JMW Turner: life of the week

Hello and welcome to Life of the Week, where leading historians delve into the lives of some of history's most intriguing and significant figures, from ancient Egyptian pharaohs and medieval warriors to daring 20th century spies. In 2015, the Bank of England asked the British public to nominate a deceased cultural figure they felt deserved the honour of appearing on a banknote. The figure they chose was Joseph Mallord William Turner. So what made Turner such an extraordinary artist?

And why do his landscape paintings still resonate today, 250 years on from his birth? Here, in conversation with Spencer Mizen, Nicola Morby explores the man behind the breathtaking works of art. Nicola, can you start by giving our listeners a quick introduction to JMW Turner? I mean, who was he in a nutshell? JMW Turner, Joseph Malord William Turner.

I mean, I think quite simply He is one of Britain's greatest artists, if not the greatest, and his career stretched from the end of the 18th century up to the middle of the 19th century. And during that time, he put British arts on the map, specifically through painting landscapes. So the idea was that anything that he had to say was done through using landscape, all the important themes and issues of the day, meditations upon the past and historical events, but also things that were happening now in real time, fascination with scientific knowledge, but also the very sort of deeply personal individual experience of being alive, what that meant was reflected through the land, the sea, the sky, and the phenomena of the natural world.

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