Joseph Mallord William Turner

Stormy Sea

c.1830

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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On loan

Fondation Pierre Gianadda (Martigny, Switzerland): Turner Watercolours: Sun is God

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Medium
Gouache and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 138 × 189 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D24585
Turner Bequest CCLIX 20

Display caption

Turner may have painted these sea studies on one of his many visits to the coast in the 1830s. He would have carried large sheets of blue paper with him on his travels. These could be folded and torn into a number of smaller sheets.

Over the course of his career Turner experimented with many different coloured papers. He particularly liked the variety of effects he could achieve with watercolour and gouache applied onto a blue ground. The darker surface allowed him to use white highlights to great effect when painting foaming waves or the reflection of moonlight.

Gallery label, July 2008

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