This composition has been executed using pencil and watercolour on cream wove Whatman paper, with graphite pencil used both for sketching and for shading. The sky was worked on fairly wet paper. The flat washes on the buildings are unusually precisely and evenly applied, with careful control of the wetness of the paper, whereas the hasty colouring of the cart, which is effective without following the drawing in any detail, is more typical of Turner. The foreground shadows have been washed in while the figures have been very hastily outlined, but then left as reserved white areas for the later application of bright colours.
Helen Evans
October 2008
Revised by Joyce Townsend
February 2011
How to cite
Helen Evans, 'Technique and Condition', October 2008, revised by Joyce Townsend, February 2011, in Andrew Wilton, ‘Salisbury: The Council Room ?1800 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-salisbury-the-council-room-r1174087, accessed 19 April 2024.
