His early works, such as Tintern Abbey (1795), stayed true to the traditions of English landscape. However, in Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812), an emphasis on the destructive power of nature had already come into play. His distinctive style of painting, in which he used watercolour technique with oil paints, created lightness, fluency, and ephemeral atmospheric effects.

Turner's 1813 watercolour, Ivy Bridge

In his later years he used oils ever more transparently, and turned to an evocation of almost pure light by use of shimmering colour. A prime example of his mature style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, where the objects are barely recognizable. The intensity of hue and interest in evanescent light not only placed Turner's work in the vanguard of English painting, but later exerted an influence upon art in France, as well; the Impressionists, particularly Claude Monet, carefully studied his techniques.

TATE

The original Tate Gallery, at Millbank in London, opened in 1897. Its official name was the National Gallery of British Art, but it became popularly known as the Tate Gallery, after its founder Sir Henry Tate.

It was built on the site of Millbank Penitentiary, demolished in 1892, and was designed to house the collection of nineteenth-century British painting and sculpture given to the nation by Sir Henry Tate, together with some British paintings transferred from the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. At that time its responsibilities were specifically for modern British art, defined then as artists born after 1790. In 1917 the gallery was also made responsible for the national collection of international modern art and for British art going back to about 1500.

Tate became wholly independent from the National Gallery in 1955. It is now one of the nineteen national museums funded by the Government through the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Today, what was the Tate Gallery has become Tate, a family of four galleries: Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Tate continues to care, develop and provide public access to its national collections of British art and international modern and contemporary art.

Editor: Feng Hui