Martello Towers near Bexhill, Sussex, part VII, plate 34 from "Liber Studiorum"
Designed and etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner British
Engraver William Say 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 Say here added mezzotint to describe a stretch of England's south coast, with a road below cliffs receding toward forts built to defend against a feared Napoleonic invasion. A distant storm hints at that threat as, in the foreground, a man and woman lead a loaded donkey, and two hussars follow on horseback. The letter "M" in the upper margin indicates Turner's category of Marine landscape.
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