Joseph Mallord William Turner

Two Studies of Skies above Landscapes or the Sea, by Day and at Sunset or Dawn

c.1820–40

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Colour Studies of Clouds, Storms and a Rainbow
Medium
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 357 x 348 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D25253
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 131

Display caption

Turner often used the technique of brushing a second colour onto wet paper before the first wash has dried, known as ‘wet in wet’, in his sea studies. In particular he employs it to great effect when painting a changing sky where one colour diffuses into another.

He also drives the wet watercolour around the paper with his brush or his fingers so that the direction of the paint echoes the restless energy of the waves and the transient patterns of the sky.

Gallery label, April 2005

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