JOSEPH TURNER AND ENLISH ROMANTICISM

Joseph William Mallord Turner was the most famous exponent of English Romanticism. A product of an era of war with Napoléon, the artist celebrated the rise of the British empire. Although many of his landscapes featured classical and ancient subject matter in the foreground, Turner was fascinated with the dramatic modern events. His manner of painting was innovative and unprecedented but his patriotic and often moralizing content won Turner the support of England’s most powerful art critic, John Ruskin.