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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Architectural and Other Subjects c.1797 ... > Academical Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Composition Study: Caernarvon Castle with a Low Sun c.1798-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Composition Study: Caernarvon Castle with a Low Sun’ c.1798-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Verso:
Composition Study: Caernarvon Castle with a Low Sun c.1798–9
D01856
Turner Bequest XLIII 39a
Pen and ink, watercolour and gouache on blue laid paper prepared with a red-brown ground, 140 x 216 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XLIII – 39a’ bottom right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made with the page turned horizontally, this study is closely related to the very similar oil study on panel (Tate N01867);1 both are connected with the evolution of the large finished watercolour that Turner exhibited in 1799 as Caernarvon Castle (private collection).2 The final work shows the castle, seen from the east, looming dark against a hot sunset. It exhibits for the first time in Turner’s output the full influence of Claude Lorrain (1604/5–1682), but it is clear, too, that he was very much under the spell of Richard Wilson (1713–1782), who had painted several views of Caernarvon from the east.
The use of densely expressive gouache as an equivalent for oil paint recalls Turner’s practice in the earlier Wilson sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest XXXVII), where he explored the interrelationship of the media for the first time. His decision to execute the subject in watercolour may reflect his determination at this date to demonstrate conclusively that the medium was as capable of profound expression as oil. This small work is so intense in its effect that it seems to be capable of bearing the import of the verses from Amyntor and Theodora by David Mallet (1705–1765) that Turner printed with the title in the Academy catalogue:
                        Now rose
Sweet Evening, solemn hour, the sun declin’d
Hung golden o’er this nether firmament,
Whose broad cerulean mirror, calmly bright,
Gave back his beamy visage to the sky
With splendour undiminish’d.3
There are further studies for a composition including Caernarvon Castle on folios 42 verso, 43 recto and verso, 44 recto and verso, and 45 verso (D01860–D01864, D01866; Turner Bequest XLIII 41a, 42, 42a, 43, 43a, 44a).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.22–3 no.28, pl.23 (colour).
2
Wilton 1979, p.328 no.254, pl.47 (colour).
3
Quoted ibid.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Composition Study: Caernarvon Castle with a Low Sun c.1798–9 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-composition-study-caernarvon-castle-with-a-low-sun-r1174056, accessed 26 April 2024.