In this six-minute video, hear from Frederick Ilchman, Chair and Mrs. Russell W. Baker Curator of Paintings, Art of Europe, and Debra Lennard, curatorial assistant, Contemporary Art, as they discuss what made J. M. W. Turner’s art so ahead of its time. Turner rejected traditions that had been established for centuries, and his later works like Snow Storm—Steam Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth (1842) and Burning Blubber (1844–85) prefigure abstract art that came almost a century later.