Article: Palettes of the Masters - JMW Turner

JMW Turner

At Winsor & Newton, we are often asked about the colour palettes used by the old masters. The colours used by JMW Turner are particularly interesting, spanning an era of great discovery and invention in the field of pigments.

The Discovery of a Genius
Turner started his career from the age of 11 copying architectural drawings, colouring antiquarian engravings and painting landscapes in water colour. His first exhibited work was a watercolour of 1790; he was 15. His medium was mainly gum arabic. Analysis carried out by Dr Joyce Townsend, Senior Conservation Scientist at Tate and expert on Turner's materials, identified traces of gum tragacanth and varying levels of sugar or honey. 

Pigments identified from his water colours include Gamboge, Quercitron Yellow, Vermilion, various iron oxides including Ochres, Umbers and Siennas, Indian Yellow, "Green Lake", Prussian Blue, Indigo, Cobalt Blue, Blue Verditer, Rose Madder, other red lake pigments possibly Carmine, Bone Black, and Mercuric Iodide (genuine scarlet). He used water colours in a block form and there is evidence he made some, if not all, himself.

The Fighting Temeraire, 1839, The National Gallery, London

Turner's Oil Colours

Turner turned to oil colours in his early twenties in order to gain more professional standing and recognition. He continued in both media, often trying a pigment generally considered useful in one medium, in the other, not always with the best results. He would have discovered that some pigments have different optical properties in one medium compared with the other. Examples are that Gamboge does not work in oil nor White Lead (Flake White) in water. There is evidence that he used Linseed oil, Poppy oil and to a lesser extent, Walnut oil in his oil paintings although in the famous painting "The Fighting Temeraire" (1839, The National Gallery, London), Turner used only Walnut oil.

In addition to the pigments he used in water colours, in oil he used Genuine Ultramarine (Lapis Lazuli), White Lead and a very toxic yellow, Orpiment, also known as Kings Yellow or chemically, arsenic sulphide. He used this in his earlier works but, by the early nineteenth century, had replaced it with Chrome Yellow. There is evidence in the 1800 painting "Dolbadern Castle" that he used the lead pigment Naples Yellow. This pigment was found by chemical analysis in several of his boxes and palettes. 

He also used unspecified lake pigments made by fixing a dye on a base compound such as alumina thus turning a dye into a pigment.  This gave the pigments great transparency in oil but less so in water. The choice of dye and base influenced the lightfastness.  Turner used at least one red lake, a green and a geranium shade and all were prone to fading. Some early versions of Rose Madder had poor lightfastness but the process developed by the most famous English colour-maker, George Field was and still is superior in this respect. This process is still followed today by Winsor & Newton.

Indian Yellow pigment		Lapis Lazuli pigment		Rose Madder pigment

Follower of New Pigment Developments
Documentation from Tate shows that Turner throughout his life followed pigment development and used new pigments as they appeared. In fact he followed these so closely that art historians have had to revise opinions as to when some pigments became available, certainly in England.  An example is the appearance of the early cadmium pigments because there is no evidence that Turner used them before his death in 1851.

	Rose Madder Production

This interest led to Turner using new pigments to replace earlier ones with inferior or unsuitable properties. This must have prompted him to use Cobalt Blues that arrived after 1807 replacing Smalt which was said to be "deficient in impure air" although early versions of Cobalt Blue were similarly criticised. The availability of Cobalt Yellow did not come to England until after Turner, in 1861. The yellows that were discovered and used in Turner's time followed the isolation of the metal chromium. A French chemist, Vauquellin worked on the process to isolate and prepare lead chromate pigments for over ten years, the result being a range of yellow shades from Chrome Lemon to Chrome Deep Yellow. These were first made in England in 1816 and widely used thereafter by Turner in both oil and water. Soon after this, the metal cadmium was discovered in 1817 but the similar range from lemon to orange was not commercially available until the late 1840s, too late for use by Turner.

According to Dr Townsend, Turner used Scheele's Green (toxic copper arsenite) from 1806-1807. He had substituted it with Emerald Green by the 1830s. Although chemically similar to Scheele's Green, this was an improvement being more intense and durable. When Viridian became available he combined it with Emerald in paintings from the 1840s.

The Preservation of Great Art
Many of the pigments Turner used such as cochineal Carmine and the Chrome Yellow shades were known to fade in his lifetime. He used natural Indigo but this has faded dramatically, leaving behind grey or red skies having originally been mixed with black or vermilion. Of course the rate of fading in his paintings has depended on the degree to which they have been exposed over the years. They have been affected not only by light but also the humidity and atmospheric pollution in their environment. Turner preferred absorbent grounds and tended to keep his canvases in extremely damp conditions. This combination led to mould growth, discolouration, embrittlement and flaking which was evident in his lifetime. His desire to experiment with materials and to achieve an affect rather than care for the welfare of the finished work did not help their preservation.

There is evidence that manufacturers of these pigments were more concerned about lightfastness than Turner was.  Turner was a friend and a frequent visitor to Winsor & Newton and noticing that Turner sometimes bought fugitive colours, William Winsor had the courage to criticise him once for this - to which he replied "your business Winsor is to make colours, mine is to use them.....". 


- Article written by Ian Garrett, Retired Technical Director for Winsor & Newton.
- Kind thanks to Dr Joyce Townsend, Senior Conservation Scientist at Tate.