He lived to paint. Nothing else mattered - J. M. W. Turner

Nearly two centuries after his death, in a 2005 BBC poll, British voters selected Turner’s Fighting Temeraire as the nation’s “greatest painting.” In 2016, the Bank of England selected Turner as the first artist to grace the £20 note.

Turner has left behind hundreds of oil paintings and thousands of watercolours and drawings, from his lifelong compulsion to create.

He is described as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature”. Turner's imagination was sparked by shipwrecks, fires, the violent power of the sea and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storm, rain, and fog. The one setting that would forever capture Turner’s imagination, was the ocean - this made him a painter.

Born the son of a barber and a wig-maker Turner received little schooling before devoting himself entirely to painting. At 14, he secured admission to the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts, where he quickly got the reputation of a prodigy in oil painting and watercolour. He was the youngest-ever painter to be featured in the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition. By 24, he was an associate member of the Academy. By 26, he had achieved the rank of Royal Academician—the youngest in its history. He opened his own gallery and became professor of perspective at the Academy.

Even before that, Turner’s drawings were being exhibited in his father's shop window and sold for a few shillings. Many early sketches by Turner were architectural studies or exercises in perspective.

As a young artist, he was known to endlessly copy and recopy the most striking works he could get his hands on, particularly by the French and Dutch masters. He held himself to rigorous standards of excellence in his effort to emulate their various styles and techniques.

Turner was intensely motivated by the desire to perfect his craft. But he was also driven by voracious curiosity. He had a huge desire to understand the world. The use of pencil sketches on location, as the foundation for later finished paintings, formed the basis of Turner's essential working style for his whole career.

The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light exerted an influence on art in France, the Impressionists, particularly Monet, carefully studied his techniques.Turner experimented with a wide variety of pigments like carmine, despite knowing that they were not long-lasting. As a result, many of his colours have now faded. Turner was indifferent to posterity and chose materials that looked good when freshly applied. Though Turner was capable of rendering a scene with exacting detail, his style became increasingly abstract over time.

His finished paintings were bequeathed to the British nation,

A biopic titled Mr Turner was released in 2014.

Turners works can be seen at Tate Britain. For a closer look at Turner’s work, visit /www.william-turner.org

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Published in Colour Canvas issue of June 2018