Was Jmw Turner’s Mother Really ‘mentally Ill’? | Letter

JMW Turner mother’s died erstwhile she was 29, erstwhile he was engaged preparing for and opening his first nationalist exhibition, and her “mental illness”, referred to successful your reappraisal of nan BBC Two documentary Turner: The Secret Sketchbooks (19 November), should beryllium described arsenic “purported”.

We only person nan grounds provided by nan actions of her hubby and son, who sent her to a lunatic asylum designed for paupers, erstwhile they were successful truth not mediocre and could person accommodated her successful a amended situation pinch amended care, and thereby lengthened her life.

The lunatic asylum Bethlem was tally by personification who had a adjacent relationship pinch Turner and mentored him arsenic an artist, truthful it seems clear that nan family utilized this relationship to get free of nan mother, to get her distant from them. As we do not person a clear and impartial doctor’s diagnosis, we cannot return arsenic publication that nan mother had a intelligence illness, alternatively than being possibly difficult to get on with.

I urge that your writers read nan article Dr Monro, Mr Turner, and His Mother, published by nan online diary Hektoen International, earlier they proceed to observe Turner’s bequest pinch specified unbridled devotion.
Helen James
Worthing, West Sussex