This online exhibition, produced to mark the 250th anniversary of J M W Turner's birth, explores the shared aesthetic vision of Turner and Sir John Soane. It outlines their roles at the Royal Academy and their mutual influences, aesthetic sensibilities, and approaches to displaying art.

J M W Turner (1775-1851) and John Soane (1753-1837) were close friends who shared a love for William Hogarth, an appreciation for Antoine Watteau’s works, and a passion for architecture. They probably met in the early 1790s, though it is unclear how. They may have met through the Royal Academy or through their connections to the architects Thomas Hardwick or George Dance the Younger. 

As professors at the Royal Academy, both imparted their knowledge to future generations of artists and architects. Alongside their involvement with the Academy, they shared a love of fishing. Though they worked in different fields, their shared interest in the use of light and shade for emotional effect – Turner in his paintings and Soane in his architectural work – was a cornerstone of their friendship. In 1804, Soane’s wife Elizabeth (Eliza) purchased two of Turner’s watercolours, The Refectory at Kirkstall Abbey and Val D’Aosta. This first acquisition of Turner’s work reflects their growing friendship with the young painter. John Soane later purchased a third work by Turner, the oil painting Admiral van Tromp’s Barge at the entrance to the Texel, 1645, in 1831.

Royal Academicians

Turner and Soane were deeply involved with the Royal Academy, the leading institution in the British art world of their day. Turner’s paintings and Soane’s architectural drawings featured in the Academy’s annual exhibitions for many decades. Both men were elected full Royal Academicians on the same evening in 1802, served on the hanging committee in 1803, and frequently attended functions, dinners, and meetings together. Eventually they were both appointed to professorships, Soane as Professor of Architecture on 28 March 1806, and Turner as Professor of Perspective in December 1807.

Watercolour drawing of views of buildings at Kew Gardens.

Image caption: Soane office, Composite view of buildings at Kew Gardens, drawn for Soane’s RA Lecture IX, watercolour, undated (SM 17/5/6)

As Professors of Architecture and Perspective, Soane and Turner were each required to deliver six public lectures annually. While preparing their lectures, Turner’s frequent recorded visits to Soane in Lincoln’s Inn Fields seem to indicate an ongoing exchange of ideas. This drawing, a composite view of buildings designed by architect William Chambers (1723-1796) for Kew Gardens, was created to accompany Soane’s Lecture IX. It is one of over 1,000 lecture drawings produced by Soane’s office to illustrate his lectures.

pen and ink sketch of a display stand

Image caption: Sir John Soane, Preliminary design for a drawing display stand for Mr Turner, pen and ink on paper, 1808 (SM 89/4/11)

This drawing shows Soane’s design for a large drawing display stand to accompany Turner’s Royal Academy lectures. The two worked together to re-order the Great Room at Somerset House, where their lectures took place. The design exemplifies this collaboration to ensure their success as professors. Soane also suggested improved seating, while Turner proposed ample lighting to illuminate their impressive lecture drawings. 

In one such drawing produced for Tuner’s fifth lecture, shown here, Turner illustrated his ideas on reflection, refraction, and light sources. Its purpose was to demonstrate how light cast from windows was reflected from rounded surfaces. These concepts would have been significant to Soane, who was in the audience and later installed convex mirrors of various sizes throughout Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He combined these convex mirrors with conventional mirrors set into ceilings, doors, and bookcases.

watercolour drawing of lots of buildings among mountains

Image credit: Joseph Michael Gandy, Architectural Visions of early fancy in the gay morning of youth and dreams in the even’g of life, watercolour on paper, 1820 (SM P81)

Soane commissioned his favourite draughtsman, Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843), to produce large-scale watercolours of his architectural designs. This drawing is an imaginary view of Soane’s unrealised projects designed between 1776 and 1819 and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1820. The watercolours that Gandy produced for Soane, bathed in Mediterranean light, shared a Romantic aesthetic sensibility with Turner’s landscapes.

A Shared Aesthetic

Throughout their careers Turner and Soane took inspiration from similar sources. For example, they both admired the works of William Hogarth (1697-1764). Soane purchased Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress in 1802, and Turner was influenced by Hogarth’s treatise The Analysis of Beauty (1753). Their shared taste in art extended to the works of the French artist Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) with their Italian-inspired colouring. Both men were interested in the aesthetic ideal of the Picturesque and the growing Romantic enthusiasm for ancient ruins. The two incorporated what Soane referred to as ‘poetic effects’ into their work by recognising how weather influenced the light and atmosphere of the landscape. Turner sketched at different times of day, and included details such as rainbows and the moon in his work. Soane commissioned watercolours of his buildings at different times of the day and in different states of weather to reveal how atmosphere transforms architecture.

William Hogarth, A Rake’s Progress I: The Heir, oil on canvas, 1734 (SM P40)

Image caption: William Hogarth, A Rake’s Progress I: The Heir, oil on canvas, 1734 (SM P40)

The Heir is the first in Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress – a series of eight paintings. Turner’s The Refectory at Kirkstall Abbey was hung along with A Rake’s Progress in the small Drawing Room at the Soanes’ country house, Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing. Both Soane and Turner regarded Hogarth’s work as representing a distinctive British School of Painting. Later, Turner was influenced by Hogarth’s The Humours of an Election, a second series of paintings acquired by Soane in 1823, when depicting crowds in watercolours like The Northampton Election, 6 December 1830 (c. 1830-1831).

oil painting of lots of figures in a landscape row outdoors, appearing to be in some sort of festivities

Image caption: Antoine Watteau, L’Accordée du Village, oil on canvas, c.1710-15 (SM P111)

L’Accordée du Village was purchased by Soane on 26 April 1802 and later hung in the Picture Room Recess at Lincoln’s Inn Fields alongside Turner’s Val D’Aosta. Turner drew inspiration from paintings like L’Accordée du Village, with its composition featuring a long row of figures arranged in a landscape, in his own works, such as England: Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent’s Birthday (1819).

A painting with a green yellow tinge of the refectory at KIrkstall Abbey.

Image caption: Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Refectory at Kirkstall Abbey, watercolour, 1798 (SM P312)

This watercolour presents a captivating view of the ruined Cistercian Abbey at Kirkstall, Yorkshire, inspired by Turner’s 1797 tour of Northern England. The Abbey was renowned among artists for the way that its golden stone captured and reflected sunlight. This watercolour was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798, but remained unsold until Eliza Soane purchased it at Turner’s new gallery in 1804.

A watercolour of a building in ruins

Image caption: Joseph Michael Gandy, Architectural ruins, a vision, pen and watercolour on paper, 1798 (SM P127)

Soane’s interest in Greek and Roman architecture formed the bedrock of his professional work. In 1798, he commissioned Gandy to produce this watercolour, envisioning the Rotunda of his Bank of England as an ancient Roman ruin. The similar aesthetics of Soane, Gandy, and Turner’s work – particularly the warm quality of golden light that appears in Turner’s The Refectory at Kirkstall Abbey – are evident in this watercolour.

Displaying Works of Art

Although they worked in different genres, Turner and Soane shared a fascination for how architecture can transform and be transformed by light. Soane remodelled No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields from 1808 as a testament to his passion for light, creating top-lit spaces that illuminate his collection from above. Perhaps inspired by Soane’s house at No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields or his Dulwich Picture Gallery, Turner opened a new gallery at 47 Queen Anne Street West in 1819 where he could control how his work was lit and viewed. He constructed his gallery with top-lighting to illuminate his art from above and displayed paintings against walls painted Pompeian red.

George Jones, Interior of Turner’s Gallery: the Artist showing his works, oil on millboard, 1851, © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, WA1881.348

Image caption: George Jones, Interior of Turner’s Gallery: the Artist showing his works, oil on millboard, 1851, © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, WA1881.348

Turner built a new gallery adjacent to his house at 64 Harley Street, which was completed in 1822. He may have been partly influenced by the construction and decoration of Soane’s house at No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Soane installed skylights throughout his home and painted the walls of his Library and Study the same shade of red as Turner’s gallery. This painting, created by Turner’s friend George Jones, is one of two surviving records of what Turner’s gallery would have looked like after he died in 1851.

Joseph Michael Gandy, view of the Dome area at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields at night, looking east, watercolour on paper, 1811 (SM P384)

Image caption: Joseph Michael Gandy, view of the Dome area at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields at night, looking east, watercolour on paper, 1811 (SM P384)

In remodelling No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Soane may have taken inspiration from Turner’s use of light, shadow, and refraction in works such as The Refectory at Kirkstall Abbey. Soane used these same elements to create what he called the ‘poetry of architecture’ in interiors featuring light entering through skylights and windows and reflected by mirrors and coloured and stained glass.

Turner in Soane's Collection

Soane’s art collection was exhibited throughout his home at No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields and in many spaces was bathed with washes of coloured light through the coloured and stained glass installed in skylights, windows and doors. Soane and Turner specifically shared an interest in the effects of yellow light – as evidenced by Soane’s use of yellow glass throughout No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the golden light diffused in Turner’s work. 

At the time of Soane’s death in 1837, his collection included three works by Turner, the two early watercolours purchased by Eliza from Turner's gallery at 64 Harley Street in 1804, and an oil painting purchased by Soane in 1831.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, St Huges denouncing Vengeance on the Shepherd of Cormayer, in the Valley of d’Aoust, watercolour on paper, 1802-03 (SM P108)

Image caption: Joseph Mallord William Turner, St Huges denouncing Vengeance on the Shepherd of Cormayer, in the Valley of d’Aoust, watercolour on paper, 1802-03 (SM P108). Seen in the video above appearing from behind a plane in Soane's Picture Room.

Turner’s watercolour portrays his sublime vision of an area of the Swiss Alps, that he visited during his tour via Paris to Switzerland in 1802. Set in Val d’Aosta and looking toward the town of Courmayeur, Turner captures the impressive outline of Mont Blanc. The small figure in the centre of the composition, dwarfed by the mighty Alps, is thought to be St Hugues (1051-1132), the Bishop of Grenoble, France, and a co-founder of the Carthusian Order who presented land to St Bruno for the Grande-Chartreuse monastery near Grenoble. The exact historic episode depicted remains unknown.

Sir Augustus Wall Callcott, “The Passage Point”, an Italian Composition, oil on canvas, 1829-30 (SM P38)

Image caption: Sir Augustus Wall Callcott, “The Passage Point”, an Italian Composition, oil on canvas, 1829-30 (SM P38)

Turner’s Forum Romanum, for Mr. Soane’s Museum, shown here, captures a view over the Roman Forum with the Arch of Titus and the Basilica of Maxentius in the foreground. It is not clear whether Soane commissioned this work, or Turner independently painted this evocative scene in celebration of Soane’s new Picture Room at the back of No. 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, completed in 1825. However, Soane rejected Turner’s work, perhaps because it was too large or because its yellow colouring was not to Soane’s taste. 

Instead, Soane commissioned his and Turner’s friend Augustus Wall Callcott (1779-1844) to paint this view of a north Italian lake for his Picture Room in 1827. It is the tonal opposite of Turner’s Forum Romanum, for Mr. Soane’s Museum (but never delivered) and other works he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1826, which received negative reviews from critics for their ‘intolerable yellow hue’. In contrast, Callcott was praised by critics for the way he evoked ‘the cool breeze of European scenery’.

Joesph Mallord William Turner, Admiral van Tromp’s Barge at the entrance to the Texel, 1645, oil on canvas, 1831 (SM P272)

Image caption: Joesph Mallord William Turner, Admiral van Tromp’s Barge at the entrance to the Texel, 1645, oil on canvas, 1831 (SM P272)

This seascape is the first in a series of works Turner painted exploring events in the career of the Dutch Admiral Maarten Harpertzoon Tromp (1598-1653). It depicts the celebrated admiral about to board his flagship, the Aemilia in the Texel estuary. The canvas demonstrates Turner’s bravura handling of paint in his depiction of the rough sea illuminated by the sun as it emerges from the clouds above.

John Flaxman, Portrait of Mrs Soane, pencil on paper, 1795-1800 (SM P225)

Image credit: John Flaxman, Portrait of Mrs Soane, pencil on paper, 1795-1800 (SM P225)

The history of this informal portrait of Eliza Soane, drawn by sculptor and a close friend of the Soane family John Flaxman (1755-1826), demonstrates the close bonds of friendship between Turner and Soane. Though the sketch was originally in Flaxman’s private collection, it later appeared among the effects of the artist John Jackson (1778-1831) when he died. The sketch had probably been lent to Jackson, who Soane commissioned to paint a posthumous 1828 portrait of Eliza. Turner rescued the portrait from Jackson’s personal effects and gave it to Soane on the occasion of his knighthood in 1831, adding a personal inscription and writing a note accompanying the gift which read:

My dear Sir John / I called in Lincoln's Inn Fields to / congratulate you upon your Knighthood and to have / the pleasure of saying so in person, likewise to offer / with my most sincere regards the accompanying Portrait / (now sent) of Mrs Soane which I fortunately obtained at / poor Jackson's sale / Believe me most truly / and most faithfully yours / J.M.W. Turner

Soane later hung this portrait with a wooden tablet bearing an epitaph in French, which reads 'Dear friend, I can no longer hear your voice - teach me what I must do - to fulfill your wishes!', which inspired the immersive film Anne-Marie Creamer: Dear Friend, I Can No Longer Hear Your Voice.

This online exhibition was curated by Michelle Reynolds.