J.M.W. Turner, Peter Ackroyd
J.M.W. Turner, Peter Ackroyd
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J.M.W. Turner
Ackroyd's Brief Lives

Author: Peter Ackroyd

Narrator: Nicholas Guy Smith

Unabridged: 4 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/21/2014


Synopsis

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 were: “The sun is God.”

Also available in ACKROYD’S BRIEF LIVES
Chaucer

About Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning historian, biographer, novelist, poet, and broadcaster. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers London: The Biography, Thames: Sacred River, and London Under; biographies of figures including Charles Dickens, William Blake, Charlie Chaplin, and Alfred Hitchcock; and a multi-volume history of England. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal Society of Literature's William Heinemann Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the South Bank Prize for Literature. He holds a CBE for services to literature.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Pam

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......more

Goodreads review by Jasmine

'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 Ack......more

Goodreads review by Greg

A great little book. Brief, concise and informative.......more

Goodreads review by Lukas

Was inspired to read this by the recent film "Mr. Turner," which is excellent.......more


Quotes

Praise for Chaucer
“[Ackroyd] uses his skills as a limner of fictional characters to produce…a vibrant portrait of a great writer.”
Booklist [starred review]

“[Ackroyd] excels, giving us a biography that brings to life both the poet and his poetry.”
Washington Times

“A splendid introduction to a pivotal figure in the history of English literature.”
Kirkus Reviews [starred review]

“Ackroyd’s series of short lives bodes well: handy, attractive, well-illustrated, useful.”
The Times