Tintern Abbey by J. M. W. Turner

Tintern Abbey

J. M. W. Turner (1776-1837)

1792-94

Graphite and watercolour on paper

Support: 359 x 250 mm

Tate Gallery, London

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference D00374; Turner Bequest XXIII A

Turner was still in his teens when he went off round the countryside, looking for suitable subjects that he could sketch, and later work up in order to show and sell. [Commentary continues below.]

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

This was one of the scenes that attracted him when he visited South Wales in 1792. He made several sketches of the ruined abbey in Monmouthshire, which he worked on later. The Victoria and Albert Museum dates a very similar one in their collections to c.1794, when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy. The Museum's "Object History Note" explains,

The viewpoint of the composition allows Turner to explore the planar and spatial relationships of the walls and the dynamic rhythms of the arches. By filling the composition with the ruins of the the chancel and crossing Turner emphasises the mass of the architecture. This is strengthened by placing the ruin in the foreground of the composition to emphasise the grandeur of it. Such reaction to the ruin follows contemporary ideas of the sublime.

As can be easily imagined, "Turner's extraordinary skill with watercolours and his ability to paint architectural subjects were quickly recognized" (Powell 2). Note that the watercolour predates William Wordsworth's famous poem about the Abbey, which was a well-known beauty spot then as now, with a special appeal in the Romantic age. Wordsworth visited it in the nineties, writing his "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798." [Mouse over the text for a link to the poem. — Jacqueline Banerjee]

Bibliography

"Interior of Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire." Victoria and Albert Museum. Web. 13 July 2018.

Powell, Cecilia. Turner. Pitkin Guide. Norwich: Jerrold, 2003.

Created 13 July 2018