Shortly after his father's death, Turner began to make a series of wills, in which he staked out his claim for the interest of posterity. He was not infrequently mysterious with his brush, and he seems to have been more so with his pen, for his will is even more difficult to interpret than his own poetic experiments, "The Fallacies of Hope". His main intention was to ensure that two of his paintings should be hung in the National Gallery between the Claude's against which he painted in competition. It is an important fact that Turner's intention in specifying this arrangement was to show that he was the equal to Claude and that it is now generally accepted. But there seems to exist more complex contradictory impulsions in his motive : the competitive spirit or the antagonism that Turner held against Claude ; the passionate admiration for this French master ; the self-advertisement or the sarcastic revenge on a cult of Claude ; a resentment to the class distinction or a social provocation ; the arbitrary artistic will of the artist who wants to exist superhistorically.

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