From Publishers Weekly
Employing newly available sketchbooks, Hamilton (Turner and the Scientists) contends that painter J.W.M. Turner (1775-1851) was a prodigy who first exhibited his work in his father's barber shop and owed his fame to innate opportunism as much as to matchless talent. The sketchbooks reveal a young man anxiously seeking institutional favor, painstakingly preparing his 1811 lectures on perspective in the hopes of defeating his famous inarticulacy. They trace Turner's charge through the English countryside, where he scaled improbable heights and expertly sketched scenes (many later completed from memory). Hamilton attributes this frenetic activity to Turner's obsession with the preciousness of both money and time, and suggests that the latter concern eventually prevailed. Once at home in the Royal Academy and convinced of his genius, Turner could afford to flout public opinion and devote himself to quixotic pursuit of the colors and tones churned by "the engine of the air." One critic, fearing Turner's influence on younger artists, dubbed him "over-Turner," while scientists esteemed his Prospero-like light effects. Somewhat dismayed by the discomfiting details of his subject's life-Turner apparently disregarded his children, enjoyed pornography and consigned his mother to an insane asylum until her death-Hamilton downplays them. His affectionate, dignified study is designed for scholars who will relish Turner's travel itineraries, housing plans and overwrought poems-trivia that serve less to illuminate Turner's work than to selectively humanize his myth. Three 8-page color photo inserts not seen by PW.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The son of a successful barber in a bustling and artistic London neighborhood, J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) never had to struggle for recognition. His father happily displayed his precociously talented son's drawings, and by age 13 the budding artist was already selling his work. Soon a "supreme professional," Turner, long aligned with the Royal Academy, found his painterly niche by indulging his twin loves for landscape and travel. Writing with vigor and enthusiasm, Hamilton relishes Turner's unbounded inquisitiveness, prodigious physical stamina, edgy outlook, fascination with contrast and balance, and frank refusal to marry and live a conventional family life. Through in-depth and thoroughly enjoyable analyses of Turner's many travel sketchbooks, Hamilton provides a wealth of information and insights. Adeptly comparing Turner's grand oils with his intimate watercolors, Hamilton efficiently tracks the evolution of Turner's paradigm-altering art. Turner achieved the phenomenal success he desired and deserved, then freed himself from professional obligations to immerse himself in color and create scenes of great contrast and drama, unprecedented images of a world in flux. Donna Seaman
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