
Not on display
- Artist
- Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
- Medium
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 556 × 762 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
- Reference
- D17149
Turner Bequest CXCV 178
Display caption
Turner created only two diagrams dealing with colour theory. He used them in a lecture on atmospheric perspective: the use of colour, light and shade to lend a picture a sense of depth.
This diagram illustrates the behaviour of colour in light. Turner used it to address colour symbolism of the times of day, explaining that the upper and lower portions of the diagram represent the light and dark of day and night. He told his students ‘suppose the yellow triangle light, red and blue shade; and hence we have grey morning, the yellow midday and crimson evening’.
Gallery label, August 2004
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Catalogue entry
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Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: On the Eye and the Nature of Vision
c.1817–28 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Anamorphic Perspective
c.1817–28 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Square and Circle
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Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Two Octagons
c.1817–28 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: ‘Euclid’s Elements of Geometry’, Book 4, Propositions 10, 15, and 16
c.1817–28 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: ‘Euclid’s Elements of Geometry’, Book 4, Proposition 5
c.1817–28 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: A Triangle
c.1817–28 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Perspective Representation of a Triangle
c.1810–28 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Perspective Method for a Circle
c.1822–8 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram 39: Perspective Method for a Circle (after Jacques Androuet du Cerceau)
c.1810 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram 40*: Perspective Method for a Circle (after Thomas Malton Senior)
c.1810 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Various Figures
c.1817–28 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Reflections on Water
c.1823–8 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Reflections on Water
c.1823–8 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Lecture Diagram: Colour Circle No.2
c.1824–8