The original drawing is rapid and nervous, with the cliffs almost entirely lacking in detail, and no indication of time of day, weather or the state of the sea; the foreground is slightly more developed with intermittent heavy shading defining the rocks, and there are three or four tiny figures in the distance on the right. However, as Herrmann has noted, in the
Liber drawing the scene ‘was transformed into a dramatic episode; the small figures become survivors from a shipwreck, surrounded by angry seas, threatening sky and much local incident.’
3 Indeed, Gillian Forrester compares the mood and intention of the composition to the dramatic 1804 oil
An Avalanche in the Alps (Tate,
T00772) by the London-based, Alsatian painter Philippe Jacques (Philip James) de Loutherbourg, which Turner could have seen when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy or in the collection of his patron Sir John Leicester.
4 In Turner’s composition, the snow is replaced by sea spray, but the sense of humanity at the mercy of greater forces of is similar. The rocky foreground is similar to that depicted in another
Liber drawing of about the same date showing Dunstanburgh Castle, about a hundred miles to the north on the same coast (Tate
D08118; Turner Bequest CXVI Q).
