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Ackroyd's Brief Lives #2
J.M.W. Turner
Also available in ACKROYD’S BRIEF LIVES
Chaucer
In this second volume in the Ackroyd’s Brief Lives series, bestselling author Peter Ackroyd brings us a man of humble beginnings, crude manners, and prodigious talents, the nineteenth-century painter J. M. W. Turner.
Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in London in 1775. His father was a barber, and his mother came from a family of London butchers. “His speech was recognizably that of a Cockney, and his language was the language of the streets.” As his finest paintings show, his language was also the language of light. Turner’s landscapes—extraordinary studies in light, colour, and texture—caused an uproar during his lifetime and earned him a place as one of the greatest artists in history.
Displaying his artistic abilities as a young child, Turner entered the Royal Academy of Arts when he was just fourteen years old. A year later his paintings appeared in an important public exhibition, and he rapidly achieved prominence, becoming a Royal Academician in 1802 and Professor of Perspective at the Academy from 1807–1837. His private life, however, was less orderly. Never married, he spent much time living in taverns, where he was well known for his truculence and his stinginess with money.
Peter Ackroyd deftly follows Turner’s first loves of architecture, engraving, and watercolours, and the country houses, cathedrals, and landscapes of England. While his passion for Italy led him to oil painting, Turner’s love for London remained central to his heart and soul, and it was within sight of his beloved Thames that he died in 1851. His dying words “The sun is God.”
Chaucer
In this second volume in the Ackroyd’s Brief Lives series, bestselling author Peter Ackroyd brings us a man of humble beginnings, crude manners, and prodigious talents, the nineteenth-century painter J. M. W. Turner.
Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in London in 1775. His father was a barber, and his mother came from a family of London butchers. “His speech was recognizably that of a Cockney, and his language was the language of the streets.” As his finest paintings show, his language was also the language of light. Turner’s landscapes—extraordinary studies in light, colour, and texture—caused an uproar during his lifetime and earned him a place as one of the greatest artists in history.
Displaying his artistic abilities as a young child, Turner entered the Royal Academy of Arts when he was just fourteen years old. A year later his paintings appeared in an important public exhibition, and he rapidly achieved prominence, becoming a Royal Academician in 1802 and Professor of Perspective at the Academy from 1807–1837. His private life, however, was less orderly. Never married, he spent much time living in taverns, where he was well known for his truculence and his stinginess with money.
Peter Ackroyd deftly follows Turner’s first loves of architecture, engraving, and watercolours, and the country houses, cathedrals, and landscapes of England. While his passion for Italy led him to oil painting, Turner’s love for London remained central to his heart and soul, and it was within sight of his beloved Thames that he died in 1851. His dying words “The sun is God.”
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
18 people are currently reading
308 people want to read
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
185 books1,500 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
July 12, 2022
Ackroyd has really done a fine job here covering H. M. W. Turner’s life, art, and the history of his times in a really short space. It’s not surprising that I like it. It’s really hard to fault Ackroyd’s body of work. I love everything he writes. There are five others biographies in the Brief Lives series.
This begins with Turner’s London roots. Along with William Blake he epitomizes a native Londoner and art. Turner is shown in all his quirkiness having a long, prolific, and successful career. His lasting importance is shown with his cutting edge thinking and techniques that were well ahead of his times. Wordsworth and Coleridge led the way in Romantic literature and their contemporary, Turner, did the same in art. “He might even be seen as a forerunner of the ‘modern movement’ in art, in the role of Cezanne or Van Gogh, treading his own lonely path.”
I’d see this as a good companion piece to the film, Mr. Turner, starring Timothy Spall.
“Turner was an elemental artist; fire, and water, and air, were his divinities.”
This begins with Turner’s London roots. Along with William Blake he epitomizes a native Londoner and art. Turner is shown in all his quirkiness having a long, prolific, and successful career. His lasting importance is shown with his cutting edge thinking and techniques that were well ahead of his times. Wordsworth and Coleridge led the way in Romantic literature and their contemporary, Turner, did the same in art. “He might even be seen as a forerunner of the ‘modern movement’ in art, in the role of Cezanne or Van Gogh, treading his own lonely path.”
I’d see this as a good companion piece to the film, Mr. Turner, starring Timothy Spall.
“Turner was an elemental artist; fire, and water, and air, were his divinities.”
February 18, 2015
'Dido Building Carthage', exhibited at the Academy in 1815. Turner regarded this as his masterpiece and is reputed to have turned down 5000 guineas for it; it was still in his studio at the time of his death. He returned to the subject of Dido in four separate works of art.’ (p.88)
I bought Peter Ackroyd’s biography of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after watching the film Mr. Turner (2014) by Mike Leigh, staring Timothy Spall as William Turner at our local cinema. The film only covers the later years of Turner's life and I was eager to learn more about the painter who was a master in experiments with light and colours.
At 150 pages this biography is rather short; consequently Ackroyd had to focus on certain aspects of Turner’s life. He chose to concentrate more on Turner’s professional life than on his private life, which he touches only briefly . We learn about Turner’s strong bond with his father and that he kept mistresses during almost all of his life. But most of all the reader gains a considerable insight into Turner’s true passion: his painting and consequently his love for nature and architecture. For his numerous sketches Turner had to travel widely and Ackroyd describes these often-adventurous journeys in a playful way. A great many of Turner’s paintings are mentioned or depicted in the book. Here I would have preferred more illustrations (I bought the paperback version, Vintage Books, London). Fortunately, most of Turner’s paintings are accessible online, though. Furthermore, I wished Ackroyd would have given more space to the relation between Turner and the famous Victorian art critic John Ruskin. After all, Ruskin was an important figure in executing Turner’s Will.
This was my first book by Peter Ackroyd and so far I’ve really liked his writing style. His tone seems almost to be Victorian without being ‘dusty’. I read somewhere that Ackroyd claims to be a true Cockney. Well, the reader can hardly ignore that he likes the curious Cockney painter and he often describes Turner as an almost Dickensian figure. Still, I think he tried to draw a balanced portrait of this ingenious artist.
Of course, I recommend Peter Ackroyd’s book to all admirers of William Turner. It is a nice supplement to the actual film. I would even recommend reading this before watching the film. I think the book helps to understand better the rather fragmented movie.
March 6, 2016
Not Ackroyd's best brief life, to be honest. I didn't get much of a feeling for Turner after reading this.
December 22, 2021
A great little book. Brief, concise and informative.
December 8, 2014
This really is quite bad. A 'brief life' like this should be a little jewel of a book, instead this reads like a turgid Wikipedia entry. It's sloppily written, or at least edited. People are referred to as though for the first time, when in fact they were introduced just a few pages before. There's no real insight onto Turner as a person its mostly just a boring recounting of the public record. I loved 'London - The Biography'. Perhaps that was a labour of love, and this was dashed off to pay the leccy bill. That's certainly what it felt like.
June 2, 2017
Was inspired to read this by the recent film "Mr. Turner," which is excellent.
July 18, 2018
A compressed, yet rich account of J.M.W. Turner’s life, art, and inclinations in pursuing his dreams. This particular volume focused on Turner’s passion for light and how it inspired him in his work, touching upon the events in his life.
Readers (and aspiring artists) are offered an intriguing glimpse of an artist who was a sound businessman who never lost sight of his creativity or stopped seizing opportunities to enrich himself. Written in exquisite detail, this book brought to life both the man and the artistic impulses behind many of the paintings by Turner I’ve been fortunate enough to see in person.
For an exquisitely expressed, brief, yet rich portrait of a remarkable artist, this gets four stars.
Readers (and aspiring artists) are offered an intriguing glimpse of an artist who was a sound businessman who never lost sight of his creativity or stopped seizing opportunities to enrich himself. Written in exquisite detail, this book brought to life both the man and the artistic impulses behind many of the paintings by Turner I’ve been fortunate enough to see in person.
For an exquisitely expressed, brief, yet rich portrait of a remarkable artist, this gets four stars.
July 24, 2009
A brief, but in typical Ackroyd style, informative biography of Billy (surely not! - Joseph Mallord William is much more fitting) Turner who as well as being a great artist and much sought after in his time was quite an eccentric character - and what is wrong with that? A cockney who came to prominence very early, quickly became a member of the Royal Academy and who in later life disliked his famous contemporary John Constable, despite the latter's liking for Turner. Turner's choice of colours was legendary with yellow being one of his favourites, so much so that he was teased in the pages of Punch for this choice. He also remarked, "Indistinction is my forte", this perhaps explaining quite an element of his work, although to be fair he was also a superb draughtsman. His private life was quite intriquing and the full artistic and personal story is well covered in a most readable biography.
March 4, 2015
I read this book, from the public library after seeing the file 'Mr Turner'. It is a relatively short book, easy to read, and I enjoyed it. I would have liked more illustrations, but it is after all quite a small sized book. Well worth reading.
August 6, 2015
Pretty dry reading, lost interest half-way through.
July 30, 2022
Ackroyd delivers on the promise of a ‘brief life’ (as in the title of the series of which it is a part), but the portrait of Turner that emerges is sketchy. I found myself wondering how much of a hurry Ackroyd had been in as he wrote it. The constant refrain of “this year he exhibited x pictures at the Royal Academy, called a, b, c and d”, found every few pages, suggests the author had a comprehensive list of painting names and dates on his desk as an aid to filling out the sequence of chapters to which he had committed himself, named only by ranges of dates from Turner’s birth to his death.
To be fair, the book includes some nice anecdotes and insights into Turner’s character, work habits and unsettled domestic life. But themes which could have been developed, albeit at the expense of other details in order to keep the book to its 148 paperback pages, are no more than hints. The relationship between the elderly Turner and his young and increasingly influential fan John Ruskin, for instance, sounds worthy of more attention.
On the question of Turner’s emergence as an important artist, Ackroyd gives us a range of contemporary reactions to his work, both positive and negative. And he tells us about Turner’s extraordinary ability to work hard and sketch fast. But we don’t hear much about how Turner’s art was revolutionary or what made his detractors upset.
If you want a quick overview of the main facts of Turner’s life and an impression of his character and circumstances, this is useful book. But you may, like me, find yourself distracted by matters that you don’t want to be worrying about – such as the mistake on p. 131, where the date 1824 appears in the chapter called “1833-1834”, even though the previous paragraph includes the correct date, 1834 and later in the same paragraph, there’s a correct 1835. Also, wouldn’t a decent subeditor have changed the opening words of a chapter from “In 1833 he exhibited…” to “In 1833 Turner exhibited…”? Small points, I know, but once you lose faith in a writer or publisher’s attention to detail, it’s hard to be fully absorbed in the subject.
To be fair, the book includes some nice anecdotes and insights into Turner’s character, work habits and unsettled domestic life. But themes which could have been developed, albeit at the expense of other details in order to keep the book to its 148 paperback pages, are no more than hints. The relationship between the elderly Turner and his young and increasingly influential fan John Ruskin, for instance, sounds worthy of more attention.
On the question of Turner’s emergence as an important artist, Ackroyd gives us a range of contemporary reactions to his work, both positive and negative. And he tells us about Turner’s extraordinary ability to work hard and sketch fast. But we don’t hear much about how Turner’s art was revolutionary or what made his detractors upset.
If you want a quick overview of the main facts of Turner’s life and an impression of his character and circumstances, this is useful book. But you may, like me, find yourself distracted by matters that you don’t want to be worrying about – such as the mistake on p. 131, where the date 1824 appears in the chapter called “1833-1834”, even though the previous paragraph includes the correct date, 1834 and later in the same paragraph, there’s a correct 1835. Also, wouldn’t a decent subeditor have changed the opening words of a chapter from “In 1833 he exhibited…” to “In 1833 Turner exhibited…”? Small points, I know, but once you lose faith in a writer or publisher’s attention to detail, it’s hard to be fully absorbed in the subject.
January 25, 2017
Turner's life is worthy of an enormous biography. Unfortunately, as I needed something to read for quick research purposes I didn't have time for anything too detailed. Ackroyd manages to fit everything of significance into 250 pages, writing in a way that is readable and interesting. Following his life through his major works and some of his inspiring travels, we are allowed to get a glimpse of the genius of Turner. Well researched and full of amusing and insightful anecdotes, Ackroyd manages to throw us into Turner's world, and see through his eyes.
October 27, 2019
Turner is my favourite artist so the subject matter was bound to be pleasing to me. This book is one of a series "Brief Lives" so short and succinct.
The author's style doesn't appeal to me. I can't put my finger on just why. It seemed more emotive than rigorously factual though I don't doubt his facts. Some references but they don't abound. And this is just my reaction to the style, others may not find it so.
The author's style doesn't appeal to me. I can't put my finger on just why. It seemed more emotive than rigorously factual though I don't doubt his facts. Some references but they don't abound. And this is just my reaction to the style, others may not find it so.
November 20, 2021
I forgot I was reading about an artist! Not inspired nor inspirational, it's an account of someone born, exhibited at the RA again & again, bought a house or 2, met these people, this painting was liked, this one not so, etc. I can't see any newcomer to Turner wanting to see his work after reading this, especially with the reproductions bundled in the centre. The typos makes one think it was published at speed.
May 13, 2020
I enjoy Peter Ackroyd's Brief Lives
So impressed want to see his paintings wherever they are! To see them would be awesome even if the titles seemed to be self serving and imminating from very large ego...
So impressed want to see his paintings wherever they are! To see them would be awesome even if the titles seemed to be self serving and imminating from very large ego...
July 2, 2020
A really interesting read. I've never been keen on Turner's work but I read this as it was a recommendation. I have a new found respect for the man himself and for the way he worked. Worth a read, especially from an artist's point of view.
January 30, 2021
Very enjoyable short biography, in Ackroyd’s concise and readable style. I learned a lot about Turner’s life and work. As it’s a small paperback format, pictures of the paintings are few and rather small, but it’s easy to find them online while reading.
April 20, 2025
I used it as a critical text in my History of Art A level but i think the a level overshadowed the book as i was set to read it under immense time pressure which made me grow to resent it. Overall a very good source of information on the artist and his life.
September 11, 2017
"Lovely" Account of Turner's Life (In Brief). "Enjoyable" - A, "Must" for "Turner Fans" - "Nice"!
October 28, 2018
An excellent short biography of Turner. Ackroyd gives a vivid sense of Turner the man (as well as Turner the artist). Enjoyable and easy to read.
July 27, 2020
I was hoping there'd be a lot more about his technique and his paintings, about his art.
July 25, 2019
Ackroyd documents Turner’s life showing him to be a talented, prolific artist and complex thinker. Very enjoyable to read and the many illustrations were a bonus.
June 29, 2023
Read while visiting England, helped put me asleep with jet lag, but it did enjoy the parts I comprehended before I fell asleep. Very very very detailed, more Shakespeare than I bargained for, but great for a passionate Shakespeare fan.
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February 13, 2010In the second of his "Brief Lives" series, Ackroyd delves into the life of the man who was arguably England's greatest landscape painter. A Londoner to the core, he was the son of a barber and his mother's family were butchers. He began drawing quite young and, having initially apprenticed with an architect, entered the Royal Academy when he was only fourteen years old.
This little volume is jam-packed with information about Turner's rise to the top of the artistic heap, how he worked and taught, his techniques, his rivalries. He seems always to have been working. Ackroyd cites a comment made by a fellow traveler in Italy, who, not knowing who his traveling companion was, described Turner as "continually popping his head out of the window to sketch whatever strikes his fancy."
It's also the story of his personal life; although he never married, he was a great one for the ladies and had more than one long-term relationship. His mother is believed to have died insane, but he was very close to his father, who lived with him and worked as his assistant.
This is quite a good little introduction to both Turner and his work.
This little volume is jam-packed with information about Turner's rise to the top of the artistic heap, how he worked and taught, his techniques, his rivalries. He seems always to have been working. Ackroyd cites a comment made by a fellow traveler in Italy, who, not knowing who his traveling companion was, described Turner as "continually popping his head out of the window to sketch whatever strikes his fancy."
It's also the story of his personal life; although he never married, he was a great one for the ladies and had more than one long-term relationship. His mother is believed to have died insane, but he was very close to his father, who lived with him and worked as his assistant.
This is quite a good little introduction to both Turner and his work.
November 4, 2007
Peter Ackroyd is one author I would like to become more knowledgeable about. I've read a little by him - English Music and about half of London - The Biography - but need to read more of his fiction. I loved the Turner section in English Music and Turner is one of my favourite painters so when I found this book in a bookstore, I had to get it.
Having read it, I must say I'm not disappointed. It's a short account of the life of J.M.W. Turner and Ackroyd brings this man vividly to life in these short pages. Very interesting read - and as all of Ackroyd's litterary work (at least all I've heard of or read), London plays a big part and as well as detailing Turner's life, he paints a picture of London at that time.
Having read it, I must say I'm not disappointed. It's a short account of the life of J.M.W. Turner and Ackroyd brings this man vividly to life in these short pages. Very interesting read - and as all of Ackroyd's litterary work (at least all I've heard of or read), London plays a big part and as well as detailing Turner's life, he paints a picture of London at that time.
January 6, 2013
Enjoyable. What comes through is Turner's unwillingness to accommodate bullshit - so he presumably came across as a grumpy old git to the high society types who were able to patronise his work, but there are enough clues in Ackroyd's text that he could be witty - and was certainly well able to talk entertainingly and in depth about the job of painting. Also interesting that most of his watercolours were NOT done on the spot but were worked up from rapid pencil sketches. Whatever: his watercolour "beginnings" and his later oils are, for me, just about as good as it gets.
October 1, 2009
Biography of JMW Turner - born and bred Londoner (Covent Garden), spent time in Brentford and Twickenham. Loved water and the river and light. Prolific painter and watercolorist, traveller, Royal Academician. Impression is that he wasn't the most likeable of chaps but perhaps was reserve more than animosity. Had a thing for widows. Loved his father who lived to a grand age and looked after his his son's affairs.
March 1, 2012
I need to own this book, so I can dog-ear pages and highlight passages. The fact that it's part of a "Brief Lives" series had me worried that it would be something akin to Cliff's Notes, but the writing is actually really really good, yet also succinct and (at least as far as I can tell) to-the-point & educational.
I learned a whole hell of a bunch, but mostly (and most importantly?) had fun reading this jaunty biography of an amazing artist.
I learned a whole hell of a bunch, but mostly (and most importantly?) had fun reading this jaunty biography of an amazing artist.
September 6, 2009
There are occasional signs of haste in the writing and editing of this 'brief life', but still it is an enjoyable (and hopefully accurate) overview of the life of an English painter I admire very much. One might wish for more color plates, but that would've made the volume more expensive, I suppose.
March 1, 2015
Brief Life but packed full of information and written in Ackroyd's clear, easy to read style. He has a talent for inserting bits that describe his subject's personality and changing moods without laboring the point.
A much easier read than the very detailed James Hamilton Bio. but covers essentials.
A much easier read than the very detailed James Hamilton Bio. but covers essentials.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews