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J.M.W. Turner, in full Joseph Mallord William Turner (born April 23, 1775, London, Eng.— died Dec. 19, 1851, London), English Romantic landscape painter whose expressionistic studies of light, colour, and atmosphere were unmatched in their range and sublimity.

Turner was only fourteen years old when he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. He started his career by painting watercolours and producing mezzotints under the strong influence of John Robert Cozen's work. Then, in 1796, he launched into oil painting, working in the neoclassical manner of Richard Wilson and Nicolas Poussin, with results that found wide acclaim. He exhibited his first picture Fishermen at Sea (1796) in the Royal Academy exhibition in 1796. He was elected an Associate in 1799 and in 1802 a full member of the Royal Academy. Turner was one of the most prolific painters of his time. He traveled extensively in England, Scotland and Ireland, and also on the Continent (France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy).

In 1802, he visited Paris for the first time, where he studied the Old Masters in the Louvre, above all Dutch seascapes and Claude Lorrain's compositions, which lastingly influenced him. Turner's first private showing, at his own house, took place in 1804. During this period, thanks to the increasing concentration on the atmospheric effects of light, his original style began to evolve, a process that culminated during trips to Italy between 1819 and 1829.

Like the works of Constable, Turner's seemingly effortless watercolours and oil sketches were based on impressions of nature. But his perception of the world differed vastly from Constable's. Turner's pictures transcend ordinary appearances, conveying a visionary sense of the forces at work in the universe.