Joseph Mallord William Turner

This view looks down the River Greta from above Brignall Church. In his work around Brignall in 1816 Turner was almost certainly influenced by Sir Walter Scott’s poem Rokeby published in 1813. Scott sang ‘O Brignall Banks are wild and fair | And Greta woods are green’, and this sketch is unusually (for this tour) focused exclusively on natural features. Turner sketched the same material from the riverside in the Yorkshire 4 sketchbook (Tate D11486; Turner Bequest CXLVII 28a) and the same rocks from a greater distance upstream on folio 20 recto of the present book (D11571; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 29, now bound opposite). This writer has dated Turner’s sketches at Brignall to Thursday 1 August 1816.