Few British artists have ever achieved such a wide range of style in oil painting, watercolour, drawing and engraving as J. M. W. Turner. He had a precocious gift that was developed over a lifetime of experiment and innovation. This classic book in the World of Art series traces the artist's career - from youthful pictureseque views and watercolours of 'Gothic' ruins to the romantic landscape and historical compositions of his maturity, and the astonishing art of his later years. In these late paintings Turner's tragic sense of life is stated most profoundly and the work was unintelligible to his contemporaries - but his reputation as the greatest British painter now rests on our understanding of these as pioneering explorations of abstraction, prefiguring the art of the 20th century. Graham Reynolds weaves together the artist's biography with sensitive criticism of his work, through all phases of his career, in this classic work - first published in 1969 - that has long served as an outstanding introduction to Turner's life and art. It has now been revised and updated by the curator of the Turner Bequest at Tate, David Blayney Brown, to reflect recent discoveries and interpretations, and the illustrations are in full colour for the first time. It will serve as the best available study of this perennially popular artist for a new generation of readers.

A landmark new presentation of the work of J.M.W. Turner, repositioning the great painter as a pioneering chronicler of contemporary life, and exploring what it really means to be a modern artist. J.M.W. Turner's career spanned revolution and the Napoleonic War, Empire, the explosion of finance capitalism, the transition from sail to steam and from manpower to mechanisation, political reform and scientific and cultural advances that transformed society and shaped the modern world. While historians have long recognised that the industrial and political revolutions of the late eighteenth century inaugurated far reaching change and modernisation, these were often ignored by artists as they did not fit into established categories of pictorial representation. This extraordinary new publication shows Turner updating the language of art and transforming his style and practice to produce revelatory, definitive interpretations of modern subjects. This is J.M.W. Turner as he has never been seen before.

The Art & Ideas series offers introductory books on all aspects of the history of art. Each book is written by an outstanding expert in the field, in an accessible and lively style. Completely up-to-date and comprehensive, these books are essential reading for students and rewarding for anyone curious about art.

Romanticism was 'a way of feeling' rather than a style in art. In the period c. 1775-1830, against the background of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, European artists, together with poets and composers, initiated their own rebellion against the dominant political, religious and social ethos of the day. Their quest was for personal expression and individual liberation, and in the process, the Romantics transformed the idea of art, seeing it as an instrument of social and psychological change.

In this comprehensive volume, David Blayney Brown takes a thematic approach to Romanticism, relating it to the concurrent, more stylistic movements of Neoclassicism and the Gothic Revival, and discussing its relationship with the political and social developments of the era. He not only looks at how artists as diverse as Goya, Delacroix, Friedrich and Turner responded to landscapes or depicted historical events, but also examines artists such as David and Ingres who are not usually considered Romantics. As a result, the reader is given a clear understanding of a complex movement that produced some of the greatest European art, literature and music.

A new, fully revised edition of the bestselling publication exploring J.M.W. Turner's spectacular array of watercolours.  The lifetime of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) was also the classic age of English watercolour, and the artist's mastery and perfection of the medium coincided with its establishment as an independent art form. This volume examines the unique body of watercolours Turner produced.  Few can doubt that J.M.W. Turner was the greatest exponent of English watercolour in its golden age. An inveterate traveller in search of the ideal vista, he rarely left home without a rolled up, loosebound sketchbook, pencils and a small travelling case of watercolours in his pocket. He exploited, as no one before him, the medium's luminosity and transparency, conjuring light effects on English meadows and Venetian lagoons and gauzy mists over mountains and lakes. Extraordinary in his own time, he has continued to thrill his countless admirers since.  David Blayney Brown, one of the world's leading experts on Turner, reveals the role watercolours played in Turner's life and work, from those he sent for exhibition to the Royal Academy to the private outpourings in which he compulsively experimented with light and colour, which for a modern audience are among his most radical and accomplished works.