Joseph Mallord William Turner was an English Romantic landscape artist, whose style can be said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism. He entered the Royal Academy of Art schools when he was only 16 years old, and was accepted into the academy a year later. Sir Joshua Reynolds, president of the Royal Academy at the time, chaired the panel that admitted him. At first Turner showed a keen interest in architecture but was advised to keep to painting by the architect Thomas Hardwick. A watercolour of Turner's was accepted for the Summer Exhibition of 1790 after only one year's study. He exhibited his first oil painting in 1796, and thereafter exhibited at the academy nearly every year for the rest of his life. Although renowned for his oils, Turner is also regarded as one of the founders of English watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light".