Little Devil's Bridge over the Russ, above Altdorft, Switzerland, part IV, plate 19 from "Liber Studiorum"
Designed and etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner British
Engraved and published by Charles 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 Charles Turner here added mezzotint to describe a narrow, arched bridge spanning a steep Swiss mountain gorge, with the rushing water of the Reuss river indicated by slanting rays illuminating rising mist. We view the plunging perspective from a precarious ledge scattered with bones and stripped trees, a living presence introduced by two birds at right. The letters "Ms" in the upper margin indicate Turner's category of Mountainous landscape.
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