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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Perspective lectures c.1809-28 > Perspective Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Notes on Architectural Proportion and Perspective, from an Unidentified Source c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes on Architectural Proportion and Perspective, from an Unidentified Source’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Notes on Architectural Proportion and Perspective, from an Unidentified Source circa 1809
D07415
Turner Bequest CVIII 37
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 88 x 115 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘37’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CVIII – 37’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following notes:
The incoherence of the adoption may be classed as | to transposition alone for the egg and tong or anther | moulding is here the smallest whereas, in the Ionian | it has large parts, indeed it is rather difficult to [?rue] | [?rule] the introduction of it here so small for then | all proportions near it which reduced the the [sic] egg to | a wrens to acccomodate the Eminent leaf below and | the Anther becomes a Dart, but the general form or | lack of line as seen from the ground must give that | sentiment of growing ambition the characters of | the Trajan triumph. that the mind receives no check | in contemplation the rush of war and floats with | the spiral line to the capitial if the sculptor had been | as carefull as the architect to [...] the character he | would surely have atended to the proportions of the
The source of these passages on proportion in relation to architecture (including the Trajan and Antonine Columns in Rome) remains unidentified.1 Trajan’s Column also features in Turner’s notes on folios 34 recto, 35 recto, 35 verso, 36 verso, 37 verso and 61 verso (D07409, D07411, D07412, D07414, D07416, D07459); see also the entry for folio 33 verso (D07408). The present notes run continuously from folio 35 recto to folio 37 verso (D07411–D07416).

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, p.288.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes on Architectural Proportion and Perspective, from an Unidentified Source c.1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2008, 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-inscription-by-turner-notes-on-architectural-proportion-and-r1136611, accessed 12 May 2024.