In all, the exhibition shows the broad range of Turner's interests and techniques in a way curators say they haven't seen in years.
"He was nothing if not ambitious in the range of his art," says Franklin Kelly, the art gallery senior curator who coordinated the show.
About 140 works make up the show, with contributions from museums in Cleveland, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Tate Britain, the national gallery of British art in London, is lending 85 works. After Washington, the exhibit opens at the Dallas Museum of Art on Feb. 10, 2008, and at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 24, 2008.
Some notable paintings never before shown in the United States are "Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps" (1812) and "The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire" (1817), Earl A. Powell III, director of the National Gallery of Art, said. The gallery has produced a documentary to accompany the show.
One of the exhibition's goals has been to bring together some of the paradoxes of Turner's art, said Ian Warrell, a curator at London's Tate Britain gallery.
Warrell notes that Turner "looks both backward and forward at the same time so that he can appeal to modern artists like [Mark] Rothko and [Jackson] Pollock" as well as artists of his time. Another contradiction: At times, Turner's work was strongly patriotic for the British and other times he questioned authority, Warrell said.
Joseph Mallord William Turner dominated the British art world for six decades of his life, from 1775 to 1851.
Turner yearned to make a name for himself and excelled at self-promotion, Warrell said. There are stories of Turner adding more red to his work at times to outshine paintings hanging nearby, he said.
"He was terribly competitive," Warrell said.
Turner's first oil painting exhibited at the Royal Academy of the Arts is part of the Washington exhibit. "Fishermen at Sea" (1796) shows a rough sea lit by the moon - the maritime scene becoming a significant inspiration for Turner throughout his career.
