Though his later work became more disorganized, fragmented, and impressionistic, he won over many of his critics as they not only warmed to his new style but also began to admit that his work marked a shift in English painting.57 What he had initiated was undeniable, and it proved to be nothing less than the break between the classical age and mode

J. M. W. Turner was born on April 23, 1775, in London’s Covent Garden neighborhood,

He was, at the time, “the greatest figure of the Romantic painting movement and his exploration of light, atmosphere, and color is recognized as having been an essential influence in the development of Impressionism later on.”

In Turner’s day, England favored the classical decorum that would come to mark the Victorian sensibilities—modesty, composure, moral sensitivity, and tasteful presentation.

He wanted to study the great Italian painters and experience the Italian light that Sir Thomas Lawrence described as “the atmosphere that wraps everything in its own milky sweetness.”30

His notes were thought triggers more than fleshed-out ideas.

The Hudson River School painters were heavily influenced by and borrowed liberally from the English Romantic painter Joseph Mallord William Turner’s imagery of foreboding seas, ominous clouds, and vast landscapes. It is hard to overstate the impact Turner had on the art world in the mid- to late 1800s.

Many of these artists came to be known as the Hudson River School—“an identifying group title given to a number of mainly landscape painters working in the United States of America in the early and middle years of the nineteenth century.”6 The Hudson River School—which included Asher Brown Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Edwin Church, Thomas Moran,

These later works look like they could have been painted by one of the great Impressionists, though the dawn of Impressionism wouldn’t occur for another fifty years.