Norham Castle on the Tweed, part XII, plate 57 from "Liber Studiorum"

Norham Castle on the Tweed, part XII, plate 57 from "Liber Studiorum"

Joseph Mallord William Turner

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Turner distilled his ideas about landscape In "Liber Studiorum" (Latin for Book of Studies), a series of seventy prints plus a frontispiece published between 1807 and 1819. To establish the compositions, he made brown watercolor drawings, then etched outlines onto copper plates. Professional engravers usually developed the tone under Turner's direction, and Charles Turner here added mezzotint. One of the most satisfying works in the series, it describes the sun rising behind Norham Castle, Northumberland, on the English-Scottish border. Bright openings punctuate the ruined silhouette, with the forms echoed in the river below. In the foreground, two men prepare to launch a skiff near white and brown cows whose forms stand out against the bright water and doubled by reflections. Turner returned to this subject repeatedly during his career and it held deep meaning for him as an expression of the transformative power of light. The letter "P" above the image refers to the artist's category of Pastoral landscape.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Norham Castle on the Tweed, part XII, plate 57 from "Liber Studiorum"Norham Castle on the Tweed, part XII, plate 57 from "Liber Studiorum"Norham Castle on the Tweed, part XII, plate 57 from "Liber Studiorum"Norham Castle on the Tweed, part XII, plate 57 from "Liber Studiorum"Norham Castle on the Tweed, part XII, plate 57 from "Liber Studiorum"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.