Watercolor, gouache, and scratching out on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 11 3/4 x 18 7/8 inches (29.8 x 47.9 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.4715
Gallery Label:
Turner produced this highly finished watercolor of the small town of Flüelen after his fourth and final visit to Switzerland in 1844. More than simply recording the dramatic view he encountered, he united actuality and imagination to create his own distinctive vision. By exaggerating the contrast in scale between the town and surrounding mountains, Turner gives the landscape a feeling of unfathomable vastness. The scattered groups of diminutive figures that populate the foreground, meanwhile, possess an almost otherworldly remoteness. Hazy veils of jewellike color blend individual forms into an indistinct whole. As John Ruskin later described it, the image seems to be “fading away into a mere dream of departing light.” Gallery label for J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality (Yale Center for British Art, March - 29, 2025 - July 27, 2025)