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

This is one of a sequence of twenty-five recto pages of watercolour landscape, sea and sky compositions between folio 9 recto (D18609) and folio 34 recto (D18638), many of which evoke quiet Thames Valley scenes with water in the foreground; for a checklist and general comments, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.

Here, against a background of featureless pale blue and gold washes suggesting the dawn, with no division between the sky and its reflection, Turner has included both a conventional stand of trees or bushes with thick foliage and the ghostly silhouette of a bare counterpart drawn with strokes of deft economy, superficially comparable to Chinese or Japanese brush painting.1 He has also lifted out colour in the sky with the wet tip of a brush to suggest the edges of high clouds catching the early light.

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