J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Engraved:
Etching and mezzotint by Turner and William Say, ‘Near Blair Athol Scotland’, published Turner, 1 June 1811

Turner made a pencil sketch of the scene developed here for the Liber Studiorum in the Scotch Lakes sketchbook in 1801, on his first Scottish tour (Tate D03141, D03142; Turner Bequest LVI 116a–117); there are similar studies on successive pages (for example: D03147, D03148; LVI 119a–120). They show the banks of the river Tilt near Blair Atholl, Perth and Kinross; the view remained identifiable two centuries later.1 The composition has affinities, perhaps merely coincidental in this case, with no.84 (Landscape)2 of Richard Earlom’s Liber Veritatis prints after Claude Lorrain (see general Liber introduction); and also with some of Turner’s Yorkshire watercolours of a few years later.3 It has been suggested that one of the tonal ‘Scottish Pencil’ drawings (Tate D03431; Turner Bequest LVIII 52) is related to the subject.4

Ruskin recognised the site, and noted that its ‘rocks are lovely with lichen, the banks with flowers; the stream-eddies are foaming and deep. But Turner has attempted none of these minor beauties, and has put into this single scene the spirit of Scotland.’5 In a lecture, he regarded it as ‘... an extreme wonder how Turner could have made so little of so beautiful a spot’, but declared that the ‘essential character of Scotland is that of a wild and thinly inhabited rocky country, not sublimely mountainous, but beautiful in low rock and light streamlet everywhere; with sweet copsewood and rudely-growing trees.’ Referring also to the Liber composition Dumblain Abbey, Scotland (see Tate D08157; Turner Bequest CXVIII C), he asserted: ‘The chief element in both is the sadness and depth of their effect of subdued though clear light in sky and stream.’6 As has been pointed out, in the engraving the kilt which Turner often used to emphasise the Scottishness of Scottish views replaced the angler’s breeches of the drawing,7 and his nondescript headgear became a tam-o’-shanter bonnet.

The composition is recorded, as ‘8[:] 4 Scotchman’, in the Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12157; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 24), in a draft schedule of the first ten parts of the Liber (D12156–D12158; CLIV (a) 23a–24a)8 dated by Finberg and Gillian Forrester to before the middle of 1808.9 It also appears later in the sketchbook, again as ‘Scotchman’, in a list of ‘Mountainous’ subjects (Tate D12166; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 28a).10

The Liber Studiorum etching and mezzotint engraving, etched by Turner and engraved by William Say, bears the publication date 1 June 1811 and was issued to subscribers as ‘Near Blair Athol Scotland’ in part 6 (Rawlinson/Finberg nos.27–31;11 see also Tate N02941 and D08132, D08133, D08135; Turner Bequest CXVII E, F, H). Tate holds impressions of the preliminary outline etching (Tate A00970) and the published engraving (A00971). It is one of fourteen published Liber subjects in Turner’s ‘Mountainous’ category (see also Tate D08113, D08119, D08123, D08130, D08148, D08153, D08156, D08161, D08164, D08165; Turner Bequest CXVI L, R, V, CXVII C, T, Y, CXVIII J, K, Vaughan Bequest CXVIII B, G).

Technical notes:

The paper was perhaps washed initially; a wet wash has been used to give a clearer outline to the hills which form the horizon. The sheet is slightly unfinished at the left and right edges, particularly the former, where the dark outlines of the foliage stop short. Scratching-out is used only for the rod and line;1 most of the light areas were reserved. Painted dark on dark, the watercolour washes are dense, but not medium-rich. The overall colour is a mid-brown, owing to the burnt sienna pigment.2

Verso:

Blank