Turner and the Masters

Turner and the Masters juxtaposes J.M.W. Turner's greatest paintings alongside works by old masters and contemporaries that he hoped to imitate, rival, and surpass. Published to accompany a major international exhibition, it explores for the first time how Turner's responses to other artists were both acts of homage and a sophisticated form of art criticism, designed to demonstrate his understanding of great art and his ability to equal and even outshine the most celebrated exponents of the landscape tradition.

With some 100 works reproduced in glorious colorplates, the book includes paintings by Claude, Canaletto, Ruisdael, Van de Velde, Poussin, Rubens, Rembrandt, Constable, Bonington and many others who Turner knew personally.  The paintings and text together reveal the artist's debts and rivalries in an exciting and often unpredictable way, serving to further re-establish Turner's reputation as the one of the greatest—and most beloved—of landscape painters

David Solkin is Professor of the Social History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, University of London.