Why JMW Turner is still Britain’s best artist, 250 years on

The revered artist conjured groundbreaking scenes of gods, legends and lost civilisations, but, more than anything, his work came to represent the complex soul of Britain like that of no artist before or sinceHe never crossed the Atlantic. Never sailed the Aegean. A cross-channel ferry was enough for Joseph Mallord William Turner to understand the might and majesty of the sea. His 1803 painting Calais Pier records his feelings on his first arrival in France as foaming green mountains of wav