Master of English Romantic landscape, the "painter of light"
The summit of English Romantic landscape, called the "painter of light." Obsessed with rendering light, mist, steam, and storm, in his late work he all but dissolved concrete form into a whirl of light and color, seen as a distant forerunner of Impressionism and even abstract art. He painted storms at sea, the burning Houses of Parliament, a racing steam train, turning the sublime power of nature and the industrial age into astonishing vortices of light on canvas.
Legend says Turner, to experience a snowstorm firsthand, had sailors lash him to a ship’s mast and endured the wind and waves at sea for hours. He wanted not to "watch" the storm safely but to "become" part of it. That is why the seas and skies he painted carry that overwhelming, immersive violence.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.