Landscape

The fine vertical cracks all over the picture indicate that this was one of a group of experimental paintings that were found rolled up in Turner’s studio at the time of his death. A number of these works, including 'The Falls of the Clyde', now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, were based on well known earlier compositions, but the subject of this canvas has eluded identification. On either side of the composition it is just possible to make out sketchy trees and foliage, and on the right a bank slopes towards the shallows of the river. In the background, silhouetted against misty sunlight, is a hill or mound. Turner has used delicately swept strokes of colour to create this atmospheric landscape, which at a casual first glance appears to be entirely formless. The extremely pale tones are more typical of watercolour than oil painting and are characteristic of the artist’s late work.