JMW Turner, the pre-eminent English painter, was born 250 years ago this week. He is hailed as the father of modernism though other say he was a classicist prone to wild exaggeration.
He was born 23 April 1775 at 1.10am in London, Cockney son of a barber with an angry, impatient, violent mother who died in a Hospital for Lunatics when he was 19.
One critic described him as ‘unbalanced to the point of madness, cussed and ungovernable, weird and creepy.’ His mother is given as a reason for ‘his tearing up of the rule book, his arrogant disregard of the laws of technique, composition and method, his ecstatic worship of what others view as nothingness.’
‘On paper, it is landscape art, but in reality it constitutes a delve into deep and melancholy fissures of the psyche: a swirling madness that found release and a safe way to emerge in paint.’
He had an earthy, rooted Taurus Sun at odds with a likes-to-shock Aquarius Moon; and had two talented Grand Trines, one Earth and one Air. His Jupiter Venus in Taurus was trine Pluto trine Neptune in Virgo in the 8th; and an Air Grand Trine of Moon trine Uranus in the 4th trine Saturn in Libra. Practical, rooted in nature and a thinker and communicator.
A strong 8th house could be the intergenerational trauma inherited from his mother. He lived with his father for thirty years in his adult life, though formed a relationship with his housekeeper and died of cholera when he was in his 70s.
Interestingly his Mars in Leo was inconjunct his Pluto as was the case with the Italian artist Caravaggio whose realistic, religious paintings could not have been more different. Born 29 September 1571 JC in Rome he also (probably) had an Air Grand Trine of Aquarius Moon trine as Libra Sun trine Neptune in Gemini. He was known as ‘a violent, touchy and provocative man’, continually involved in brawls and running from the authorities; perhaps veering towards madness. He died aged 40 either from fever, syphilis or was deliberately killed.
Another artist born in late April was bird painter JJ Audubon, 26 April 1785 in Haiti. His major work, a colour-plate book, The Birds of America is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. He had a Taurus Sun and an Air Grand Trine of Venus in Gemini trine Pluto Saturn in Aquarius trine Neptune in Libra.
I am intrigued by the Mars inconjunct Pluto in Turner and Caravaggio’s chart. A previous post on garden designers –
Piet Oudolf – gardens to soothe the soul ++ inconjuncts – healing 12th harmonic 8th April 2024 –
suggested that inconjuncts, reflected in the 12th victim/healer harmonic, is a healing aspect. Which may have been true with Turner. The 150 degree angles are constantly trying to find a way of merging incompatible elements to reduce discomfort.
The Mars inconjunct Pluto natally turns out as a Mars Pluto conjunction in the 12th harmonic which in Caravaggio’s case appeared to have done little to heal his rambunctious temperament. But maybe his art was a way of channelling his darker, destructive feelings since he painted violent struggles, torture and death in line with the religious imagery that was acceptable at the time.
My Mars is sextile Chiron and both are tightly inconjunct Pluto in the 8th in a yod. Uranus is tightly square Neptune and so is Chiron in a T-square. Great painting and classical music have a healing effect on my psyche.