ABSTRACT
J. M. W. Turner’s later oils and watercolours have attracted attention for over a century as a distinctive and spectacular phase in his development as a painter. Produced between the later 1830s and his death in 1851 aged 76, these last works are regularly promoted as the moment when the essential nature of Turner’s contribution to the history of art is revealed most clearly. Nevertheless, the fact that Turner was an elderly artist in his ‘late’ period cannot be ignored, either. He certainly didn’t ignore it. Turner’s last years did indeed see him produce remarkable paintings, especially when compared with his artistic contemporaries in the early Victorian art world, and it is just as understandable that his critics were disdainful of them as it is that his modern supporters regard them as the epitome of untrammelled genius. Age and the ageing process were deployed tactically in hostile criticism of Turner’s work both during his life and posthumously.
