. . . he was by nature and bringing up shy and suspicious, but nothing conduced more to his mental and moral solitude than his incapacity to express himself in words. He had a mind of unusual range and feelings of unusual depth, but he could scarcely write a sentence of plain English. Other artists, like Claude, Cuyp, Crome, and Constable, have painted certain familiar aspects of nature with more fidelity and completeness, no no landscape-painter has equalled Turner in range, in imagination, or sublimity. His technique in oils was unsound, but in watercolours it was supreme; and in oils his dexterity was such that he obtained unrivalled effects in that medium . . .
The Dictionary of National Biography (Stephen, 1899)
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