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

This ‘Ruin on Rocks’ as Finberg describes it, bears a close resemblance to William Daniell’s aquatint, Tantallon Castle, Haddingtonshire 1822 (Tate T02922). Both this drawing and Daniell’s print show the castle from the sea or nearby rocky outcrop to the north, although Turner’s view is from closer to the cliff edge, making the angle at which the castle is drawn steeper and more dramatic. In these sketches Turner makes little attempt to distinguish rock from masonry. In fact, in his watercolours of Dunbar, Tantallon and the fortifications of Bass Rock, all seem to be composed of the same stuff upon which they stand, as if the man-made fortifications are a natural extension of nature’s defences.