Self-Portrait
J. M. W. Turner·1799
Historical Context
Turner painted this self-portrait around 1799, when he was twenty-four and had just been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy — the youngest artist to receive this honor at the time. The portrait shows a young man of confident bearing with piercing blue eyes, clean-shaven and neatly dressed in the fashion of the period. Unlike later self-portraits, which Turner rarely attempted, this early work presents the artist before the legendary eccentricities of his mature years. Now in the National Gallery, the painting provides the best visual record of Turner's appearance during the period when he was transforming himself from a topographical watercolorist into Britain's most ambitious painter of landscape and history.
Technical Analysis
The palette is restrained, dominated by warm browns and creams with touches of white at the collar. Turner's fluid brushwork and sensitive handling of light on the face reveal his skill in portraiture, a genre he rarely pursued.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the confident bearing of this twenty-four-year-old at the threshold of his career: the recently elected ARA Turner shows none of the eccentricity of his later years in this straightforward self-examination.
- ◆Look at the piercing blue eyes: they are the portrait's most memorable feature, giving Turner's face an intensity appropriate to an artist already possessed of extraordinary observational gifts.
- ◆Observe the limited palette of warm browns and creams: Turner applies restraint to his portrait technique, using a narrow range of flesh tones rather than the atmospheric color of his landscapes.
- ◆Find the handling of light on the face: the same sensitivity to the way light models three-dimensional form that Turner applied to landscapes is present in this rare self-examination.
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