In 1840s Chelsea, neighbors knew a shuffling old man with a thick working-class accent as Admiral Booth. He was actually J.M.W. Turner, the wealthiest and most revolutionary artist in Britain, hiding from the critics while producing nearly abstract paintings of light and atmosphere. This episode lays out the playbook of a self-made disruptor who infiltrated the elite art establishment and rewrote its rules from the inside.

The hosts follow Turner from his father's Covent Garden barbershop, where his sketches were shown for a shilling a look, through the Royal Academy at 14, his own private gallery, his assault on the hierarchy of genres, and the late works critics mocked as pea soup.

• How painting 30-foot theater backdrops trained him to prioritize atmosphere over detail, and how his mother's illness shaped his drive for independe ...