of Carthaginian subjects. The last exhibits of his life, at the Academy in 1850, included four works on the same theme. By appending long poetic quotations either from James Thomson's Seasons, from works by Lord Byron, John Milton, William Shakespeare, and Alexander Pope, or from his own long poetic composition Fallacies of Hope, Turner showed that he regarded the literary-historical interpretation of his works as of paramount importance. As if he felt that he had done all he could with the beauty of his native country, Turner set out in the summer of 1819 on his first visit to Italy. He spent three months in Rome--visited Naples, Florence, and Venice--and returned home in midwinter. During his journey he made about 1,500 drawings, and in the next few years he painted a series of pictures inspired by what he had seen. They show a great advance in his style, particularly in the matter of colour, which becomes purer, more prismatic, with a general heightening of key. A comparison of "The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl" (1823; Tate Gallery) with any of the earlier pictures reveals a far more iridescent treatment resembling the transparency of a watercolour. The shadows are as colourful as the lights, and he achieves contrasts by setting off cold and warm colours instead of dark and light tones. During the 1820s, tours of the continent alternated with visits to various parts of England and Scotland. In 1825 Turner revisited The Netherlands and Belgium and the following year the Meuse, Moselle, and Loire rivers. Notable among the pictures of this period are such views as "The Harbour of Dieppe," "Cologne: The Arrival of a Packet Boat: Evening," and "Mortlake Terrace: Early Summer Morning" (Frick Collection, New York City). In 1827 he painted the brilliant sketches of the regatta now at the Tate Gallery, and in 1828 he went to Italy again. After his father's death in 1829, Turner often visited the Earl of Egremont at...
