Late Turner – reviews of 'entrancing' Tate Britain show

What you need to know

A new exhibition of Turner's paintings, Late Turner: Painting Set Free, has opened at Tate Britain, London. The show focuses on the work of the British master JMW Turner in the last 15 years of his life from 1835, when he was aged 60, until his death in 1851.

The exhibition aims to take a fresh look at Turner's later career, examining his constant innovation and experimentation with new techniques and materials. Highlights of the show include Rain, Steam and Speed, The Wreck Buoy, Peace – Burial at Sea and watercolours such as Heidelberg: Sunset. Runs until 25 January.

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What the critics like

"Like a Wagnerian opera painted in mist and fire, the late works of JMW Turner, rise from silence to throbbing power," with visionary leitmotifs and apocalyptic frenzy, says Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. Turner's works don't just usher in Impressionism, but a new way of seeing the world, and his modernism flashes forth everywhere in this exciting, entrancing show.

"This is a wonderful show, thoughtfully selected with enough work to make the point but not to overwhelm," says Karen Wright in The Independent. Turner's paintings display such diversity and technical virtuosity that, even with well over 100 works, there is no room for boredom.

At the heart of the exhibition are a series of pictures in a novel square format showing Turner "at his most dazzlingly innovative", says Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Along with the late watercolours, they reveal an artist who worked with audacious eloquence to the end.

What they don't like

"Let's not get too sentimental about Turner in old age," says Richard Dorment in the Daily Telegraph. This is an ambitious show that also asks important questions about how the artist's health, eyesight and drinking affected his art, and we should be careful not read more into the late work than the artist put in.