On the trail of Turner
Published by John Smith on Sunday 12 February 2012
The best known story about Joseph Mallord William Turner is that he had himself lashed to a mast, brush in hand, to capture the full force of a storm at sea. Like many art anecdotes, this one probably isn't true: other, lesser painters are known to have had themselves tied to bits of shipping while they worked, and one of their stories has barnacled itself to JMW. He was, after all, Britain's greatest living artist, and so by definition the most heroic. The truth may come as a disappointment, or, if you are taking the Turner Tour, as a faint relief. At least it can be done without water wings.
