Peace.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Palestrina - Composition 1828, exhibited 1830
Turner showed this painting in Rome, London and Edinburgh. Critics were divided. ‘Glorious’ but ‘artificial’ wrote London’s critics. Despite its ‘glare and glitter’, an Edinburgh critic said that when viewed from a distance it was ‘genius’, and appeared to be painted with a brush ‘dipped in a sunbeam’. Turner painted this impression of a city once celebrated for its beauty for his friend and patron, Lord Egremont. He envisaged it as a pair to a work Egremont owned by 17thcentury artist, Claude Lorrain. However, Egremont didn’t acquire it and years later Turner sold it for a high price, 1000 guineas, to whaling magnate Elhanan Bicknell.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, View of Orvieto, Painted in Rome 1828, reworked 1830
In October 1828 Turner arrived in Rome, Italy, for a three-month stay. He had passed through Orvieto, to the north of Rome, on his way. According to a letter he wrote to sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey, he had completed this painting within a month of arriving to stop the ‘gabbling’ of studio visitors who complained he had no paintings to show them. It was first shown at the exhibition Turner held in his lodgings in Rome, and then exhibited in London two years later. One critic said its ‘gaudiness’ was the only reason people stopped to look at it.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Peace - Burial at Sea exhibited 1842
The 1840s saw Turner experimenting with square canvases. He shaped some, as here, into octagons. A pair to War, it depicts the funeral of his friend, the artist David Wilkie. Wilkie died of typhoid in 1841 as he returned from the Middle East. Fearful the disease would spread, the Governor of Gibraltar refused to allow his body ashore and Wilkie was buried at sea. White cliffs are seen behind the ship. Turner imagines a funeral carriage on the ship’s deck, symbolising the public funeral Wilkie should have had. The painting was criticised for the blackness of its sails. Turner replied that he wished he could have made them blacker.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Frosty Morning exhibited 1813
Painted with ‘open eyes’ is how French Impressionist Claude Monet described this painting when he saw it years after Turner’s death. It impressed viewers in Turner’s lifetime, too. Critics said it imitated the feeling of a cold wintry morning ‘to perfection’. Turner witnessed this scene of a ditch being cleared when travelling through Yorkshire in the north of England. We think that the girl, who has a hare draped over her shoulders to keep warm, is modelled on Turner’s eldest daughter, Evelina. She and her sister, Georgiana, were born to Sarah Danby, who never lived with Turner.
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artworks in Turner and his Critics
Art in this room
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage - Italy
exhibited 1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner
A Country Blacksmith Disputing upon the Price of Iron, and the Price Charged to the Butcher for Shoeing his Poney
exhibited 1807
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Harvest Dinner, Kingston Bank
exhibited 1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Vision of Medea
1828
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Queen Mab’s Cave
exhibited 1846
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Mercury Sent to Admonish Aeneas
exhibited 1850
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