The Fighting Temeraire (1839)
National Gallery, London
A Trafalgar veteran towed by a steam tug to be broken up; on the £20 note since 2020
Image: J. M. W. Turner · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Art
J. M. W. Turner
1775–1851 · English
Romanticism
Joseph Mallord William Turner was the 'painter of light', a Covent Garden barber's son who entered the Royal Academy Schools at 14. His swirling, almost abstract storms, sunsets and steam trains transformed landscape painting and anticipated Impressionism; Britain's leading contemporary art prize bears his name.
How to spot them
- ▸Blazing sunsets, vortex-like storms and dissolving forms in a haze of golden light
- ▸Modern subjects – steamships and railways – set against the forces of nature
- ▸Watercolours of Venice and the Alps; oils where the subject almost disappears in mist
- ▸Quiz clue: Turner Prize, the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain, the £20 note, John Ruskin
Key works
Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844)
National Gallery, London
Train crossing Maidenhead Railway Bridge, with a hare running ahead of it
Image: J. M. W. Turner · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812)
Tate Britain, London
A huge vortex of storm cloud dwarfs Hannibal's army
Image: J. M. W. Turner · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
The Slave Ship (1840)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Slavers throwing the dead and dying overboard as a typhoon approaches; once owned by Ruskin
Image: J. M. W. Turner · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1834–1835)
Philadelphia Museum of Art and Cleveland Museum of Art (two versions)
The 1834 fire at the Palace of Westminster, which Turner witnessed
Image: J. M. W. Turner · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842)
Tate Britain, London
Turner claimed to have been lashed to a mast to experience the storm
Image: J. M. W. Turner · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in Covent Garden, London, in 1775, the son of a barber and wigmaker.
- •He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1789, aged 14.
- •The Fighting Temeraire was voted Britain's greatest painting in a 2005 BBC Radio 4 poll.
- •Since 2020 his self-portrait and The Fighting Temeraire have appeared on the Bank of England £20 note.
- •The critic John Ruskin championed him in 'Modern Painters'.
- •He bequeathed his works to the nation; the Turner Bequest is shown in the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain.
- •He died in Chelsea in 1851, living under the assumed name 'Mr Booth', and is buried in St Paul's Cathedral.
- •The Turner Prize for contemporary art was founded in 1984.
Drill it — 10 cards
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Sources
- National Gallery, London — The Fighting Temeraire – Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Tate — Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps