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 Reflected Light c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes on Reflected Light’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 75 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: Notes on Reflected Light circa 1809
D07479
Turner Bequest CVIII 75a
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 115 x 88 mm
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following notes:
rays converging [?than] diverging but | when the rays of the [?atmosphere] one [...] | [?striking] by an [...] object the | power of the reflected prom[...] is | increased and the reflected power of the | Sun gives the inverted substance | most defined and that reflected [?having] | to issue as it were from a point or | the shadows of the trees are not shadow | without the [?intercepted] the shadows | [?formd] on that wall by the Suns ray | then they are positive but the form | of the object from the suns ray or direction | the reflected ray is inverted and [...] | contra[?dicted] on [...] wall of forms and no | part of that in shadow but in shadow from | the Sun and its dark reflected in the water
The passage is part of a sequence of notes and diagrams which runs back from folio 79 verso (D07487) to folio 72 verso (D07473). The previous page of notes is folio 76 verso (D07481), and the next is folio 74 verso (D07477); there is a diagram on folio 76 recto opposite (D07480), to which the text is related. The semi-diagrammatic drawing of a boat on folio 81 verso (D07491) also appears to belong with these notes, concerned with sunlight or light in general in terms of reflections and the casting of light and shadow from polished objects or bodies of water. They relate to Turner’s fifth Royal Academy perspective lecture, on reflection and refraction.
Maurice Davies has registered most of the notes from folio 91 verso (D07511) to folio 72 verso as ‘on light and shadow’;1 those from folio 91 verso to folio 82 verso (D07493) are distinct, dealing with sunlight as parallel or divergent rays.

Matthew Imms
June 2008

1
Davies 1994, p.289.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Notes on Reflected Light 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-reflected-light-r1136675, accessed 23 April 2024.