J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > Studies in the Louvre Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Commentary on Jacob van Ruisdael's 'Burst of Sunshine' and 'Storm off the Dutch Coast' (Inscriptions by Turner) 1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Commentary on Jacob van Ruisdael's 'Burst of Sunshine' and 'Storm off the Dutch Coast' (Inscriptions by Turner)’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
Commentary on Jacob van Ruisdael’s ‘Burst of Sunshine’ and ‘Storm off the Dutch Coast’ (Inscriptions by Turner) 1802
D04299
Turner Bequest LXXII 23
Inscribed by Turner in black ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper prepared with a grey wash, 128 x 114 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘23’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXII–23’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s notes open by concluding his remarks on Ruisdael’s Burst of Sunshine, begun on folio 22 verso of this sketchbook (D04298). His copy of the picture is on folio 81 (D04380). They then turn, as Finberg surmised, to the same painter’s Storm off the Dutch Coast, for which see folios 14 verso–15 (D04289–D04290) for Turner’s copy, and a discussion of his critique and the possible later impact of his heading ‘Sea Port Rysdael’. Turner’s remarks read:
create some kind of interest | Sea Port Rysdael | A brown picture which pervades | thro the water so as to check the idea of | it being liquid altho finely pencild the | introducing of the House on the embank-| ment destroys all the dignity of the | left – an Offing with Ship riding in | stress of Weather happily disposed and | color’d and a heavy sombre grey sky | with warm lights (the half tints this leaf) | The chief light is upon the surge in the | foreground but too much is made to | suffer so that it is artificial – and | shows the brown in a more glaring | point of view and His [Finberg: this] inattention of the | forms which waves make upon a lee | shore embanked (the ships all in shadow).

David Blayney Brown
July 2005

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Commentary on Jacob van Ruisdael’s ‘Burst of Sunshine’ and ‘Storm off the Dutch Coast’ (Inscriptions by Turner) 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2005, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-commentary-on-jacob-van-ruisdaels-burst-of-sunshine-and-r1129707, accessed 25 April 2024.