J M W Turner: Life and Works Trivia Quiz

Answer: Joseph Mallord

Turner's parents were William Turner, a wigmaker, and Mary Mallord Marshall, who came from a family of butchers. His uncle was also named Joseph Mallord William (Marshall), although some sources have the names in a different order. Turner did not receive much formal education, and began his artistic activities at the age of ten or eleven.

Answer: Covent Garden

Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, an area known for its fruit and vegetable market from the mid-seventeenth century. The market moved in 1974 and the area was redeveloped as a shopping centre. The Royal Opera House was built as 'The Theatre Royal' in Covent Garden in 1732 and The Royal Opera has been based there since 1945, with The Royal Ballet following in 1946. Turner left London in 1785 to live with his maternal uncle, and began sketching his surroundings.

Some of his drawings were offered for sale in his uncle's shop, so his artistic career began early in his life.

Answer: Romanticism

Romanticism lasted from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, and Turner, who lived from 1775 until 1851, covers much the same time period. The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes Romanticism as emphasising 'the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative' and the movement was a reaction against the rationality of the Classicism era. Impressionism was developed in France in the late nineteenth century and Cubism dates from the twentieth century.

The ornate Baroque style was popular in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Answer: Sailing Ship

'The Fighting Temeraire' had taken part in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and played a major role in Nelson's victory over the French fleet. Having been used as a prison ship, the vessel had been left to rot, and the painting shows her being towed by a tugboat on her final voyage to be broken up.

The full title is actually 'The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up'. It is often said to be Turner's depiction of the death of the age of sail, overtaken by the modernity of steam, as used by the tugboat.

The painting was voted Britain's favourite painting in a 2005 poll carried out by the BBC.

Answer: John Constable

Turner is often considered a forerunner of the Impressionist movement because of his use of colours and light in his paintings. He has been referred to as the 'painter of light'. Turner's works include seascapes, landscapes and transport. His paintings include several of castles, including those at Kidwelly, Dover and Windsor and he also painted 'The Grand Canal, Venice' and 'The Battle of Trafalgar'. Turner worked mainly in water colour until around 1796, before turning to oils. Constable was a contemporary of Turner, living from 1776 until 1837 with Turner being born in 1775.

Answer: Architecture

Much of Turner's early work was based on architecture and draughtsmanship, and he worked with several architects during his youth. As he was only fourteen when he was accepted by the Royal Academy of Art school in 1789 he had clearly started work at a young age.

His first painting to be accepted for display at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition was a watercolour entitled 'A View of the Archbishop's Palace at Lambeth' in 1790, when he had barely reached the age of fifteen. The painting displays his strong grasp of draughtsmanship and can be seen in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Answer: John Ruskin

Ruskin was himself a talented painter of water colours, although he is probably best remembered as an art critic and the law case brought against him by Whistler for slander. 'Modern Painters' (the full title goes on 'their superiority in the art of landscape painting to all the ancient masters proved by examples of the True, the Beautiful, and the Intellectual, from the work of modern artists, especially from those of J.M.W. Turner, Esq., R.A.', which is not the catchiest title ever) was published in 1843 and became the first of five volumes. Ruskin was named as an executor of Turner's will, a role which he originally declined before changing his mind.

The other men are also known as art critics, but of later times - Fry lived from 1866 to 1934 and was a member of the 'Bloomsbury Set'. Blunt lived from 1907 to 1983, and was exposed as a Soviet spy and a member of the 'Cambridge Five'. Sewell was born in 1931 and has been an outspoken critic of the 'Turner Prize', which was named after JMW Turner, to give awards for contemporary art.

Answer: Rain, Steam and Speed

The painting was shown at the Royal Academy and has the title 'Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway'. The railway was built by the privately owned GWR to link Bristol in the west of England to London. The chief engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

The painting shows the railway engine crossing a bridge over the River Thames, which is usually identified as being at Maidenhead in Berkshire. The bridge was designed by Brunel and finished in 1839. The picture is in the National Gallery in London.

Answer: The nation

Having been successful all of his life, Turner's legacy was a large one, and his will was disputed. It took nearly five years for the estate to be settled, with part of his money going to his cousins and some to the Royal Academy, although this had not been Turner's intention.

The works in his studio were accepted by the nation as the 'Turner Bequest' and comprised nearly 300 paintings in oil and thousands of sketches and drawings. Despite Turner's wishes that the collection be kept together, the nation has failed to live up to his hopes, although many of his works can be found in the Tate Gallery in London. Turner never married, so he had no widow to inherit.

Answer: St. Paul's Cathedral

Turner continued working throughout his life, with his final exhibition at the Royal Academy being held in 1850. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral at his own request, next to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds had been the president of the Royal Academy who had admitted Turner to its school in 1789 when he was aged only fourteen. All the places mentioned as options are in London, with Highgate Cemetery being best known as the resting place of Karl Marx, author of 'The Communist Manifesto'.