White wove writing paper has been used for this composition. The outline of the trees has been drawn in pencil and then the sky paint was applied rapidly to fairly wet paper, sometimes running over the sketch lines for the trees. Isolated washes of colour were then added to the composition, to give the effect of recession among the trees. Darker washes have then been painted on to show the effects of sunlight and shade among the trees, and to give character to an extensive foreground that would otherwise have no pictorial depth. Very few pigments have been used, since most gradations of tone were achieved economically and probably in a very few minutes, by mixing and layering. Yellow ochre and two dull brown shades of ochre, a brownish madder lake, and indigo (probably) for the sky, define the entire palette used here. There is no evidence for colour change.
Helen Evans
October 2008
Joyce Townsend
February 2011
How to cite
Helen Evans and Joyce Townsend, 'Technique and Condition', February 2011, in Andrew Wilton, ‘A Screen of Trees c.1795 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-screen-of-trees-r1140806, accessed 21 November 2024.
