Book excerpt: J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) was arguably Britain's greatest painter. Through a remarkable amount of groundbreaking research, and by rigorously examining the existing evidence concerning the artist's first 40 years. Eric Shanes has been able to unearth a mass of new information, forge many fresh links and provide a great number of original insights. His own training as a painter has enabled him to bring a profound understanding to the practical side of Turner, and thereby reveal many aspects of the output that have hitherto been overlooked. In order to intensify our grasp of the interrelationship between Turner the man and Turner the painter, this book contains over 450 illustrations that form an integral part of the story. As a consequence, we are able to perceive the exact trajectory of Turner's formative years and early maturity more clearly than ever before. Within a strictly chronological framework, Turner's personal and creative developments are charted in tandem, offering an exploration of his strengths and weaknesses of character, and his intellectual and emotional complexity. Shanes provides an unrivalled account of Turner's creative aims and responses, his imaginative and technical evolution, his poetic aspirations and identifications, his strong sense of duty and his educative ambitions. No less closely scrutinised are Turner's mastery of art-world politics, his wider political outlook, his professional relationships, his sales, financial dealings and investments, his travels, and even the buildings in which he lived and worked. Ultimately, we are shown that, despite his difficulties with verbal communication, Turner possessed one of the sharpest and most dazzling minds in the entire history of art. -- from dust jacket.