J. M. W. Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834, oil on canvas, c. 1834–35, Philadelphia Museum of Art
One of Turner’s many visits to the Continent involved his setting up a studio in Rome in 1828. Here he executed several oil sketches and finished paintings, some of which were then put on display. The artistic atmosphere in Rome at that time was permeated by a far crisper, more polished style—as seen in the Nazarenes, for example, who were based in Rome—and Turner’s works were received with confusion and hostility.
In England Turner’s status, as well as the controversy that he generated, remained high. He returned from Rome in early 1829, and in succeeding years demonstrated his versatility as an artist. While he continued to show the landscapes and historical and classical subjects he was known for, Turner was also responsive to contemporary events. This is expertly displayed by his paintings of the burning of the Old Houses of Parliament, which Turner watched and sketched from a boat on the Thames in 1834.
In this and other paintings from the 1830s and 1840s, notably those showing the passing of older technologies or the emergence of new ones, Turner brilliantly captured the transition from one age to the next. He engaged with topics that would come to define the era, including slavery, the rise of machine labor, and the birth of steamships and the railroad.
Already something of an eccentric, Turner in his later years became increasingly withdrawn and private. His father, who had been his close companion, died in 1829, leading to a period of depression for the artist. Yet Turner’s creative powers throughout his last decades remained undimmed. His works in the 1820s and 1830s demonstrate a brilliant palette based on yellows—so much so that critics referred to it as “yellow fever.” But admirers, including a young John Ruskin, continued to offer praise and support in opposition to the critics.
J. M. W. Turner, Ancient Italy – Ovid Banished from Rome, oil on canvas, exhibited 1838, Private Collection
J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed – the Great Western Railway, oil on canvas, exhibited 1844, The National Gallery, London
By the later 1840s Turner was more and more reclusive, partly due to worsening health problems. In 1846 he moved to a small house overlooking the Thames in Chelsea. Accompanying him was Mrs Sophia Caroline Booth, who had been his mistress since she was widowed a little over a decade prior. His health deteriorated further toward the end of the decade, and on the morning of December 19, 1851 he died in bed. After the lying-in-state at his gallery on Queen Anne Street, Turner was buried on December 30 in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.