- Hardcover: 144 pages
- Publisher: Chatto & Windus; First Edition edition (7 April 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0701169877
- ISBN-13: 978-0701169879
- Product Dimensions: 18.4 x 14 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 492,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
James Mallord William Turner was a Londoner through and through. His father had a barber's shop in Covent Garden, his mother came from a line of London butchers. He was brought up in Maiden Lane (the family moving at some point from the south side of the street to the north side). He was short and pugnacious, and as Peter Ackroyd writes: 'His speech was recognizably that of a Cockney, and his language was the language of the streets.' His language was also the language of light, as exemplified in his most innovative paintings, which caused the critics of the day to come to blows.. His dying words were: 'The Sun is God.' He entered the Royal Academy at 14 and a year later was exhibiting. His first loves were architecture, engraving and watercolours, and the country houses, cathedrals and landscape of England; he came to oils through his new passion for Italy. He was mean with money, never married, and spent a lot of his life living in taverns. When he died (within sight of his beloved Thames) he was living under the name of Booth in the Chelsea lodgings of one of his mistresses, a Mrs Booth
About the Author
Peter Ackroyd is of course a Cockney visionary himself. He has written and presented a 3-part TV series for the BBC on London. He is the author of London: The Biography and Illustrated London, and very few of his prize-winning biographies and novels stray far from his London obsessions... Turner was one of the subjects of a lecture that Ackroyd gave at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1993 (also televised) entitled London Luminaries and Cockney Visionaries; and Turner was also central to his Times article on Reflections on British art.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
Succinct,excellent,readable art book on one of England's greatest artists.A brilliant introduction on what made JMW 'tick'.Buy it ,read it,keep it on display.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Words About Visuals: A Biography
12 July 2006
Format:Hardcover
Peter Ackroyd is a fine writer and continues his Brief Lives Series with this insightful biography of one of England's greatest painters, J.M.W. Turner. But readers beware - this is a book about the artist's life and is not a book to examine the artist's works. But there are plentiful other resources for viewing the magnificent paintings of light that Turner created.
Ackroyd adroitly explores Turner's humble background, elaborating on how this most elegant gentleman of the canvas began as a Cockney lad with little formal education. When he was 14 he entered the Royal Academy and within a year's time he was exhibiting his work! Turner was a man of nature and his misty seascapes and landscapes of England have won him permanent status in the pantheon of great painters. He was fascinated by light and the effect that light has through mists and clouds, storms and tree filtered glades. He had a particular affinity for architecture and his early works are primarily in watercolor and etchings. His experience with oil painting opened with his introduction to Italy.
Ackroyd, with a zest for truthful telling, emphasizes that Turner's private life was spent in the taverns, fathering illegitimate children and maintaining a mistress. Apparently a miser, he was not the rarefied 'gentleman' his paintings would suggest.
This is a fine little biography, filled with the facts about the personal life of Turner and a bit lacking on his artistic influences, but as an adjunct to other volumes on his work, books that neglect to look at the man holding the brush, this succinct 'life' affords important insights. Grady Harp, July 06
Ackroyd adroitly explores Turner's humble background, elaborating on how this most elegant gentleman of the canvas began as a Cockney lad with little formal education. When he was 14 he entered the Royal Academy and within a year's time he was exhibiting his work! Turner was a man of nature and his misty seascapes and landscapes of England have won him permanent status in the pantheon of great painters. He was fascinated by light and the effect that light has through mists and clouds, storms and tree filtered glades. He had a particular affinity for architecture and his early works are primarily in watercolor and etchings. His experience with oil painting opened with his introduction to Italy.
Ackroyd, with a zest for truthful telling, emphasizes that Turner's private life was spent in the taverns, fathering illegitimate children and maintaining a mistress. Apparently a miser, he was not the rarefied 'gentleman' his paintings would suggest.
This is a fine little biography, filled with the facts about the personal life of Turner and a bit lacking on his artistic influences, but as an adjunct to other volumes on his work, books that neglect to look at the man holding the brush, this succinct 'life' affords important insights. Grady Harp, July 06
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