Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

Turner's Modern World

May 18 – Sept 12, 2021
Millbank, Westminster, London SW1P 4RG, UK

J. M. W. Turner captured his country in flux. Caught within the romance of his oils and watercolors is the artist’s native Britain as he saw it: at war, transitioning from sail to steam, charging ahead into capitalism. As the world transformed around him, Turner reacted by altering his style, and in 150 key works (including major loans as well as paintings and drawings from the Tate’s own collection), viewers can track the changes. Brushstrokes get wilder. Colors clash, less blended, reflecting the dizzying pace of the modernization taking place. At the time, Turner’s new approach shocked his contemporaries. Today, it’s the reason he’s considered Britain’s greatest landscape painter. —J.V.

J. M. W. Turner, “The fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up,” 1838 © The National Gallery, London.