Peat Bog, Scotland (Liber Studiorum, part IX, plate 45)
Designed and etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner British
Engraver George Clint British
Publisher Joseph Mallord William Turner British
Not on view
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 Clint here added aquatint and mezzotint in masterly fashion to evoke strands of mist and rain clouds shrouding an ancient peat bog backed by mountains. Men in the foreground men cut turf and load a sledge pulled by a white horse. The distinctly Turnerian imagery derives from sketches made in Scotland, and the evocative image is one of the finest in the set. The letter "M" in the upper margin indicates Turner's category of Mountainous landscape.
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