Like many 19th-century Britons, J.M.W. Turner was a passionate traveller, and the landscapes, cities and people he encountered on his journeys throughout Europe provided the stimulus for a number of his sketches, watercolours and paintings. This book documents the artist's European travels between 1802 and 1845 and provides insights into the ways the land and architecture shaped Turner's work over two of his most prolific periods. Inge Herold's text reveals how the artist's often harrowing experiences by boat, on foot and by carriage throughout France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland brought Turner to a new appreciation of his Romantic themes, and allowed him to incorporate his observations of man's interactions with nature into some of the most moving and profound landscapes of all time.