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拍品專文
Turner's first, and very thorough, working visit to the North of England took place in 1797. He left London in late June and was in the Lake District for about a fortnight in the first half of August, finally finishing up at his main objective Harewood House, home of his patron Edward Lascelles, heir to Lord Harewood. He was back in London again in September. Turner was in part guided by the example of Thomas Girtin who had been in the North, but not in the Lake District, the year before. The fortnight in the Lake District was particularly important for Turner as it represented his first experience of lakes and mountains; he was not to visit North Wales until the following year.
This watercolour, signed and dated 1821, is one of six commissioned by Turner's great patron Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall; the only English subject, it appears in a list with a total price of 150 guineas in the 'Paris, Seine and Dieppe' sketchbook of that year (Tate Gallery, Turner Bequest CCXI-10). As David Hill has written (op.cit., p. 131), 'Few of his [Turner's] watercolours were so fresh in colour, or gave such a lively and convincing rendition of being out in the northern weather'.
There are five pencil drawings of Lake Windermere in the 'Tweed and Wales' sketchbook used on the 1797 tour (Turner Bequest XXXV-52 to 56); the closest is page 53 (illustrated Hill, op.cit., p. 191; the caption to pl. 189 refers to this). Turner was later to use another of the 1797 drawings (Turner Bequest XXXV-52; Hill, op.cit., pl. 189) for the watercolour of circa 1835 engraved for Picturesque Views in England and Wales, published 1837 (illustrated in colour, Hill, op.cit, pl. 195); the view is from the west bank at Ferry Point, looking towards the North, with Belle Isle on the left in the middle distance, whereas the present watercolour, although also looking Northwards, looks more towards the West.
Lake Windermere however is not an exercise in topographical exactitude but an imaginative rendering of the subject, a wonderful heroic treatment of the landscape. Robert Woof of the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, comments on the watercolour 'it suggests an infinity of light, an intricate mingling of land and cloud; one of the great evocations of the essence of the English landscape...the theme is Paradisal'.
The theme of Paradise in relation to the Lake District begins with desriptions by Thomas Gray in his letters of 1769 (published 1775) with his description of the Lakes. Turner picked up this mythic theme in Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland, exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1798, no. 196, where the following lines, the Morning Hymn of Adam and Eve, appeared alongside the title in the catalogue:
'Ye mists and exhalations that now rise
From hill or streaming [sic] lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paints your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author, rise'
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V.
In the present watercolour, Turner has not returned to the Lake District in order to re-examine the topography of the landscape but to capture again the Paradisal aspects of the Lakes.
As a background to Turner's reaction to the Lakes it should be remembered that Wordsworth settled there in 1799, exactly 200 years ago, and took up the Paradisal theme in the opening lines of his poem Home at Grasmere (written in 1800 and published posthumously in 1888). Turner would not have known Wordsworth's poem but the theme, where the Lake District is looked upon as a possible Paradise on earth has significant parallels:
'Once on the brow of yonder Hill I stopped
While I was yet a School-boy (of what age
I cannot well remember, but the hour
I well remember, though the year be gone),
And, with a sudden influx overcome
At sight of this seclusion, I forgot
My haste, for hasty had my footsteps been
As boyish my pursuits; and sighing said,
'What happy fortune were it here to live!
And if I thought of dying, if a thought
Of mortal separation could come in
With paradise before me, here to die'.
(see S. Gill, ed., William Wordsworth, Oxford and New York, 1984, p. 174).
This watercolour, signed and dated 1821, is one of six commissioned by Turner's great patron Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall; the only English subject, it appears in a list with a total price of 150 guineas in the 'Paris, Seine and Dieppe' sketchbook of that year (Tate Gallery, Turner Bequest CCXI-10). As David Hill has written (op.cit., p. 131), 'Few of his [Turner's] watercolours were so fresh in colour, or gave such a lively and convincing rendition of being out in the northern weather'.
There are five pencil drawings of Lake Windermere in the 'Tweed and Wales' sketchbook used on the 1797 tour (Turner Bequest XXXV-52 to 56); the closest is page 53 (illustrated Hill, op.cit., p. 191; the caption to pl. 189 refers to this). Turner was later to use another of the 1797 drawings (Turner Bequest XXXV-52; Hill, op.cit., pl. 189) for the watercolour of circa 1835 engraved for Picturesque Views in England and Wales, published 1837 (illustrated in colour, Hill, op.cit, pl. 195); the view is from the west bank at Ferry Point, looking towards the North, with Belle Isle on the left in the middle distance, whereas the present watercolour, although also looking Northwards, looks more towards the West.
Lake Windermere however is not an exercise in topographical exactitude but an imaginative rendering of the subject, a wonderful heroic treatment of the landscape. Robert Woof of the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, comments on the watercolour 'it suggests an infinity of light, an intricate mingling of land and cloud; one of the great evocations of the essence of the English landscape...the theme is Paradisal'.
The theme of Paradise in relation to the Lake District begins with desriptions by Thomas Gray in his letters of 1769 (published 1775) with his description of the Lakes. Turner picked up this mythic theme in Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland, exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1798, no. 196, where the following lines, the Morning Hymn of Adam and Eve, appeared alongside the title in the catalogue:
'Ye mists and exhalations that now rise
From hill or streaming [sic] lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paints your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author, rise'
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V.
In the present watercolour, Turner has not returned to the Lake District in order to re-examine the topography of the landscape but to capture again the Paradisal aspects of the Lakes.
As a background to Turner's reaction to the Lakes it should be remembered that Wordsworth settled there in 1799, exactly 200 years ago, and took up the Paradisal theme in the opening lines of his poem Home at Grasmere (written in 1800 and published posthumously in 1888). Turner would not have known Wordsworth's poem but the theme, where the Lake District is looked upon as a possible Paradise on earth has significant parallels:
'Once on the brow of yonder Hill I stopped
While I was yet a School-boy (of what age
I cannot well remember, but the hour
I well remember, though the year be gone),
And, with a sudden influx overcome
At sight of this seclusion, I forgot
My haste, for hasty had my footsteps been
As boyish my pursuits; and sighing said,
'What happy fortune were it here to live!
And if I thought of dying, if a thought
Of mortal separation could come in
With paradise before me, here to die'.
(see S. Gill, ed., William Wordsworth, Oxford and New York, 1984, p. 174).